MILGRAM | mercy, with no limits

[bedes]

Rating: M

Fandom: MILGRAM

Characters: Fuuta Kajiyama, Amane Momose

Relationships: Fuuta Kajiyama & Amane Momose

Words: 2,085

Content Warnings: Cults, unintentional manipulation, indoctrination, referenced self-harm and suicidal thoughts

Tropes: Themes of Religion, Cults, Indoctrination, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm (Fuuta Kajiyama), Implied/Referenced Suicidal Thoughts (Fuuta Kajiyama), Touch-Starved

Summary: Amane and Fuuta have a pleasant chat about religion, justice, and the odd injuries that Fuuta is trying to keep hidden.


Long time, no fic, huh? Then again, what else is new.

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Amane liked to arrive to lunch early, eat, and leave before any other prisoners arrived. After an incident during the first trial where the fork, too big for her hand, slipped and ended up making a mess on her white uniform, she's been avoiding eating around the other prisoners. Especially the older adults, where she could help it. (She didn't need to give Mahiru or Kazui more of a reason to treat her like a baby. And she didn't need to show any more weakness around the doctor; the wicked figure who forced everyone in his grasp to go against the natural order of life.)

Seemed that this time, she wasn't alone, though.

Sitting by himself, propping an arm up on the table, was Fuuta. A wrapping bandage between his bared teeth made Amane's nose crinkle, even as her eyes followed it down to the forearm he was attempting to wrap. His black sleeve was rolled up for the first time, she realized, in quite some time, despite the heat. She was disappointed to see him attempting to imitate the unholy acts of the demon in their midst, but she was not surprised. Despite her best efforts to grow closer to him, and to deliver what she believed in onto him, it made sense that he was stuck in his old ways.

Even still, with nobody else around, this presented an opportunity.

Amane approached Fuuta from the front of the table, laying one hand on it before speaking up. Even still, when she spoke her first, simple, "Hello," he jumped, dropping the wrapping bandages out of his mouth.

She grinned. She had been told that it did not meet her eyes, these days. That her smiles read as empty. Even creepy. But nonetheless, it showed her attempts to be friendly, at least. "Feeling a bit jumpy, Fuuta-san?" (After all, it was not as if she could begin with preaching, lest he be scared away, just as many lost souls had been before.)

Fuuta glared at her slightly. More of a lowering of the eyebrows than anything. She knew from how he talks about Haruka that he attempts to look out for those younger than himself, so she felt no fear. Nonetheless, after a few moments of silence, Fuuta glanced away from her, apparently losing interest in the impromptu staring contest. "Don't just sneak up on people like that, brat."

"I didn't sneak up on anyone," Amane stated. She pointed at the bandages on Fuuta's arms. (She wanted to touch them, but realized about halfway in that her arm wouldn't reach across the table.) "Did Shidou-san give those to you?"

Fuuta's eye followed her hand. Then drifted away again. "He left his stuff laying around a while ago. Grabbed some, in case I would need it."

"Shidou-san says to ask him for help whenever anyone is hurt. Why are you applying those yourself?" Only after she spoke did Amane realize her mistake, and she bit her bottom lip lightly. She shouldn't be asking questions; Fuuta trying to distance himself from the doctor was a good thing, regardless of reason.

Luckily, Fuuta did not seem to be tempted by Amane's slip. He seemed, instead, lost in his own head for a moment. Thinking about his response, before replying, each syllable deliberate and slow, "Don't need him asking questions." Then, a bit more bitterly, "If he suspects anything, he'll run off and rat me out to the pig."

Rat? Pig? Amane tilted her head. She could believe a rodent managing its way into a place like this, but why would Shidou be the rat? And why would a pig be here?

Instead of voicing her confusion, Amane walked around the table, her hand trailing across the low-quality wood. "I wouldn't be a rat, or tell a pig." She stopped by Fuuta, and pulled out the chair right next to him from behind. "So, you can tell me." She climbed up onto the chair, and folded her hands in her lap, swinging her feet slightly. "Can't you?"

Unlike the doctor, she hoped he understood, I am on your side.

But Fuuta shook his head, waving a hand. "No way. I'm not telling a little kid about this stuff."

Amane's sympathetic expression dropped to her usual blank one. She sighed, grabbing Fuuta's arm off the table and pulling it closer. Fuuta, despite flinching, let her. "Well, at least let me get this wicked thing off of you. You're bringing yourself to ruin."

As she began to unwrap his arm, Fuuta huffed. He still did not pull his arm away, letting Amane manhandle him, even though he could easily overpower her. "Would you cut it out with that?"

"With what?"

"That freaky cult shi-" He stopped himself, then 'tsk'ed. "Stuff."

Amane raised an eyebrow at him, doing her best to mask her anger, lest she frighten the skittish man. "I have told you many times now. Just because my religion is out of the ordinary does not mean that it is as bad as you assume. 'Cults' are-" She interrupted herself when she finally got through the wrapping enough for it to reveal bare skin. "Ah, let me see now."

The more of his bare arm that she revealed, the more wounds she saw. Some practically invisible. Some scarred over. A few still had beads of blood, fresh. All of them, though, were relatively similar. Cuts, they seemed to be; all in the same direction, too.

Amane reached over Fuuta's arm to place the bloodied bandage on the table, before using both hands to hold it up closer to her face, despite Fuuta's flinch. She was hoping she could recognize what the injuries were, and then appear very wise to Fuuta, but she did not know why someone would have so many injuries in such a similar place. Unless it was the result of a bad habit...? Amane remembered, suddenly, when she gained a quirk of not looking where she was going as she left the house, and thus, ending up with a lot of bruises on her arm from bumping into the door frame over and over again.

She looked up at Fuuta, who, she found, had been staring at her. "Fuuta-san, is this the result of a habit of yours?"

Fuuta jumped a bit, suddenly looking at her like she had said something horrible. "Y-... you actually know about this kinda stuff?? Like..." He lowered his voice, as if sharing some great secret, looking around to make sure nobody was approaching. "Where these came from? And why?"

Amane nodded immediately. She had no clue what these injuries were from specifically, as he seemed to imply, but it seemed to impress him, so she went along with it. "Of course."

Fuuta's expression grew more extreme, looking at her in horror, before huffing and looking away with a vague anger. "Of course. Right. You're hearing them, too, aren't you?" He shook his head, and Amane felt his arm tensing up from the anger in her hands. "I just thought they'd go easy on the child..."

So, these injuries were due to the instructions of the demons they have been hearing. She closed her eyes, and brushed her thumb softly against Fuuta's arm as she thought, humming. She didn't mean anything by it (she was just trying to fidget), but she felt him relax from the contact. Is this why he kept allowing her to grab him and pull his arm around, she wondered? Despite avoiding the wicked doctor, did he, perhaps, miss the presence of a caring touch?

She could understand that. And, more importantly, she could work with that.

Amane turned to face Fuuta properly in her chair. "Fuuta-san. Do you know what helps me when I am in pain?"

Fuuta shook his head once. "No."

"I worship."

All interest in Fuuta's expression left in the blink of an eye. "I told you that I'm not interested in your cult, brat." Amane took a sharp breath to speak, so Fuuta scoffed, correcting himself gruffly, "In your religion, whatever."

Amane stared at him, waiting to see if he would correct anything else. When nothing came, she spoke. "You say 'brat', as if the fact that I'm a child discredits what I have to say. But you thought that my being a child meant I couldn't understand your injuries. And that was wrong."

Fuuta curled his lip. "Only thanks to our shared circumstance."

"Fuuta-san, do you think that our circumstances are wrong?"

Fuuta seemed to be caught off-guard by the question. Or, perhaps, the blunt way Amane asked it. Either way, he stumbled over his words for a moment. "Well- well, obviously!! This is a serious violation of our rights, ya know! All of- all of this is! Every last part!"

Amane moved her hands from Fuuta's arm to holding his hand softly. Like the tiniest baby bird, fresh from the egg. "So, then, if I said, 'Our situation is very bad,' would you not agree?"

Fuuta, again, sputtered. Amane continued, before he could respond, closing her eyes as she rubbed his hand with her thumb. Comforting him, soothing the doubts put into his mind by this sinful world. "When a child says, 'The world should be fair', a lot of adults respond, 'Get used to it'. They believe the child is naive. But you, too, believe the world should be fair, don't you? If I said, 'The world should be fair', would you join in those callous adults, telling me that I am naive? That this system you, yourself, always complain about, is broken, and to get used to it? Just because I am a child? Or will you tell the grown-ups that, yes, the system is broken and needs to be fixed, like you always do?"

She opened her eyes. She felt the passion burning in her chest. She felt the passion in her eyes reaching Fuuta's as their gazes locked.

"Tell me," she implored, with the slightest bit of challenge in her gaze. Her lips quirked up into the slightest grin. "How honest is your 'justice'?"

Fuuta's face went blank, before jumping right into his response, getting defensive. "Of course you'd still be right!!"

"So, you would agree that what children say should not be discredited, just because they are children."

"Yeah! That's obvious!"

"So... you would be willing to at least give prayer a try, then? Since there is no reason to discredit my words?"

Fuuta's jaw clenched, his hand still tense. Amane could see the hesitance in Fuuta's expression, but he wasn't outright denying her, either. He was letting her try to convince him.

In that case, it was time to bring out the heavy-hitters.

"You don't want to live." Fuuta stiffened. Amane pressed on, looking at where their hands met. "I know. You're anxious. Lost. In pain, and you're looking for a means of numbing it. These voices who tell you to form these habits, that you don't deserve to live... The reason why I have not given into them is because I know that us humans have something more important to live for than ourselves. I have guidance. I have someone who I know loves me unconditionally. I have someone to distract me, someone to live for other than myself..."

When she looked back at Fuuta, he looked like something she could have seen at the playground before any of this happened. Even smaller than her, and even more vulnerable. Trembling, looking at her as if she alone was the one who could heal him. A wounded baby bird.

"… don't you wish for the same?"

Let me save you, she cried in her mind.

And he answers. His shoulders slumped, and his head falling forward slightly, he nods, with a tired, pleading eye.

Save me, he replied.

Amane couldn't help the grin that graced her face. One that reached her eyes this time; she could feel it, pushing up cheek muscles that she thought went missing a long time ago. She pressed her palm into the back of Fuuta's free hand, guiding the two of them together. He didn't even need to be instructed to lace his fingers together, watching where their hands met.

She chuckled. "See? You're a natural. God is going to be thrilled that you've returned to Him."

There's a spark of joy in that tired eye when she says that. A flicker of light.

This wounded baby bird will be reborn into a phoenix in no time at all.