0909

0909 is the slash ship between John and Kayano Mikoto from the MILGRAM fandom.

Canon
John and Mikoto are headmates; at least one of whom had killed someone, which put them into the supernatural prison of MILGRAM.

Trial 1 (Season 1)
During the first trial, Mikoto consistently reaffirms that he is unaware of any murders he could have committed and brushes off the consistent lapses in his memory, as he doesn't know about John's existence or himself having Dissociative Identity Disorder altogether.

Mikoto's first Trial music video, "MeMe", is often visually concentrated on Mikoto's confusion and subconscious fear of the unknown – John often is drawn in it with his eyes hidden, and the middle of the MV contains a scene where Mikoto falls to the ground with a horrified expression on his face, with John seemingly standing behind him. However, the song itself is a duet, and John's part of the lyrics is often concentrated on his attachment to Mikoto and his overall objective throughout MILGRAM to protect him.

"You don’t have to keep it in and hide it away / 'I' will save 'me' / Snuggle together and say 'Good night'"

- John, in MeMe

John's main appearance in the Trial 1 voice drama happens when he fights the prison warden, Es, after they bring Mikoto to the brink of a panic attack during the interrogation.

Post-Trial 1 Intermission
John and Kotoko draw in a fight during Kotoko's attacks on the prisoners who received "not forgiven" verdicts, with Mikoto as her first target.

In a timeline conversation for Kotoko's birthday on Dec. 15, 2022, after Kotoko threatens to kill Mikoto in the next fight they have, John yells and swears that he'll "crush anyone who tries to harm" Mikoto.

In a timeline conversation for Mikoto's birthday on Oct. 6, 2023, Mikoto appears to be questioning John's potential existence, asking for his motifs in committing a murder. John answers that everything he did was for Mikoto's sake, but Mikoto is unable to hear him.

Trial 2 (Season 2)
The second trial music video is primarily from John's point of view, depicting the situation the two were in before MILGRAM. John there one-sidedly laments about Mikoto being too harsh on himself, overworking and constantly being under high amounts of stress; he believes Mikoto is already doing his best and that is enough. Since he's unable to stop Mikoto himself, he promises to protect him and take on the problems for him. He also subconsciously wishes for Mikoto's approval, asking him in the lyrics to "cling to" him and sing his gratitude towards him.

In Mikoto's second trial voice drama Mikoto mentions that he's come to a realization his blips in memory aren't simply a case of bad memory, however, unlike the previous timeline conversation, he tells Es he's decided it must be a case of "sleepwalking". John, in turn, discloses to Es that he was supposedly the true culprit behind the murders, begging them to forgive Mikoto, and repeats that Mikoto is a person of pure heart and could never be involved in killing someone.

After the interrogation, Es tells Mikoto that John is someone who is his friend, to which Mikoto replies that he doesn't know anyone by that name.

Fanon
0909 is a quite popular ship in the fandom, with a large fanbase on Twitter. It started to rise in popularity on other platforms since the release of Mikoto's Trial 2 music video and related voice drama.

In the fandom, the ship is often interpreted as John being one-sidedly in love with Mikoto, with Mikoto being unaware of his existence altogether or having conflicting feelings about him, or, primarily in an environment post-MILGRAM, with the two of them learning to cohabitate and living together happily.

On AO3, the tag Kayano Mikoto/Kayano Mikoto is listed in top 10 most written ships for the MILGRAM fandom. 0909 is John's most written ship, as well as Mikoto's third most written ship, mostly rivaled by the most popular MILGRAM ship on AO3, Mikofuu, as well as ships like Mikoshido, Kotomiko and Mikomahi to a lesser degree.

Fandom

 * FAN FICTION


 * TWITTER


 * TUMBLR

Trivia

 * As Mikoto and John use a different first person pronoun, "boku" for Mikoto and "ore" for John, John also uses these versions of "I/me" to differentiate between the two of them, and rarely ever uses their names – except the end of Mikoto's second Trial voice drama "Neoplasm", in which he emphasizes that it was him, John, and not Mikoto, who committed a murder.
 * In the fandom, John is also commonly called "Orekoto" due to the aforementioned fact.
 * Both Mikoto and John first mishear John's name as "Jan", a popular Japanese dog name, when Es offers to name John in "Neoplasm".
 * In a tweet from Oct. 6, 2023, MILGRAM writer Takuya Yamanaka discloses Mikoto's birthday flower being liriope, and points out the flower shares a name with the mother of Narcissus, a figure in Greek mythology who fell in love with his face reflected in the water.
 * The official art for Mikoto's birthday from 2021 depicts him with a liriope flower as well, sitting on a half-and-half birthday cake. The cake design is the only one to visually parallel a wedding cake of another character, Kazui Mukuhara.