It was hard not to feel sad and regretful. There were so many good things ahead, now that Nagisa had reached the end of his first year of high school. On the one hand, that meant there was going to be more work and studying. On the other, he was inching closer to his goals. He had to hope that this is what Korosensei would have wanted.
"Are you ready to go?"
Nagisa nodded slowly. "We're probably late already."
Looking more towards the door than his eyes, Karma swallowed. "Well, they're gonna be there all day."
He tried to take that in, but it was hard to not feel a little deflated. As much as Korosensei would have wanted them to be positive, it still stung. To the day, it had been exactly one year since his death, since they went from assassins to regular civilians. Something their class had mutually agreed was to honour his memory by keeping the classroom clean.
Nagisa was pretty sure some of his old classmates still did it regularly. Maybe out of habit, or maybe out of responsibility since they technically owned the place now. So it probably wouldn't be in much of a bad condition. No worse than it would be over the summer break maybe, though Nagisa knew for a fact Korosensei had kept it in pretty good shape back then too.
Sighing, he bent down. "What did I say about putting that in your mouth?"
Daichi, who had been on the floor the entire time, looked up, toy car between his lips.
"He acts like we don't feed him," Karma commented.
At the word, Daichi dropped it from his mouth. "Food?"
"No food yet," Nagisa said, picking him up. "We're going out."
Thankfully not starving, Daichi didn't seem to mind all that much. He did wiggle though, so Nagisa put him back down again. Immediately Nagisa regretted that decision, since Daichi took it as an opportunity to run around without an aim. Getting his shoes on him like that was a nightmare waiting to happen. Honestly, they'd considered not even taking Daichi, but in a weird way it felt almost wrong not to.
They did eventually get out of the door, with only a minor struggle and bribery. After that, the walk was pretty much silent, since neither of them were in the mood for much of a conversation. Despite his protests, Karma did elect to carry Daichi once they got to the actual mountain. Whilst they were barely phased by its dangers anymore, Daichi was still only one, and definitely didn't have the athletic ability yet.
He seemed captivated by the surroundings, which Nagisa supposed was fair considering he hadn't been to a new place in a while. Unfortunately, the excitement was almost too much, considering the way even Karma has struggling to hold him still. He didn't seem upset by the restriction though, busy lunging out in attempts to grab random parts of the forest.
A large group of their classmates were already there by the time they got to the actual class building. But then again, they were hardly early. Their ex classmates were already absorbed in their own things, it seemed, though Isogai shot him a wave and a bright smile when they came past. Given that he'd been their class rep, he was the one who actually held the key to the classroom.
"Hey guys," he greeted cheerfully. "Great to see you here! Some of us have already made a start but there's plenty to do!"
Nagisa smiled back politely. "Mm. Everyone seems pretty busy."
"And Daichi," he took a cautious step forwards. "He's so big now."
Daichi perked up at the mention of his name, scrabbling up across Karma's shoulder to try and judge his source. Thirteen months old now, he definitely had grown a lot from the baby he was when Isogai would have last seen him. Speaking of growing a lot, it looked like everyone had. Everyone, it seemed, except Nagisa. Maybe getting pregnant had tricked his body into thinking it was fully grown or something, a cruel price for a high reward.
"Oh hey!" Maehara rushed over to join the exchange, dropping one of the wash buckets he was carrying. "Long time no see, huh? Hi," he bent down a little as if talking to Daichi, holding his hand out in a wave. Looking at him confused for a moment, Daichi clenched his fist and tried to meet him half way.
"He's trying to give you a fist bump," Nagisa explained. Or at least, he sincerely hoped that was what Daichi was attempting, rather than an actual punch.
Maehara laughed, not really seeming to mind, when another voice called out. "Hey Maehara! Get back here!"
Looking over in the direction it was coming from, Nagisa couldn't see anyone, but he recognised Okano's voice. It was good to know everyone was still getting along, he supposed.
"Yeah! I guess I should run… You coming?" He looked over at Isogai.
Isogai smiled at Nagisa as he walked past. "See you round."
With that they were essentially left alone, with only background sounds of work to remind them they weren't. Nagisa took a tentative step forward, heading towards the class building, but Karma took advantage of his naturally bigger stride and crossed over in front of him, stopping in his path. There was definitely something off about his whole demeanour, Nagisa realised, remembering how he'd kept silent through that entire exchange.
"Uhm, Karma-"
He was cut off by their son being shoved into his arms. "You take Daichi today."
Nagisa blinked. "Where are you going?"
Unsurprisingly, Nagisa didn't get a response. He turned over his shoulder, watching as Karma walked away off into the woods. Nothing had happened between them, had it? He retraced their journey in his head, trying to remember if something he'd said had upset him in some way… It all came up blank. Maybe it was just simply being here?
Whatever the case, Nagisa knew Karma pretty well at this point. And he knew when he needed to leave Karma alone. So instead of trying to follow after him, he continued the way he was originally headed, right into the classroom. Honestly, it was a good thing he had Daichi at his hip, because it was the only thing grounding him to the reality and that he wasn't back in 3E.
Nobody else was in the classroom, making it eerily silent. Nagisa couldn't help but be drawn to his old desk, slowly walking over to it. As he would have every morning, he turned and faced the front of the room, eyes fixed on the blackboard. He blinked, a flash of light obscuring his vision. For just a second, it was like a phantom had crossed into the room. Just as quickly as it appeared, it went again, clearly just a trick of the light.
"Dada," Daichi complained from his arms, jolting him out of his thoughts.
When Nagisa turned his head to look at him, Daichi was already smacking his mouth with his hand. "You want a snack?"
The only answer he got was a babble of something unrecognisable, which he took as a yes. With nowhere better to put him down, he sat Daichi on the chair, whilst simultaneously wiggling the bag from his shoulder. At this point, a bag of baby supplies was absolutely necessary whenever they went within a minute of their house. He hadn't learnt that the hard way yet, but he didn't want to. He fished a pretty generic bag of milk biscuits out, ripping it open. They were actually surprisingly good, in his opinion, though by the looks of things Daichi would probably finish them all.
He turned around, and paced over to the blackboard. It lacked the usual residue of chalk, suggesting that nobody had drawn on it for a while, but he decided it could probably use a good wipe down anyway. It seemed somebody had already left some cleaning supplies in the room, so he quickly got to work, checking regularly over his shoulder to make sure Daichi wasn't about to fall off the chair or choke on his food or anything.
It felt odd, standing in such a place. Although he'd stood right there and cleaned the blackboard many times, there was a different kind of air. He was in a different stage of his life, compared to being a middle school student. He felt the sudden and strong urge to keep his eyes set forwards, rather than behind him. That's how he'd gotten through his first year of high school, at least.
"I thought I might find you here."
Nagisa's head snapped towards the doorway, where Kayano was standing. "I-I'm surprised you made it."
She smiled widely. "I happened to be between projects right now."
Kayano was a lot different to how she'd been during their year as classmates. Although her personality hadn't shifted that much at first when her fake persona had been revealed, a year outside of their influence had left her feeling a little different. Nagisa had seen her a couple of times this past year, a month ago for Daichi's birthday, but it was rare that they had a full conversation. Somehow, right then, the shift felt more obvious. The energy surrounding her was more self assured, more grown up, though maybe that was also the change in her look.
"Is there going to be anything for us to see yet?" He questioned politely. Nagisa always kept an eye out for her stage name, but it seemed that nothing had been aired to the public.
She stepped over closer to him. "A few small roles I did should be airing soon! It takes a little while to get back into acting after such a long break," she grinned. "I already have a lot of offers on the table though, so, I have to trust I made the right choice!"
Nagisa nodded. "If it's what you were meant to do-"
"Then I should do it," Kayano completed, with a small sigh.
"Done!" A much higher pitched voice loudly proclaimed. "Dada, dada, dada, done!"
It was pretty normal for Daichi to get impatient when he felt ignored. Nagisa was happy he'd finished it all though, which meant his energy shouldn't turn into irritability, if he was lucky. Nagisa came over to him, taking the packet out of his hands. Of course Daichi had managed to get a beard of crumbs smudged around his chin, ready for Nagisa to wipe off. He included the hands for good measure, even though they were bound to get dirty again instantly. Not wanting to leave him like that, he set him down on the floor, pulling out a toy car from the bag to keep him somewhat occupied. It seemed he was more interested in doing his own thing right then, since he wasn't looking up at Nagisa in a pleading request to be played with.
"It's odd," Kayano stared out of the window.
"Hmm?"
She glanced around the room. "Standing here again."
Before Nagisa could answer her, his phone buzzed its notification sound. A part of him just wanted to ignore it. He probably should have just turned the device off anyway, before coming here, but it had slipped his mind. In case it was something important, though, Nagisa took a quick look at the screen. It only displayed the name and a small preview of the message. Glancing at it, it only seemed to be Rin, and nothing urgent. On a day like this, he figured it was better to just turn his phone off.
"Who's that?" Kayano questioned, possibly noticing the shift in his demeanour. He knew she wasn't purposely invading his privacy or anything, since she was standing in a position where she could easy see his phone screen, but the question made Nagisa jolt anyway.
He took a deep breath. "J-just my, uhm," he paused, flush building on his cheeks. For some reason, he couldn't quite spit it out.
Kayano's lips parted in what looked to be understanding. "I thought you and Karma were practically joined at the hip."
It had been a long time since their last proper conversation. The last time, he'd made an idiot of himself, going on and on about his feelings for Karma. Although they'd seen each other since then, he supposed there was no reason for her to assume anything had changed. A small part of Nagisa wondered if anything had changed.
"It was practically his idea," Nagisa mumbled, though he wasn't sure if she caught it or not. It was probably better if she didn't.
She hummed. "Are you happy like this?"
"I'm happy," he forced himself to say, afraid of what a more genuine answer would have been.
Taking a deep breath, a determined look crossed across her face. "I don't think you can fall out of love with somebody quickly. I-I think you can swallow it down a lot, but it takes a while to really let go of it."
Dread set over him. "So I should keep going?"
Maybe it was awful. Honestly, Nagisa wasn't sure how he felt about anything right now, and it was beginning to make him feel dizzy. It wasn't like months ago, before the new year, where he got this sort of uncontrollable buzz underneath his skin whenever Karma so much as looked at him. Perhaps subconsciously, he'd started to associate that with not being infatuated with him anymore, though there was something, like a churn in his stomach, that didn't feel quite complete about it. And Nagisa knew he liked Rin, but he wasn't so far gone in lying to himself to pretend he loved him. But you weren't supposed to love somebody right away, as far as he knew. So Kayano was right, he needed to just keep going as he until the somewhat uncomfortable feeling he still had faded.
"That's not what I-" She didn't get to finish her sentence, a tiny weight barrelling into her leg. "Daichiisai!"
"You're still calling him that?" Nagisa half groaned, though he couldn't help but feel relieved that the subject had changed.
Daichi didn't seem to mind, pointing at the toy he was rolling around. "Car."
"Yeah!" Kayano bent down to play with him. "Do you like cars?"
"Big car," he giggled, pushing it towards her.
Nagisa was surprised at his apparent ability to string two words together, but he didn't express it. Instead, for just a little bit, he watched Kayano readily play cars with Daichi. Being an actress, she was pretty skilled in the art of playing her audience, and Daichi seemed overjoyed in the level of interest in something so small. Whilst they were doing that, he took his chance to start working on cleaning the rest of the classroom, something that was quite methodical.
As the day went by, his old classmates slowly flitted in. Most of the demanding maintenance had been outside, anyway, so they hadn't had much of a reason to come in before. Nagisa continued to clean around them, as a few gathered around. Some of them were just having conversations with each other, but quite a few joined whatever Kayano and Daichi were doing at that point. Honestly Nagisa would have expected Daichi to be a little more nervous with the group of practically strangers gathered around him, but he was just soaking up the attention.
The natural light began to fall eventually, by which point almost everyone was inside. Nagisa gave up cleaning, at that point, as the conversation became more communal as opposed to small groups. There was an odd air in the room, though, like they were dancing around the subject. Somehow, though, it didn't feel like a time to be sad.
"Hey," Maehara said, standing up from his chair. "Do you remember that time Korosensei was trying to show Okuda san that experiment, but some other chemical got knocked in?" He gestured towards the wall. "I can't believe there's still a scorch mark there."
Okuda flushed, but the rest of their class started to laugh. It had been pretty amusing, actually. One moment Korosensei had been calmly explaining a more advanced version of the lesson, and the next he was rushing around, sliming practically the whole classroom to contain the flame. It was a shame it was after they'd established the 'no assassination attempts in class' rule by then, because Nagisa was sure they could have had a good shot.
"Karma poured it in," Okuda said, her voice low.
Of course he had. Okajima turned to look at him. "Hey, where is Karma?"
Apparently that was the cue for the rest of them to look expectedly at Nagisa. Like he actually was supposed to know. "H-he came with me," he said, "but I haven't seen him since this morning."
"I haven't seen him," Nakamura shrugged.
Nobody else pipped up to his whereabouts. Although Nagisa was absolutely certain that Karma could take care of himself, he couldn't help but feel a little worried, especially considering his mood earlier. Everyone else had returned inside… Perhaps Nagisa should just give him the space he so clearly wanted, but surely a whole day's worth was enough.
"I guess I could go look for him," he offered.
Nakamura jumped up. "We'll look after Daichan!"
"Will you." He deadpanned. Though, he supposed they'd practically been looking after him all day. Since Kayano had come in, he'd been changed and fed again properly, so it wasn't like he should be too much trouble. Given that they'd been out all day, he'd probably just fall asleep. Surely he could trust them to not break a sleeping infant.
"It's probably a little rough out on the mountains," Isogai offered.
Nagisa felt the tension drop from his shoulders, and sighed. With everyone looking over at him expectantly, he kissed Daichi on the forehead, and then set off. Where would Karma even go, anyway? Definitely not all the way back home, or so he hoped. Unfortunately, Karma had a lot of prime places mapped out of this forest, and Nagisa had yet to find them all.
At first he followed the route they'd taken when infiltrating the army, back on that night a year ago now. He had to assume that logically Karma would have chosen the route most familiar to him for himself back then, which would make it a familiar place to hide in now. Still, so signs of him anywhere. Nagisa almost considered climbing a tree for better vantage, but he didn't think it would get him very far. Karma was smart for sure, but he wasn't extremely stealthy.
Next Nagisa checked the ravine like formation, following the same logic. Karasuma had trained them a lot there, so it still qualified as familiar. Once again, he couldn't see any signs of Karma. Nagisa paused, then, at the bottom of it. Of course he'd checked around the classroom first, and he hadn't been their either, so where else?
He ended up following the river downstream, and then there he was. It was almost fully dark by then, but Karma's red hair still stuck out like a flame. Though it was subtle, he saw the way Karma's form tensed up, almost at the same moment Nagisa laid eyes on him. He must have heard the footsteps, then, so there was no point in Nagisa trying to sneak up on him. Instead, he approached casually.
"Hey," Nagisa said, sitting down beside him, legs dangling over the cliff face where half their ex classmates had almost been thrown off.
Karma didn't say or do anything to acknowledge him.
"It's c-"
"Don't." He said, tone sharp with ice.
On an ordinary day, Nagisa probably would have left it at that, but he felt compelled somehow to not take that for an answer. He felt an almost kind of rage spiral up inside him. Everyone else was sitting inside and respecting Korosensei's memory, not off sulking somewhere alone. Hadn't they grown out of this kind of thing?
"You should come back," he tried to say, firmer.
Karma laughed without any obvious humour. "And why would I do that, Nagisa?"
"Because," he protested, "I know that you're upset," he sped up before Karma could cut him off to deny that, "but I don't think this is what Korosensei would have wanted. Maybe it's not fair-"
Without warning, Karma jumped up, as if he was about to stalk off again. He seemed to change his mind though, mid stride. "Nothing about anything is fair."
"Oh," Nagisa produced the sound, without registering it leaving his lips.
He turned to face Nagisa, though something about it seemed less on edge. "I just can't get over it," he finally admitted. "I think it was right… the ending, that is. But the way it happened?" Karma almost shuddered. "It feels like chaining an animal up for slaughter when I replay it in my head. There's not a lot to celebrate about that."
That's what this was about. "No it wasn't ideal," Nagisa got to his own feet. "But I don't think that's what mattered. Maybe Korosensei was trapped, and maybe it wasn't a typical assassination since he kind of… chose it, but… Wasn't that kind of the point? All year, we were trapped in a bad situation, but we made the best of it, like Korosensei taught us. We still assassinated him together after all, and I like to think he was proud of us for that."
"You think so?"
Nagisa couldn't help himself. He strode forward, going up on the balls of his feet to wrap his arms around Karma as best he could. Since embracing his neck would probably just be uncomfortable for them both, he instead wrapped his arms around his middle, burying his head against Karma's chest. For a moment, Karma remained completely still, but relaxed into it, and then hugged Nagisa back. His eyes weren't wet against Nagisa's shoulder, but it was as close to crying as Nagisa thought he'd get.
"No," he stumbled back, pushing Nagisa away from him all of a sudden, a real kind of panicked look in his eye. "You can't do that."
He stared up at Karma. "D-do what?"
Karma's face morphed, and then like a quick shudder again it completely neutralised. "So. Let's go back to class."
Now Nagisa was even more concerned. What was going on with him? "Wait-"
But he was already walking. "You found me, didn't you? Fine. I'll come and sit with you and chit chat like you want. Is that enough?"
He wasn't fine, and it wasn't enough, and Nagisa realised with an amount of horror that there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it. So he steeled his shaking limbs, and just followed Karma back.
