Word Count: 4,256
Chapter 2: Just Desserts
Young Tsukasa had never returned to Nozogahara after his father packed him off to boarding school, but he thought of Ryouta every day.
"You know this kid?" Kizakura asked, knocking back whatever was in his flask that day as he looked out of the shinkansen window to the scenery quickly zooming past.
"Yeah," young Tsukasa said with a glare that served to warn Kizakura not to get sick all over him. Again.
Kizakura burped. "Known him in the biblical sense?"
"We were ten, old man," young Tsukasa quickly countered, his face heating up.
And that, was that.
The facts were these: Mitarai Ryouta, twenty years, four weeks, thirteen days, and four hours old was found unresponsive in his bedroom at his father's house eight hours after he fell asleep and twenty minutes after he failed to feed his yowling cat on time. Paramedics were called to the house, but it was a sleep he was destined not to wake up from. Until the Pie Maker.
The case was pretty straightforward, if one was not looking at it hard enough. In the eyes of the police, it was barely even a case at all. But Mitarai Ryouta's mother was looking hard enough. Although it was a well–known fact that her son had a lifelong heart condition, and despite the fact that her ex–husband had already deemed it a suitable explanation for the tragic events that unfolded, Tengan Akiko, formerly Mitarai, had refused to accept that that was what killed her only son. And so she asked for the assistance of Kizakura and Co.
Three hours, thirty–two minutes, and sixteen seconds after Kizakura Kouichi walked into the Monokuma Café, he and young Tsukasa were now walking into the only funeral parlor in Nozogahara. The funeral director, always a bit too interested in the morbid and the occult, did not notice as they walked right into the room where Mitarai Ryouta was.
"Hey, can I, uh…" young Tsukasa faltered as he blocked Kizakura's way into the room. "Can I handle this one alone? On account of the, you know, the history…?"
"Got something to say?" Kizakura asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No— yeah— maybe?" young Tsukasa said. "But well, I do need some closure."
Kizakura grinned. "What's so open that needs some closure, huh?"
"Nothing?" young Tsukasa said, eyes flicking back and forth between Kizakura and the coffin. "Just some… you know how children always have something petty they fight about? Yeah, that, just gotta say sorry for one of those," he added rather quickly as he nervously laughed like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Kizakura stared disbelievingly. "Okay, well, ask how he died first. You only got 60 seconds."
"I know," young Tsukasa said, stepping forward to try and get Kizakura to back out of the room.
Kizakura got the hint, and stepped backwards. "One exact minute."
"I know," young Tsukasa said again.
"Alright," Kizakura said, closing the door.
"Alright," young Tsukasa said, nodding furiously as he locked the latch on the door.
Young Tsukasa, now rid of any middle–aged pests for the time being, turned around and returned to the matter at hand.
The coffin was… well, it could have been better. It looked like Ryouta's parents just bought the first coffin they found that they both agreed on and could afford. Young Tsukasa supposed it was the downside of having divorced parents. They could never agree on anything. He wouldn't know. He didn't even know who his mother was.
Young Tsukasa took a deep breath before lifting up the lid.
Only Prince Charming could possibly know what young Tsukasa felt at that moment. There in front of him lay the boy called Ryouta, hands folded on his chest, and still reminding young Tsukasa of a porcelain doll like he did nine years, forty–four weeks, twenty days, nineteen hours, and thirty–five minutes previously. Great thought was given as to where to touch him. The hand? Too immature. The lips? Too forward. The cheek? The cheek.
Young Tsukasa set his watch, an old diver's one bequeathed to him by Aloysius, for exactly sixty seconds and brought a shaking pointer finger to Ryouta's pale cheek.
Immediately, Ryouta's eyes opened as he took in the air around the room rather loudly and sat up.
"Ah! Yuki, I'm so sorry I'm up now don't worry I'm gonna feed you," Ryouta babbled in a rush as he fell off the coffin while young Tsukasa stepped backwards to avoid any accidental contact.
"Wait, who are you?" Ryouta asked, finally noticing young Tsukasa's presence in the room as he winced and rubbed his butt. Must be a bad fall.
"Do you remember the kid who lived next door before your grandpa died?" young Tsukasa asked, attempting to school his face into a neutral expression. The attempt was doomed to failure.
"Tsu–Tsukasa–san?" Ryouta asked, blinking. "What are you doing here?"
Young Tsukasa shrugged and smiled sheepishly in reply. "Do you know what's happening right now?"
"I— uhm," Ryouta nibbled on his lower lip. "What is happening right now?"
"Thing is, well," young Tsukasa winced as he realized there was no other way to go about the issue than to bluntly state it. "You're dead. That's probably a weird detail to hear but I wasn't quite sure how to sugarcoat it, so there," he said, gesturing at the coffin at the back.
"Oh," Ryouta said, looking at the coffin with understanding slowly dawning in his eyes. "Oh."
"You only have a minute," young Tsukasa told him. "Less," he appended.
"What can I do with one minute?" Ryouta asked, rather dejectedly. "Does this mean you're dead too?"
"No," young Tsukasa said without bothering to explain. "And you could tell me what happened, so you know, justice could be served."
Ryouta smiled sadly. "That's— that's nice of you. But I don't really know what happened, sorry. I just went to sleep in my bedroom one night and the next here you are, telling me I'm dead."
"Oi," Kizakura said as he knocked on the door. "What's taking so long?"
"Just a sec, old man," young Tsukasa shouted back.
Ryouta looked up at him. "So that's it, then? My time's up?"
"I'm so sorry," young Tsukasa said, offering him a comforting smile.
"No, I should be the one who's sorry," Ryouta sighed as he stood up and climbed back into the coffin and laid down in the satin lining. "But thanks for coming here, I didn't really expect anyone to show up in my funeral. Or well, to wake up in my own funeral for that matter."
"You know, you were my first kiss," young Tsukasa said quite suddenly that if Ryouta wasn't an alive again person, his heart might have stopped from how sudden it was.
"You were mine too," Ryouta said, smiling sadly. "Do you— Do you want to be my last? My first and last? Is that too cliché?"
"It is," young Tsukasa agreed, smiling back. "But I'd like that."
The boy called Ryouta's minute of life was nearly over. He closed his eyes and sighed as he waited for the inevitable. Young Tsukasa closed his eyes as well and bent down to kiss him, and his lips went as far as they would go. He couldn't will them to go any further.
And as a result, the funeral director lovingly dusting the new delivery of cremation urns in the next room over would go no further.
"I think it's been longer than a minute," Ryouta whispered.
Young Tsukasa's eyes snapped open as his diver's watch beeped to confirm that it has indeed been longer than a minute.
Thinking quickly and also not quite thinking at all, young Tsukasa suddenly said. "What if you didn't have to be dead?"
"Doesn't know," the Pie Maker told Kizakura as he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. "Didn't know," he amended.
"Huh, really," Kizakura frowned. "Reckon it's really just natural causes?"
"Unlike people your age, old man," the Pie Maker smirked. "People my age don't just die in their sleep. Something's definitely fishy here."
Kizakura's eyelid twitched. "How old do you think I am, kid?"
"Listen," the Pie Maker said nonchalantly. "I'm gonna stick around here for a bit. Just got nostalgic. You know your way back?"
Kizakura eyed him suspiciously before shrugging and leaving.
As soon as Kizakura was out of ear or eyeshot, young Tsukasa scrambled to get back into the room where Ryouta was lying in a coffin and waiting for him.
The coffin was gone.
Lying in a sealed coffin on its way to a crematorium, the boy called Ryouta considered how he came to be lying in a sealed coffin on its way to a crematorium.
He considered the life that was with his parents who never agreed on anything. Going home to his father on weekdays and to his mother on weekends in an unending loop. The tiring cycle of having to travel the next town over every few days made social interactions with his peers difficult. Which in turn made it difficult for Ryouta to develop a social circle of his own. He'd earned himself a small income by being a ghost animator for several animation companies. He rarely left the house of whichever parent wanted him home for the week. He watched anime after anime about people he desperately wanted to be and adventures he wanted to have. His life was good enough, until one day, his life wasn't.
The coffin lid opened, and young Tsukasa's head came into view as he apologized for taking so long. Only Sleeping Beauty could possibly know what Ryouta felt at that moment.
"So, uhm," Ryouta asked, fiddling with the fork in his hand as he sat on the bar in front of the counter of the Monokuma Café. "You touch dead things and they come back to life?"
"Except I can't touch them again because then they'd be permanently dead, yes," young Tsukasa said as he cut a slice out of a freshly baked apple pie and pushed it towards Ryouta.
Ryouta hesitantly took a bite before moaning at how good the pie tasted. "So you can't touch me and I can't touch you?"
"Nope, sorry," young Tsukasa shrugged. "You realize you can't go back, though? That you can't see anyone else who knew you ever again?"
Ryouta sighed, pushing away the slice of pie that didn't quite taste as good anymore. "I'm the only one Kaa–san has left."
"I'm sorry," young Tsukasa said again, sincerely.
In the apartment complex right next to the Monokuma Café, the Pie Maker and the boy called Ryouta entered one of the units. Young Tsukasa flicked a switch, and a Labrador came running with its tail wagging behind it until it was two feet in front of them.
"Hello," Ryouta said, letting the dog sniff his hand. "He looks like your old dog, Mills."
"That is Mills," young Tsukasa said.
"Wait, so how is he—" Ryouta blinked. "You didn't."
"I did," young Tsukasa admitted.
"Do you— Do you do this a lot?" Ryouta asked.
"Nope, it's just the two of you." Young Tsukasa was lying. "You should take the bed for tonight. I'll take the couch."
"But it's your—"
"I insist."
In a strange bedroom reading over the case file of his own strange death, Mitarai Ryouta was struck by the strange nature of being dead. Everything in the file was far too clinical, far too detached. The dead boy being described didn't sound anything like him. Until his eyes caught on the amount of reward money written in the margins.
Ryouta ran out of the bedroom.
"Tsukasa–san?" Ryouta whispered in the sleeping young Tsukasa's ear, but not close enough that their skins might touch if he did wake up.
"Hm? Yeah?" young Tsukasa groggily asked without bothering to open his eyes.
"Would I still be alive right now if I knew what happened to me?" Ryouta asked, fearing the answer.
"Don't be silly, of course you'd still be alive," young Tsukasa said, now fully awake and sitting up.
"Are you just doing this for the reward?" Ryouta said.
"No, of course not," young Tsukasa replied. "It's only that I wouldn't even have known you were dead if the reward didn't exist."
Ryouta frowned. "Were you ever planning to tell me?"
"Honestly, I don't know. I was hoping it wouldn't come up."
"That's a lot of money Kaa–san's offering," Ryouta said, feeling terrible again. "I think that's most of her savings."
"I only get half, I have a partner in this," young Tsukasa said, wanting to smoothen the worried creases on Ryouta's face but can't.
"What? So it's a business?"
"Not really? And I don't really want your reward, trust me."
"Okay," Ryouta hummed. "Sorry for bothering you. Please go back to sleep."
"So," Kizakura asked the Pie Maker. "How was the nostalgia trip?"
"It was—" the Pie Maker cleared his throat. "It was nice. Haven't been there in a long time."
The bell on the front door of the Monokuma Café rang and Mioda came in with a boy who was dressed too warmly and too formally for the day. "Found him leaving your apartment," Mioda said, grinning at young Tsukasa. "Doesn't he look like that kid from the obituary a few days ago?"
Kizakura looked up and down at the boy called Ryouta. "He looks exactly like that kid from the obituary," he said, giving the Pie Maker a side glance.
"Okay, see you later," Mioda said, heading to the kitchen.
"Hi," Ryouta said nervously as he sat down next to Kizakura. "Are you the business partner?"
"He's supposed to be ashes in an urn by now," Kizakura hissed.
"Can we talk alone for a second?" the Pie Maker said. It was not a request.
In the backroom of the Monokuma Café, Kizakura Kouichi was pacing around a crate full of canned pie fillings.
"I didn't realize you could be so stupid sometimes," Kizakura groaned. "Are you in love with him? Because it's that level of stupid."
"Wasn't thinking, just happened," young Tsukasa sighed. He's been preparing for this since the moment he decided to let Ryouta stay alive again. "I have unresolved childhood issues."
"Childhood issues?" Kizakura echoed. "What kind of childhood issues do you even have that you can't move on from your no longer dead childhood sweetheart?"
"I thought we agreed we'd call them 'alive again' and not 'no longer dead?'" young Tsukasa asked. "And I kinda killed his grandfather when we were ten. He doesn't know."
"Okay, well, I wasn't expecting that," Kizakura said. "So who died instead?"
Young Tsukasa handed him the day's newspaper and pointed at the obituary of the funeral director. "It's a random proximity thing."
"Bitch, I was in proximity!" Kizakura yelled.
At this very moment, the boy called Ryouta chose to walk into the backroom and clear his throat to get their attention.
"I was— I was thinking," Ryouta said as the other two people in the backroom turned their eyes towards him. "What if we find out what happened to me and split the money?"
"I thought you didn't want the reward?" young Tsukasa said, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't," Ryouta said. "It's just that… we're getting the money if we figure this out anyway, so I just wanted some of it to go back to my mom. 30–30–40?"
"You're supposed to be dead, Ryouta," young Tsukasa said.
"I'm okay with 30–30–40," Kizakura said at the exact same time.
"Great, so uhm…" Ryouta nibbled on his lower lip again before sighing. "I woke up this morning with my entire body aching and I just remembered this," he said before slowly raising his shirt up to show them his torso.
It was full of bruises.
"Are we sure those bruises didn't just come from the paramedics' resuscitation effort?" Kizakura said, leaning over the table and steepling his fingers under his chin. "Kid, you're being very quiet right now. Got something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?" he said, turning to Ryouta.
"Why would they only buy me new shoes when I'm already dead?" Ryouta mumbled, still staring at the dress shoes he's been wearing since his own funeral as he swung his feet back and forth under the table. "Sorry, did you say something?"
"I said, did you want to tell us something we don't already know about?" Kizakura repeated.
Ryouta winced. "I— uhm, I'm not sure exactly, but I think Tou–san was mad about something that night? The night I… died, I mean."
Kizakura's eyes flashed something red as he abruptly stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "And what exactly does your father do when he's mad?"
"Can't fucking believe the mom's right," Kizakura hissed as he parked his car in the parking lot of the hospital where the alive again boy called Mitarai Ryouta was pronounced dead on arrival three days, two hours, sixteen minutes, and forty–four seconds previously.
"Why are we here again?" young Tsukasa asked from the passenger seat next to Kizakura.
"Going to the morgue," Kizakura waved a hand before undoing his seatbelt. "Gonna ask why the fuck an autopsy was not performed."
Ryouta hummed rather forlornly in the backseat.
"Sorry, kid. Forgot you were there," Kizakura said, mentally kicking himself in the shin. "Why are you here, anyway? You don't have to be a part of this."
"Don't want to be alone," Ryouta said. "And I do want to know what happened to me."
Kizakura sighed. "Gah, fine. But you can't go around without a disguise or people will talk. Especially not when the staff of this place seems to have known you since you were a baby. Here," he said, tossing Ryouta his hat. "Hide your hair, at least. It's too recognizable. Don't lose the hat, though, my daughter gave that to me."
"You have a daughter?" young Tsukasa asked, thoroughly surprised.
"Yeah, I do. What of it?" Kizakura said, glaring.
"Oh, nothing," young Tsukasa replied.
"Hi, we're private detectives," Kizakura said, turning on the charm as he flashed a calling card at the young coroner with the spiky shoulder length hair and the scary studded face mask. "I was wondering. You know anything about the kid who died here three days ago? Bit on the short side, twenty years, divorced parents, sudden cardiac arrest as apparent cause of death?"
The boy called Ryouta, wearing sunglasses that did not at all suit the shape of his face and a hat that hid most of his hair, bristled at the mention of the phrase "short side."
"Uhm," the coroner thought aloud in a too shrill voice that surprised young Tsukasa. "I think I remember. Mitarai Ryouta, was it?"
"Yeah, him," Kizakura said, feigning disinterest. "Know why there was no autopsy?"
"We suggested one because of the suddenness of the death," the coroner said. "It's standard procedure for these types of cases, but his father said it wasn't necessary and wouldn't sign the consent form, so we didn't. Wait, why do you ask?"
Kizakura gave a side glance to his companions before turning back to the coroner. "No reason. By the way, thanks for your help," he said, producing a rose from his front pockets.
The coroner was still stuttering when the three of them left the premises.
The boy called Ryouta was curled up into a ball of concentrated anxiety in the backseat when Kizakura Kouichi's car parked in front of his mother's house two hours, forty minutes, and twenty seconds after they left the hospital premises.
"At what point do you think he realized he'd accidentally killed me?" Ryouta mumbled, not bothering to look up from behind his legs where his face was currently hidden.
"Probably as soon as he realized you weren't getting up from your bed and cleaning up his mess," Kizakura muttered, still fuming.
"Wish I could give you a hug right now," young Tsukasa said.
"I can do it if you want me to," Kizakura said.
"Please do," young Tsukasa and the boy called Ryouta said at the same time.
The hugging session over, Kizakura patted Ryouta's head before saying "You can't leave this car, understand? Can't let your mother see you alive."
"Yeah, I know," Ryouta said, sadly.
That being done, Kizakura and the Pie Maker marched over to the front door and knocked.
"I didn't realize you were part of the agency I hired," Tengan Akiko said, motioning for the Pie Maker and Kizakura to sit down on an old sofa. She was wearing black from head to toe and looked like she hadn't slept in days. "So how are you?"
The Pie Maker cleared his throat. "I'm fine, thank you. I'm sorry for your loss."
"He was a good son, my Ryou," Akiko said, eyes flicking to the memorial and urn on the altar which unbeknownst to her was devoid of any part of her alive again son. "It was just so unexpected, his health was doing fine these past few years."
It was now Kizakura's turn to clear his throat. "Well, we have a bad news and a good news for you, Tengan–san."
Tengan Akiko's eyes shone through the veil she was wearing as she asked. "Which are?"
"The good news is, we know how your son died," Kizakura said, steeling himself for a possible migraine. "The bad news is, you wouldn't like the answer."
Upstairs, a cat started yowling loudly at the same time Tengan Akiko howled in grief for her son once more.
Upstairs, as he finished undoing the latch on the window of his former bedroom, the boy called Ryouta couldn't understand why he became so tired of the life he had left behind. He missed his mother. He missed his own bed. He missed everything in the house. And more importantly, he missed his cat, Yuki.
As he petted a very happy Yuki, Ryouta did not notice the approaching footsteps until the door to his bedroom opened, revealing his very angry mother and his very sorry childhood sweetheart.
The jig appeared to be up. Tengan Akiko was looking directly at her son who was petting his cat. Her son who wasn't supposed to be alive. Had she not been too exhausted with the mixture of grief for her thought to be dead son and fury for her divorced husband, she would not have thought that what she saw was merely a vision.
A wave of relief flooded through both the Pie Maker and the boy called Ryouta.
"So my dad's really going to jail," Ryouta said, pushing around the plate crumbs from the apple crumble he was eating ten minutes and ten seconds ago.
"It's what he deserves for putting you through that," Kizakura said, gulping his extra strong black coffee. "Why did you never tell your mom he made a human punching bag out of you?"
"I don't know," Ryouta shrugged. "I figured it's something all fathers do to discipline their children. Did you give my cut of the reward back to my mother?"
"We told her it's 40% off if she gave us your cat," young Tsukasa said as he nodded towards where Yuki was sleeping on a countertop nearby. "She said she's allergic so she can't really take care of her and wanted her to go to someone who knew you so she agreed. Why would you want to own a cat if your mother's allergic?"
"She was a stray and I didn't want her living on the street!" Ryouta said. "Is this really a good thing, me being here, not being dead?" he asked instead.
"I was being selfish," young Tsukasa admitted as he served himself another serving of pie. "I'd love to say I wasn't being selfish, but I know I was. I don't know, I just thought maybe my world would be a better place if it had you in it."
Kizakura, sensing that he was now intruding on a private moment, had enough good grace to bow out.
"Is there anything else you want to tell me?" Ryouta asked.
Young Tsukasa thought about telling Ryouta about that fateful day when he inadvertently killed Ryouta's grandfather.
"No," he said instead.
"Thank you," Ryouta said quietly. "For making me alive again."
"You're welcome," young Tsukasa said.
As young Tsukasa stared at Ryouta, he reached behind his back and held his own hand, pretending he was holding Ryouta's.
And at that very moment, Ryouta was pretending to be holding young Tsukasa's.
A/N: This was a fun concept, but I don't know if I'd come back to this, considering how I can't really write murder mysteries if my life depended on it. Would love to revisit this fic again someday though.
I have no idea how it got this long please help.