[Free Time] || The Tower || [OPEN]
As always — as usual, even — sleep comes difficult the night after the trial. The execution this time hadn’t been particularly graphic, but the picture of Ai’s face that drifted out of the wings after everything was over… she had looked scared, and that’s what had haunted the front of his mind as he tried to get any small scrap of rest.
…Had Ai really thought dying was just as valid of an escape? It didn’t add up… she had hidden the bag with Etsuko’s clothes in it in a place she thought it wouldn’t have been found, she had run the risk of them not figuring it out with the complicated scheme, and… and that face, in the picture… It hadn’t been the face of someone prepared to die. At least, not like that.
But… then again, it’s hard making anything add up in his head right now, with how many thoughts are swirling around on top of each other up there. He had trusted Banri, and… Banri had killed someone, overwhelmed by his own demons. He had trusted Ai, and Ai had killed someone, ostensibly in the name of protecting everybody. Next time— next time, will it be someone he trusts, again? Or… or even worse… what if, by some awful, unbelievable circumstance… what if he ends up hurting someone that trusts him?
For a moment, as they all silently ascend the stairs, their number halved from the start their confinement, Junpei thinks he understands a little — just a tiny, tiny scrap — of what Oten must have been feeling.
As the next floor (the final floor) comes into view and bathes them all in light, however… there’s suddenly no room to think about anything else.
Windows… there are really, really windows! It’s been so long since he saw the outside world that he had almost forgotten that there was one beyond the prison, and before he can stop himself he’s walking over to the window, pressing a hand against the transparant barrier and drinking in the view like it’ll disappear if he doesn’t get it all at once. It’s not much of a view, though… there’s the yard, and an unfamiliar area beyond that… it looks abandoned. It doesn’t even look guarded. And… and there’s definitely nobody breaking down the doors to try and rescue them, either.
It’s with those two words that he comes to a realization, and fear grips tight around his heart. If… if something did happen, then… Manami, Sachiko, Yuki, Chiyo—
He turns away from the window, leaning back against it as if hoping he’ll fall through somehow, and covers his mouth with a shaking hand. If something happened… who knows if they’re okay? If this is happening in here, what’s happening out there…?!
"I…I have to get out of here…" he mumbles against his hand, almost unaware of someone approaching until it’s too late. Blue eyes fixate on them, wide and wary and… lost, and he keeps quiet, waiting for them to speak.
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