[Fic] It was wrong.

"Because... you've forgotten about me."

None of them remembered. Not Kai, not Shu, not even Kii.

"Huh? Forgotten!?" Not Kei, either.

Kokichi stood there outside his dorm room door, a stranger standing in front of him wearing his dear friend's face.

"I can't bear it anymore! I haven't forgotten! I've been thinking about you this whole time!"

How did they do it? Why was he the only one who remembered? Just to twist the knife?

"Are you lying again?"

Kokichi's chest tightened, and he choked down the urge to agree.

Breathe in... Breathe out...

"No," he muscled out around the lie lodged in his throat. "I wish I was...but even I'm not that good at lying."

Kei—Akamatsu—did not look convinced. Kokichi stuttered out an awkward laugh.

"Ah-haha... I may be an evil supreme leader, but even my lies have standards."

She stared at him for a moment, gauging the validity of his words. He'd never seen such a careful, suspicious look on Kei's face before. Not directed at him, at least. Darkness and static started to tease at the corners of his vision the longer Akamatsu scrutinized him.

Stop it, stop looking at me like that with her face.

Kokichi was going to throw up.

"O-Okay," she finally conceded, "then if you're not lying, can you help me jog my memory so I can remember? Like, where we met or what was going on when we met... Stuff like that."

"Hmmm, let's see." Don't lie. Don't lie. "We met..."

It's Kei. He trusted her.

"... under hostile circumstances similar to this." A piano performance in a rundown bar three years ago. A young girl trying to bring the drunken adults some levity in the depths of No Man's Land.

Akamatsu blinked in surprise. "Huh?"

"You sheltered me while I was on the run from my enemies." Kokichi ducking into the crowd to wait out a tail. A convenient hiding place in plain sight.

Breathe in... Breathe out...

"With your piano skills, you managed to raise enough money to fund my escape..." Years of performances around the world, years of spreading hope through the arts and collecting donations to fund their projects, years of a growing group with an aspiration to save the world.

There was no recollection on Akamatsu's face. She didn't understand at all. Couldn't understand. The vague description—Kokichi's way of waltzing around the details in a well-spun lie—was entirely lost on her. Of course it was, she was just a stranger now. A stranger with no experience in deciphering Kokichi's codes, and as such was blocked off from the sensitive information hidden within. Kokichi felt her disbelieving eyes burning into him, eyes that could no longer be trusted.

The eyes of the Foundation watching carefully for him to spill all their secrets and their plans.

Ah, it made sense now.

This wasn't Kei anymore. She was little more than a vessel through which they could probe him. A stranger. An imposter. They all were. It's not like it mattered anymore. Those plans had gone up in smoke the moment of their capture.

The moment Kokichi had gotten too comfortable risking the lives of his friends.

"But then I betrayed you! I sold you out to my enemies and you were swiftly killed!" His stomach churned. He couldn't bear the sight as Akamatsu's expression slowly morphed from one of confusion to one of frustration.

His world was ending.

"That was all a lie!"

No, it had already ended.

"Yup, it sure was! We met each other here!" He retracted it all, the lie waiting in his throat rolling easily off his tongue. "I can't believe you fell for that, Akamatsu-chan. You're such a sucker."

When she finally left, Kokichi shut the door and slumped against it.

Breathe in... Breathe out...

Breathe in... Breathe out...

How did you breathe again? Kokichi couldn't fathom it. His chest was moving, but the oxygen didn't seem to make it to his head. He couldn't feel his body as it slid down to the floor. His scalp stung. When had his hands tangled in his hair? The static chased the thought away. What did it matter? What was he supposed to do, really? All he could feel was the weight of everyone he ever loved, gone, replaced with complete strangers.

Breathe in... Breathe... in...? Breathe...!

In the back of his mind, familiar gazes all tore into him with distrust.