Chapter 23: Ready to Let Go
A sharp pain in her stomach woke her. Hanako pressed her pillow against her abdomen and waited for the cramping to stop.
She lay awake afterwards, staring listlessly at the wall without bothering to check the time. Seeing sunlight was enough. Their time in the windowless Funhouse seemed so much longer than a few days. It made her memories of Ibuki feel even further away.
Stop. She ran her hands over her face. She didn't have the energy for more grief. It made her feel sick, the thought of lying in her own misery.
She managed to sit up just as someone knocked on the door.
"It's open," she said hoarsely.
Kazuichi pushed the door open with his elbow, balancing a bowl in one hand and something wrapped in cloth in the other. "You're not locking your door anymore?"
"The lock's broken." She rubbed at her dry throat with a wince. "What's up?"
"Oh, uh." He handed the bowl to her. "Hinata said you might be hungry."
She accepted it, the porcelain still warm against her fingers, along with a pair of chopsticks. The thought of eating made her stomach turn, so she set the bowl in her lap. "Thanks."
"And I brought this, too." With a grin, Kazuichi pulled away the cloth and held out her speaker, the mp3 player still in the dock. "I guess you forgot it in the hospital."
She'd left it with Ibuki the day before she'd died. Biting her lip to keep it from trembling, Hanako took the speaker and set it on the bed beside her. "You didn't have to."
He shrugged. "I couldn't really sleep last night, so I was just doing a bunch of random stuff. By the way, do you know how to sew?"
She was too emotional to be irritated at the question, so she just shook her head. "No, why?"
Kazuichi held up the cloth, which she now realized was a bandana. "Well, Sonia's been carrying those hamsters around all day, and I figured she might want something to put them in."
Hanako blinked. She wasn't surprised to hear he was thinking about Sonia, but the idea was surprisingly thoughtful.
He tugged at the hem of his beanie and cleared his throat. "You know, since the hamsters are probably kinda dirty. She probably wouldn't want all that on her dress."
She smiled. "I think it's a good idea, I just don't know anything about sewing. That…That was more Ibuki's thing. Maybe you could find a sewing machine?"
His expression brightened. "That's a pretty good idea. Thanks, Yukimura."
"Yeah." She looked away, fingers drumming against the sides of the bowl. "Uh, sorry for threatening you back in the Funhouse."
"That's okay. I was being kind of a dick, too." He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "It was just a lot of pressure, you know?"
"I don't blame you for having doubts. I just want to try and move past that."
"Well, we're definitely gonna have to team up now."
Her eyes shot up to meet his. "What do you mean?"
"We went and explored a new island today. There was a lot of weird stuff there. We ran into Komaeda too, and he was acting like a total creep. I don't know what we did to piss him off, but it sounded like he was threatening us." His expression soured. "We gotta do something about him."
"Count me in. I've been wanting to beat the crap out of him for a while now."
"In that case, you'd better get your strength back up, okay?" He gestured to the bowl of rice. "I'll think of a plan, and we can run through it tomorrow."
Hanako hummed in assent. There wasn't much to look forward to these days, but maybe whatever plan Kazuichi cooked up would be worth a good laugh.
Once he was gone, she stared down at her food with pursed lips. She'd brushed her teeth vigorously last night, but the taste of acid still lingered in her mouth. Her hands shook too much to hold the chopsticks, so she ate with her fingers, one tiny bite at a time. She'd barely eaten more than a mouthful before her stomach started to turn.
With a sigh, she stood up, went to the bathroom, and dumped the rice into the toilet.
Hajime came to check on her that evening. Hanako invited him in from the bed, where she'd been in and out of sleep for the past several hours. She'd tried drawing in her sketchbook while she listened to music, but even the small effort had worn her out after a while.
"Hey." Hajime shut the door behind him. He still looked weary, but he didn't look quite as gaunt as he had in the Funhouse. "How are you feeling?"
"Amazing," she replied, not bothering to lift her head from the pillow.
He crossed the room and looked down at the bowl she'd discarded on the couch. "You didn't eat?"
How the fuck…
Trying to sound annoyed, she said, "What do you mean? The bowl's empty."
"Yeah, but your chopsticks are clean."
"I used my hands."
He fixed her with a dubious look, and she sighed and looked away.
"I ate a little bit and dumped the rest, okay?"
Hajime sat down on the edge of the bed, worry furrowing his brow. "You need to eat, Yukimura. You're not gonna recover if you don't."
"I know." She crossed her arms over her stomach. "I…I just can't. Every time I try, it just comes right back up. Probably fucked my stomach up with all those pills. And not eating for however many days afterwards definitely didn't help."
"Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because it won't make a difference whether you guys know or not." A lump appeared in her throat.
It was ironic, in a cruel, twisted way, that she was finally getting what she wanted after she'd decided she didn't want it anymore.
"That…" Hajime's voice shook slightly. "There has to be something we can do."
"Like what? We don't have a doctor with us. Or a nurse," she added bitterly.
"We'll find a doctor after we get off this island."
She searched his face. He seemed desperate to believe his own words, and it broke her heart.
"Okay," she said. "I'll just hold out until then."
Hajime looked away.
He knows I don't believe it either.
"Can we talk about something else?" she asked.
"Like what?"
She huffed out a sigh. "Something not depressing. I don't know."
Hajime was silent for a moment, brow furrowed. "If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?"
"I mean, I would take literally anywhere except Jabberwock Island."
He nudged her leg. "C'mon, I'm being serious. What's a place that you've always wanted to go? Like a vacation."
Hanako let out a hum. "New Zealand."
"Really?"
"The indigenous people there have a pretty intense tattoo technique that I've always wanted to check out. What about you?"
"I don't have a specific place in mind, but I think it would be nice to go somewhere quiet. A village in the mountains somewhere. I never left the city before I came here, and I used to think a lot about somewhere that wasn't so…busy."
Hanako smiled. "What are you gonna do in your mountain village? Drink beer and watch the sunset?"
"Maybe." His expression grew distant. "It would be nice to just have a fresh start. Go somewhere nobody knows me."
"Isn't that what this was supposed to be?"
He looked away "It's not the same with you guys."
She let the silence stretch out for a moment. "Something's bothering you. Besides, you know. The usual shit."
Hajime sighed, his shoulders rising and falling with the motion. "I already told the others, so I guess it's not a problem if you know, too. Komaeda found a file after he completed the Final Dead Room. It was my student file from Hope's Peak Academy."
"The file had your talent in it?"
"I…I don't have a talent. It turns out I'm just a Reserve Course student. I paid to get into Hope's Peak Academy."
"Oh." Hanako propped her head in one hand. "Well, I guess that makes sense. I always wondered why you couldn't remember your talent."
"Yeah." He continued frowning at the floor.
"What?"
"I just…I thought there was something special about me. Something I could really be proud of."
She stared at him for a moment, then kicked him in the leg.
"Ow!" Hajime rubbed his thigh with a wince. "What was that for?"
"Are you actually serious?" Hanako pushed herself into a sitting position and looked him in the eye. "After everything you've done here? It doesn't matter if you don't have a talent. You're one of the only people who actually knows what's going on in the class trials. You've helped everyone here. You…You kept me alive when I didn't even want to be. That shit actually matters, okay?"
Hajime blinked and looked away, his eyes shining. "Thanks for saying that."
"Well, I'm not bullshitting, so you better take me seriously." She cuffed him on the arm, more gently this time. "I'm not gonna let anyone talk shit about you. And that includes you."
That earned a small smile. "I don't know if that's a compliment or a threat."
"That's up to you."
She looked at the side of his face, at the warring emotions there, and the sight jabbed at her heart. She didn't want to lose this. She'd tried to convince herself that it didn't matter if dying would hurt him. She'd struggled to let go of the fear that he would betray her, that it wasn't worth getting any closer. And she was still terrified, not that he would be without her, but that she would be without him.
She scooted closer so she was sitting behind him, wrapped her arms around his middle, and rested her cheek against his back. She half-expected him to pull away, but he relaxed into her touch.
"We're getting close to the end of the countdown in the park," Hajime said. "Only a couple days left."
"You have any idea what happens after that?"
"Maybe the killing game ends. I just don't know if that's a good or a bad thing."
"You think there's any chance of us getting out of this alive?"
"I don't know." Tentatively, his hand moved to rest over hers. "But I think we have to try."
She shut her eyes and tightened her grip. "Okay. Then I'll follow your lead."
The next day, Hanako pulled together enough strength to head to the restaurant. She wanted a change of scenery—even a day cooped up in her cottage had been enough to conjure a restless, trapped feeling, and she'd had enough of that after the Funhouse.
The room was empty, which left her feeling both disappointed and relieved. She crossed the room to the altar Hiyoko had made for Mahiru. The candles had burnt down to stubs, wax lying in thick puddles on the shelf. The photographs had accumulated a thin coating of dust. She took a napkin from one of the tables and gently wiped each of them clean.
Grief sat hot at the back of her throat. There were more people dead now than there had been the last time she'd looked at this board. Hiyoko wasn't alive to maintain her handiwork anymore. Hanako was glad that she'd made the effort in the first place. Despite her disgust for the others, she'd been the only one who bothered to leave a physical memorial of the dead.
Last night Hanako had listened to the first song she and Ibuki had ever danced to and cried until she started dry heaving.
Her throat tight, she took the photograph from her pocket and carefully pinned it to an empty space on the board. The edges were slightly curled from being stuffed in her jeans. The blood she'd left was brown and starting to flake. Their expressions were still frozen in time, though—Mikan's watery eyes, Ibuki's grin, the contentment on Hanako's face.
Everyone in this photograph is dead except for me.
The thought made her feel weightless, untethered, as if the room around her would begin to blur like paint in water. As if she would vanish entirely if she stood here for too long.
"Hey."
Hanako spun around fast enough to make her lightheaded. She'd been too lost in thought to hear someone come up the stairs.
"Didn't mean to startle you." Fuyuhiko joined her by the altar, hands in his pockets. "What are you doing here?"
"Just looking." She turned back to the photographs. "Thinking too much for my own good."
"You miss her, huh?"
She bit her lip, her voice failing her, and settled on a nod. "I guess we didn't really know each other that well. We weren't friends for that long. We only had a day where we were actually together before she got sick. But she was so fun. She could make everything feel like it was okay, even if it was only for a moment." She turned away and dried her eyes with the heel of her hand.
"I thought it was some kind of joke when I heard she was putting on a concert for me," Fuyuhiko said. "I don't know if she was using it as an excuse—"
"No, she definitely was." Hanako smiled in spite of herself. "But music made her really happy, and she wanted to share that with everyone else. That's what the concert was really about."
"It sounds like you understood her, then." He glanced at her with his good eye. "I know it wasn't a lot of time, but the two of you had something good. Something real. That has to count for something."
She didn't miss the undercurrent of grief in his words. She thought back to the minutes before Peko's death. The rawness in Fuyuhiko's voice, like his words were being pulled from somewhere deep-rooted and painful. How long had he been waiting to tell her the truth?
"Do you want to talk about her? Pekoyama?" She kept her eyes on the board, well aware she was treading on thin ice.
Fuyuhiko was silent for long enough that she considered walking back on her question. After a while, he took a step closer to the board.
"There are no photographs of her on here."
"I guess Saionji didn't want…" She stopped, tried again. "I know Koizumi took at least one of her. I don't know where it would be, though."
"Saionji might've burned it." His jaw twitched the way it did when he was holding back a spiteful comment.
"You know—"
"It's fine." He turned away from the board. "It's not like I need a memento or some shit. There's plenty of stuff back home. I'll give her a proper funeral when we're back in Japan."
"When," she repeated as he stalked towards the kitchen.
"I'm not dying here. Tanaka was right. If Monokuma or anyone else is gonna try to kill me, he's gonna have to try a hell of a lot harder than he has already."
Hanako drifted towards the kitchen and leaned against the doorway. She decided not to mention that both of his brushes with death had been his own fault. He probably already understood.
"Ibuki was working on this project before everything," she said. "She got this idea that everyone should have their own theme song or something. I only heard the one she wrote for Nanami, but it actually sounded like her. Like her essence or whatever. I have no idea how she did it."
Fuyuhiko began heating up the kettle. "She write one for you?"
"I don't know. There might be notes on it in her cottage. She would get really frantic about writing things down sometimes, like it would just disappear if she didn't. I don't know if you ever saw the inside of her place, but it was a fucking mess." Her voice wavered on what might have been a laugh or a sob.
He set out a mug and put some tea leaves in a strainer, each movement deliberate and methodical. "Peko used to have these really intense, focused periods. Usually when she was training. She's always been good at hiding her feelings, but I could tell when she was training that there was nothing to hide. She was just calm. I know it was never her choice, using the sword, but I think it might have…" The fingers of his empty hand trembled.
"It's easy, when you're good at something," Hanako said. "It's safe, in a way."
"Yeah." His hand curled into a loose fist. "I found her once in the garden with that same focus. She had some food in her palm, was trying to get the squirrels to come take it. She liked fluffy animals a lot, but they didn't like her. The dogs wouldn't come near her. I thought maybe she'd get a chance to pet Tanaka's hamsters, but it never happened."
She didn't know what to say to that. It had been hard enough losing Ibuki after a few weeks of knowing her. She couldn't imagine having a lifetime of what ifs between them.
The kettle reached a boil. Fuyuhiko reached for another mug. "Want one?"
"I'm fine." She crossed her arms. Water was hard enough to keep down these days. "Look, I know it's not much, but at least you still have memories of her. They took our school memories, but they didn't take everything."
Fuyuhiko's shoulders rose in a slow, measured breath. He began pouring the water over the tea leaves. "Souda wants to tie up Komaeda tonight."
"I heard," she said, half-grateful for the change in subject.
"Not much more than a one-person job, in my opinion, but he wants most of the group to be involved. Nanami lures him into the hotel lobby, Owari holds him down, we get the ropes on him, done."
"Did Souda assign himself as Team Captain or something?"
He snorted. "Something like that." His expression sobered. "He said you and I could take care of the interrogation, if it comes to that."
"That's probably because I told him I wanted to beat Komaeda up. What would we be trying to get out of him, though?"
"I think he knows something about the Future Foundation that he's not letting on," he said, idly twirling the mug on the counter. "Whatever he found in that file could be a step closer to getting off the island."
"You think whatever he knows would be worth…?"
Fuyuhiko finally looked at her. "Forget what Souda said. You don't need to help me with the interrogation."
She let out a huff. "I didn't say I wasn't game for it."
"You ever tortured someone before?"
"I stab people with needles for a living."
"You know it's not the same."
Her response died in her throat. She didn't know, not really, but something in Fuyuhiko's voice told her that he did.
"Still, that doesn't mean I wouldn't be willing to help," she said. "You don't have to keep punishing yourself."
"That's not what I'm doing. It's like I said earlier. If we want to win this thing, we're gonna have to push a little harder. This just happens to be part of my skillset."
"Still. Doesn't mean you have to do it alone."
He stopped spinning his mug and fell still, staring at a spot on the floor. Some of the tension on his face melted away.
"You're right. I don't."
Just standing and talking in the kitchen left her a little winded. Hanako went back to her cottage and scrolled through her mp3 player until she dozed off.
A loud bang woke her in the middle of the night, and her thoughts immediately jolted to Nekomaru, the Funhouse, the pillar, blue oil like blood—
Something roared outside. The room shook.
Hanako sat up, swaying with dizziness, her breaths coming fast and frantic. She ripped off her headphones and looked around. She was in her cottage, not the Funhouse. There was moonlight illuminating the room, but it was tinged with orange.
Still hazy with sleep, she stood up and nearly keeled over on her way to the door. She shoved her feet into her shoes and stumbled outside. A sharp, unpleasant scent stung her nose. She turned towards the source of the orange light, in the direction of the hotel, and hurried down the walkway. When she turned the corner, she froze.
The hotel was on fire.
Smoke billowed in sheets out of the left wall, glittering flames reflecting off the pool, which had been littered with pieces of debris and ash.
The hotel was on fucking fire.
"Oh, fuck." Hanako stumbled towards the building. The others had planned on capturing Nagito inside the hotel. Were they still inside now?
The doors in the entryway had been pushed wide open with the force of the explosion. The interior was hazy with smoke, but she could see figures inside. She pulled her shirt over her mouth and nose and ducked inside.
Hajime and Chiaki were the first to become visible in the gloom, staggering together towards the entrance. Hajime noticed her first and waved her away from the interior of the building. Hanako hesitated, watering eyes darting in search of the others, and he grabbed her arm and pulled her outside.
Even with her shirt covering her face, her next breath made her double over in a coughing fit. The others were in a similar state, Hajime with his hands braced on his knees and Chiaki kneeling with her sleeve pressed against her mouth. Hanako crawled to the edge of the pool and retched.
She wiped her mouth and turned to see Akane supporting Sonia as they stumbled outside. Fuyuhiko followed a moment later, half-dragging Kazuichi by the back of his jumpsuit.
"What the fuck," she wheezed, forcing her stinging eyes open so she could make sure they were all okay.
A seventh figure emerged from the hotel, pale hair flecked gray with soot. Nagito bent double, chest heaving with coughs, but when he straightened, Hanako realized he was laughing, too.
Mikan, giggling until her cheeks were red, her throat marked with small, crescent-shaped welts.
Rage flooded her veins, but her limbs weren't steady enough to move her more than a few inches off the ground.
"Truly, these fireworks are a befitting spectacle." With the glow of the flames behind him illuminating the madness in his eyes, Nagito looked less human and more like a vengeful spirit. "The beginning of the end of Jabberwock Island!"
"Komaeda, what is this?" Hajime asked hoarsely.
"I'm putting an end to this killing game. The bomb I set off just now was only a little demonstration."
"What kind of demonstration?" Fuyuhiko growled.
"I've hidden a large number of bombs somewhere on the island. I've set them to go off in two days at noon. The force would be enough to wipe this entire place off the map," Nagito said with a smile. Hanako was reminded of the night of Byakuya's party, the first time she'd seen that feverish anticipation in his eyes.
Even after the trial, after he'd broken down in front of them all, she'd never imagined he would be capable of something like this.
"Why the fuck would you want to blow us all up?" Hanako asked, trying to raise herself from a kneeling position and swaying on the spot. "How does that achieve hope or whatever?"
Nagito's smile vanished. "There's no hope in a place like this. But I suppose while we're still playing the game, I should give you all a small chance. So, how about this? If the traitor comes forward and reveals themselves in the next two days, I'll deactivate the bombs."
"Wait a moment." Sonia straightened. She still managed to look poised and capable with pieces of ash in her hair and soot streaked on her skin. "I must ask Monokuma a question."
"Right here." Monokuma waddled into view. "Man, Komaeda, you really know how to put on a show. Almost makes up for the fact that you're kind of stealing my thunder."
"Monokuma, you established earlier that there would be a two-person limit for each blackened," Sonia said, hands clasped together. "If Komaeda were to detonate these explosives and kill everyone, that would be violation of the rules, would it not?"
Monokuma tapped his chin. "That is true. And you all know how much of a stickler I am for the rules."
Komaeda tilted his head. "But I haven't killed anyone yet. You can't punish someone for simply saying they're going to violate the rules, can you?"
"That's such a bullshit loophole," Hanako said.
"No, no, I'm going to have to rule in Komaeda's favor this time." Monokuma patted down imaginary pockets. "Drat, it's times like these that I wish I brought my gavel around. At any rate, see you all in two days. Or not." He skipped out of view.
"Well, it seems that's settled." Nagito smiled pleasantly, like they were just discussing what to have for dinner. "I'll be waiting for the traitor to come forward. Bye, now."
He left the ruins of the hotel behind, hands in his pockets. Akane growled as he walked past, but no one stopped him.
The fire was already beginning to burn itself out. Hanako watched more flakes of ash drift into the pool.
"We have to—" Kazuichi interrupted himself with a coughing fit. "We have to deal with this, right, guys?" He looked at each of them in turn, eyes glittering with desperation. "Can someone just come forward, please?"
They all exchanged tentative glances. Hanako sighed and closed her eyes. She'd tried so hard disregard the idea of a traitor in their group, and Nagito had all but put a gun to their heads and forced them to confront the issue.
"Look," she said, "we don't even know if the traitor is still alive. Or if they ever existed in the first place. Komaeda obviously doesn't know who it is. He just wants a confession. So—"
"No," Hajime said, the word hard and solid like a stone.
Hanako braced herself and locked eyes with him. "We don't have a choice. Komaeda has all the cards here. We have to give him what he wants."
"Wait." Kazuichi blinked rapidly. "Yukimura, are you the traitor?"
She tried not to flinch. "If it makes it easier to turn me in, then sure."
Hajime's hands balled into fists. "We're not doing that. We're not sacrificing anyone."
"I'm not saying that. I just…" She looked away. Was it the smoke that was making her eyes sting so badly?
"I agree with Hinata," Sonia said. "We should not capitulate to Komaeda's demands. We still have time to find a way to resolve this peacefully."
Kazuichi scratched the back of his neck, his eyes darting from Sonia to Hanako to Hajime. "I guess we still have a couple days, right?"
"That's right. We have time." Chiaki stood, her expression falling as she glanced towards the hotel. "Maybe we should clean ourselves up and get some rest. We can figure this out in the morning."
The others murmured their agreements. Hanako tried again to push herself to her feet, and looked up to see Hajime offering his hand. She let him help her up.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled.
"It's okay." He let go of her hand but stayed close as they walked back to the cottages. "You know you don't have to keep offering yourself up, right? There's nothing for you to make up for."
That wasn't true. She'd let Ibuki and Hiyoko die. She'd done nothing in the Funhouse, and Nekomaru and Gundham had sacrificed themselves instead. If they needed another killing to survive this, shouldn't it be someone who wasn't going to live long anyway?
Hajime nudged her arm, and when she looked into his eyes, she remembered what she'd said to him after the last trial.
"I'm panicking," she said quietly.
"I don't blame you," he said. "But we'll figure this out, okay?"
She held his gaze for a long moment. "Okay."
This chapter is titled after Ready to Let Go by Cage the Elephant. We're getting close to the end folks :)
