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Writing. A lot of people like to write, and a lot of people don’t. Infact, more people prefer reading! Those such as Toko Fukawa would understand, writing is all about personal preference. There are small cases where a book is timeless.. And everyone loves it.. And Toko knows that. She did write So Lingers the Ocean. But to be frank, it’s been a while. Like, a good while since she’s sat at a desk and poured out her ideas. With all the Future Foundation stuff, and the general lack of paper or writing utensils.
And yet here she is. In her and Komaru’s shared hotel room, sat racking her brain in front of a laptop. It’s a fairly old and glitchy one, but they were lucky to even find one in the first place.
Earlier that day, the two girls were wandering around some sort of office building. The afternoon light hardly did anything to dissipate the shadows in the rooms. In one particular room, it was full of cubicles. The walls and windows were bloodstained, anything and everything destroyed.
However, a dim light caught Toko’s eye.
“Omaru.. w-what’s that?” She lightly tapped Komaru’s shoulder. The other girl was on full alert, and swiftly whipped her head around. Toko pointed to the light, her eyebrows furrowed.
“Huh.. I don’t know. But the only way to find out is to look closer.” Komaru looked determined, but wary. The light was a dark teal, nowhere near the color or brightness of a Monokuma’s eye, but still. There were a lot of weird Monokumas around here. The two walked forwards, and Komaru held her Hacking Gun in front of them both.
“Oh- God we’re stupid. It’s a laptop.” Toko sighed, disappointed. Komaru sighed also, but more of relief. Toko kneeled down and picked the laptop up among the rubble. The screen was cracked, but when she put her hands on the keyboard it lit up with a low battery signal.
“Hey.. Maybe if we charged it we could use that! You know, better communication with Future Foundation and stuff.” Komaru’s eyes lit up, looking over at the purple-haired girl with a bit of pleading in her gaze.
For once, Toko could admit she was right. “O-Okay.. but how are we gonna take it with us? And what kind of charger would it take..” Toko looked down at the laptop, and looked at the side. “Among other worries I have.. About us being tracked by dangerous people.. The laptop having a bomb in it…”
“Toki, it’s a laptop. An old-looking one at that. We can just log out of the previous user’s account, make a new secret one, and get to doing something with it!” Komaru put her hands on her hips, confident in her answer.
“Okay, but if it explodes I told you so..” Toko muttered, clutching the laptop in her arms.
Honestly they went through absolute hell trying to carry that laptop, but Komaru was adamant that she felt it was important. Toko was thinking of using it for her own self-indulgent reasons, like writing, completely random example, so they kept it.
Now Toko is staring at the barely-charged laptop, set on a full google doc worth of words. She furiously edited, re-read, and then did it again. I emphasize the fact that Toko has not written for a good while, and since she was used to writing a lot all the time, she is now dealing with the struggle that is getting back into writing. She was grasping at straws here. The sky was dark, only the bright stars and the moon illuminating the room. Komaru sat on their bed, thinking about god-knows-what. Toko sighed, and looked over to the brown-haired girl herself as a last resort.
“...Komaru, c-can you come read this?” she started hesitantly, apparently breaking her out of a sort of trance.
“Oh, sure! Are you done with it?” A bright smile gleamed on Komaru’s face, and stood up to walk over to the purple-haired girl.
“Pfft, not even close. I-It’s just frustrating me, it reads so weird and I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it.” Toko groaned, exasperated. Komaru leaned over her, bracing herself with her hands on the desk. Despite the horribly glitched and broken screen, Komaru read the little passage Toko told her to read. She secretly read another part, but she was stopped by an obvious glare from Toko.
“So? E-Even if you're not a writer.. You can tell, right?” Toko looked up at her from her seat. Komaru furrowed her eyebrows.
“Uhh.. not really. I think it’s obviously amazing, but I wouldn’t be able to tell unless you pointed it out and explained it.” she shrugged.
“I knew it.. Ugh, I r-really wanted to finish this draft.” Toko groaned. Komaru rolled her eyes, and moved over to hug Toko from behind. She pressed against the chair separating them, her voice taking to playfully stern.
“Well, it’s late. I’m tired. You know, the words won’t jumble around and ruin everything if you wait until the morning, right?” Komaru grinned.
“I- Of course I know that!” Toko defended herself, and shut the laptop. Komaru chuckled, and they went to their bed.
“..I had s-such a good plan for chapter two..” Toko grumbled, drowned out by Komaru’s growing snoring.
Toko Fukawa, the Ultimate Writing Prodigy, being frustrated with writing.
Of course she was.