Archive of Our Own

Some people are born lucky; Sayaka Maizono isn't one of them.

He knows when her eyes start to linger on him, when she stares at him for seconds too long and waits until he meets her gaze and then she looks away and smiles into her hands; how juvenile, he thinks, how old and tired her act is. Everything she does is practised, carefully calculated. Is that what it's like to be an idol, to be someone famous and adored and always under the watchful eye of the media, he wonders. Is that what it's like to always sleep with one eye open, to be wary of rivals and scandals that simmer like storms beneath too-perfect skin.

"I think I can become really strong, just because you're here for me," she says with a too-perfect smile, with a bashful flush that creeps across her cheeks. She should've been Super High School Level Actor, he thinks, when she averts her eyes and laughs, a shy, sheepish sound. "Whatever we got involved with is scary, but because you're here I feel somehow ... safe."

"Maizono-san," he says and takes a breath. Lies beget lies and curses beget curses; she'll remember that, he'll make sure of it. "I feel the same way. You're really saving me by being here."

.

"Maizono-san, are you all right?" he prompts and smiles straight at her. 

(just like he did to poor, dear, dead mukuro almost two years ago; it's such a nice smile, he thinks, and it's because he's better at maintaining faces than the queen of liars, because he's a better chameleon than junko ever was. what a pity, that poor, dear, sweet sayaka is the first to crack

sacrifices. games like these, they always need sacrifices)

"What did you see?" he asks instead. 

Sayaka gazes blankly at him with tear-glazed eyes and opens her mouth. Oh, how he loves the tremulous cant of her head, the crescent-press of her teeth against her lower lip. Her composure is false, a cheap fabrication formulated to fool the others, so blind and wilfully, beautifully ignorant of a world that doesn't revolve around themselves. To watch her unravel at the seams is a masterpiece in the making. He knows the procedure, he's gone through it before; first comes the unpicking of seams and the pulling of threads, watching stitches loosen and splay. Then comes the hope leaking out like bargain-bin polyester stuffing with the tears and the screaming and the hopelessness, a winding pathway in seven steps to despair.

(shock, denial, anger. bargaining, guilt, depression. acceptance. despair)

He'll help her with that, he thinks, he'll help her pull herself apart and empty her out until there's nothing left, until everything that defines Sayaka Maizono disappears.

"I," she says, and clutches her hand to her chest. Her fingers curl and uncurl and she gazes at her shoes, at the wall, anywhere but him. He doesn't need her to tell him because he's the one who put those videos together, he's the one who watched hours of footage flick past him as he plucked them from grainy video files and watched them fall into place, like bugs on a collector's tray. He has her pinned now, the songbird with the broken wings.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she says feebly. "I'm fine," she says again, like she's trying to reassure herself.

(just a little more, now)

"You're so strong, Maizono-san," he murmurs. The colour drains slowly from her face. Her own words don't sound so nice when thrown back at her, do they.

"How, can," she whispers in an erratic staccato burst, "anyone, be fine, or strong, in this situation?"

It's all falling apart now, that pixel-perfect persona. There are no cameras left for her to smile for, no one else to fool in a world that no longer exists.

"Please save me," Sayaka chokes into his shoulder as he pats her back.

(just the right hint of confusion, like he's at a loss; just the right hint of hesitation; he's a gentleman after all, isn't he)

"You're the only one I can trust, Naegi-kun. So, please -- whatever happens, please ... always be my friend."

She's so pretty when she cries, so very pretty with the fake porcelain-brittle smile's back on her face. He wonders how nobody ever saw through it, how nobody ever saw through all his pretty talk about friendship and hope and saw the rot peeling through underneath.

"Whatever happens," he echoes, "You're my assistant, aren't you?"

"Yeah," she says and laughs through her tears. It sounds haunted, hollow, too hearty to be genuine. "As for what I saw ... hmm, if I told you, I'd have to kill you!"

She laughs at his expression. "Just joking!" she says and pats his hand. "I suppose it's the same for you?" she asks and he smiles.

"Maybe," he replies.

.

allegro.

She acts faster than he thought; just his luck, he thinks, that everything's getting started so soon.

"What's wrong?" he asks, and lets her in. 

"Something strange happened," she says and it tumbles out in a rush.

It's a good story and she's such a good storyteller; perhaps that's what it means to be an idol, to be Super High School Level something and not luck, not hope, not despair. Liar, what a liar, Naegi thinks because he's watched the video feeds, nobody's left their rooms since the night time announcement. What a liar, because she's got a knife tucked in her waistband and her smile is taut and pinched in at the corners, and if she talks too fast everything will come spilling out, the falsehoods and the deceptions and the cheap tricks to gain his trust. Everybody knows what they do to liars.

"How about you stay in my room tonight?" he interrupts and Sayaka stares at him.

"Do you mean it?" she asks and tilts her head to the side. It's a surprisingly birdlike motion; he expects her to say something about, oh, if you wanted to spend the night with me you should just have said it, I knew that because I can read minds. "Do you really, really mean it?"

"Of course," he says.

Sayaka gazes at him from beneath lowered lashes and steps in, one step, two steps, three. The door clicks shut behind her.

"Oh, Naegi-kun," she says and reaches for his wrist. "You're so kind to me, you're such a good friend. I really didn't want it to come to this, but, please don't worry, it's not going to hurt."

He lets her draw blood only because he thinks it's fair; only because, it's going to be the only red he'll wear for a long, long time. The knife nicks him on the forearm as he pulls away and he watches the red creep across the fabric of his sleeve and down onto the carpet. Carpet cleaners are hard to come by nowadays, is his first thought; ah, my jacket, is his second. Maybe he'll give her the spears, for that, Gungnir and Rhongowennan and Gáe Bolg.

"Why," he asks and Sayaka keens in frustration, a high, desperate wail. "Why did it have to be me?"

He's under no illusions. It's not a plea; it's a confession. After all, she'll be dead, soon. What a pity, what a pity.

"Because you trusted me," she grits out and swings, again. She misses in a wide arc of shining metal and he grabs her wrist, crushes her knuckles beneath his palm so that she lets go of the knife. "You trusted me far too much."

Naegi pries it slowly out of her hand, pulls it from her grasp finger by finger. "I have something I must confess to you," he says.

Sayaka laughs, wildly, bitterly. "I'm sorry, Naegi-kun, but I can't accept a love confession--"

"I'm the mastermind," he says. "The videos were all true."

Where's your intuition now, he wants to ask her when her arms go slack and she stares down at him. Where is your mind-reading now.

"... that was what I couldn't tell you before," he says and her eyes widen in fear. Maybe he regrets it, just a little, when he slides the knife between her third and fourth ribs. Maybe he regrets it, just a little, when she tries to talk and coughs instead and he can hear the blood bubbling in her lungs. What a pity, her voice is the first to desert her; she's nothing now, she has nothing left now and oh, how he envies her because isn't that the ultimate despair, to be betrayed by someone you trust. They form a pretty triumvirate, the people who've fallen to by his hand upon the altars of Eris and Algos, Phonoi and Moros and Ker. 

"And now that you know, I'm sorry. I'll have to kill you."