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“I’m sorry,” he says for the millionth time.
Some part of me appreciates it, I guess. ‘Sorry’ is more kindness than Kirumi offered Ryoma. ‘Sorry’ definitely wasn’t the word on Kiyo’s tongue when he caved in Angie’s skull or slashed open Tenko’s neck. It’s just that every time he says it, the other part of me remembers why.
Just down the stairs and out of my periphery, the jaws of the hydraulic press gape open patiently. In a few minutes, it’s going to kill me. Kaito’s going to kill me.
I hold back a shudder and gesture toward the notebook tucked under his arm. “There’s one m-more thing,” I rasp, even though there isn’t.
He hands it to me anyway, and I try not to notice how bluish-grey my skin looks as I flip through the pages. The poison roaring through my veins blurs the letters together into an indiscernible sludge of color that swims across the page in nauseating patterns. Hundreds of lines of ink, hundreds of possible futures, hundreds of endings I would never see, but maybe maybe maybe he would.
Somehow, that thought is almost comforting.
Almost.
The colors are making me dizzy; I close the notebook with a tiny cough. Ow—that was a mistake. Something’s wet in my windpipe and a few more reflexive gag-coughs later I’m retching blood and bile all down the metal staircase.
My vision goes black for a minute or so, and I open my eyes to Kaito’s arms around my torso, holding me steady, holding me together, it seems— and my ears are ringing too much to process what he’s saying but I really, really hope that sobbing noise didn’t just come from me—
Cold. Every gasp for breath sends chips of ice into my lungs. It’s so, so cold, and Kaito’s like a furnace.
I slide my eyes closed for just a moment—there’s no risk of passing out with my heart pounding the way it is—and lean my head back against his shoulder, waiting for the agony in my bones to subside to nearly-bearable levels. A prickling numbness, like static, has begun creeping through my arms and legs. They still scream pain at me, but it’s a dulled, deadened pain. The pain of nerves shutting down, apparently. So that’s what it’s like.
My brain starts to register what Kaito’s saying, but it’s nothing new.
“I’m sorry, Kokichi.” A million and one. “I’m sorry.”
“Hh…hey.” I squeeze his arm to get his attention. Or try to, anyway. “’S time.”
He doesn’t respond. Huh, is he shaking, too?
“Kaito?”
“I’m sorry.”
Just stop. “I’m dying, Ka … Kaito. I n-need you to … to finish this.” My blurred gaze falls on the one thing I’ve been trying not to look at. Dead metal mouth of dull grey steel, a few minutes from now and it would be painted bright red—
Kaito shivers. Or I do. “This is … sick, Kokichi,” he says.
“You promised,” I remind him. “You want to s-save Maki, right?”
All of this is her fault.
No, it’s mine. It’s my fault and I deserve every second of it.
“That doesn’t make it any less horrible.”
“Stop s-stating the obvious and—ghk.” I swallow down more burning, foul-tasting blood. “J-just hurry,” I mumble. “Please….”
Kaito’s body is tearing itself apart, too, and the poison can’t have helped matters. Even so, he lifts me off the freezing metal floor with relative ease, carrying me step by step to my death.
I don’t want to say it. Saying it makes it real.
Instead, I whisper it in my thoughts, hiding my face in his chest.
I’m scared.
Step by step. The static in my limbs makes the cold burning in the rest of me all the more acute. I try unsuccessfully not to think of the sound I might still be conscious enough to hear when the machine splinters my skeleton.
I’m so scared.
There’s no room in my head for lies, not with the static creeping up my spine. No room for regrets past the ringing in my ears, though the afterimage of his golden eyes still burns bright in my memory. There is room for pain, though, a pain so vicious and relentless that all the strength I have left is dedicated to keeping my mouth clamped shut so that I can’t say what I want to.
Somebody please help me I don’t want it to hurt anymore I can’t do this I’m scared I’m scared I’m so scared—
Kaito stops walking, and I realize how tightly I’m holding onto his shirt, but I can’t make myself let go.
“Kokichi.”
I won’t cry, not now, not now, I won’t—
“Kaito, please,” I sob.
Kaito kneels down and sets me on the floor again. “Kokichi, I can’t do it.”
My eyes fly open and I seize him by the collar, ignoring the trail of blood dripping down my chin as I snarl, “You promised. You promised, you sick sadist! I am not letting you run away from this!”
He doesn’t answer at first. His expression is soft, pitying.
“Kaito, I swear on my life, if you back out on me, I will crawl out of hell and drag you down with me.” Spots and static slither at the edges of my vision. “Y-you have to. You have to!”
“You didn’t let me finish,” he says, and raises a hand to point at the machine behind me. “I’m not letting you die… in that thing.”
The desperation drains out of me as quickly as it had flared up, and I stare at him.
“The moment I climbed in there, I knew I couldn’t do it,” Kaito says. “It’s too cruel, even for you. Nobody should have to die like that.”
My hands slip off of his collar and I slump against him again, eyes stinging.
I think I know what he’s getting at. The effects of the electrobomb meant the surveillance cameras would be down for a while longer, so, technically, it wouldn’t matter how I died as long as my body was crushed when they turned back on. Kaito could just wait for the poison to do its work before he did his. It didn’t have much longer to go, I could tell.
And still….
The static’s in my skull now; I shake my head lightly but can’t seem to throw it out. “It hurts too much, Kaito,” I whisper. “Please. I just w-want it to stop and you’re th… the only one who can save me.”
Kaito’s arms shift. “I know.”
I open my eyes when I feel his hand … caress my cheek, while the other curves around my head. Realization takes a moment longer to hit.
“It’ll hurt, but only for a second,” he says softly. “Then it’ll be over.”
“You s-say that like you’ve done it before.”
“Astronaut training includes some basic EMT training. I know which way someone’s neck has to bend to sever the brainstem.”
I search his face for signs of hesitance. “You’d r-rather off me … with your bare h-hands than … than push a couple buttons?”
He doesn’t flinch. “I don’t want you to hurt anymore, either.”
Kaito is going to kill me. By poison, by hydraulic press, by breaking my neck—the distinction is as meaningless as asking me what color of bullet to shoot me with. I shouldn’t feel better about this.
Static in my head. Poison in my blood. I’m hurting, I’m bleeding, I’m dying….
And I’m tired.
“I-if you actually have … the balls to do it, th-then….” I nod slowly. “Yeah. This is better.”
Kaito pulls me into a hug then, which isn’t as unwelcome as it is unexpected. I quirk an eyebrow, but I’m not in the mood to object, so I just let my chin rest on his shoulder. Maybe once I would have tossed in a quip about this situation. Something stupid, like Aw, Kaito wants to cuddle with me? How cute! …but even if I’d had the energy, I kind of doubt anything I’d say would be funny.
He takes a deep breath. “Kokichi, I’m—”
“Don’t apologize,” I sigh.
“No, let me say this,” he says. “I’m sorry for everything that happened. And for … this. What’s about to.”
I twitch my shoulders in what I hope passes as a shrug. Weird how I can feel so calm all of a sudden. Must be the poison.
Kaito might be trembling, or maybe it’s just me. “Thank you for doing this. I won’t forget it. And I’m … I’m sorry things can’t be different.”
Kaito is going to kill me. Kaito is going to save Maki, and tomorrow, Kaito is going to play an impossible game and maybe even save everyone else, too. That’s the reason for all of this— I’ll use myself to ruin this killing game.
(It’s one reason. The other reason is probably sound asleep right now, somewhere as soft and safe as he can be in this place, and when the game’s over he’ll smile in a way that makes everything worth it.)
“It’ll be okay,” I tell him.
Kaito withdraws, takes a deep breath, and repositions his hands on my head.
My breath hitches. “Kaito?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, too.”
Deep breaths, eyes closed, the static eating away at my thoughts and the poison eating everything else. I feel the cold metal floor beneath me, the weary rhythm of my heartbeat in my ears, the rough drag of air through my lungs. I feel Kaito’s hands tense up.
And then I don’t feel anything at all.