She hadn't been able to make it to the toilet fast enough and took the first option available. She hadn't had the forethought to hold her hair back and now there were a few gross strands clinging to the side of her face. She didn't think about that. She was thinking about how the tight, desperate grasp on the sink was the only thing holding her up right and that she could barely see what was in front of her through the haze of tears.
Fuck. She hated crying. It had been years since she'd done so, since she'd needed to. She'd a motto, "No regrets, no tears." Had promised that she wouldn't do anything that she didn't enjoy, not anymore.
God, she was stupid, wasn't she?
It took several deep breaths, deep gasping breaths that almost had her hyperventilating, but she pulled herself together enough to hobble her way to the door and lock it. She could still feel the burn between her legs, the hands on her skin, his hot breath on her ear, "Do you remember how it felt to be choked, Miu?"
Miu closed her eyes, still feeling the hot sting of tears and hating it, hating it, hating it. Why was there always some asshole trying to ruin her good time? And why did they always bring up…
She wanted to scream, but all that came out was a sob instead. She hoped that he was gone. She never wanted to see his face again, but if he wasn't… the door was locked. She could stay in this bathroom all night if that's what it took. All day. Long enough for hotel staff to come and kick her out if that's what it took. Anything so that she wouldn't have to be alone with that prick anymore.
She pushed her hair from her face, only then noticing the mess that she had accidentally left there and frowning at it. God, it was so disgusting. She needed a shower, but didn't think she could walk the ten steps that it would take to get her there. Instead, she curled up on the bathroom floor and just sobbed harder.
It should have been fine. She should have been fine. She was a gorgeous girl genius. She was a fucking star! But all anyone wanted to talk about was "Do you remember how it felt to die?" "Hey, can I choke you?" "How do you feel about rope?"
How the fuck did they think she felt about it? How the fuck would they feel?
Why did they think it was okay to bring up her death every other second?
Fuck them! Fuck Team Danganronpa! The royalties didn't pay enough to put up with this shit. Not at all. Not even close.
She could still feel the throbbing at her core and it made her think she might be sick again. It felt good… at first. Before he decided to put a hand on her throat just to see how she'd react. Before he'd laughed at her panic and tried to hold her down.
"Don't be that way, Miu. It's just a little callback."
Yeah, a callback to her fucking death!
Miu pushed herself up and this time she made it to the toilet. Crawling on her hands and knees, but she made it. She even managed to remember to push her hair back this time. Not that it changed the mess that she'd already gotten on herself, but…
Miu pressed her head to the cold tiles of the floor as she curled up again. She hated how aware of her body she was at this moment. She felt her skin burning everywhere that he had touched her. She could remember what he fucking smelled like. She didn't think she'd be able to escape the memory of his cologne if someone paid her to invent a machine to wipe her own memory.
She wished that she had her phone with her, but she'd tossed it somewhere on the bed and hadn't grabbed it when she'd run off to hide in the bathroom. She lifted her head slightly and let smack back down, punishing herself for being so stupid. She should know better. Danganronpa fans were fucking insane. How could they not be? Even the ones that seemed normal were always so… "Isn't this what you wanted? You always talked about this kind of thing in the game, right?"
She smacked her head against the floor again, trying to get the thoughts out of her head. Go away. Go away! Think of anything else. Anything else, damnit!
It didn't work. All that happened was that tears ended up waterfalling from her eyes again. At least this time she was quiet, only her heavy, panting breaths echoing against the tiles back at her.
A loud bang at the made her freeze, her entire body clenched as a sob nearly broke free from her lips. She hastily pressed a hand to her mouth, suddenly desperately afraid to make a sound.
The door was locked. The door was locked. She was safe here. She had to be safe. She was safe, she was safe, she safe--
"Hey, tits for brains! You in there?"
It was Kokichi.
Just Kokichi.
Her body didn't untense. She squeezed her eyes closed, pressed her hand tighter to her mouth, and hoped that he would go away. She didn't need him seeing her like this.
It had been awkward at first, dealing with each other after the game. How do you look at the person responsible for your death, the person that you tried to killed, and say sorry? How do you accept that apology? Any apology?
You didn't, in Miu's mind. And he must have felt the same because neither of them had apologized to each other. But they had the same way of coping with things. They got drunk, got loud, and stood under as many bright lights as possible. Fuck hiding her shame like it was a dirty secret, everyone already knew what she was like! So she would be Miu fucking Iroma and screw anyone that tried to make her be otherwise!
So she kept running into him at the bars and parties and clubs. Only it wasn't just him that she kept running into, it was also that godfreak. Running into her in bathrooms, catching her necking behind clubs or drinking in VIP areas. Miu didn't believe in fate, but if they were going to keep ending up in the same places, it just made sense to start going out together, didn't it? No need to apologize when you shotgun into someone's mouth and put your tongue down their throat three minutes later.
It was better than an apology, it was a continuation. They could just skip over the part where they felt bad and get back to insulting each other and making stupid jokes and not walking on eggshells. And Angie was there, so they never forgot they were in the present instead of the killing game like she sometimes did when Kiibo was with her.
Angie hadn't been her friend. Angie never would have been her friend. She was a god freak that tried to rope them all into a cult and got her religion loving head bashed in. They weren't anything to each other. Or they hadn't been. Now she was someone to pass lipstick between in the bathroom, someone to watch her back when she wanted to get frisky in an alley behind the club because she was too horny not to pick up a stranger, but too paranoid to be in a room alone with them.
Were they friends now? Fuck if Miu knew! All she knew was that whatever they were, Angie was another unwanted voice at the bathroom door.
"You should answer or we'll start to get worried, Miu!"
Yeah, she wouldn't be doing that. She probably sounded like shit from all the heavy crying she'd been doing. Probably looked and smelled like it too. She was pathetic wasn't she?
The thought made her curl up more.
"He's not here anymore," Angie said, voice softer. "If that's what you're worried about."
"Do we need to key his car or something?" Kokichi asked. "Did you fall asleep in there?"
Miu stayed quiet, just hoping that they'd go away. In the morning… in the morning she swore she would be able to put all this behind her. To pretend that she didn't feel anything and he had just been a bad lay. Just someone that couldn't satisfy her instead of someone that made her feel disgusting and used and… Fuck!
Why was everyone trying to make her a victim? The killing game, these creeps, did she have any intrinsic value other than the joy derived from her suffering?
"Fuck it, I'm opening the door," Kokichi said.
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Angie asked.
"I'm not going to let her overdose on a bathroom floor."
"You think…"
Miu never heard the end of the statement as the door was suddenly slammed open. He must have picked the locks. She forgot that he could do that.
"Miu?" Angie was at her side immediately, hand on her shoulder. Miu refused to look at her or to uncoil. This was embarrassing, being seen like this.
"Ye-uck!" Kokichi said. He turned on the bathroom sink, likely trying to wash away the mess she'd left there. A moment later she heard the toilet flush, so he must have seen that too.
Kokichi kneeled down on her other side, but she closed her eyes tight and refused to even look at him. "What did he do to you?" His voice was dark, serious. Miu wasn't sure she'd heard him sound this way, so angry and threatening.
"Het hair is a mess," Angie commented, pulling the strands away from her face and likely getting her hands all gross. Her voice, in contrast, was very soft.
She heard the water in the tub turn on next. "That can be dealt with."
God, Miu wished they would just leave. Unfortunately, pretending that they weren't actually there didn't seem to be working.
"Let's get you cleaned up, okay Miu?" Angie tugged at Miu gently and she reluctantly let her body unfurl. Angie pulled her closer and rolled her over, and Miu let the god freak manipulate her body like she was a doll. All the tension had abruptly fled from her limbs and she didn't think she had the energy any longer to move herself.
The shower came roaring to life.
Kokichi walked over to her, kneeling next to her. His hands worked swiftly to divest her of all her jewelry; earrings, necklace, bracelets, rings. Everything was removed and placed into a neat little pile on the bathroom floor.
"Can you get up?" he asked her. "Because we could carry you to the tub, but you might not want that."
Miu closed her eyes again. It bruised something in her to have him looking at her head on this way. She knew that she looked pathetic and the last person that she needed to see her this way…
Angie's arms closed around her in a tight embrace. "Oh Miu, you don't need to do that."
Kokichi reached out to stroke her cheek gently for just a moment, then he smacked her. Not hard, but the force was enough to make her open her eyes in surprise. "Too late to hide from me," he told her. His voice was forceful, but not harsh, not angry. His face was blank. "I've already seen you at your worst, so whatever this is… cut it out already."
Fresh tears came to her eyes. She hated it, but she also couldn't stop it.
He cared about her. He had always cared and she had tried to…
Angie pressed her face into Miu's neck, whispering in such a low tone that she wasn't sure it would carry to Kokichi. "Atua will take care of it. If he did something to you, then Angie promises that he will feel Atua's wrath."
Miu went still. If there was one thing she had learned about Angie, it was that she didn't make idle threats. She meant everything she said, even if she said it in a peculiar way. And Miu was pretty sure that her messed up god wasn't real, so…
"I can move," Miu said, fighting to get out of Angie's arms. It felt too warm, too… Too…
Why would she care? Why would they care? Why? Why would they…
Miu pushed herself to her knees. Kokichi's eyes were on her, intense and focused, the whole time. She couldn't read them. She crawled her way to the tub, Kokichi standing on one side of her and Angie on her knees on the other. They helped her into the tub and she closed her eyes against the shower spray on her face.
Kokichi pulled her face forward and to the side, pressing a makeup remover to her face and methodically cleaning her up. Angie's hands were moving through her hair, trying to rinse off the gross stands, waiting until Kokichi was done to start washing it.
"I want to know what happened," Kokichi said softly. "It'll just piss me off if I have to guess."
"It's stupid," she told him, because that's what she'd been telling herself. It only made sense to say it out loud too.
"You're stupid," he replied. "I didn't ask you if it was stupid. Who cares about that? He could have spilled coffee on you and I'd still say that you should tell me so that I can make his life fucking miserable for two months."
Miu swallowed around the lump in her throat. She wasn't good at accepting gestures of goodwill. They were usually condescending or fake. Not from Kokichi though. He was petty, spiteful. He could and would make a mountain of a molehill for no good reason, and just as easily make a mountain into an anthill.
"Angie will listen to whatever you have to say." With her whispered promise of vengeance still fresh in Miu's mind, she believed her wholeheartedly.
Miu didn't want to say it, but she let her hand wander up to her neck. Instantly, Kokichi's face went dark. She'd ranted on more than one occasion, whenever they were all just drunk enough, about what people said to her. About her. What they asked her.
It wasn't like she was alone in that. Kokichi had nearly had a full blown panic attack when someone tried to hold him or made jokes about crushing him. And Angie couldn't stand being alone, being in the dark, not after what had happened. The spotlight made her feel safer, but it wasn't any less of a stage to self destruct upon than it was for Miu and Kokichi.
"It doesn't matter," Miu told them. "Why should any of it fucking matter? I'm just a fucking sex prop with a DR logo stamped on my damn pussy for all these people care."
"You're not," Kokichi said firmly.
"I might as well be!" she yelled. "It doesn't fucking matter what I do or where I go. All I'll ever be is the bitch who got strangled by her own fucking device."
"No!" Kokichi yelled back at her, tears in his own eyes. "You're more than that you fucking bimbo!"
"No, I'm-"
"So what." Angie's voice cut through both her and Kokichi's yelling and they stopped to stare at her. "So what if you are. Maybe no one out there will see you as anything us, but everyone in here already does. Does that not mean anything?"
Miu deflated, Angie's words taking all the air out of her. "I don't… I don't know."
The water was starting to go cold. She was soaking wet, but at least her hair was clean. She didn't smell like regret and bad decisions anymore. She reached forward to turn the water off.
Angie reached out to turn Miu's head to face her, leaning up to kiss her cheek. "Angie sees you. Whatever they do to us, we'll still have each other. They won't take that. You'll never be alone. You don't have to keep doing this if it hurts."
"I don't know how to do anything else," she admitted.
Kokichi sucked his teeth, reaching into the tub to grab her hand, seeming to pull on it just to steal her attention for himself. "God, I'll fuck you myself if you're that hard up for dick. You don't have to keep trolling for it if it's gonna end up like this."
"You don't even like--"
"Who cares!" he said again, anger exploding out of him. "I'd do it for you! Can you get that through your whore head already?"
Angie takes her other hand. "Miu, we're here for you. It doesn't matter what you need from us or how broken you think you are, we'll do whatever you need us to. We love you."
Kokichi huffs and looks away, but there's a slight redness to his face. He waves his free hand between them. "What she said or whatever."
Miu didn't know what to do with this. The same way she hadn't apologized, she didn't think she would be able to return the sentiment. Not directly, like Angie had. All she could do was squeeze their hands and let a fresh round of tears fill her eyes.
