Life is Cruel

Chapter 43

[Song: Toxic - Sofia Karlberg (Cover)]

A/N: okay so i'mma post this first to feed my starving readers, or what's left of you guys anyways.

Omfg i just accidentally stumbled upon a kiss scene i wrote and i want to die from embarrassment. I read one sentence and was just like 'I'm done'

oh and i know this is sudden (if you've only started/caught up to this story now) but i'm going to be referring to the characters by their surnames. Not during dialogue but with description so yea, sorry about the (to new/recent readers at least) random change, but I'm more comfortable with that, and it'd just feel weird/awkward the other way.

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Glass was scattered across the room. Students screams could be heard faintly. An unsettling laugh, cries, it all sounded the same in the moment.  The floor seemed to rumble as they ran, crowding the doors to escape. It was basically a stampede.

Despite the chaos, Saihara seemed so at peace. If you ignored the hole in his head and the blood that is.  

Ouma lied on the ground, Saihara unresponsive. He looked down at the teen in his arms. It didn't seem real. It had to be a dream, right? 

"Hey.... Wake up already..." He pleaded, lightly shaking the other. No answer. 

"Hey. Stop joking around. It isn't funny." This time his voice sounded more desperate. Hands shaking, he tugged on Saihara's shirt with much more force.

How did this happen? He was sure he'd been careful, so how did he get one of the few people who actually cared about him caught up in all this? It seemed like the answer was right there, but he couldn't be sure of what was true and just the hallucinations and delusions, anymore.

"Sad isn't it?"

Footsteps slowly but surely approaching, growing louder, and the atmosphere tenser as they got closer. It was hilarious just how small and powerless he felt now.

Ouma turned to see the source of the voice, hoping his suspicions weren't correct. Maybe this was just another terrible illusion. "To have the one you love taken from you. It's a heartbreaking thing." 

There she stood, gun in hand and smile as sweet as ever—Akamatsu Kaede. The tone of her  voice unsettlingly calm, her cold eyes bore into the two. "Right, Kokichi?" 

Well shit, guess he was right after all. Lucky him, huh. 

"What? What do you..." Ouma looked up at her as she stood by the doorway, it was nearly comical—the power dynamic had completely switched. The object of Saihara's affections now on the ground while his pursuer stared down. She almost towered over him now.

He looked like nothing from here. He was more like a filthy rodent now. Or a leech, hanging on to Saihara for dear life, as if he hadn't been the person Saihara would constantly look at and adore.

He looked so pathetic now. As if he was the one crushing on Saihara. As if she was the winner here...

As if she had never been the one hoping, praying, crying every night; just wishing Saihara would be hers. Wondering what Saihara saw in the other. Just what was it that made him so blindly loyal and caring toward that guy.

What did he have that she didn't? Was it looks? Akamatsu was almost blindingly beautiful. Was it brains? She was told by several other she was one of the most clever people they had ever met.