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it was quiet in mutsuko’s room.
sou didn’t bother to stay around the others— the traitors— for any longer than necessary. the elevator ride was full of quiet sobbing. it only grated his nerves worse than before. ‘who are you really crying over?’ to him, the original ride to the trial room was bad enough, toiling with anger and shoved down mourning he didn’t allow himself to process. no time for that. no room for any of that.
now he had all the time in the world. time he had spent standing in the middle of his room and staring at plants and drawings for several minutes; no, hours, according to maekawa, who had appeared with mutsuko’s keys to hand to him. “you can stay in her room for now, at least until kumada can get your fucking keys back. i’ll totally beat her ass if she doesn’t, i swear to god.”
sou didn’t say anything. he didn’t know how maekawa’s face had twisted with slight pity. he didn’t want to think about her hands, pilfering off of the blonde’s grey corpse. he just took her keys, and whatever he could grab from his room, and locked her door. keeping every memory of her trapped inside with him, safe and sound where nobody else could stomp on them.
he took to drawing for a while; every new blank paper was full of her face, blurry slightly near the edges, in flower fields and kitchens and vegetable gardens, surrounded by terrariums and sewing supplies and soft cottage lighting, and smiling. with skin soft, and tan, and full of stolen life. every new paper filled him with further dread.
it would've been smarter to target him. he immediately jumps to the smartest option, the one that seems more steady, perfect, the same way he does for everything. his appearance, his mannerisms, his temper. it would’ve been smarter, and quicker, and easier. so why did it have to be her. why did they think for even a second that it would work? what could he have possibly done to make them think that would've worked? why was she the one who had to die?
if he had just brought her along, or refused to leave, their plan would've been over. it was just one mistake and it cost his entire world. one mistake he wouldn’t— couldn’t— ever make again.
the thought made him want to vomit. why did they all get to walk scot free, all except for their little savior girl, their personal martyring patron saint. watching her die brought sou no joy. he wasn’t a sadist. he was just a teenager missing his world. god, he missed mutsuko. he ached for her. it felt like a hole had been embedded into his chest, more ‘painful’ than the death ogura had bragged about keeping the blonde girl from.
his mutsuko would’ve rather fought. she would’ve fought. they were just too afraid to fail. luckily, he was there to force that outcome regardless. every celebratory thought, every moment of relief at a trial win, was all overshadowed, drowned out by an endless buzzing, a numb pining.
mutsuko nishiguchi was dead. with her went his artistic future, his future home, his terrariums, his joy, his light. his trust.
he wanted them all gone. that, wasn’t sadism either. that was earned hatred. deserved resentment. they took, and stole, and broke, and now they get to walk around like she was just another failed step in a grand scheme.
sou’s fist crumpled the edge of the paper in his hands, tears welling and blurring his peripherals past what he could push through. he bit his lip. he breathed hard, heavy, long. he was too mature to cry like a pained child, to wail and sob like a boy who lost his only toy. he was too put together. his eyes raised to the ceiling, anger flooding to his fingers as he tried to force the tears back— but they just kept coming.
“i’ll cut you a deal, sou. you stop crying, and you won’t ever have to see me cry either. deal?”
sou covered his mouth, bile rising as the crying furthered, silent and painful, hands trembling uncontrollably. he couldn’t hear her voice. it was just his own, thinking and imagining what she would say. because her corpse was a floor below him, still and motionless and cold. her corpse belonged to this bedroom.
he stood, the chair knocking over with a loud snap and clatter, shaking his head as he stumbled around the room in a semi-blurred rage, the agony mixing with grief, a burning hot upset. he was alone and that was enough. nobody could ever see him this way; it was too much to imagine someone seeing him as weak, emotional, helpless—
they framed him, sou thinks to himself in the midst of clutching his pretty dress, piercing through fabric and leaving distress marks in the soft skirt, swallowing back venom and vomit. they framed him, as if they believed his love was truly that fickle, that weak. like they underestimated him, the way people always do.
his love was used as a crutch to commit murder. he was just too happy by her side, happy thinking about a future where he could do as he loved, with someone he loved. he got too comfortable. he let himself be too messy, too exposed. it wasn’t his fault. it could never be hers. it was the bleeding’s fault.
they just wanted to escape, to be saved, to be alive.
sou would’ve traded every single one of those traitors for mutsuko’s smile in a heartbeat. the smile that would hang in drawings around every room he’d step in for the rest of his life. the smile that nobody else would even dare to speak about, like she was anything more than a corpse. she was dead, and now it was an uncomfortable topic. she was dead, and now her name only brought a stifled, distasteful silence in every room he dared to fucking utter it in.
it was revolting. it made him sick. she was alive once. she had a life, once, a family, a future with him, before they smothered it out of her.
when he finally felt the panic subside, the horror and anguish and misery, he could only sit on her bed, perfectly made and freezing cold from lack of use. he pulled off the flower crown, leaving it hanging around the edge of the bedside table, lying on his back and curling up. he refused to climb under her sheets. he didn’t want to mess up the last thing she had ever done.
it wouldn’t be fair to trample over her memory the way everybody else had.
sou was better. he was so much better.
she knew that too. he was sure of it.