Naegi Makoto had always taken long showers. Komaru had been quite vocal about it in the pre-Tragedy days. He used to enjoy it. The end of the world had caused a general decline in most people's standards of personal hygiene, and water conservation was routine even in Future Foundation Section Headquarters, although it was no longer a strict policy. As the Ultimate Hope, Naegi had to keep up appearances, but given the choice, he took his showers at night.

He still took long showers. In fact, it took minutes to just force himself past the threshold. Every time he opened the door he had to brace himself for what he couldn't quite convince himself he wouldn't see. After that, he had to actually get into the shower, which was a step by step, planned movement by planned movement process that usually took a few minutes. Once he was inside, it got easier, as he could close his eyes while under the faucet, then the tension would build again the closer he got opening them. Then repeat the process in reverse to get out of the room and dressed for his day or into bed.

Strange how that worked. He only reacted mildly to the metal on metal clang of industrial crushers, it was the shower that was hardest to take.

He had to get up an hour early on important meeting days, to make sure he'd get his shower done on time.

It hadn't got easier. He didn't try to keep track of time, but this time, the sound of his outer door opening broke him out of his usual trance, still under the running shower. Headquarters was typically secure, but infiltrations were not common enough that he tensed even more than usual until hearing his intruder speak.

"I am out here," Kirigiri called through the door, "just so you know. Take your time."

"Th-Thanks." Naegi called back, steadying himself against the wall and mentally counting himself lucky that he had kept his clothes inside his bathroom. He took another five minutes of shower and another five to get dressed and make sure he was relatively calm before emerging.

Kirigiri was waiting, leaning against the far wall of his spartan Future Foundation dormroom. He chose to sit on his bed across from her and opened with "How did you get in here?"

"You need a better passcode."

73011. "I'll never forget it."

"The problem is, neither will anyone else." Admittedly, she was probably correct, and security wasn't some minor consideration even in Headquarters. Since becoming head of the 14th Branch, Kyoko Kirigiri had rooted out four cells of Despair infiltrators and a fifth had broke cover in a failed assassination attempt. Having the Ultimate Detective on your team had its advantages. There had been some thought given to her transferring to other sections to clean them out, but that had been vetoed by the board. The Foundation was expressly designed to avoid giving too much power to any one individual; they'd all seen the damage Despair infiltrators could wreak if they got control.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Kirigiri said, crossing to sit beside him. Her eyes flicked to the bathroom door. "But you've never been one to hide from your fears, have you?"

"Optimism is the one thing I've got going for me. Should you be here, though?"

As branch head of the PR division, Kirigiri had to be careful about the politics of her position. But she shrugged. "They'll just assume I shared your shower. There's... fanfic of that kind of thing."

Naegi kept his face blank, suspecting she was saying that just to provoke a reaction. "Makoko? Kyoto? Doesn't sound quite right."

Kirigiri smiled, very slightly. "You're learning."

"Eventually. Uhh... not that I mind, but why are you really here?"

"Officially? Aihara next door thinks you use too much water. So I was wondering if there was anything we could do to help. I'd get you a bath, but I can't show too much favouritism to Survivors. So... what can we do?"

Makoto gave it some thought. "Nothing. We all have our challenges." Irrational fears were well known in the new world, and most people could tell you exactly where they'd got theirs. Aihara herself was afraid of bats, due to a prolonged encounter with some of Gundham's pets that had left her partially eaten and now walking with a crutch. Who was he really to complain?

"You're certain?" Kirigiri said, not particularly surprised. There weren't many options. There were communal showers downstairs, but that would leave the Ultimate Hope vulnerable to assassination, not to mention unveil his fears to the world. Like it or not, he was an important symbol, and they couldn't trust everything to his luck. She still thought it was faintly ridiculous that the Ultimate Hope couldn't be just allowed to take long showers as necessary, but politics had necessities, and treating him too differently would lead to needless resentment.

Communal baths were the other suggestion, as there were a few downstairs but that had problems of its own. Naegi and public baths had unfortunate associations for those who had watched the Killing Game. Still...

"Public bathhouse is my best suggestion. If we can keep people from walking in on you." Between revenge from the Remnants and his popular status as a hero, there was strong possibilities of murder and/or seduction attempts. She'd have to set guards somehow. No, that was impractical. As the PR Division, they couldn't get Naegi get too close to a bathhouse, it gave the wrong impression to the public.

Naegi evidently agreed with her. "No, it won't work. After what happened..., the PR hit would be too hard to control. We'll never live that down."

"You think you should?" Kirigiri asked, a little Ultimate Detective sharpness coming back into her eyes.

Naegi breathed out. "Probably not. Not sure what we were thinking, that time."

"I could take a guess," Kirigiri said, her face carefully neutral.

"Still, though... Ultimate Detective, Martial Artist, and Serial Killer, in the Killing Game? How did we expect that to end well? Surprised none of you noticed, that's not how it works in anime."

"It's possible Celeste did," Kirigiri mused, rubbing her forehead. "She did target Yamada afterwards."

Naegi suddenly jerked, struck by a thought. Was he so sure that Kirigiri hadn't noticed the three boys sneaking into the bathhouse? Granted, it had been steamy enough that even they hadn't been able to see much, but banking on Kyoko Kirigiri not noticing something was not normally much of a bet.

Assuming that, why had she kept silent? That answer was easy enough. She would not have wanted to provoke a retaliatory murder from the girls. And it suddenly occurred to him just how hellishly uncomfortable it would have been to notice the infiltrators gawking but have no choice but not to react to try to keep everyone alive. And they'd forced her into that position with only mild goading from Monokuma. He froze for a second in indecision, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

"For what it's worth, I am very sorry about that."

Kirigiri blinked a bit at the sudden intensity in Naegi's voice. This was sudden, but she was fairly sure it was sincere, this boy could never hide his emotions.

"As transgressions go," she said carefully, "watching your execution was a step up. That said... I'm not giving you the passcode to my room." She'd assumed Yamada was the primary instigator, and hadn't much of a relationship with Hagakure to salvage. From anyone else, this sudden sincerity would probably be suspicious. Was there something more behind this? Something to investigate at some other time.

Naegi bowed his head. He'd have to try to make this up to her somehow.

Kirgiri's thoughts had gone in a different direction. Celeste had indeed targeted Yamada and tried to pin the murder on Hagakure, shortly after the bathhouse incident. That alone wouldn't have been a reason for murder, but if you had to kill someone, why not go for the people you disliked?

It was still only a theory, and one thought up between breaths in a conversation about bathhouses. But it didn't seem entirely impossible. Why, then had Naegi been excluded from the plan? Ultimate luck?

No. By then, he'd distinguished himself in the trials. Celeste had likely concluded he would be too difficult to lure away alone with a mysterious note. Otherwise, he might have been the first target instead of Ishimaru. Celeste had believed that Naegi would not foolishly follow a mysterious note, and thus had picked a softer target.

Kirigiri herself was less sure of his immunity. Naegi was intelligent, yes, but he could be breathtakingly trusting at the wrong times. She herself had lured him to a remote room where he had been clocked over the head not long after that incident. Had he received that note, Naegi might have become Celeste's first victim. Maybe it had been blind luck that her decision had gone that way.

It was still only an unprovable theory without much by way of data behind it, but if she was right... it had been that close. His life had been hanging on that thin a thread, even before the mastermind got involved. Without entirely meaning to, she picked up his hand and squeezed through her gloves.

They stayed like that for some minutes, not certain how they'd got here but unwilling to leave. Then Kirigiri happened to glance at her watch. She couldn't stay here forever, there was a lot to attend to as branch head. She let go of him and pulled away.

"How are you feeling now?"

"Better," Naegi admitted, "I'm normally a bit more edgy after a shower."

Which meant he went through this daily. Alone. Without saying anything to anyone.

"Glad I could help. No present? You usually have a present." She still had an in vitro rose back in her room, even though keepsakes from the Academy were few and far between. Naegi had to have left behind shelves and shelves of random toys and gimmicky undergarments. The Foundation had actually had to suppress that from the public in case it damaged his image.

Naegi blushed. "I don't have the Mono machine here. Sorry."

Ah. That was the explanation. It had been one of the few remaining unsolved mysteries of the killing school life –where exactly Makoto ' Ultimate Vending Machine' Naegi got all the bizarre things he always seemed to have in his pocket. He'd actually used the Monocoins that had always seemed like a strange pointless joke to most of the others, a slot machine that dispensed aggressively useless items. Enoshima's sense of humour was even harder to understand than her machinations sometimes.

"And then you just gave them away?"

Naegi shrugged again. "Can you think of any use I could put to a donut shaped flotation device? Why not?"

"There is that," Kirigiri said, standing. "Still, the persistence necessary to get anything useful out of that thing is impressive in itself."

"I... had a lot of free time."

"Clearly. Well, goodnight, Naegi. See you tomorrow."

Naegi blinked. "Tomorrow?"

Kirigiri paused on the threshold. "You said having someone here helped, right? So...see you tomorrow."

After she was gone, Naegi took a breath. He did not want to turn the head of the 14th branch of the Future Foundation into his personal shower attendant. But...it had made a difference, been distracting at least. She'd kept on forcing him to think about things other than blood and broken promises, keeping him thinking instead of brooding on his failures.

Intentional? Probably. Very thoughtful. Kirigiri worked so hard for the people around her. With all the other demands on her time, she was willing to devote time to helping him through his hang-ups.

Her choices of topic had been interesting too. Shipping fic, shared baths, and gifts. Was there a theme there, or was he overanalysing?

Kirigiri was an amazing person, and like all his other crushes so far (yes, Junko was particularly embarrassing now), had once tried to pin a murder on him. He couldn't exactly blame her if she was still upset over the Bathhouse, but if he wasn't mistaken...maybe there was hope.