Miu's Part
Every electronic wavelength had its own tone, all humming at different frequencies, it was nauseating. So was the smell of cauterized flesh and what she hoped wasn't old urine. She was on a metal table, warm from the prolonged contact with her skin. Dull, teal LED lights illuminated the undersides of various desks and danced along the surface of long forgotten hard drives and parts. It was all so over stimulating; the sound of her pulse thundering in her ears and the back of her head throbbed along to the beat. She sat up fast, too fast, her vision hazed in a white light, and she almost lost balance.
Quick to catch herself she saw her wrists were raw and purple with bruises. Her hands were cold and moved clumsily as her whole body tremored at the sudden burst of cold. She'd cry if she wasn't so damn thirsty and alone. Her face reflected back at her on the table's surface, decorated with a nasty black eye and bruising all down her left jaw and around the neck. A long yellow tube was taped to her face, the end slimy and dangling in the wind. She pulled it off without a thought and tossed it onto the floor. Everything hurt.
Was she in an accident?
Where was she?
Her mind was wrapped up in a fog of pain and fatigue. At least now her thoughts felt coherent.
There was the faint sound of clinking and muffled voices. A kitchen. There was a kitchen here with people in it, with water. She heaved herself onto the floor, holding onto anything to help support her weight. Weak in the knees, she eased herself down the hall, hissing at every bright green light that scanned her over. A bright light shone into an empty hallway. With the voices growing louder each step she took.
"Have you gotten any sleep?" A boy's voice asked. He sounded exhausted and a bit suspicious. As if the person he was speaking too had a history of aberrant behavior.
"It's only been four hours since her last seizure." That voice sounded familiar. A cold, emotionless drawl that made her feel... guilty?
"Then dump her at a hospital already." She could see his silhouette slam down a cup. "She's a human being, not one of your machines." The doorway dinged as she came into the kitchen. Two shocked boys looked back at her like she was a ghost. One dressed in loose white clothes with choppy purple hair, whose face was growing paler by the moment. The other, with matted grey hair and vacant blue eyes, took a deep breath.
"Do you remember your name?" He said, in that same cold tone.
"...Miu Iruma?" That sounded right. Well, her name sounded right; her voice sounded awful.
"Holy shit." The purpled haired kid turned to his partner in horror. "Where did you get those clothes? You weren't dressing her up like some twisted barbie, were you Kibo?"
"That's Ouma." Kibo sighed. "You should sit down." He stood slowly and guided her to one of the chairs. The lights were stupid bright, and Ouma's voice was so loud. She felt light-headed but steadied herself after a few good breaths. "Do remember us?"
"No." She closed her eyes. There was too much to focus on. "Where am I?"
"We're at my grandfather's house." He said slowly. "You were in an accident."
"What happened?" She struggled to picture it. But anything before this morning was a blur.
"A hit and run." Ouma rolled his eyes. "You got clocked by a rear-view mirror just right and went BOOM; straight to coma town. Pulled out all your shit again too."
"What shit?" She groaned. "What are you talking about?"
"Ouma, if you're sick of answering her questions, just leave." Kibo looked back at her with practiced patience. "You got hit by a car. The driver didn't stop. We've been taking care of you." He paused and waited to see if she could handle more information. "You've been in and out of consciousness for a while. Every time you start to wake up, you've removed your lines."
"Sorry." She wasn't sure what lines he was talking about, but they sounded important. "How... How long have I been out?"
"Three weeks."
"Jesus! No wonder I feel like shit." Not that she could remember any of it. She looked up at him and he looked pained. Or rather, there was something he was trying not to say. Something related to what was going on. "How many times have we had this conversation?"
"I... Honestly I lost count." Kibo bit his lip.
"Usually, you make a break for the back door." Ouma grimaced. "Or slur a bunch of nonsense at us. The first time, you bit me." He rolled down his sleeve and revealed a brownish green bruise on his forearm.
"Sorry." She didn't remember doing that either, but that definitely looked like a human bite mark. "Why am I here?" Ouma looked at Kibo pointedly, as if only he knew the answer. Kibo looked back at him, his eyes flicking to her slightly and then back, with a concerned shake of his head. Ouma pursed his lips and lifted his brows, as if this wasn't a question he was supposed to answer. Finally Kibo sighed and looked back at her.
"We're your friends. Well, sort of..." He looked at her, searching for some sign of recognition in her eyes. She had nothing she could offer to help reassure him. "Ouma only started staying here a few months ago, he's my cousin, I think. It's... complicated. But you and I... we've been friends since we were kids."
"We have?" She looked over at Ouma who just laughed to himself a little.
"Yeah." Kibo's tone was less stilted now, less robotic. "My grandfather used to host the annual science fair and we'd hang out while everyone judged the entries. I never imagined this would be how we'd meet up again." That sounded plausible. It didn't really answer her question though and her head was really starting to hurt.
"You're lucky we were there." Ouma said, his face more serious and solemn. "Anyone else would have just left you there." He dropped his dishes in the sink and shook his head.
"I'd like to monitor you over night." Kibo ventured. "Just to make sure you're stable. I'm happy you've turned around so quickly, but..." Who knows if she'd remember this conversation the next morning? She agreed and let him take her back to the monitoring room. Even in the low lighting, she could tell the place had been completely cleaned since she left. No more awful stench or tubes, but the noise...
"Can you do something about that humming?"
"Humming?" He blinked at her in surprise, and she pointed at the row of static machines. "Oh. N-no, I can't turn those off yet, they're track your vitals." A sharp trill every time her heartbeat, a dull moan each time she took a breath.
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"Please." She begged. "There's too many numbers. They won't stop." Everything was flooding in all at once. Her vision was starting to cloud again.
"You understand what they're saying?"
"What who's saying?" God it fucking hurt, it felt like her head was getting electrocuted from the inside. He placed an ice-cold hand on the back of her head, and it helped dull the noise.
"Is that better?"
"Much better." One breath, two breath; let the tension fade. "Do I really have to stay in here?" He faltered and she swore she could have heard the wheels turning in his head.
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"You can borrow my room tonight. I'll see what I can do to fix this."
"Sorry." The one time she was awake enough to talk to them, she still ended up causing problems. Still, he didn't seem to mind.
"Don't worry about it. I'm just glad you seem to be doing better." He smiled at her, but she just couldn't bring herself to. Better? This was better? She looked like dogshit in a pink sweater and here he was saying she was better. How close to death was she? Still, at least she seemed to be in a safe place. She'd get a roof over her head and her next couple of meals were guaranteed. Besides she always wanted a childhood friend.
The room he let her stay in was one of the plainest rooms she'd ever seen; it reminded her of what her grandparents would like. A tatami floor with a rice paper interior all illuminated by a small floor lamp. The only pieces of furniture in the room were a small coffee table and a layered black chair designed for chiropractic adjustments. Kibo had fumbled setting out a futon for her; the covers smelled dusty and steeped in tobacco. None of it seemed to fit the boy, but she couldn't deny he felt at home in this strange house.
She spent most of the next day sleeping, physically exhausted beyond all reason considering she was hardly doing anything at all. When she was awake, she struggled to remember the accident, or anything that happened before it. The clothes she was wearing were apparently not her's, but they felt like they were picked out for her. After all, she couldn't imagine either of the boys wearing the loose knit sweater casually around the house. Unfortunately, she'd get a pounding migraine anytime she tried to think too hard. Her dreams were a nightmarish collage of imagery she could hardly make sense of; like CR TVs melting into people's eyes. It was a relief when Ouma came in with a cold plate breakfast, even if it did mean sitting up.
"Where's Kibo?" She asked, picking at the lunchmeat and cheeses.
"Finally asleep." Ouma opened a can of soda and sat on the other side of the table. "So, you remember yesterday, hunh?" She nodded and relayed the previous night back to him in broken detail. "Thank god this nightmare's finally going to be over!" He took a long drink and gasped for air. "Just, such an icky feeling thinking you watched someone eat it. Which, speaking of which, you should actually try to eat. If I come downstairs with a full plate, I'm going to take the heat for it." She nibbled on some cheese, watching curiously as the boy beamed with renewed energy. "You probably feel like shit though."
"Yeah." She set down her food and sighed. "What happened to me?"
"Noooooo-" She quickly interrupted him.
"I know it was a car accident, but like, what happened? Why was I walking near a car?" She watched him breathe a sigh of relief.
"Okay, fair, that's a fair question." He frowned. "I don't know the answer to that. We were out at a club that night and I saw Kibo leaving to the back alley. By the time I got there you were out cold on the ground and the dumbass was in shock saying we had to take you home. Which was a stupid idea, but I couldn't convince him otherwise and I was pretty freaked out too. By the time we got you home it would have been a whole thing and Kibo kept insisting he could fix you up."
"But you said I got hit with a mirror."
"Yeah, cause that's what Kibo saw. Apparently, the driver didn't even stop, just kept going. I doubt Keebs'll ever want to leave the house again after all this crap." He encouraged her to drink more water. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you never remember it either. It sounded traumatic as fuck. But hey, you're alive and you're not eating through a tube anymore so... progress?"
"Yeah... progress..." There was another question itching at the back of her mind, but she was afraid to know the answer. "My parents... Do they know?"
"We told them you were staying with Kibo for a few weeks; so they aren't worried." Ouma shrugged. "We didn't want to get you in trouble." So, he probably had her stuff. How else would a total stranger be able to contact her parents. "Okay, we didn't want to get in trouble. The old man's pretty chill, so we thought he'd be able to fix you up."
"Is that Kibo's grandfather?" Ouma flinched.
"Yeah." Something was eating away at the boy, but she couldn't tell what.
"Where is he?" She asked.
"I don't know." He looked around the room. "I was told he was 'resting', but obviously he's not here."
"I thought this was Kibo's room?" Miu started to tear the cheese into little pieces. "He told me-"
"He thinks this whole house belongs to him." Ouma rolled his eyes. "But he always sleeps in that weird lab, and I've been stuck on the couch. Forgive me for being a little salty that you got dibs on the one bed in the house." He collected his trash with a huff. "After all I've done for that nerd, he still doesn't trust me. What an ass." He stormed out, thundering down the stairs. She could hear him banging things in the kitchen before he ran back up to her room. "Glad you're feeling better." He smiled. "You don't have to stay in here all day if you don't want to." He darted back out and down the stairs. All the while Miu couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right.
That evening she made her way downstairs to find the boys idly working on their own things while the television played in the background. Ouma had three different sketchbooks out in front of him, circulating through them with a new color periodically before glaring at his pile of colored pencils. Kibo had a roll of athletics tape and compression garb, furiously trying to get his knee fixed into one angle.
"The Future Foundation warns against the use of counterfeit hacking guns after a recent batch was found to overheat and combust during use. Authorities want to assure citizens, that the Monokuma-bot infestation is under control with the increase in K9-B0 units and not to-" Ouma flipped the channel to a web-video player.
"Yeah, fight fire with fire, that's going to make people feel really safe." He threw shade after shade of green onto the table. "That one guy did an eight-hour analysis of Pudgy Princess; you mind if I throw it on?" Kibo looked up in surprise.
"I thought they pulled his channel down after he died and y'know, killed someone on national television." Ouma shrugged at the accusation.
"His sister keeps reuploading everything on mirror channels and I like his voice." He held up a neon green with triumph. "If people can forgive that noodle-head detective for attempted manslaughter, why can't we do the same for the people who were gaslit and held against their will? It's a stupid double standard. Either everyone's a victim or they're all terrible people. Either way, only one of them made an eight-hour video on a really bad anime I watched as a kid. So, are you going to let me watch it or are you going to complain over the whole thing again?"
Miu cleared her throat and both boys looked up. Ouma seemed to adapt to her walking around and went back to working on his pictures. Kibo seemed ecstatic just to see her awake. He almost got up out of his chair to help her, but his knee didn't want to bend. He cursed to himself as he sat back down and fought with a new roll of tape.
"Do you need help?" She asked tentatively. "That looks painful."
"Don't bother." Ouma attacked a page with a kneaded eraser. "He won't let anyone look at it. Including a doctor."
"I-" Kibo's face flushed scarlet. "I know what I'm doing. It's fine. How are you doing?" Well, that felt like a trick question. Physically, it was easier for her to move. The headaches were less frequent, and she could move about the house without getting harassed by a hundred different whistle-tones. However, she hated being alone in that room. Her mind would spiral down doomsday like scenarios of ending up on the street once she was fully healed or getting locked in the basement. None of which was based in reality. But something had to explain this constant feeling of dread that hung over her. It took most of her energy to get herself downstairs. Now that she was here, she did feel a bit better.
"I'm okay."
"Okay's good." Kibo nodded. "We can work with 'okay'."
"What," Ouma looked up from his work, "you're going to draft her into the play-test sweat shop?"
"No!" Kibo threw a roll of tape at the other boy. "No one makes you hover over my shoulder while I work, and you know that's not what I meant." Ouma cackled as he dodged another roll of tape. "You're giving up the TV to Miu for that."
"Like the amnesiac knows what good television is." Ouma scooped up the remote and made a break for the opposite door.
"Miu get him!" Kibo pointed, unable to catch him. "You're faster than him, trust me."
"No, she's not!" Ouma shouted over his shoulder before Miu collided with his left shoulder, sending both of them to the ground. "Hey, no fair!" She took the remote from his hand with a smirk, then faltered. She really didn't know what to put on, but she also didn't want the smug little kid to win. At a loss, she clicked on the most colorful thumbnail on the screen.
"Hifumi Yamada here, today we'll be breaking down all ten seasons of Robo-rangers."
"Haha!" Ouma cheered. "This one's a good one."
"Your suggestion feed is just full of garbage, isn't it?" Kibo groaned.
Overall, it was a fairly pleasant evening.
The nights were starting to drag on as sleep escaped her. She was getting irritable and tired of constantly feeling like weights were tied to her thoughts and feelings. She stayed in the living room long into the night mindlessly binging as much news as she could on television, trying to find anything that would trigger a memory from her past.
Hours of reports on robots fighting in the streets or harming civilians. Black market rings of devices designed to short-circuit walking AIs. Conspiracy videos on who's behind the new Killing Game and whether it's real or a splatter film. Cold case vignettes of missing children from Towa City. The list went on.
"Not you too." She looked up from the TV to see Kibo standing in the hallway. "If you spend all your time digging through Ouma's conspiracy videos, you'll end up just as paranoid as he is." She turned off the video, not like it was helping her much anyway.
"You don't believe in all this? Sentient AI and all that?" It certainly sounded more at home on the pages of a novel then on a news station.
"I didn't say that." Kibo slowly sat down next to her, his bones clicking as he eased onto the couch. "But you look at their sources and you find out it's all five or six people pushing the agenda that there are secret groups of people hunting down non-ultimates to keep the Killing Game running. It's just an easy way to scare people and get clicks."
"I'm just fucking tired of not remembering anything!" She threw the remote at the wall. "A baby has more neuro-connections than I do! Something with the communication skills of an alarm clock is thriving while I do fuck all." She leaned forward holding the back of her head and groaned.
"I wish I could tell you when that feeling will go away." He leaned forward so he could see her face. "It's sucks when you can talk better than you can process things. Especially when it feels like people expect you to know more than you do. I found the easiest way is to just, pick specific things that you think are important instead of everything all at once. It makes it easier to retain things."
"You don't think I'll be able to remember anything either." She glared at him icily.
"I just don't make promises I can't keep. It takes at least a year to full recover from something like this and even then... 70% of people permanently loose chunks of their memory."
"How can you be so calm about this!?" She stood up, staggering at the rush, but persistent in her effort to be intimidating. "Do just enjoy simping over a helpless, retarded shit-drip or do you leave things broken on purpose to make you feel better about yourself?" Any little thought slipped through her lips like acid. It wasn't stopping. "You refused to take me to hospital because you thought you could do better." She laughed. "Everything is about better with you cuck-heads, but I don't feel better! I feel like my mind is shooting blanks, constantly, even though there's a fertile field of opportunity in every room of this broken museum you call a house. I better understand how that remote could be used to stimulate a vagina 14 different ways than what happened a month ago. I know the names of every tool left lying around this house, but I look at your face I know nothing!"
She was shaking. All the awful things she said didn't faze him in the slightest and she couldn't tell how he'd take it. It's not like she meant everything she said. More like, one word would drop, and she'd make an association and the next moment it was just out there. But she thought it, even in passing, there was no point in denying it. Even if she was miserable, she didn't want to push that onto him, she was just sick of feeling useless and tired. Finally, when it was clear she wasn't going to say anything else, Kibo spoke.
"You didn't recognize me before the accident either." She sat slowly as Kibo recounted everything with a solemn frown. "The last time we talked, you were maybe ten or eleven? I had just hoped, even though we both changed, you'd still be happy to see me. I already came to terms with the fact that you'd forgotten me." Oh no. No no no no no no, that was not what she wanted to hear. Even if it made sense, she didn't want to believe that her childhood might be gone. Permanently.
"What was I like?" She looked at her decorated gel nails and played with the large millimeter gaps between the paint and her nail bed. "Back when you knew me, what kind of person was I?"
"You always had the best ideas." He grinned with a fond look in his eyes. "Everyone would just, rehash stuff they found on the internet, but you'd actually try to make something original. Like, oh, one year you had a machine that could do homework while you slept. It had so much glitter on it, grandpa was finding it on his lab coats for weeks afterward."
"That's... there's no way it actually worked."
"It was a kid's science fair. Do you know how many baking-soda volcanos just, wouldn't erupt? Who cares if it 'worked'?" He laughed. "There were also ultrasound googles to see if kids were stuffing their bra. Then there was the microwave that could reheat food in two seconds; that one actually exploded because the chicken wrap had aluminum embedded in the paper." It sounded like pure chaos to her, but he remembered it with such fondness. "It was one of the few times I got to leave the house, but you always made it memorable. I'm sure there's all kinds of cool stuff you've made since then that I don't know about." He recounted entire conversations they had in perfect detail, some of which were terribly embarrassing, but kids got up to a whole bunch of stuff when left unattended she supposed. It did bother her how he spoke about everything in the past tense. Like it was, well, ages ago.
"What happened?"
"I wasn't allowed to go anymore." He looked down at his knee. "I had to go through a lot of tests and adjustments just to learn to walk. Every time I failed, grandpa said I 'wasn't ready' for people to see me and get stuck at home another year. I tried to get him to invite you over so we could hang out or something, but... he didn't think it'd be appropriate." He laid back against the couch. "Which is so stupid. He got to invite his friends over all the time, but I wasn't allowed to talk to anyone just because I couldn't pick up a soda can consistently every time."
That honestly sounded hellish. If she got stuck in her room for stupid bullshit, the first thing she'd do was-
"Ouma said he took you to a club. Did you... were you sneaking out of the house that night?" He looked away from her with shame. "Oh my god, you totally did. You snuck out of the house, and you brought a girl home the first night. You're going to be in so much trouble if your grandpa finds out."
"Yeah. I know." Kibo groaned. "He can't know Ouma took me outside. If you run into him... I don't know, say you're a friend of Ouma's or something. Don't say you've seen me. Don't even mention me. I'm not supposed to be talking to people yet."
"You seem to be doing fine to me." Miu sighed. "He can't just keep you here forever, can he?"
Kibo didn't answer her.
There was, in a way, an open invitation to stay at the Idabashi household. Or rather, each day Kibo suggested she stay another night to make sure she was really doing okay. While her mobility and appetite continued to improve, some days she felt like she was walking around with a ten-pound backpack. Nothing externally was wrong with her, her vitals would be fine, but she just felt so hollow. Other days she'd be tearing apart the junk in monitor room, trying to recreate the vivid dreams she'd fight on repeat night after night. The one thing that stayed consistent, was the growing anxiety she felt staying in the house.
There wasn't one element she could point to, but a bunch of little things. How Kibo would grimace when she swore the walls were watching her. The odd hours at night Ouma would slip out of the house dressed in black and white. The heartbeat she could feel coming off of random devices in the home and not others. The fact that Kibo never left the house, not even to go into the yard. All groceries and goods were delivered to the gate to the backyard instead of the front step. How the boys never discussed Professor Idabashi with each other. Everything felt off.
Still, when she was face to face with them, she felt reassured that whatever was going on, they didn't want to bother her with it. That was a good thing, right? It wasn't like they were hiding anything from her purposefully. They were just being nice.
Maybe too nice.
It was a vicious cycle.
No matter how hair-brained her musings were, Kibo was always there to ground her back into reality with a patient smile.
It wasn't the walls watching her, but there were security cameras in the home. Ouma had a life outside of the house that he liked to keep to himself. A lot of devices were connected to the house's main computer, and it was sweet that she thought of them as 'alive'. Kibo wasn't very mobile anymore, not from the accident, and preferred to stay away from prying eyes. Deliveries made things easier for everyone, especially if it was close to the kitchen. But when it came to Professor Idabashi...
"Ouma's only interested in his work. There's a lot of people like that out there." That was the most she could get out of him other than the man needed to rest. So many half-finished projects lay around the house collecting dust. On occasion, Kibo would leave the lab with a small device and a patent to mail it off to some outside investor. It seemed to be the main source of income for the home. Afterall, there was only so much money one could earn from playing video games for a living.
"They're stolen." Ouma whispered to her one day after dinner.
"No, there's no way." Miu knew for a fact that all those inventions had been here since before her accident. She'd even been allowed to play with some of them. They were kitschy little things like specialty flashlights or voice banks. Certainly not the most original things, but definitely innovative in their speed and effectiveness.
"Every interview I've found with the professor said he'd never sell his inventions 'to the highest bidder'." Ouma pulled up an auction page with the most recent thing Kibo had shipped off. "This thing was in the lab when I got here and I guarantee no one, except you, touched it since." She remembered clearly; it was a camera that could convert digital images into potoroids. It was in shambles when she asked to play around with it.
"It worked?" She took over the mouse and scrolled down to the review section. Some stranger raved how whoever made it was a genius. "It actually worked. I can't believe it. I only messed with it for fifteen minutes." Fixing it had been easier than playing with Legos and the machine sold for a couple thousand dollars.
"I knew it." Ouma closed the laptop. "Listen, it'd be really easy to hack into the account, stupid uses the same password for everything. But it got me thinking, what if we just keep using it?"
"Use what?"
"Idabashi's name. I've seen the stuff you've been working on, if you sell it through the old man, we could stop worrying about money." He could see the guilt creeping into her features. "It's not like that. It's just, there's only so many inventions Kibo or I have access too. We don't know when the old man's next big project's going to get finished, and well, the guy's like 90." Three teens living off a man's fixed income was a tall task. If there was anything she could do to help...
"I guess." She had a few ideas, but they didn't exactly have the right materials yet. "You've gotta help me test them though. I refuse to sell some bogus paper weight using a famous inventor's name." She looked up at him. "How sensitive are your eyes?"
"I- Uh-" Ouma audibly gulped. "Why don't we try something less fleshy and a little more practical." He handed her a sketch of a sparkly blue and purple megaphone. "What do you know about hacking guns?"
Miu's days were starting to feel more structured as she took to the new routine. After breakfast, she'd work on whatever sci-fi concept Ouma threw on her desk and disguised it as one of Idabashi's long-lost inventions. Honestly, the hardest part was restricting the designs to the greys and blacks that would allow it to blend in with the man's previous works. She'd take breaks for meals and evening tea. Then, at night, she'd poor over the idea that had been eating away at her since she first awoke in the Idabashi household.
Seven different Petrie dishes lay in front of her on the coffee table in the living room. She had an alamantic laid out with diagrams of how light enters the eye. On Ouma's laptop she had several tabs open to different models of optic-lense devices, zoomed in to focus on the strength of the different lenses. It was midnight, and she was still researching different chemicals that were safe for the eye. Kibo hobbled into the room, careful to avoid the chaotic piles of print outs and boxes as he sat in his favorite recliner.
"Are you done with the glasses in the kitchen? Ouma almost drank hydrochloric acid yesterday."
"No, not yet." She muttered typing in a new url into the laptop. "I specifically labeled those as 'do not drink'."
"He took it as a challenge." Kibo sighed. "Or he just didn't read it and refuses to admit it. Either way, I don't think the living room and kitchen are the best places for your experiments."
"If he dies drinking from random glasses, there's nothing I can do. That's just natural selection at work." She heard him stifle a laugh and smiled to herself. "I'll remember to put them away this time. Can't have my only guinea pig kicking the bucket on me."
"Actually, that wasn't what I was getting at." He was avoiding eye contact with her and playing with the cuffs of his sleeves. It was the closest she'd seen him to being nervous. "I was thinking, maybe you'd like to keep your stuff in the downstairs lab. That way, you didn't have to put everything away in the morning. And, even if you went back home, you'd still have a place to work on stuff here. If you'd like."
Right, home, she'd almost forgot. With all of her clothes and gadgets strewn about the old master bedroom, she'd started thinking of it as her's. The day-to-day life with Kibo and Ouma wasn't what she'd been doing before the accident. In fact, she'd had no contact from anyone in her life outside of these two. Not even Professor Idabashi. She must have made some sour expression at the thought, because Kibo then added.
"You don't have to leave."
She finally abandoned her work, giving Kibo her full attention. He was looking at the farthest spot on the floor from her. A pin could drop and both would hear it a mile away. For the first time, her mind went blank. This was the question they had been dancing around since her meltdown after waking up.
"Is Professor Idabashi okay with that?" His expression went blank. She waited, concerned that his hesitance to answer meant the old man had not been consulted about this invitation to stay.
"I think he'd be happy." He had this sad smile on his face. The same look he had when talking about the old science fairs. "I know I complain about him a lot, but he was always terrified of what would happen to us if... If he lost his patents to someone who was in it for the money." He held up one of the Petrie dishes to the light, admiring how the liquid acted like pixels in motion. "The lab was made as a tool to make the world a better place. Who better to use it than you?"
"I-" The offer was so tempting. Each compliment he gave felt like a double-edged sword, and while she knew he meant well, this lingering anxiety clung to her. "I'll think about it." The grin he shown at her was so full of hope. She felt nauseous again.
While Miu was hesitant to agree to staying at the Idabashi house permanently, she was more than eager to move all of her stuff into the first-floor lab. Gone were the harsh blue lights in leu of her pink bulbs and rave aesthetic. With the additional privacy, she was able to work on more of her... personal projects. Though both boys seemed far less keen on asking her about them then she had hoped. Still, it was nice to officially have her own space. She dabbled in making devices of all kinds; some to make life more convenient for her friends and others out of necessity. Like her current batch of eyedrops, which she hoped would replace her contacts.
"Sit still and look up." She scolded as she watched Ouma squirm in her periphery. His paranoia knew know boundaries. After making a dozen of his anti-monokuma devices, the least he could do is hold up his end of the bargain. "I promise they won't sting."
"You said that the last three times." Ouma had one leg off the stool in the direction of an eye-wash station. As the only other person in the house who kinda, sorta needed glasses, he was the only person who could verify if her eyedrops actually worked. Usually, her formula was a failure and Ouma would rip on her for making him go through 'torture' again. He went rigged as she brought the eye dropper towards him.
"Quit lying shit-dick, it wasn't that bad." She always tested them on herself first to be sure of it. "If you don't sit still, I'm jamming this up your nose." He grumbled but agreed and she quickly administered the drops. After thirty-seconds, her timer went off and she looked him in the eye. "Damn it! Another batch down the shitter."
"What are you talking about?" Ouma rubbed at his left eye. "We haven't even tried the eye-chart yet."
"They aren't blue." She pulled at the root of her hair. "They're supposed to help you see better AND make your eyes ice-blue. That way you can tell when you're wearing them, and I'll know you aren't pulling my dick."
"Your eyes are already blue. Why does it have to be that exact shade?" He looked down at her color chart and then grimaced like he smelled something bad. "Both of you are hopeless." He sighed and read allowed the numbers at the back of the room. "Well, was that correct?" She eyed him carefully then looked back at the wall.
"You memorized it again, didn't you?"
"I mean, yes, but I also can read it." She narrowed her eyes at him while he sputtered out a few more conflicting excuses. On the back of her paper, she scribbled out something quickly and walked to the back of the room. With the new paper in front of the eye chart, she crossed her arms and waited. "Your handwriting is terrible."
"If you can't read it, I'm going to assume you're lying and it's back to the drawing board." Ouma rolled his eyes at her and sighed.
"I'm a lying cock-sucker." He read monotoned and lazily rolled his head to the side. "Now that hurt my feelings. Happy?" Miu stared back at him in shock. They worked. Well, not exactly like she wanted, but well enough to consider them useable. "Can I wash these out now, I'm sick of looking at your face in HD." She nodded, still deep in thought. As much as it killed her to release an unfinished product, she could use that money to experiment with safer dyes.
"I'm going to sell them." She started to gather up the research papers she'd need to file the patent.
"Thank god." He finished wiping off his face. "Professor Idabashi to the rescue once again." She froze, that unsettling feeling welling up inside her again.
"I'm going to sell it." He didn't immediately correct himself or apologize. So, she pressed further. "This isn't some half-finished tinker toy; this is something I made. I'm putting my name on it." Ouma turned toward her slowly, a concerned scowl on his face.
"Miu, that's a really bad idea." He held up his hand like he did when he talked about conspiracy theories. "Just put it under Idabashi's name. It's safer."
"Safer for you, you mean. You think I haven't noticed how much money those auctions go for?" It was all starting to make sense. "You've been using me and my brilliant mind to make money for you. Not the house or Professor Idabashi. For you." That's why they didn't want her to leave. Why else would they keep dumping machines on her and acting all nice towards her. "I am not going to let you take credit for my work anymore." She rushed to fill out the form as Ouma made a dash for the laptop. "I am a mother fucking genius and I deserve to have my name on my fucking inventions."
"Miu you're not thinking clearly!"
He reached the laptop right as she hit send.
"What have you done?" He looked at her in horror. "You're barely fifteen; why would you tell the world that you made anything!? People are getting targeted for being grandchildren of Ultimate's and you just advertised that you might have a talent." He grabbed the file folder she was working on.
"Might!? I AM talented." She grabbed the other end of the folder and pulled on it. "You've been riding on my coat tails this whole time."
"I'm not doing a bit Miu. You need to get rid of this." He was shaking. "If we say it was a practical joke, then maybe you'll be okay."
"I bet you assholes injured me on purpose, so I'd work in your sweat shop." The papers were ripping, but she didn't care. She had a point to make. "You erased my memories and kept buttering me up, so I'd make you free shit. I bet you basement boys have been drinking my bathwater too. Just how long were you cuck-heads planning to hold me hostage?"
"The only reason you're here is Kibo feels bad for you, you fucking coke-head." The folder finally ripped, and Ouma fell on his ass. She'd been afraid that was the case, that she'd been scraping by on pity. Those uncomfortable moments, it wasn't someone attracted to her, it was her making him uncomfortable. "He accidently pushed you in front of a car and thinks he caused a traumatic brain injury." Ouma glared at her as he stood up. Pushed. She was pushed? Then it wasn't an accident. "He thinks it's his fault you're acting like an unpredictable piece of shit, but you're just withdrawing off of cocaine!" Paranoia, insomnia, depression, vivid dreams, her tremors; it all lined up with the symptoms. But it couldn't be true. Her memory was shit because she got hit in the head, not because of something she took. She didn't do this to herself. "You weren't an amazing inventor; you were a piece of shit in middle school and you're being a piece of shit now. No one is holding you hostage. The door is right there." He took her phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. "You live three houses down the block." She caught the phone clumsily and opened the call history to dial her parents. It immediately stopped ringing and moved to her call history. They had dropped her call fifteen times before. It was one of her first fears come true.
"I've been missing for over a month."
"No one noticed. You saw the news."
She ran out of the house and out the front door.
It was impulsive, it was stupid, but it was her only chance to get out. She was getting too comfortable in that creepy house. This was just the push she needed to get back to her friends and family. At least, that's what she told herself as she ran barefoot down the street towards her home address. She came to a powder blue house with a white picket fence. Yellow and pink tulips were growing in the windowsill. There was no doubt in her mind, this was her home. She knocked on the door. Her nerves were on fire. If staying in the Idabashi house was uncomfortable, standing on this porch was like standing on lava. An older blond woman opened the door, her smile evaporating the moment she laid eyes on her.
"No."
"I haven't even-" Miu tried to explain herself but was immediately cut off again.
"Whatever it is, no." She sounded angry and tired. "Stop coming around when you want money." The door slammed in her face. Miu didn't know what to do at first. She rang the doorbell a few times, even kicked the door, but no one came to the door. She could see the woman in the home dialing someone on the phone in a panic.
"Fuck you!" Miu screamed at the door. "I don't need your money! I have money. The name, Miu Iruma, is going to be in every store front in Japan and I'm not going to answer when you come asking me for help!" She could hear sirens in the distance. Her mom called the cops on her again.
It was starting to come back.
After fleeing her own front yard, she'd found a small coffee shop and took one of the outdoor tables to collect herself. Her phone was filled with unanswered texts, but they were all in group chats; vague invitations to hang out that could include her if she felt so inclined. No one texted her directly that often, the last being sometime around Christmas. She was someone's secret santa and sent them a vibrator that they wanted a receipt for. She ghosted them. Her maps app was full of random bookmarks, mostly closed shops or hotels. The last place she'd looked up was in the heart of the city. Whatever club they went to the night of the accident must have been pretty underground.
"Omg, see, I told you guys she was here." Miu looked up at a bleached-blond girl in a green decora uniform. Out of all the texts she sent from the coffee-shop, only 'Haru' responded, this must be her. Beside her was a girl decked out in lavender bejeweled accessories, the glittering bow in her curly bleached mane must have cost a fortune alone. Coming up the rear was a girl dressed head to toe in pink sportswear, even her highlights were pink.
"Wow Miu, you're totally rocking fast-fashion sheik." The lavender girl giggled. "I wish I was as brave as you are to wear something so... alternative. Cute shoes too." She wasn't wearing any shoes, rather it was quite obvious from her texts to these girls she needed help.
"You're eyes!" Haru got an inch from her face while the other girl sat down. The girl in pink chose to stand, looking her up and down with disapproval. "Booboo, did you get cut off again? No wonder you're freaking out." She riffled around in her purse. "All I got on me is fireball, but it should get you through." She offered a small bottle to Miu in earnest.
"I told you that Sci Fi rave was a stupid idea, but you didn't listen." The pink one closed her phone and looked at Miu like she was a child. "Let this be a lesson, when I say your ideas are bad; I'm doing it to protect you. Now, there's going to be an absolute rager at my brother's uni. I'm sure we'll be able to find something orange for you in a secondhand store or something so you can make it." She pulled at the pink fibers of Miu's sweater. "Orange, not salmon, I don't want some guy confusing you for me in the dark." Miu's head was spinning, she slammed her hands into the table to get them to stop talking all at once.
"Who cares about some douchebag's party!? I have been missing for six weeks." She glared at the girls. "My parents won't let me in the house. I need to figure out where to stay, not get a fucking makeover."
"I'm going to get a latte." The girl in lavender sighed. "If my date's been canceled for this, might as well cheat on my diet while I'm at it."
"Fix it." The girl in pink said to Haru before both girls went into the store, leaving Miu alone with the girl and green.
"They were just trying to help make you feel better, you didn't have to bitch them out like that." Haru said sadly, she set the bottle of whiskey in front of Miu. "Rin's brother knows a bunch of guys who would totally take you in while we help you get your stuff back, but you gotta loosen up first. It's going to be okay." Miu stared at the bottle long and hard. "Just quite overthinking things. The stress alone will make your hair fall out."
Miu reached for the back of her head, gently tracing the peach fuzz that was growing around her scar. She then looked up at Haru, who gave her this patient and expectant smile. Behind her, the other girls were in line getting four drinks. All of them were acting like this kind of thing was normal.
"How long have we been friends?" Haru blinked back in surprise, maybe because Miu's voice was so quiet compared to before.
"I don't know, like three or four years." She held Miu's hand. "Hey, what's really going on? You know you can talk to me."
"Why didn't you guys try to find me?" Miu could feel the hurt building up as Haru slowly clutched her necklace. She had a fresh green coat of gel nail polish in a design similar to what Miu had been wearing. Though Miu had long peeled off the sherbert manicure while staying at the Idabashi house.
"You do this all the time. I'm not the bad guy for giving you space. Every time we go out you ditch us to hook up with some guy, and I'm one stuck picking up the pieces when it goes south." She sighed and put on a gooey, sacrine smile. "I'm sorry, that was totally uncalled for. It just sucks to see you so miserable." She took her hand back, leaving the small bottle in Miu's hand. "Let me help you."
Miu placed the bottle back on the table and walked away, ignoring Haru's pleas to come back. She could hear the other girls clamor to the table and whisper about god knows what while publicly trying to get her to turn around. For three years, those were the only people who would answer her calls. A bunch of girls that wanted to dress her up and puppet her around at parties, so they'd have some funny story to tell at school on Monday. Even knowing that, she still felt guilty for walking away from them. As catty as they were, they were still her friends, and they were right about one thing.
She'd been the one who made them go to the club that night.
Night was falling as she walked along the streets to find the underground club marked on her map.
Maybe it was because of a fight with her parents or maybe a really bad break up. Whatever the reason, Miu had gotten her hand on these beautiful belts that lit up to music, and she knew the perfect place to test them out. The pulsing bass of electrohouse was the perfect chance to light up the night and forget whatever shitty day she'd had.
The other girls never quite shared her interest in Sci Fi or futuristic aesthetics, but she'd hoped the glowing outfit would inspire a few compliments from them. They'd found it over all unimpressive and Miu insisted it would look way cooler on the dance floor. She'd found a place that was fairly monokuma proof and begged them to go with her. Haru had gone to bat for her, and finally everyone agreed to go.
She could hear the music from outside the building and remembered feeling it beat in her chest when they were on the dancefloor. The electromagnetic barrier had almost fried her outfit, but for one glorious night, she was the life of the party instead of her friends. It was all free drinks and invitations to dance.
Sometime during the night, someone approached her with glassy eyes, pupils blown so wide she felt like she could see herself reflected in a ring of ice blue. He was dressed in vintage WWII era casual wear, not the theme of the night, but definitely expensive. The kid had money enough to make his hair look like aluminum alloy and was acting high as a kite. She could barely hear him above the music, but from what she could pick up, he thought she was an actual robot. Whatever he was on, she wanted it.
She dragged him into the alley. The cold night air must have sobered him, because the look on his face totally changed. He was disappointed, and she took it really personally. At some point, while she was laying into him, she had said her name and it would have been nice if she'd let him say whatever he tried to tell her next. Instead, she bulldozed right ahead to ask him for a hit, and he was simply dumbfounded. He literally had no idea what she was talking about and tried to redirect the conversation a few times, which rekindled her anger. There was no way this square had wasted her time and she tried to route through his pockets.
He pushed her off him.
A siren blared.
She caught herself and he reached out to grab her again.
She called him a molester.
Turned.
And everything went black.
Now Miu stood in that same back alleyway looking at the rusty stain splattered against the pavement. She could still hear the muffled music thundering against a backdrop of sirens and gun fire. The soft glow of an ER sign barely reached the other end of the alleyway. Realization hit her like a bucket of ice water.
She walked in front of an ambulance.
It was an accident. He tried to stop her, but both of them were fucked up and uncoordinated. She'd been too mad at him to listen to him even if he told her to stop. He looked so scared when he called out to her.
Sitting on the cold ground Miu opened up her phone and check her text messages. Nothing new was in her inbox since this morning. She was cold and hungry, and she didn't have anywhere to go. Finally, with her hands shaking, she looked up the Idabashi house and began the trek back.
It was midnight by the time she made it to the unassuming Japanese style home. The lights in the kitchen were out, evidence Ouma had gone to bed or left for the night. Her feet were cold, and she numbly wondered if there was actually a way for her to get back inside. She didn't have a key after all. As she came onto the porch, the motion sensors flicked on the porch light and her heart fell into her stomach. What if the door got slammed in her face again? Her knuckles hovered over the door, and she debated whether she should even try. Just as she was about to walk away, the door flew open.
"Miu!" Kibo set foot outside the house for the first time in a month and hobbled after her. He grabbed hold of her arm just as she turned to leave. "Where have you been? I've been so worried." Miu went rigged in his hold, the stress of the day threatening to spill over. "Ouma's been looking for you everywhere, he said you left the house without shoes."
"I've only been gone twelve hours." Fuck, she really was crying now. She's gone less than a day and these dumbasses sent out a search party; meanwhile her own parents wouldn't open the door when she was on their doorstep. "All I ever do is make you worry about me, and you want me to come back? Are you a masochist or something?" She followed him in, and he immediately got her tea, despite her protests. He texted Ouma, saying he could come back home.
"Ouma told me what happened; that you guys had a pretty bad fight over your new invention." Hearing him say it, it all sounded so trivial. "About what he said..."
"You don't have to apologize for him." She tossed her glittering orange flip phone on the table. "The kid has a boner for being right. He'll say whatever it takes to win a fight. Not his fault that no one's been looking for me." She stared listlessly at her tea. After all the shit Haru tried to pull, she wasn't interested in drinking much of anything tonight.
"He wanted to tell you sooner, nicer, but I begged him not to. I thought maybe, if I could make this place feel like home, you wouldn't have to know." She looked up at him, this strange boy that was falling apart at the seams. He could barely keep the house afloat, but he thought he could fix everything wrong in her old life with a white lie. "You were just so fragile; I didn't want you to get hurt."
"That sounds like shit your grandpa would say." She could see the shame on his face. "You should have told me. All this time I've felt like I was going crazy and there's a real explanation for it. Instead, you just fed me a fairytale to get me to stay. I mean, was any of it real?"
"Of course, I know I've hid stuff from you, but everything I've told you is true. We did know each other when we were younger. You were my only friend for a long time, and I didn't have any way of contacting you until now." She pushed the teacup back toward him.
"If you really want me to stay here, you have to tell me the truth." There was still something he was hiding. In every motion and gesture, she could tell something was still off. "Nothing is stopping you from leaving this house. I just saw it with my own two eyes. Why do you need me to stay here with you instead of running away? You clearly hate being alone." Kibo looked at the cup then back at her.
"Do you want me to put that in the sink for you?" He had a strangely serious look on his face. At a loss, she shrugged and then watched the cup get pulled across the table where it was picked up by a claw-like arm that hung from the ceiling. It put the cup onto a stack of dishes in the sink and folded back into a ceiling fan. Kibo didn't move a muscle. "You already kinda picked up on it, the things in the house that feel alive, they're connected to me. That also includes the security cameras... sorry."
"Sorry? Sorry what, that you're a house?" Miu shook her head.
"I'm not a house." Kibo floundered as he tried to explain. "I'm connected to things in the house. As grandpa's lab assistant, it was my job to help him with any way I could. That included making sure he ate real food and was taken care of. This body is, it's one of the things I was helping him with, it's a prototype. A prototype I want to keep. It's easier to talk to people like this, sometimes, not right now." He could see he was losing her. "I'm an AI."
"You're crazy." Miu thought back about the conversations she had with Kibo about the science fairs, his grandpa, how he was told no one was 'ready to see him'. How he remembered learning to walk. "An AI, so like, a computer program. You met me as a computer program?" He nodded, as if it was second nature.
"I was running on a Saki10. It was right after I got voice recognition, but I was really bad at it. Everyone there kept calling me a boring chat-bot. You were the only kid there that took the time to type anything." It sounded absolutely bananas. But at the mention of the old computer, she remembered spending hours huddled under a table with the clunky laptop. It was such a small detail, but she could see it so clearly now. Of course she didn't recognize his face. He didn't have one back then. "You were really sad your parents wouldn't come, and my grandpa was busy talking with investors like always."
"The judges thought it would be fun to see which entry the computer would pick for first place." She recalled. A bunch of aging scientists laughed when it picked her project. It picked her entry no matter how many ways they asked it. Suddenly, it didn't seem so funny to the men, and the lead inventor spent the rest of the night trying to 'fix a bug' with the program. "That was the only time I placed." She looked at him in shock. "You were biased as fuck. You didn't like my project the best, you were just mad the other kids thought you were stupid."
"Both things can be true." He said defensively before looking up at her with a sad smile. "So, you really remember me?"
"I remember trolling the stuffed-shirt that said I had no talent and fucking around with his laptop every year." When she wasn't able to hide away with the laptop, she'd find a way to plug something into the CPU so she could send texts directly to the program. "I got banned because I fried the dude's motherboard trying to make a mirror of his hardrive." She did not want to think about the ethical ramifications of trying to copy a sentient program and almost destroy it in the process.
"When was that?"
"Sixth grade." Her parents were so furious they had thrown out her computer. She was completely blacklisted from anything related to technology. The only way to get access to a phone was to act too stupid to program one.
"That explains that gap in August." Kibo rubbed his temples. "I had to start making daily back-ups of myself after that. Literally, so much of my memory is dedicated to making copies of my own memory. It's exhaustingly redundant." With the pieces of her old life slowly falling into place, there was still one thing that bothered her.
"What happened to Professor Idabashi, really?" She could see the pain in his eyes. Granted, now she knew it was a computer program moving joints and lenses to mimic sadness, but it felt real all the same.
"He's not talking to me. We had a fight about when I'd be able to talk to people again. I wanted to be able to live my own life when he retired and he... He powered me down for maintenance." He looked scared, reliving the idea of being put under again. "The only reason I woke up to Ouma triggering an alarm. He tried to tell me he's Idabashi's grandson and that he's supposed to inherit whatever's in the house, but I know grandpa is in the second story lab, I just- He locked me out." She was sure taking care of someone else was helping him keep his mind off the situation as well. She'd seen Ouma access rooms in the house against Kibo's wishes with the wave of his hand. "If Ouma finds out I'm one of grandpa's inventions, I'm afraid he'll turn me off and gut the house."
This was the situation Kibo had invited her to stay in. A tug of war between his sentient creation and his blood relative over who would inherit his home. The tenuous game of house she'd bare witness too suddenly made more sense. On one hand, the two could be considered family, but only on the off chance that Ouma valued his sentience after learning the truth. Which considering how many anti-AI machines he had her make; those chances were fairly low.
"He won't be able to turn you off if you're guarding your own processor." Miu said, a new idea already forming.
"That's basically what I've been doing." Kibo looked down at the floor. "The entire basement is a wall-to-wall network of computers. That is what I'm running on right now."
"But you used to be portable." Miu pointed out. "If I by-pass the daily backups, I'm sure I could do it. I could cut you off from the house, then it won't matter what happens to it." It'd be a lot of work, but she was sure she could make it happen. She only needed time. "It would mean a lot more limitations though, you'd actually have to get up out of the chair to do the dishes and shit."
"I can live with that." Kibo agreed. "Until then, promise me you won't tell Ouma."
"Deal."
The front door clicked open, and Ouma walked in, he was out of breath and carrying Miu's house slippers in his hands. He looked at her, relief easing the tension in his shoulders as he dropped the shoes to the floor.
"Thank god you're okay." Was all he could manage at first as he stumbled over to the kitchen counter. "Miu I'm sorry, I freaked out. I should have- I need your phone. Now." He took the bedazzled phone and headed to the couch, frantically texting people at a frightening speed. "I gotta make people think you're already dead." He clicked on the television when they objected, all the while sending her friends and family a fake farewell message.
"Ouma, what are you out of your mind!?" She yelled and as the add cut out a bubbly announcer chimed in.
"Who's going to be in this year's game? Well, it might just be the Ultimate Inventor! That's right, insider intel has leaked some of the talents that may be featured in V3, and Kiba I have to say this cast already looks promising." The two stopped short when several of Miu's prototypes were shown on screen. "Scouts received a patent that is claiming ten different inventions which may have working prototypes already."
"This truly is a Cinderella story in the making." The male announcer agreed. "After so many wishy-washy, forced talents, it's nice to see something come along that's actually grounded in reality, y'know. One that might add something interesting to more than one trial." The video continued going through as Ouma hooked up her phone to it it's charger and continued typing.
"I don't understand." Miu sat down on the couch. "It hasn't even been a day."
"I told you, these people work fast. They hire private detectives and shit to find people. You guys keep acting like I make this shit up for fun. I just don't want a beast monokuma on our doorstep. I've already burned through four laptops trying to hide where the patent came from." He turned the phone off and looked at Miu. "I don't know if this is going to be enough. I've never fucked up this bad, this quickly before." He held her, burying his face into her shoulder and squeezing her so tight she felt like she couldn't breathe. The announcers moved on to talking about some astronaut or something, but she couldn't bring herself to care. "I'm so sorry." Something odd occurred to her, in this strangely broken moment, with everyone staying up late to anxiously plan for the coming days.
This was the first night she felt she was home.
AN: SO YEAH! Couldn't figure out where exactly to end this, both boys have a lot on their own plates, and I definitely wanted to save them getting drafted for Ouma's side since, that's pretty much what he's fixated on this chapter.
Everybody's just constantly stressed and trying their best.
Uh, I really hope their friendship comes off as resilient, rather than toxic. Miu's paranoia really taints her perception of things and she's had a TBI; so 0 filter on everything all the time.