Chapter 28
She wasn't in Milgram anymore.
But… That wasn't exactly the school either.
Es was in a sort of void, at least it looked like that.
Had she passed out?
"#####! ###ho! Hey!"
Es turned around, feeling dizzy as she saw another person.
"##i… Shiho!"
Her eyes widened as she almost tripped over, running towards the person.
It was… Her.
She was seeing herself… But different?
Why was she running?
Was this a memory or something?
Shizuku woke her up with a desperate look on her face turning into relief.
"Huh-- 005- I mean- Shizuku?"
She was in Shizuku's cell.
Why on Earth was she in her cell?
"Oh, good morning, Shii! Don't move, Kamishiro went to get you some coffee."
She sat up, getting slightly away from her.
"Why am I here?"
Rui walked in.
"Shinonome woke up earlier than usual and found you passed out, Es. He 'told' Shizuku later."
Rui made air quotes as he said that.
He turned to look at Shizuku.
"And the kettle wasn't working. It's broken if I'm not mistaken."
Es sighed in frustration, as she struggled to get up, ignoring Shizuku as the latter adviced her to sit back down.
She hung onto the wall as she turned to Rui.
"Call everyone. We're meeting in the hall."
Rui nodded, a bit confused
"Let's go get Tsukasa, Kamishiro."
They got out of her cell, walking towards Tsukasa's.
Having fell into a somewhat awkward silence, Rui asked.
"Es is your sister, isn't she?"
She nodded with a smile on her face.
"Yeah! She is, I love her so much!"
He hummed, shortly after asking again.
"...And you are aware she's the one that decided who was guilty and innocent, right?"
"Yeah?"
They stopped right outside Tsukasa's cell.
"Therefore making her the one that made Tsukasa guilty. The one that made Shiraishi innocent and then failed to stop the attack on Hanasato. Is that correct?"
Shizuku nodded again.
"I don't agree with everything she's done but…"
Rui glared at her shortly, before Tsukasa called them.
"Ah-! Tsukasa! Are you feeling better?"
Tsukasa didn't even try to get up.
"I don't feel it anymore. Rui, help me up, we need to practice."
Rui sighed, kneeling down in front of him.
"Your arm is basically destroyed, Kasa. I can't let you practice for a show we don't even know we're going to do."
Tsukasa immediately shook his head.
"Nonsense, I just need to get up and we're going to continue making the best shows Phoenix Wonderland has seen."
He declared, moving his healthy arm abruptly as he spoke.
"Nene and Emu hate us. Plus, you need to heal that arm of yours properly and get out of here."
Shizuku awkwardly chimed in.
"Otori? I don't know her that well, but she doesn't seem like one that'd hate you two…"
Es yelled through the speakers.
"Alright listen up! I want all of you in the prison's kitchen in 5 minutes."
Shizuku looked outside, Rui sighed.
"Come on, Tsukasa."
The two quickly linked hands with each other, Tsukasa grunting as he stood up.
Shizuku, Tsukasa and Rui walked out.
Honami was already in the kitchen when Es kicked the door down.
"Where in the fuck is this-"
Honami almost dropped whatever she was making.
"Ah! Shih--- Es?!"
Es walked furiously towards the tea kettle.
It was broken.
"For fuck's sake."
She ran out of the room and Honami heard her yell something into the prison's speakers, only to come back later.
"Good morning, 007."
Honami waved at her, not really knowing what to say.
"O-oh… By the way, the kettle isn't---
She stopped as Es held up her hand.
"I know."
Honami looked at her other hand.
"Well, yeah… That's because you-"
Suddenly, Tsukasa kicked the door open, Rui, Shizuku and Ichika following behind him.
"Hey- uhh… What happened here?"
Es turned to look at them as Akito ran in.
"Where are the others?"
Es pinched the bridge of her nose, leaning into the nearest wall.
"Sorry I'm late!"
An opened the door, Akito quickly jumped out of the way.
"Akito-"
They looked at each other, but before An could say anything else, Es started speaking.
"008, 002 and 010 aren't here… Well fuck it.
Who broke it."
Everyone stayed silent, some in surprise, some not knowing what to say.
"I'm not mad. I just want to know."
Shizuku raised her hand.
"I did, Shii… I broke it."
Es shook her head.
"No… No you didn't. 001?"
She pointed at Tsukasa.
"Don't look at me! …Look at Rui."
"What?! I didn't break it!"
Rui glared at him.
"Huh… That's weird. How'd you even know it was broken?"
The other prisoners watched in complete and utter confusion.
"Because it's sitting right in front of us and it's BROKEN."
"SUSPICIOUS!"
Rui yelled.
"NO, IT'S NOT!"
While the two argued, Honami tapped on Es' shoulder from behind.
"If it matters… Probably not but… Ichika was the last one to use it."
Es turned to look at her.
"Liar! I don't even drink that crap!"
Es cut the argument before it could start.
"Oh really? Then what were you doing by the coffee cart earlier?"
"I use the wooden stirrers to tune my guitar, everyone knows that, Honami!"
Honami was taken aback by the statement.
"That's not how you tune a guitar- How'd you even do that with a wooden stirrer-"
Shizuku interrupted the arguments between Tsukasa and Rui and Ichika and Honami.
"Okay, let's not fight! I broke it, let me pay for it, Shii."
Es just wondered where exactly Shizuku would get the money from when she was in prison for murder, before An stopped that train of thought from her mind by whispering to her.
"Es… Akito's been awfully quiet."
Akito furiously scribbled a "REALLY?!" while glaring at her, followed by a "MY THROAT IS FUCKED. OF COURSE I'M QUIET, AN"
Es carefully sneaked out of the room, seeing Mizuki, Mafuyu and Minori outside.
"...So… Who broke it…?"
Mizuki asked, laughing nervously as they heard yelling from the prison's kitchen.
"I did. I broke it. It burned my hand so I punched it."
While Ena and Kanade went outside, and while the others sorted some things out, Fuuta sat on the Tenmas' bright ass couch.
He grabbed his phone, about to do something that had been on his mind for a while.
Be it a week or 3 years.
His fingers hesitantly typed on his phone's keyboard.
He had a moment of full doubt, seeing his own name typed out in the Twitter search bar.
It sounded dumb. It probably was, he'd done that 3 years ago with no problem.
But that was before Milgram.
Did he really need to know what his old friends said of him, after all that time?
He'd been avoiding them so far, ever since that day where Kazui luckily found him.
Fuuta took a deep breath.
"Fuck it…"
There was no going back as he saw posts about him dating back to 3 years ago. Specifically, from the one person he'd bumped into.
"I saw Fuuta on the street today."
Some others had responded to them.
"No shot! I thought he was dead?"
Understandable enough.
"What was he doing?"
Another reply asked.
"He was taking a walk, I think. He had an eyepatch lol"
Fuuta scoffed as he read that.
"An eyepatch? Like a pirate eyepatch??"
"No, you dumbass! Like a medical eyepatch or smth. Plus he looked like shit, stuttered like an idiot and everything, his dad or whatever had to pick him up and he looked scared asf."
"But it's been less than a year? Did his house blow up or something??"
"Man idfk"
A more recent tweet, from months ago popped up next.
"Anyone else wonder what Fuuta's up to these days?"
Fuuta seriously considered logging onto his old account, reply to that saying "I live, bitches" and log out to see the chaos from an anonymous standpoint for exactly 0,3 seconds.
There was no way in hell Fuuta would actually do that.
Why was he still in that house in the first place? Es already talked to that new guard, Ena was with that Kanade girl, he was literally just sitting on the couch.
So he just left.
He went home and just messaged Ena about it.
But… Fuuta had been wanting to try something for the last week.
"Fuuuutaaaaa~~~"
He played the sound of Vflower's on his computer before he went to change his eyepatch again.
That day, Kajiyama Fuuta had, for some random reason, decided to become a Vocaloid producer.
Now, Fuuta, of course, he was a Twitter user, not a musician… Unless Milgram's songs counted.
They definitely counted… right?
He face slapped, groaning as he made turns in his chair.
"Why the fuck did my non existent musical career have to start with that weird prison of all places…
Ah screw that… I can try writing lyrics. Why not…"
Fuuta was called by Mikoto. At 4 am in the morning on a Monday.
"Mikoto?! What are you doing up?!"
Mikoto did not answer the question.
"Dude break your windows, I swear I'm coming over right now-"
He hung up as Fuuta just stared into nothingness, dumbfounded, flabbergasted even at his friend's statement.
He was startled by loud tapping on his window, immediately knowing who it was.
He opened his window to let Mikoto in.
"Mikoto. What the fuck."
Mikoto held his phone up to Fuuta's face.
"This you, my guy?"
"Ah shit." Fuuta thought to himself as he saw his own anonymous Twitter account that he'd purposely hid from everyone being shown directly to his face.
"...Mikoto."
Mikoto lowered the phone and put it on a nearby table.
"Yeeeees, my dear FuutaP?"
Fuuta already hated every single moment of this.
"Can I trust you won't tell a soul I use Vocaloid?"
To be completely honest, Fuuta knew the answer to his own question already.
Mikoto would tell everyone.
"Yeah!
…For a price."
Goddammit.
"...You want to use it to say "You are my friend, Mikoto"? Really?"
Fuuta didn't realise until that moment that Mikoto was recording.
"Thanks for the blackmail FuutaP!! Bye!!"
Mikoto threw himself off the open window, leaving him in utter confusion.
"What."