Let Me Die Laughing

Pekoyama slipped her a piece of paper as their class entered the room. Kirigiri glanced at it. Someone – Togami, no doubt – had possessed the foresight to ask Pekoyama to prepare her witness statement. Given the sloppiness of the penmanship, Naegi had held one of Pekoyama's arms hostage the entire time she had been writing.

She scanned over Pekoyama's account, soaking in what was useful. Not much; she knew most of it. The new information was that Naegi had added another target to his hit list, but she wasn't that surprised. Komaeda Nagito had earned that spot more than anyone.

Naegi's knees hovered just an inch above the floor as Pekoyama dragged him to the bed. She had an arm hooked under his armpit, and that was the only thing keeping him from rolling down her leg. Once there, Pekoyama settled heavily upon the mattress and did her best to shift Naegi to a position where he was laying down comfortably.

There was only one chair in the room, which Togami made a beeline for. Hagakure took up a space on the wall nearby, hands stuffed in his oversized pockets. Komaru sat on the desk; Fukawa hung back near a corner. Kirigiri herself chose to stand near Pekoyama and Naegi as Asahina boldly went straight for the bed.

"Where do we start?" Togami asked. It was an excellent question.

"Getting him responsive would be. . ."

Asahina shushed them. That wasn't a common occurrence. Without thinking about it, Kirigiri fell silent out of pure surprise. Meanwhile, Asahina had dropped to her knees on the floor by the bed and scooted over until she could lay her head on the mattress next to Naegi.

"Hey, Makoto," she said softly. "It's me, Hina. I'm here. We all are: Kyoko-san, your sister, Togami-kun. . . Everyone's here, okay? You're safe now."

Naegi just shuffled closer to Pekoyama. Asahina didn't seem discouraged.

"That's okay," she was saying. "Take as long as you need. We aren't going anywhere."

The ground must have been hard on her knees. Yet Asahina settled in to wait with a patient smile. It was more patience than she usually associated with the passionate woman. But as Asahina had said before, she had been one of the Future Foundation's field agents. It was nice to know she had learned something on the job other than hate.

And they waited. Finally, Naegi changed his grip on Pekoyama. His grip slackened; his elbows finally fell to rest on the mattress instead of being locked against her hipbone. He shifted again and tucked one knee a little closer to his ribs. These were all conscious movements, not those wrought from animal instinct.

"Hey," Asahina said. She laid her hand between Naegi's shoulders and began rubbing in circles. "We're here."

Naegi's ribs moved up and down as he looked at her. He was so skinny. So breakable.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

Naegi blinked slowly and then turned his face back into the mattress.

"Should we. . .?" Togami gestured vaguely at Naegi's lower body.

Asahina caught the cue and cleared her throat. "Do you want to change your clothes first? We'll wait right outside."

Chin tucked into his chest, legs folded, Naegi was silent for a long time.

". . . I'm sorry," he whispered.

Asahina almost frowned, but caught herself just in time. Quickly, she masked her discomfort with a big grin and said, "Aw, nobody cares about that. Trust me, we've all seen worse. Like, one time, me and the guys were out on a mission and we found this hidey-hole with a ton of food, but we didn't think to check the expiry date first and . . . Maybe I shouldn't be telling everyone that story. Okay! We'll wait outside and you come get us when you're ready."

While Asahina coaxed Naegi out of his shell, Kirigiri took the chance to visit Naegi's room and fetch some clean clothes. Personally, she saw nothing wrong with a man wearing women's clothing, but the fact of the matter was that her slacks were too long for him. By the time she returned, Asahina had managed to wrestle an agreement out of him. They filed outside and waited for him to change.

"You think he's really going to let us in? He could lock us out," Hagakure asked, glancing at the closed door.

"If he does, then we need to respect that," Kirigiri said. She hoped he wouldn't. It was her room.

Then Togami asked, "What if this is an act?"

A hollow silence followed. Then Pekoyama turned on him with agonizing slowness. It looked like she was grinding her own teeth into powder.

"You think that was an act?" she demanded.

He ignored Pekoyama and leveled an even stare at Kirigiri. "It's something we have to consider."

"It could be an act," Kirigiri said, "but what if it isn't?"

Togami held her gaze for a moment. Then he grunted, conceding.

Naegi didn't lock them out. He did, however, take longer then needed to open the door again and let them in, but if that was what he needed to collect himself, she couldn't begrudge him that.

Asahina stood in the center of the room, right in front of him. She asked, "You okay?"

He stared at the floor like a guilty child. "Sorry."

Asahina said, "Nobody's mad at you. So, what exactly happened out there? Are you hurt?"

"No . . . I was being stupid," he muttered almost too quietly to be heard. Already, he was beginning to shut them out.

"Hey." Asahina poked him hard. "You're not stupid. How you feel isn't stupid, either. What's stupid is thinking your feelings are stupid!"

Perhaps the excessive use of 'stupid' overloaded him (evidentially, it had overloaded Hagakure), for Naegi then leaned forward and rested his forehead against Asahina's abdomen as if he were too exhausted to keep it up. Asahina's shoulders heaved in a sigh. She carefully wound her arms around him in a gentle hug.

Seeing an opening, Pekoyama approached. "Naegi-kun, you asked me to stop Komaeda, but I am not sure what you want me to stop."

". . . No bodies," Naegi murmured after a pause. "Don't let them near him."

That explanation was still too vague for any of them. Pekoyama struggled to fit an upbeat tune into her response. "I see. I promise there will be no cannibalism while . . ."

Naegi bit his lip. "That's not. . ."

Pekoyama paused and then fell deep into thought. She hadn't noticed the many pairs of eyes that locked onto her. Kirigiri had known about Tanaka's former diet, of course, but any reference would be fresh news to the others.

Once again, Pekoyama gave it her best shot. "No flaying. I will ensure that Komaeda-kun . . . That's not it either?"

Naegi's breath quickened as he shook his head. And so Pekoyama tried again:

"Murder?"

"Torture?"

"Medical experiments?"

". . . Mauled by a bear?"

At last, she spluttered helplessly, "I don't know what else there was!"

That. . . That was . . . Revealing. With the benefit of experience, Kirigiri filed all that information away for later. She was the only one that could. Even Togami was staring at Pekoyama with his mouth agape. But despite the fragility of the situation, Kirigiri could sense the barrier around Naegi had thinned. She marched forth herself and put her hand on Naegi's shoulder.

"Makoto, what happened?"

He blinked slowly. His face wrinkled just as slowly, the skin around his eyes scrunching as he struggled to hold back tears.

"He had them," Naegi whimpered. "Maizono-san and Fujisaki-kun and Oogami-san. . . a-and. . ."

Whatever he wanted to say, he couldn't. His skin had turned from pale to green, and he cupped his hand over his mouth. Kirigiri swiftly sidestepped, but he managed to stop himself from throwing up.

Asahina, meanwhile, agitated by the inclusion of her best friend, paced a small section of floor. "Had them? Like, he knew that Sakura was going to sacrifice herself before she did? Or was he one of the guys who helped kidnap the hostages in Towa City?"

He took a very long time to answer.

"He went back to Hope's Peak. He. . . took their bodies."

Kirigiri snapped to attention. Not that she hadn't been paying attention before, but before, she had still been aware of Pekoyama and Asahina by her side, of Togami monopolizing the back wall and how Hagakure kept nervously fidgeting with the blunt in his pocket. All that awareness vanished as her gaze became laser-focused.

"When?" she demanded. She paused for a moment, realizing she had instinctively fallen into her interrogation tone. She repeated the question more gently.

"I don't know," Naegi said. "He had them before he left, and. . . before Kuma died. . ."

"But how?" Kirigiri said to herself. "I was there when the Future Foundation retrieved the bodies. I identified them. That was only a couple of weeks after they found us. It simply isn't possible –"

"I dunno," Hagakure said suddenly. "I mean, you're the Ultimate Detective, but Komaeda must have found something cause. . ."

He weakly gestured at Naegi. Naegi, who was so nauseated by his own words, that he was currently choking on his own bile.

Kirigiri didn't doubt her skills. The bodies the Future Foundation had retrieved from Hope's Peak were the real bodies of her classmates. Additionally, if someone had broken into headquarters and stolen then, she would have been informed as a Division Head. But despite those truths, it was clear that Naegi believed that Komaeda had somehow obtained their classmates' bodies. That was all that truly mattered. It was as Gekkogahara had said: don't fight him. Silently, she thanked the usually obtuse Hagakure for the reminder.

"What did he do with them?" Fukawa asked. Although she didn't stammer, her eyes were tightly closed as if embracing herself for intense pain.

"He set them up," Naegi said weakly. He reached out. His finger moved through the air, tracing out a picture only he could see. "He had the knife. . . and the ropes and. . ."

"He posed them in the manner of their death from the Killing Game," Kirigiri finished instantly. She'd seen many similar things during her career.

Naegi nodded.

"Was it just those three?" Togami asked. Kirigiri turned her head sharply, trying to catch his eye. While she, too, wanted to know, she didn't think throwing that question at Naegi was good for his mental state.

"O-Owada-kun," Naegi said.

"Him? He didn't leave a body behind. How. . .?" Slowly, Togami understood. Other than a slight widening of his eyes, he managed to supress his reaction.

"I didn't mean to." Naegi trembled like a leaf in a storm. "I wasn't looking at the floor. I didn't know he was there."

"Makoto . . . !" Asahina gasped.

Kirigiri could hear the despair in Naegi's voice. Thus, she changed the topic, and did so quickly. "When Komaeda presented the bodies, what did you do?"

"Naegi's eyes locked on nothing. "I was angry. We fought."

"Did he hurt you?" Asahina demanded, having interpreted his answer in the physical sense.

Naegi didn't speak. But what he did do, suddenly touching his chest, told her that Asahina's interpretation had been correct. She could imagine how that ended. Neither Komaeda nor Naegi were fighters, one being sickly and the other too peacefully inclined, but Komaeda was the biggest of the two.

"Who won?" Togami asked because of course that was what he focused on.

Naegi pressed three fingers into his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. He breathed in, then stopped, leaving his chest strangely swollen. Then, bit by bit, he released that air in a laugh. She was glad he did. It meant it wasn't a complete surprise when he opened his eyes and there were swirls.

"Won?" Naegi croaked. (Hagakure yelped and hid behind Asahina.) "Togami-kun, how would somebody win? If you're asking if I threw punches, I did. I think? It's pretty hazy. But the kind of fight I'm talking about isn't something that can just be won or lost. It's a debate, not a brawl."

"And the topic?" Kirigiri asked.

Naegi gave her an almost patronizing smile. "You're asking for the others. Ultimate Detective Kirigiri-san obviously knows."

It was Pekoyama, the one that knew Komaeda best, who growled, "Hope."

"You got it. Good girl, Pekoyama-san." It took all his reach and then some, but he managed to pat Pekoyama on the head like a dog.

"This was about the Killing Game and hope . . . This is like that stuff you tried to show me!" Komaru said, lobbing an accusing finger in Naegi's direction.

Far from denying it, Naegi's voice instead became breathy and hoarse, like Komaeda had sounded in school when meeting the new class of Ultimates for the first time. "Yes. Yes! Exactly. Geez, why didn't we have this conversation ages ago?"

He laughed again. There was a peculiar echo to his laughter, like that of a creaky hinge in a haunted house.

"You got it right, Komaru," Naegi continued. "Don't you see? That's when I figured it out. Everything just clicked and. . . Kyoko-san, you understand what I mean, right? It was like when we realized that Maizono-an had wrote Kuwata-kun's name on the bathroom wall."

Naegi looked directly at her, begging with his eyes. The hunger there was plain. It was clear just how much he craved her acceptance. It didn't feel right and sat in her gut like curdled milk.

"You had a eureka moment," Kirigiri said. Upon meeting his eyes and seeing how he stared at her like she was the only thing that mattered, she almost regretted giving him that much. Every instinct she had screamed that this wasn't right or healthy. But the most troubling part was that she didn't know whether this was a symptom of despair, or how Naegi honestly thought of her.

"That was my moment." Naegi stepped around her and sauntered down the room as if he hadn't been sobbing not long ago. He stopped before the window and stared outside. "I finally understood what Komaeda-kun had been talking about. I understood why it happened and . . . Why I had done what I did to them."

While Kirigiri was digesting his answer and what he was implying, Pekoyama muttered, "You sound grateful."

"I suppose I am. I did need to hear what he told me." He turned so that he could see them and said sweetly, "But Pekoyama-san, what I told you this morning. . . You should have done it."

They would deal with that later. As dangerous as this despairing Naegi was, he was also exponentially more cooperative than he regularly was. And so, she asked for the truth. She asked Naegi what it was he had learned.

And he answered, "Why I killed them."

". . .You killed someone? Who?" Asahina said. She didn't sound appalled or upset; she sounded heartbroken. As if Naegi had admitted to being shot himself rather than shooting the gun.

He shrugged carelessly. "You know. Maizono-san and Oogami-san and Fujisaki-kun . . ."

"Hold on. What idiocy is this?" Togami snapped. "I saw Owada walk out of that room and leave a body behind. Unless you're suggesting his confession was a fabrication and that I was dumb enough not to notice. . ."

"That doesn't matter," Naegi said dismissively. "It shouldn't matter who swung the dumbbell when you consider why everyone was there in the first place. Fujisaki-kun asked me for advice first, and I told him to go to Owada-kun."

"That doesn't count," Hagakure said. "I mean it's not like you knew what was going to happen. So it has nothing to do with you and it's not your fault at all!"

That was quite empathetic. Sounded like Hagakure was speaking about something he'd done, as well. There was no time to wonder about that though when Naegi was clucking his tongue at them.

Naegi said, "If it wasn't him, it would have been Ishimaru-kun or Oogami-san or someone else who died. It had to happen."

"It isn't your fault!" Asahina cried, rushing over to him. "You were the only one that was nice to Sakura. You didn't make her feel like she had to –"

And Naegi cut in, tongue sharp as fire, making Asahina freeze in her tracks. "If I had been doing my job, she never would have reached that point. If I had been doing my job, I could have calmed Maizono-san down after the first motive. Ludenberg-san wouldn't have been so desperate to get out. But I wasn't so everything did happen."

Oh, Naegi. Kirigiri's throat ached with things she wanted to say. Although it was his own burden Naegi had described, she felt it in her chest: a heavy feeling that made her want to lay down and not get back up. For all her cleverness and skills, she couldn't piece together a sentence that would begin to fix this.

"I don't understand!" Komaru wailed. "What does this have to do with hope and Komaeda getting bodies and. . . ?"

"Because that's what it took to make me get it!" he snarled at her. He drew up to his full height, which was still noticeably shorter than Komaru was, but felt like less. "That's what he needed to make me stop running away from my destiny. The Killing Game happened because of me. You need sacrifices to build up a god, and you don't understand because because Towa Monaca fucked up."

His anger was a cold thing that left them feeling like ice. Kirigiri ignored it. She had to.

"Komaeda Nagito pretended. . ." Kirigiri paused and corrected herself. ". . . stole our classmates' bodies so that he could convince you that the Killing Game was your fault."

Naegi raised his chin proudly. "Yes."

Pekoyama choked. At some point, without their notice, she had started to cry. "Why didn't you tell me? I didn't know this was happening!"

Her arms twitched oddly, as if she wanted to hug him. Naegi saw it too, for he suddenly put a hand on her chest to hold her back. He told her, "Hope appreciates your protection, but that was a lesson from one pupil of Hope to another. It has nothing to do with you."

"But he did this to you!" she said.

"He made me grow up!" he shouted at her. "Only a kid runs away from their responsibilities. Now go over there and sit down."

Perhaps too dazed or distraught to do anything else, Pekoyama obeyed. She sat in the chair tucked at Kirigiri's desk, her knuckles a mottled red and white from clenching.

"This is crazy," Fukawa muttered. Her hands tangled with her scalp and yanked hard, hard enough that Kirigiri seriously worried about whether Genocider was knocking at the inside of her skull. "Enoshima and Ikusaba set everything up, but he still convinced you that. . ."

"Because they set it up for me!" he snapped at her. "If had graduated as the dumb Lucky Student, nobody would have believed I was Hope. Those murders created me. Enoshima-san gave up everything to make the only world I could thrive in. They all did! If they hadn't died for me, what would I be?"

Happy. You would be happy.

"She shouldn't have bothered," Asahina said, choking back her own rage and tears. "It wasn't worth it."

And he lunged.

Obviously, she was stronger. Obviously, Asahina was letting him go this far. But when they slammed into the wall with a resounding boom, Kirigiri still held her breath. Naegi had Asahina pinned against the wall, his forearm pressing into her throat.

"Liar!" he snarled, eyes swirling furiously. "Don't you dare say that."

His nostrils flared. His stance suddenly shifted, becoming more balanced, more solid as his other hand began to drift upward towards her neck –

But before Kirigiri could do more than shift her weight, he had backed off. Asahina stayed against the wall, needing it for support. Naegi's head swung around and his roving gaze held them all in place.

"It will be worth it," he said.

And as he furiously looked from one person to another, Kirigiri alone was unafraid. Finally. Finally.

She stepped towards him.

She finally understood how his mind worked.

He growled in her embrace, twisting quickly from side to side to throw her off. She ignored his thrashing, and rested her chin on his head. Her gloved hand combed through his hair. She offered no words of comfort; he would interpret anything resembling pity as an attack. He growled a little more before stilling, and then pushed into her hand like a dog.

"That's when we had our first kiss," Naegi murmured and he wasn't an angry, spitting ball of fury anymore, but the small frightened – broken – Naegi that had first been carried into her room.

She heard a noise that alarmingly sounded like something being crushed in a fist. Had everyone heard that?

She turned her focus back to Naegi. "Get some rest."

He looked up at her, forcing her to stop using him as a chinrest. "But – "

"Pekoyama-san told us you threw up twice," Kirigiri said. "That's very taxing on the system. Get some rest. I'll bring you a water bottle."

She pointed the others towards the door. No one really wanted to leave, but the delicacy of the situation was apparent even to Hagakure, and nobody would risk being the one to crack it. She guide Naegi toward the bed as the others began to shuffle towards the door.

"Do I need to go back to my room?" Naegi asked.

"You can stay here if it's easer."

He sagged. "I . . . I think I want to take a nap."

"If that's what you want."

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Shiranai Atsune: Funny you say that. I thought I posted that chapter a week ago but then I looked at my account and whelp...