"Ghhhhh..."
"Kyaaaah..."
"Are you two insane? Do you think this is some kind of bar!?"
A little before 'that incident' happened, Mukuro Ikusaba and Koizumi were knocking back drink after drink despite Saionji's frantic attempts to stop them.
"Uwaaah... Saionjiii... I'm so sad..."
"What is it this time...?"
"Not once... not even once did I ever get to tell him I liked him..."
"That's why I told you to say it before it was too late..."
"Every tiiime I tried... that girl would glare at me from the side like she wanted to kill me... how was I supposed to say it..."
Koizumi sniffled as she pointed at Kyoko Kirigiri, who was making the rounds and greeting people all over the venue.
"Then you should've said it when Big Sis Kyoko wasn't around."
"They're always together... what was I supposed to do..."
"Then you should've just left a message."
"Then there'd be evidence..."
"..."
Saionji stared at the tearful, head-hanging Koizumi with a flicker of pity, then grabbed a tissue from beside her.
"Koizumi, quit crying."
"Hic... sob..."
"If you cry at a wedding, it'll bring bad luck. Hurry."
"...Snff."
Saionji was wiping away the tears Koizumi had barely managed to stop when she happened to turn her head—and nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Gulp gulp"
"I-Ikusaba!?"
"Khaaaaahhh..."
Mukuro Ikusaba was chugging straight from the bottle.
"Ikusaba, are you crazy!?"
"I'm gonna drink... drink and dieee..."
"That's it, I'm confiscating the alcohol. Stop drinking."
"Nooooo, I'm gonna finish this... and then diiie..."
"Let go of it! Jeez... why are you freakishly strong!?"
"Kihyaaa..."
"No, wait, why is Koizumi chugging from the bottle now too!?"
"Yeah... let's die... hehe..."
After that, Saionji could do nothing but suffer in an endless hellscape: if she tried to stop Ikusaba, Koizumi started drinking; if she tried to stop Koizumi, Ikusaba started drinking.
"...What are you three doing?"
"Ah, Big Sis Kirigiri!"
"Ki... Kirigiriii? Kirigiriiiiii?"
"Kiririgi? Who's that..."
By then, the two of them were sinking deeper and deeper into drunken ruin, and the moment Kirigiri came over to greet them, they started babbling incoherently.
"Cheating... this is cheating... this wasn't... fair play..."
"I was... behind from the very staaart..."
Kirigiri quietly looked down at the pair of them, then slowly smiled with the composed ease of a victor.
"Alcohol is fine and all, but you should take care of your bodies too... If you ruin yourselves like that, you won't be able to get married, you know?"
"I-I can toooo!?"
"Y-Yeah...!! I'll find a guuuy... way cooler than K... and live happily ever afterrr..."
"That's riiight...!! There are... tons of guys in the world... cooler than K...!! So don't get cocky... you rotten detective bitchhh..."
"Sure. I'm sure you'll both get there someday."
At the mention of K, Kirigiri frowned for just a second, then turned on her heel and muttered under her breath.
"...It's not like you'll spend your whole lives as old maids, right?"
"..."
With that parting shot, Kirigiri disappeared.
"...Let's drink."
"...Yeah."
The two left behind started pouring alcohol down their throats again with dead, hollow eyes, and Saionji couldn't bring herself to stop them anymore.
.
.
.
.
.
"Bleurgh... ueegh..."
"Koizumiii... you okayyy...?"
"Uuugh... I feel... a little better now..."
Because Koizumi had finally hit her limit after all that drinking, I ended up coming to the bathroom with her for a breather—and right now, I was grinding my teeth so hard they might crack.
"An old maid... an old maaaid... seriously... that rotten bitch..."
"I-Ikusabaaa... am I... an old maid? Is that what I am? Reallyyy? Is that why... K..."
"You... you're only one year older... than Kirigiri... idiottt..."
"But stiiill... if things keep going like this... and I really do spend my whole life... as an old maid..."
"..."
The second I heard that, cold sweat started crawling down my body.
I tried to rationalize it away—telling myself I was one year younger than Koizumi, so I was still safe for now—but the unease only kept swelling, thick and ugly.
"...It's not like I'm popular with men anyway..."
"...!"
That one hit me like a knife.
I'd spent years in the Fenrir unit, surrounded by men, but I'd never had anything even remotely resembling romantic contact with one. Hell, I'd barely even had a proper private conversation.
The men all called me Fenrir's mad dog. To them, I wasn't a woman—I was a lifeline, the thing that made their survival odds go up if I was nearby.
And that hadn't changed when I lived as a member of Class 78 at Hope's Peak Academy.
Naegi only had eyes for Maizono. Togami had Genocide Jack and Fukawa taking turns slobbering all over him. Kuwata hit on basically every girl in sight, but for some reason, never once came after me.
Yamada was too busy waiting hand and foot on Celestia Ludenberg. Mondo Owada had been rejected by girls so many times he'd practically given up on talking to women at all. And Kiyotaka Ishimaru, being who he was, almost never talked about anything personal even when he did speak to girls.
Yasuhiro Hagakure was constantly scamming children, so if anything, I was the one avoiding him. And Chihiro Fujisaki was still deep in that timid phase where he was dressing as a girl, so I never really got to talk to him either.
In the end, the only guy who ever had private conversations with me was K—the slightly gloomy, kind of pitiful-looking, but faintly cute boy who one day awkwardly shuffled up to me and asked how I was doing.
Of course, back then there was what my useless little sister had hinted at, and there was my own position as despair—but more than anything, I'd never really talked to a guy before, so I panicked and pushed him away.
But after that day, K kept stubbornly talking to me anyway, and before I knew it, we'd become close whether I liked it or not.
So the conclusion was simple: other than K—the one who approached me first, who always smiled so brightly and chatted with me about nothing—there had never been a single man in my life I'd been privately close to.
"You bastard... you were the one who came to me first... so then... why... why...?"
Come to think of it, hadn't I gotten close to him before Kirigiri did? No—more than that, out of everyone in Class 78, I was probably the very first one who became his friend.
Sure, even when we were close, I kept a certain line drawn between us. But after 'that incident,' when he risked his life for me, I even betrayed Enoshima—the one I'd followed so devotedly—and took his side instead...
And then some infuriating detective bitch came out of nowhere and stole him away.
Every time I saw the smile he used to turn on me directed at her instead, it felt like my chest was collapsing in on itself. And when I saw her asleep, leaning against his shoulder, it took everything I had not to give in to the murderous impulse clawing up my throat.
And then one day, I found the two of them in a secluded corner of the school courtyard, their tongues tangled together—and afterward, I locked myself in a bathroom and cried where no one could see me.
But even then, I couldn't give him up. Because he was still the one I loved so desperately—the one who healed the heart I'd half-lost to my wretched past and my sister's influence, the one who accepted me as myself, the one who had even risked his life for me.
"...Why did you abandon meee...?"
But today, even that was over. The vow I'd made to him on the day of 'that incident,' and the promise he'd made to me in return—none of it meant anything anymore. Now I had to let go of the one who had saved my life... and the only person I had ever truly loved.
"Uugh... sorry... I said something weird... I'm okay now... so now..."
"Creak"
"I-Ikusabaa... what's wrong...?"
"...Creak... crrk..."
The moment I let myself think like that, all the rage I'd kept crushed down for so long mixed with the alcohol in my veins, and thoughts I absolutely should not have been having started surfacing one after another.
I tried to force them back down, but I kept seeing him—smiling at me no matter how coldly I treated him, coming back battered from one thing or another and scratching his head with that sheepish grin, seriously listening to me when no one else had ever cared enough to ask what was wrong.
And then I remembered the sight of him standing beside Kirigiri in her wedding dress, his face lit up with that radiant smile—and before I knew it, I had slammed my fist into the mirror.
Crash!!
"Eek...!! Ikusabaa!?"
"...Let's go."
"O-Okay..."
I felt the sharp sting in my fist and somehow managed to force my emotions back under control. Then I tried to leave the bathroom with Koizumi, but...
"W-What happened? I heard something break... Huh? Ikusaba? Koizumi?"
"..."
"W-What? Your fist is bleeding..."
Of all possible moments, he showed up right then, staring at us in shock.
"What on earth happened here...?"
"S-Sorry... we were drinking..."
"Good grief, why are kids who can't even handle alcohol drinking in the first place...? Wait, there's glass stuck in your hand, Ikusaba. This is bad if we don't get it out right away!!"
"..."
"No, this won't do. There's a first-aid kit in the waiting room, so come with me. I'll treat it right now."
"..."
The instant I saw him looking at me with those same worried eyes as always, gently holding my hand, the last scraps of reason I'd protected all this time finally evaporated under the combined assault of rage and alcohol.
"...Koizumi, lend me your camera for a second."
"Mmm...? Okaaay... hereee..."
"Thanks. And... you remember our usual bar, right? Go there."
"Why thereee...?"
"I need you to buy me some time... no, I mean, we're doing the second round there... I'll be there soon... go ahead first... I just have... something to do..."
Maybe because she was drunk and her judgment had gone soft, Koizumi just nodded at my bizarre request and staggered toward the exit.
Meanwhile, I watched K's back as he headed for the waiting room.
"How dare she... call me... an old maid...?"
I muttered it under my breath.
"...Then if I stop being a virgin... no one will ever be able to call me that again... right...?"
.
.
.
.
.
"Ugh..."
I opened my eyes with a dull ache throbbing in my head.
"...?"
When I looked up, Ikusaba was sitting in front of me.
I stared at her blankly for a moment, unable to process the abrupt, surreal situation, and she smiled at me with her eyes.
What the hell was going on? I hurriedly looked around—and realized I was in a room I'd never seen before.
"Ikusaba? Where are we...? We were just heading into the waiting room, and then..."
Glug glug
"I-Ikusaba?"
Out of nowhere, Ikusaba pulled a bottle of alcohol from somewhere and started drinking straight from it.
"Ghhhhh..."
"Stop drinking!! You already caused a scene after drinking that much earlier, and now you're trying to cause another one...?"
"Sorrry... already did..."
"What...?"
"Hehe... already caused one... an incident..."
"Good grief... she's completely plastered. This is bad. I need to—"
Ikusaba was obviously drunk out of her mind. I had no idea where we were, but it had to be somewhere in the wedding venue, so I needed to get her back to the kids as fast as possible—
"...Huh?"
I tried to get up, but my body wouldn't move.
"...!"
Only then did I realize I was lying on a bed, tied down. No, wait—what the hell was this?
"And also..."
Just as I was desperately trying to make sense of the situation, Ikusaba suddenly climbed onto the bed and leaned over me, whispering with a dangerously suggestive expression.
"Nowww... I'm gonna cause... one more... biiig incident..."
"W-What!?"
"...A major one."
After saying that, Ikusaba slowly licked her lips.
Apparently... Ikusaba was planning to NTR me.