who are you?
liarsking
He’s still… adjusting, as it were. To being able to breathe again. To being alive. To having a body that hasn’t been reduced to paste. It feels so unreal, unnatural, despite him having lived this way before. Maybe it’s because he knows it shouldn’t be happening? Waking up in a strange place is certainly disorienting as well, but it’s not a new experience, and nothing like realizing he’s not dead after all. Not when he can still remember dying.
He tries to shake that out of his head for the time being, though. Now’s not the time to be focusing on that. He needs to inspect his new surroundings. He’d already thoroughly examined his apartment - much nicer than any place he’d ever lived before, with an added bonus of a cool mask and a bottle of his favorite soda. He’s set out to explore the rest of the city, but a voice calling his name stops him before he gets too far.
“Saihara-chan…?”
He’s surprised Saihara would even want to talk to him, after everything he’s done. Even if the plan he’d died for had failed… there’s so many other things to dislike or even hate him for. (He has no way of knowing if his plan succeeded or not, and in truth he would have preferred to speak to Momota first to hear it from him, but beggars can’t be choosers.)
“You’re here too, huh? Congratulations!”
Such casual address. Voice clear as day, recognizable to Shuuichi from anywhere with the distinct lilting tone that he used typically. And as he stops in place, as Ouma turns, Shuuichi’s left staring openly at him, as if he’s seen a ghost. Because he practically has. Shuuichi knows what he saw before -- knows that Ouma had been crushed with absolutely no hope of having survived it. But there’s no mistaking the healthy (albeit pallor) flush to his cheeks, the warmth in his skin, and the liveliness of eyes that he never thought he’d see again.
This can’t be right. None of this can be right. Shuuichi must be dreaming all of this... Though it’d be anyone’s guess why he’d dream about Ouma of all things. It’s simply, quite frankly, a flat-out impossibility that Ouma could exist now in the same space as him, not after what happened to him. Especially given the way that he’s acting, as if nothing happened at all... Surely this is something that Shuuichi will wake up from, at any moment.
But what if it’s not? What if...he’s really...?
...maybe this is a risk that Shuuichi should seriously consider, before just brushing it off. Maybe...
...his fingers clench. His jaw clenches. His chest does, too, as he faces the man who’d hurt them, and repeatedly at that, and the one who could very well be working underneath Enoshima for the sake of despair. The man who acted as though such a fiasco never occurred, as if his real identity had never been discovered... Shuuichi knows one thing for sure.
Real or not, he can’t trust Ouma.
“...Save it.” Shuuichi’s voice is tight and firm. “What are you doing here? Is this another trick? Like always?”
Maybe Ouma wasn’t the mastermind, but he can’t rule anything else out.
