Summary:
[Soulmate!AU] "When both of your eyes meet, your soulmate's name shows up on your wrist." That was the universal law of their world.
Author's Ideas: be me
think about V3
think about Saimatsu and HaruMomo
"GOD DAMN IT"
You know you've sunken into shipping hell when you start thinking of AUs
Broken Destinies
"When both of your eyes meet, your soulmate's name shows up on your wrist."
That was the universal law of their world.
Never once has Saihara liked it.
He'd heard stories since he was a child of blossoming romance and all-consuming love between two soulmates who had met by coincidence, and of people who weren't even bound to soulmates finding their destined one by twisting fate. He knows it is all bullshit.
He himself had been chained at a very early age. He had just happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and when some random girl with brown hair tied back with red scrunchies asked for a phone to call her parents and he fumbled and handed it to her, their eyes met and then their wrists flared up in pain.
He had stared at the golden letters lining his wrist for the night after. Her name was Harukawa, and that was all he knew. He never learned anything else about her, because he never saw her again.
That was when he was seven, just turning on eight. The next day, he'd shown up to school wearing a hat. He'd refused to take it off.
After that, he became known as the boy who can't meet anyone's eyes, even though he already has a soulmate.
He's scared because of his soulmate, though. He doesn't understand why it's so hard for people to understand. It's like they've never been scared before. That's bullshit.
He discovers Danganronpa about two years later, two whole years of bullying and teasing and harassment, and divulges himself into the television show. He watches all forty-five of the seasons in three months, and then watches the forty-sixth one when it comes out a week later.
He's fallen in love with the show. It's not even love. It's obsession. Addiction. He can list all of the victims, murderers, and survivors, all by season order. He can explain every murder with exquisite detail. He can move his pencil to take notes and suddenly be drawing the faces of the cast of any season. He can list every person saved by Team Danganronpa's ability to change soulmates - to tell the truth, it's almost everyone who's been on Danganronpa.
That's exactly what he wants! Yet nobody else seems to understand; at least, until he dares to post about it on his blog, under his username "saiishere". The next day, he's inundated with questions and friend requests, all of them about Danganronpa.
And then his world changes when he meets a girl by the username of "harumaki". Of course, the "haru" part of her username makes him wary, but he sends a hesitant reply to her question, and immediately they're talking twenty four-seven, screaming and laughing and crying over messages about Danganronpa and their favorite characters and the ones they hate.
Saihara is ecstatic - more than ecstatic. He is falling in love with her, he knows it. Yet, the name on his wrist chains him. So he never says it.
At least, not until years later, when they're sixteen - the perfect age - and Danganronpa season 53 auditions come out.
"ARE YOU AUDITIONING?" he sends Harumaki, not bothering to turn off his caps lock.
"Of course", she replies, and without thinking he hits the call button on the top of the message box.
She picks up, although he knows she hesitated.
"Why are you calling me?" she asks, and her voice is surprisingly deep. It can't be her then, he confirms, and then sighs.
"I don't know. We've just… known each other for super long. I thought it was about time we called each other, you know?"
Harumaki sighs, and he hears her rustling through something - papers, her bedsheets, her hair, who knows what it is?
Then, she says, "Don't call me," and hangs up. He's left blinking at his computer screen, and then starts as she sends a message reading 'i'm sorry i just don't like talking over the phone".
"It's okay", he reassures her, and they move on from it. He wonders why she seemed so adamant about not calling him, but doesn't think too much of it. It's her decision, and her life, not his - though he can't stop his mind from thinking of that time that young girl had asked to borrow his phone, and wonders if that's why.
They both make the cut for the final round of auditions, where Team Danganronpa will select a cast of sixteen from two hundred. He can only hope that his audition is strong enough to get him in. Excitedly, they make plans to meet up at the filming studio. He tells her what he plans to wear - his school uniform and his hat, as he usually does - and she promises to keep an eye out for him. She's one of the first ones going, and he's much later.
It doesn't stop him from arriving early the day of his audition and waiting excitedly for someone to approach him, hoping they might be Harumaki.
He grunts as someone runs into him, and looks up. A girl with brown hair - it looks familiar - and a blue uniform - that doesn't look familiar - and red scrunchies - no, it can't be - stares back at him.
"You're - " Her voice is the last straw, the moment that he realizes. Harumaki - no, Harukawa's eyes - are wide. Blood pounds in his ears, his heartbeat thundering against his sweaty palms, and he doesn't know what to say.
"I - you - it - " What comes out is a string of phrases and words, all tangled together. The disbelief is still setting in and still growing, and then it blooms in both of them, exploding.
Harukawa grabs him by the collar, and pushes him against the wall. He gulps and meets her eyes expectantly. She glares back with sharp red eyes.
"You," she finally says, grinding it out between gritted teeth.
"What?" he asks.
Her hands tighten around his collar. "Did you know? This whole time, did you know?"
"I - I had a feeling, but - "
Harukawa lets him go, and he drops to the floor, coughing.
"You're a monster. Don't you dare talk to me ever again," Harukawa hisses, and then turns and storms off.
On the train ride back home, Saihara receives a message saying that Harukawa has blocked him. He stares futilely at it, and then sets the phone aside, puts in his earbuds, and falls asleep dreaming of a destroyed fate and an unhappy destiny - all because of him.
The next weeks are a blur of school, work, and mindless sketching. He tries his best to focus and pay attention, but it's hard. So he waits expectantly for the day that the results for the auditions come out.
He walks to school without anyone by his side that day, as usual. Groups of people pass by him, laughing and talking. He keeps his head bent and his eyes on the ground in front of him. His earbuds are shoved in his ears hastily, and the volume is cranked up to seven bars, out of his wish to not hear the laughter and conversation of those around him.
He walks quicker, hurriedly crossing the crosswalk and turning right instead of left. Sure it was a longer road, but few people took that route, meaning he can think on his own.
Suddenly, he's grabbed. He starts, and struggles, but they cover his mouth with a rag, and the moment he breathes, he loses consciousness.
The next thing he sees is darkness. Complete and utter darkness; at least, until he starts kicking and thrashing, and the wall in front of him turns out to be a door, and he falls out of it.
He glances up, and meets a blonde girl's gaze. He scrambles upwards, and although she seems like a kind person, he's thankful for his hat, and - for the first time - of the name already etched on his wrist, and his already sealed fate. He's not sure why.
~ / . / . / ~
The library is unoccupied when he arrives, around two hours before Night Time.
Saihara had always had an off feeling about the library - he wasn't sure why. That was why he was here. To investigate, as he was "so good at doing".
God, he wishes he was good at investigating, and being a detective. Everyone had seemed so impressed when he'd told them his talent. They'll learn soon enough not to trust him.
He begins to sift through the books on the bottom shelves, staying attentive to anything out of the ordinary.
Slowly, he draws nearer to the center of the library bookshelves, and then frowns, starting. There are strange scrape marks on the floor in front of them, as if something heavy had been moved in place of the bookshelf.
"Something heavy…" Saihara holds his chin in his hands, and then looks up. "Wouldn't… the bookshelf count?"
With curiosity, he slips his hand to the right side of the bookshelf, feeling blindly for anything. His fingers slip into a hole, and with a grunt, he pulls.
The bookshelf rumbles as it moves to the side, and he stands back, watching it slowly open. His breath catches at the sight of the black and white door behind the bookshelf, adorned in the imitation of Monokuma.
"I see," he murmurs. It's obvious in hindsight. There must be someone working with Monokuma to facilitate this killing game - a mastermind of sorts.
He'll tell Akamatsu, he decides. She's been the one supporting and standing by him all this time; she should know. For a second, he wonders about the blankness on both their wrists, and then reaches up to touch his hat.
No, he thinks, it can't be her. The world is not as black and white as whoever Saihara likes will be his soulmate.
With a sharp intake of breath, he pushes the bookshelf back into place and casts one final look over his shoulder at the black and white door before leaving the library.
~ / . / . / ~
Saihara glances up. His hat still blocks his left eye from seeing Akamatsu, but he knows she doesn't mind. "...Okay. I'll try. I don't know if I can, but I'll try…"
"Yup, that's a promise."
And as they change topics, from Saihara's hat to Akamatsu's parents to what their favorite foods are, Saihara feels his heart beginning to calm.
At least, until the buzzer goes off in his hands, and his heart leaps into his heart as they rush to the library and find Momota and Chabashira, and throw open the door to the library to find -
Amami-kun…?
Dead…?
Chabashira screams. It sounds so far away.
Everyone else rushes in. It sounds so far away.
With a deep breath, he picks himself up, and collects the scattered and frightened pieces of his heart.
He's a detective. There is an investigation to be done, and investigations are what he does. Everyone is counting on him. After all, he'd promised Akamatsu he would believe in himself.
So he does his best to investigate. Akamatsu helps him the whole time, but there's something off about her. Of course, he doesn't blame here; after all, this must have been the first time she'd seen something as traumatizing as a corpse.
He pushes the thought to the back of his head and continues the investigation - for everyone's sake.
Saihara frowns as he gives the Game Room a quick look-over and spots Harukawa. There's something off about the child caregiver, he realizes, and as he looks her over, he notices her sleeves. They had been rolled up before, hadn't they? And yet, why were they now pulled down, stopping just at the joint between her thumb and her palm?
"Harukawa-san… you were in the Game Room when Amami-kun was killed, right?" Akamatsu's questions starts him out of his observations and thoughts, and he chimes in.
"What were you all doing down here? Amami-kun was with you, right?"
"...Am I a suspect?" Harukawa asks, her eyes dark.
Akamatsu seems to start at the idea, and Saihara blinks. "Oh no! That's not what I meant - "
"You should suspect me," Harukawa interrupts. "In fact, you should be suspicious of everyone."
"Huh?" Akamatsu frowns.
"Someone got killed after we all gathered here. The timing is too perfect. Then again, with the time limit so close to expiring, maybe that's why it happened…"
Harukawa stops tugging at her pigtails and looks Akamatsu in the eyes.
"So trust no one, Akamatsu… or you'll lose, got it?"
Akamatsu's frown grows, and she doesn't respond - most likely deep in thought. Saihara speaks up in her place.
"But… why were you all here in the first place?"
"It was… Momota's… idea," Harukawa sighs, and then continues speaking. "He… suddenly wanted to hold a strategy meeting and gathered us together. He said we should confront Monokuma once the time limit expires. And… he picked the seven people he thought would be useful in a fight."
Saihara frowns, but not because of what Harukawa said. He frowns at the hesitation in her voice when she refers to Momota. Perhaps it's connected to the sleeve she's pulled down, or the way she is gripping her right wrist.
As their investigation comes to an end and they make their way to the Shrine of Judgement, Saihara raises his eyes to glance briefly at the moon. For some reason, he is reminded of Harukawa.
~ / . / . / ~
"Y-Yeah! I'll help! I can - "
"Everyone, stop!" Akamatsu's voice rings through the trial grounds. Everyone turns to look at her. "Please… just stop."
"But Akamatsu-san…" Saihara raises his voice in protest, but lets it fade away as Akamatsu begins to speak again.
"Enough, you guys… I've… already prepared myself."
"You're… giving up?" he asks incredulously, a sense of disbelief coursing through his veins. "But why…? You said… you'd never give up… That we'd get out of here together. That's what you said, Akamatsu-san…"
The tears start to fall. He starts to choke up, but keeps talking, forcing his voice out of his throat.
"So why are you giving up now!? Did you mean what you said!? I know we can do something! Don't give up until the end!"
"...I'm not giving up. Because I have you." She raises her head and looks him in the eyes.
"...What?"
"Even after I'm gone… my wish will still be here." She turns, her tears still flowing. "So I'm counting on you all! I'm entrusting my wish to every one of you!"
She meets all of their gazes, her eyes bright with belief and damp with sorrow.
"I believe in you! I believe that you all will make it through this somehow! You guys better live! Don't go dying on me now! End this ridiculous killing game, survive, and get the hell out of this place!"
She sniffles, and then smiles sadly.
"And then… be friends after you escape, okay? I think you'll all be the best of friends."
Everyone else murmurs affirmations, and promises to do their best in carrying on Akamatsu's wish. Saihara reaches up slowly, listening to Monokuma drone on and on about punishment.
With a shaking hand, he tilts his hat back, and meets Akamatsu's eyes.
Akamatsu stumbles into a trial stand, swearing as she clutches her wrist. Saihara loses his footing as the world blurs around him, and Shinguuji just manages to catch him.
Everyone stares on in confusion, except for Harukawa, who seems to move with experience in her step. With a rough and calloused hand, Saihara barely manages to note between the spasms of pain, she pushes his sleeves up.
There's a collective gasp at the small golden letters carving themselves into Saihara's wrist. Someone screams - probably Chabashira - and someone else reaches for Akamatsu.
"It's true," Momota's gruff voice murmurs from beside him, and then pauses as Saihara takes in a sharp breath and steadies himself.
"Saihara-kun, are you alright?" Shinguuji asks gently. His voice becoming clearer to Saihara's ears as the pain eases. Saihara nods.
"I… I'm fine," he rasps, and then lifts his eyes to Akamatsu. She's being steadied by Toujou, but her hand clenches the area underneath her wrist. The skin is red and raw, but the letters spelling out "Saihara" couldn't be clearer.
The tears come then, his tears welling up and flowing down his cheeks. He's sobbing, screaming, and he's sure he looks like a mess - he feels like it - but it doesn't matter. He's sure he looks disgusting and idiotic - gosh, he's never felt like it so strongly - but it doesn't matter.
"Saihara-kun…" Akamatsu's voice is soothing, gentle. "Saihara-kun, don't cry… Please…" Through bleary eyes and muffled senses, he feels Akamatsu draw him into a tight hug, and he holds her tight, listening to her heartbeat.
He knows it's not going to last long, and it doesn't, because Monokuma is already laughing and droning on about punishment and Akamatsu's guilt.
He feels Akamatsu let him go, and tries to cling onto her. She shakes her head, and stands, as if bravely facing her execution. Yet there's fear, in the depths of her eyes, and he knows then that she can't go. It was their destiny to be together - and now what? What is he without her? What is his fate without his soulmate? He doesn't know. He doesn't want to know. He just wants her to live.
"W-Wait a second! Akamatsu-san, please, don't…"
"Saihara-kun, you better not lose. You can't lose to this killing game! I know you can beat it!" She smiles at everyone. Her tears still haven't dried. "I believe in you guys! So please, believe in yourself! ...Okay? It's a promise."
Monokuma laughs, and bangs his gavel down on the button in front of him.
Saihara screams, but it's useless. There's a brace clasped around her neck, and it yanks her upward. He reaches for her hand, and she reaches for his, but they miss each other by a centimeter, and she's snatched away.
"Akamatsu!" he's screaming even louder. "Kaede!"
She doesn't come back. Instead, she dies, strangled on black and white keys. Blood splatters everywhere as the spiked wall comes down on her, and he falls to his knees, sobbing and screaming and wailing, his hands over his face. Momota punches him, yells for him to be a man.
Toujou kneels beside him, and holds him in her arms. Gokuhara wraps his arms around both of them, and everyone else stares on in silence. As they leave, Momota tells him to go to Akamatsu's lab.
Is this their destiny? Maybe it is, and Saihara feels the world around him go monochrome, until Gokuhara helps him to Akamatsu's lab and Saihara finds "Clair de Lune", and then he finally thinks the world is getting brighter, that his fate is getting clearer.
~ / . / . / ~
"...Little Miss Ultimate Assassin?" Ouma gasps out. Harukawa's hands tighten visually in the silver light, and Ouma claws at her vice grip.
"Let go, Harukawa!" Momota pipes up suddenly, panic in his voice. "If you don't, you'll kill him!"
Her hands loosen as she looks over at him. Saihara watches, terrified, as Ouma's previous look of terror changes into a look of evil, pure evil and malice. He raises his hand, and before anyone can move, or even shout, he's pulled down her right sleeve.
Almost immediately, she tightens her hands, and then throws Ouma into the water surrounding the Monokuma statue. He disappears under the water, but pops back up a moment after. Saihara just barely manages to catch a glance of what Ouma had revealed that had sent Harukawa into a frenzy.
It's the golden word on her wrist.
"Momota".
Iruma lets out a screech. "Holy shit!"
"L… Look at her wrist!" Chabashira yelps a little too loudly. Harukawa turns on the heel of her foot, glaring at the aikido master.
Chabashira flinches and looks away, but the damage is done. Harukawa sweeps them all with an expression Saihara's never seen her make, a look of anger, hate, rage, all blended together, until her eyes meet Momota's. Pointedly, she turns her eyes away and pulls down her shirt sleeve before storming away.
"Ouma-kun, are you okay?" Gokuhara's gentle voice snaps all of them out of the trance-like state they'd been in. Ouma is shaking out his arms, sighing.
"Man, I didn't expect her to react that violently…"
"Hey, asshole!" Momota yells, and Saihara starts, looking at him. "What the hell do you mean by 'expect'!?"
"Hm?" Ouma tilts his head, as if curious, but starts shaking his head. "Sooooorry, I had some water in my ears. What did you say, Momota-chan?"
"I said, what the hell do you mean by 'expect'!?" Momota takes a threatening step forward. "You're acting like you know everything that's going to happen! How long are you going to keep treating this like a game!?"
"Huh?" Ouma tilts his head, and then grins. "What do you mean? Monokuma calls this a killing game, doesn't he? Isn't it natural that we treat it like a game?"
"How can you treat taking someone else's life like some kind of game where you hide whatever you want - "
"Can you really even be talking?" Ouma suddenly speaks up, a condescending look in his eyes. "You kept the fact that Harukawa-chan was your soulmate from us, right?"
Momota clenches his fist, looking away. Saihara knows Momota can feel everyone's gaze on him, and so tentatively reaches out, resting his hand on Momota's arm.
"Momota-kun…"
Momota turns to meet Saihara's gaze, and his eyes turn nostalgic as they glaze over. "We'd never looked each other in the eyes before I asked her to help us fight that bastard Monokuma. That's when I found out."
"Is that why you insisted on believing her this class trial?" Shirogane asks curiously.
"Nah. I believe in Harukawa, whether she's my soulmate or not."
There's an awkward pause of silence. No one says anything until they all, collectively, look around and nod.
Momota walks ahead of them, unwilling to accompany anyone or be accompanied by anyone, and so Saihara ambles back to his room in the moonlight alongside Shirogane and a surprisingly silent Iruma. He stares up at the moon, bright and silver, and then down at his wrist.
Akamatsu's name has already started fading away, scratched out and distant. It makes sense, and yet he can't help but feel like it isn't the fate he once had.
~ / . / . / ~
"Did you like Akamatsu?"
Harukawa's question, posed to him while they were training under the moonlight, still haunts his thoughts.
He turns over on his bed, lying on his side.
Of course he had liked her! Not because she was the one destined for him, but because she was her own person. She was not someone who he would love simply because of their chained fate. After all, they had only found out at the last minute, and by that point -
Saihara rolls over and buries his face in his pillow, sighing.
The thoughts are coming back. The thoughts of what would have happened if Akamatsu hadn't died. What would have happened if they'd never been forced into this killing game. The thoughts of -
Saihara sits up and throws his pillow across the room. He thinks as he walks across the room gloomily to retrieve it.
Why would Harukawa want to know whether he liked Akamatsu or not? He lays down on his pillow and closes his eyes.
Was she…
He feels himself slowly drifting away.
Could it be? Harukawa was… falling for Momota? Was that why… she had asked him to justify liking Akamatsu in a situation like this?
"Harukawa-san…" he murmurs. Saihara would have to go tell her that it was okay. It was okay to love, it was okay to feel. It was okay to be in touch with your emotions. He had to tell her, before it was too late. Before she couldn't love Momota, like Saihara had been unable to love Akamatsu.
The next morning, he runs into Harukawa and wonders if he's forgetting something.
Only the moon knows what he had meant to say.
~ / . / . / ~
He hurries back to his room in the moonlight alongside his classmates. They're all too disoriented to notice if anyone's missing - although Saihara has a feeling that Harukawa is.
He's concerned, but he's hurting too much to do anything, so he doesn't do anything. He just pushes open the door to his room and falls onto his bed, burying his head in his arms. The tears stain his cheeks as he gently cries himself to sleep.
The world is black and white and every shade of gray in between. There's not an ounce of color anywhere around him. No matter the direction, there's just black and white and monochrome.
He turns, and sees Akamatsu, hanging from the rope that had killed her. With a rush of terror, he steps backwards, and stumbles into something - he realizes too quickly that it's Amami's and Toujou's and Yonaga's and Chabashira's dead bodies all stacked together in a horrifying pile of desecrated bodies.
Just behind that pile is Iruma, seated on a bloody and burned chair. Standing back to back with her is Gokuhara, charred and burnt beyond recognition. Next to them is an unrecognizable figure, clearly smashed - Ouma, and all of a sudden someone drops down from the black, black sky, and crashes onto the equally black ground.
Saihara doesn't even have to think to know it's Momota.
It's macabre, his mind screams. His dream is horrifying, vomit-inducing macabre.
He hates how familiar he's gotten with murders, how unperturbed he is about blood and gruesome violence and martyred bodies. He wishes it would stop. He wishes he could go back to the days before, when he was timid and shy and Akamatsu was there cheering him on, and nothing mattered more than them.
He wishes he could go back to those days of training in the courtyard with Momota and Harukawa, when the two of them were in love under the shine of the moon and Saihara watched with a laugh on his lips and a smile touching his cheeks.
He wishes his destiny could have been different. That Akamatsu would have lived, that Momota would have lived, that everyone would have been happy. He wishes that this killing game, though it might have brought them together, hadn't happened. They wouldn't have had to go through all the pain and the suffering anyways.
He wishes he could have just met Akamatsu, and loved her. He wishes he could have just met Harukawa, and been her friend. He wishes he could have just met Momota, and helped him find the soulmate he always wanted by being his sidekick through it all.
And at that time, he jolts awake, his mind a blur of what he wishes and what reality is.
He's not even thinking, because the moment he stumbles out of bed, he's pushing his way out of his room. In the blink of an eye, he's staring up at the courtyard - at the canopy covered with small purple - thank god he can see colors - flowers under the moon, where they always met.
"...What are you doing?" a familiar voice rings out.
"Ah, Harukawa-san," he turns, a gentle tone in his voice.
And as they converse under the bright moonlight, the sky dotted in black and white from the contrast of the night and white stars, he begins to think that this destiny might not be so bad after all.