✧ Melt ✧ OPEN
The mood had grown heavier on the mountain. With classmates dying one after the next, Sekai had not expected anything different. Perhaps some here had managed to hold onto hope—perhaps there were still survivors who thought they might all escape one day, envisioning a life outside of Monokuma’s game—but Sekai walked with his head down, dragging his feet as he passed the rooms that had become so familiar to them all.
“Gloomier and gloomier! Cheer up, Sekai-tan ♪ I’m not getting any younger, y’know! Why don’t we have some fun? You’ll feel better ~ ♪”
“Mm . . .” Sekai gave a half-hearted murmur, glancing around at all the bedroom doors until his eyes found the ski lift. “Okay,” he said, monotonous and defeated. “Let’s go play outside.” The cold was biting out on the mountain; Sekai had not bothered to make any adjustments to his attire, kneeling down in bare legs as he gathered a ball of snow with both hands. Felix sputtered and complained every so often, but he kept the puppeteer company all the same. After two hours outside, Sekai had crafted a snowman. It was large and featureless, missing arms and a face for the time being, but it was halfway decent for his first attempt. Sekai slumped against it, his legs red and raw from the cold, his eyes teary. It seemed that even playing in the snow had failed to make him happy. When the exit door opened, Sekai snapped his head up, wide-eyed. Alone in a bed of snow, he had made himself as vulnerable as one could be in a killing game—the thought was not lost on him. Slowly, Sekai shuffled back behind his snowman and peered around its hefty body to stare at the approaching student.
“H . . . Hello,” he greeted warily, throwing his arms around the snowman as though it would protect him. “Are you . . . going to make something too?”
