Water drips down from the tap, and splats against the metal basin. Naegi stares at his reflection, heavy bags under his eyes. A few people have joked that he looks even more like Mitarai than usual.
His hands shake as he dries his face with a scrunched up paper towel. His knuckles are white and purple like the bruises on his torso.
Crisp bandages cover his head, attempting to fix the wound that Munakata had created when he slammed him against the cinderblock wall. He looks like the ex-vice-chairman too, at least, according to Asahina.
Naegi's hand tightens into a fist, and he pounds it against the tap. After that, he clutches his fist close, trying to ignore the searing pain going through his body now. He brushes his right wrist with his left hand, going to stroke the bracelet that had been bound to it for what was really only two days, only to find that the bracelet is gone.
It's actually been gone for a very long time now.
Three months ago, or so he would assume, Kyouko Kirigiri died. Naegi had stopped counting quite some time ago, but the calendar on his desk that someone (probably Togami, knowing him) keeps changing, so he can't pretend that he'll see her come morning.
She isn't coming back. He won't find her in her office, bent over a two foot high pile of paperwork, in fact, he won't find anything in her office besides her desk, and the flowers she was growing. Togami had opted to keep his old one, when he was officially named the leader of the 14th Division.
Naegi looks after the flowers. They're a soft shade of lavender, the same colour as her eyes. Every single petal on them has outlived her by months.
(He crushes the petals beneath his fingers - they don't deserve to live when she's gone - and then regrets his choice but he can't turn back.)
He hates how much he expects to see her places. Her office is always dead quiet, but something deep inside him says that if he opens the door, she'll be there, working away. Or maybe she'll be drinking coffee in the cafeteria, and he can sit and enjoy a cup with her, even though he doesn't really like it.
When he arrives at his empty apartment at the end of every night, he greets her, and sometimes he pretends that she's answered him. He still only sleeps on his side of the bed, and won't touch her various things that she left there.
(He can't touch them, what if she comes home and finds him wearing her jacket around?)
Naegi pretends that he's done grieving. When he's with the others, he puts on a brave smile, but he'll never talk about her. None of them like talking about Kirigiri. They'll talk about Komaru, and about Hagakure's mother, and even about their lost friends from Hope's Peak Academy.
But never Kirigiri. Somehow, they've all found a way to blame themselves for her death. Naegi knows that it's all his fault, and it forms a bitter taste in his mouth.
Her funeral was a quiet affair. The only attendees were him, Asahina, Togami, Fukawa, Hagakure, and surprisingly, Munakata. Mitarai had chosen to abstain for reasons unknown.
Naegi didn't miss him.
Asahina, Hagakure, and Fukawa had sobbed. Togami tried to deliver a eulogy, before breaking off, tears of his own stopping him from speaking.
Naegi and Munakata had stood in stony silence, thinking the same thing. When did things go wrong?
Every day after that, Naegi had come to the graveyard, to pay his respects for everyone who had died there. He always left fresh flowers on Kirigiri's, as if the garden would bring her back to life.
He hates the stinging feelings he gets in his chest when he thinks about her death as a sacrifice. It's easier to think of it as if she merely died, but no, she gave it to save his, just like how he gave his life for her all the way back in that class trial.
Naegi shuts his eyes, and sometimes he pretends that her gloved hand has slipped into his, even though he's clutching the folds of his suit, and crying in the hallway.
Hagakure tries to keep things light, but it never really works. He'll talk about how Sakakura is almost ready to leave the hospital, and how Munakata is almost always at his side now, and Naegi will feel bile rise in his throat.
Togami and Asahina aren't much better. Togami can't offer empathy, the only one he's loved is still breathing, her bespectacled face and shining eyes keeping him strong. Asahina can offer empathy, and occasionally, they'll swap a story about Sakura, but it's not enough. At the end of the day, Naegi's chest still feels hollow.
Fukawa ends up being the most help. She's to the point, and her blunt attitude towards everything helps him smile, even on his worst days. Once a week, she comes with him to lie flowers on Kirigiri's grave.
At the end of the day though, he still stands in Kirigiri's office, watering her flowers and crying. Because he'll never see her again, and his last memory of her is her telling him not to lose hope.
He won't lose hope, he won't give in to despair.
But his heart will always ache when a memory of her flashes by in his head. She will always be by his side, he'll carry him with her forever.
His apartment still smells like her flowery detergent, and the perfume samples that he once hated, he's come to love.
All that's left of Kyouko Kirigiri is the memories she left behind, etched in all of their minds. Every unique word she spoke will remain with him. He promised Kirigiri that he'd carry the people who died with him, and that includes her, he can never move on from her.
Slowly, Naegi throws out the towel that he's been holding tightly in his hands, then flees the bathroom as if fire burns under his feet, while water drips from the tap, splatting against the metal basin.
He'll never recover, not fully. Even when he thinks he has, he'll still go to ask her a question, only to remember that the closest he can ever be to her is when there's seven feet of dirt under his feet.
Naegi still misses his classmates from Hope's Peak, even after all these years. It would take him a lifetime to stop missing Kirigiri, and even then, he doesn't think he could ever truly get over her.
One day, he hopes to think of her, and be able to smile instead of cry. One day, he hopes to open a packet of cup noodles without bursting into tears. One day, he hopes that he can be someone that Kirigiri would be proud of.
He'll remember her life, it was the best thing that ever happened to him. And he'll get better, in time, they will all get better. The wound over the Future Foundation may never heal, but perhaps their hearts can find a way to mend.
(But even when she disappears from his dreams, he'll curl up at the edge of the bed, and he will shiver the whole night through.)