i had this idea from that 'do i look like your girlfriend?' audio on tiktok......
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it had been about 2 months since the end of danganronpa, maki and himiko had already gotten jobs for themselves, maki being a nanny for a rich family and himiko pursuing her passion for magic, doing street performances that racked a surprising amount of money and got her featured on tv multiple times.
they also ended up getting together, too. shuichi was happy for them.
shuichi was being rather useless, more or less rotting in his bed (finally, he bought his own instead of having to share with himiko and maki..) and contemplating. detective work wouldn't do. he couldn't handle seeing murder scenes again, not yet at least.
so he was on the hunt for a job now, as maki had been fed up of shuichi practically being a housewife (except for the fact that he wasn't married, didn't have children to take care of, and didn't do any chores besides his own.), and had told him to get his shit together, because it was difficult for all of them to cope, but that didn't mean shuichi gets the right to give up on trying to recover.
he reasoned that she was right, and he had finally gone outside of their little apartment. they lived in a cozy town that looked straight out of a 90's movie, it had a big market with fruit stands and all.
shuichi thought it would be the best idea to go to the market and see if anyone could provide him with some work.
so he did.
he was aimlessly walking around now, sort of dissociating a little bit, glancing to his right, then to his left, too nervous to actually go up to any of the vendors and ask.
it was cold, shuichi sighed and his breath came out condendensated, a white vapor that disappeared a few seconds later. he was wearing a coat, gloves, loafers, earmuffs, the whole shtick really.
the air was foggy and it was slightly windy, shuichi's nose scrunched a bit as he shivered a tiny bit.
saihara reached the center of the market square, it was open and circular with a fountain in the center. there weren't many people there, shuichi observed.
his eyes vaguely glanced at each person, an old man in his late 40's wearing a paper boy hat and smoking a cigarette, a young businesswoman speaking on the phone, seemingly to her boss, a boy, seemingly in his late teens, with hair as white and fluffy as snow and eyes as cold as ice- wait, kiibo?
shuichi's jaw dropped for a minute, he thought he was hallucinating and he blinked multiple times, but the boy didn't go away. he looked exactly like kiibo, just.. a human..
he even had scars on his face, 2 lines that connected from his eyes all the way to his jaw. they were hardly noticeable. he was wearing a pair of gloves and a scarf that sat too high on his face. a long sleeved black turtleneck shirt underneath his dark brown leather coat and black pants that looked too fancy to be jeans, perhaps dress pants.
he seemed to be fumbling with something, his gaze was so similar- no, it was absolutely identical to the gaze kiibo had when he was frustrated..
shuichi trembled a bit, and he nearly ran over, climbing down the small steps into the round center area that lead to the fountain.
the boy sighed softly, his voice was audible in that sigh. it was absolutely identical to kiibo, the same exasperated sigh he'd give when kokichi was bothering him, and he'd follow up with a 'why are you sighing? robots don't breathe!'.
the boy was seemingly alone, still fumbling with that, what was it? his button? shuichi got a bit closer. it was in fact the button on his coat.
shuichi had no idea how to approach him, he felt sick to his stomach, he wasn't sure how else he should feel.
