AN: Before everything goes to shit on Monday…
Hold Your Hand Till The Lights Come On
If she had likened it to anything, Asahina would say they looked like a pretzel. But the gesture is neither that vulgar nor is it romantic enough to call a puzzle. It's done purely out of hope and belongs uniquely to them.
Watching Kirigiri enter the cell leaves a sour taste in her mouth that Asahina tries quickly to hide on her face. She doesn't need to make this worse. They already know what lies before them.
Sakakura slams the bars with a ferocity that rattles the entire hallway and stalks away with a twisted grin, likely going to find Munakata. She checks her wrist anxiously, fluorescent green slowly blinking up at her.
00:02:58
00:02:57
00:02:56
00:02-
Kirigiri's voice is like shattered glass and Asahina jumps, scratching the back of her head and smiling sheepishly despite the situation. "You ought to leave. Everyone should be hidden by now so you won't be seen. I take it you've already decided on somewhere to go?" Her eyes are cold and piercing but glossy black circles hide the usually prominent lilac. It is almost comforting to know that even as the head of the 14th Division, the ex-Detective is frightened too.
"I wanted to make sure you two would be fine before I did anything. I can't- I can't imagine getting through this without you." There are tears pricking at her eyes but Asahina refuses to budge, knowing she will be swept away if she allows the thoughts of everything, everything, everything.
The crouched figure behind Kirigiri looks up, a smile in his eyes that she wonders will ever touch his lips again. Naegi is small cuffed to a wall and stuffed in the most exposed corner of the entire facility. The statement from Munakata is clear. Take him. Yet his face is patient and kind as he looks past Kirigiri and through the metal bars to where Asahina is barely keeping herself upright.
She has to remind herself that Naegi, above everyone else here, is used to being looked down upon. Patience is a virtue when others think you're a doormat.
"Thank you Asahina-san, we'll see you in a bit. Okay?" It's not okay. They're not okay. The cell door is unlocked and she doesn't have a key. Her best friend is a literal sitting duck and her other best friend is choosing to stay with him on the silver platter the others have presented for the traitor. There is no hiding. There is no coverage. There is just living or dying and failing the first eight hours. And it makes her sick to run and sick to stay because this is different than their collective nightmare and there is nothing nothing nothing she can do.
She doesn't dare check the time as she nods a cheerful affirmation, albeit forced. Spinning on her heel, Asahina makes for the end of the corridor turning back only once she has reached the corner.
The sight in the cell is a familiar one, yet she knows she's only seen it once before. Before the Future Foundation found them. Before they knew where the next meal would come from.
It is an entanglement of limbs, Naegi's chains carefully looped over her head and one arm and Kirigiri's legs wrapped firmly around his torso. They both have a left arm thrown over the other's shoulder and clasp at their own hands behind the other's back. Ears pressed together. Heads down, directly above each other's heart.
There is no space for hesitation or misinterpretation and is both intimate and desperate, filled with the comforting need for each other. Kirigiri and Naegi are not physical people, and Asahina finds this entire amalgamation endearing.
Or she would. If she wasn't snickering.
They looked like a half-baked pretzel with legs as twists and the odd joint where the dough has been held too firmly while being shaped. She can imagine dropping salt on their heads. Or cinnamon and sugar. She can and she does and the thought sends her hands flying up to her face to cover the laugh and even through her closed lids she can see the green blinking. Her mirth vanishes.
Taking one last look at the two people in the world she most hopes live through the next hour, she imagines that Fukawa-chi would scold her. She'd call them puzzle pieces or two sides of the same coin or some poetic nonsense that would be completely lost on Aoi and then screech how sickening the display was. But not tear them apart.
No. Not after Naegi nearly died keeping Kirigiri's secret and she challenged a psychopath, entered a program, and faced certain punishment from a bunch of trigger happy adults in their "court room". None of their group would stand between this one solitary gesture. Never.
Resigning herself, Asahina sprints farther from them making quick work of the short hallways and staircase. Kirigiri was right-as always-the building is a ghost town with the other occupants already in hiding. Every door is closed and somehow it feels like everyone is holding their breath in tandem. With a furtive glance Asahina catches the time on her watch just as her destination comes into view. She pushes open the bathroom door, already aware that there are no locks and heads for the same stall that previously sent her reeling.
She feels proud of herself for her plan. Having indulged no one but herself on the details and knowing all cameras were disabled she feels secure about her position in this game of cat and mouse. Or as much as she can be after Chisa's death.
The corpses are stiff and heavy but Asahina carefully maneuvers herself under them. This is a pyramid of death and she is at the bottom, nearly suffocating from the weights on top of her and the smell but she makes no move to leave. Her arms and legs are covered in goosebumps, the guards sucking heat from her like sponges but she is using them as camouflage so she can't really complain. She is proud for two reasons: the best place to hide a body is in a pile of already dead ones, and just as she finishes getting situated her watch buzzes and a fine white mist coats the air around her. Or at least she thinks it does. No light is seeping through her haystack after all.
00:00:00
The concoction is bitter on her tongue and her eyelids flutter. She thinks that this batch is even more potent than the first round from the conference room as her thoughts immediately scatter. Dazedly she notices the faint light on her watch has turned red and reset. She is too far gone to think too much about it.
01:10:37
Her breathing is lethargic when her eyes finally slide closed and it is only with the briefest of consciousness that Asahina registers the aching sound of the bathroom door opening before her world is bathed in darkness.
AN: As much as Asahina and Hagakure annoyed me the first time I played DR I really really don't want either of them to die. Of course the same goes for OTP Naegiri. Or Seiko.