Afterwards

The kitchen smelt of fried eggs when he re-entered. This time, Naegi did so without the door-slamming of his previous visit, so Hanamura didn't notice. The chef kept humming a merry tune as he commandeered the sizzling stovetop, his spatula bobbing up and down like a conductor's baton. His spiff white uniform stood in stark contrast to the clean, but worn interior. There was nothing indicating Hanamura was part of Ultimate Despair. He looked harmless.

It was strange. Naegi had known Hanamura for over a year, yet he had never seen Hanamura so at ease, so homely like this. Back at the old headquarters, Hanamura's kitchen had been more of a military operation with dozens and dozens of helpers and cooks whose strings lay in Hanamura's firm hand. His demeanour had reflected it: a confident but stiff straight back and brisk movements. This Hanamura reflected none of that. He slouched slightly. His arms moved gracefully but there was a bit of floppiness to them.

Fukawa suddenly bumped against him, shaking him out of his remembrance – and bringing his attention to his shaking hands. Fukawa wasn't like Asahina; she would only hold his hand if he changed his name to Komaru. Still, the back of her fingers glided over his palm in a fleeting touch. It wasn't as grounding as someone's hand in his, but it loosened his jaw enough that he could swallow.

It was a matter of time before Hanamura noticed them, and the chef did so as he turned to reach for some spices. He did that wide-eyed freeze again, like a mouse who had spotted a circling hawk. Well, Hanamura was shorter than them. (A dizzying thought!) Maybe they were intimidating.

"Back again?" Hanamura said.

"Do you mind?" Naegi asked, rubbing the back of his neck. "Cooking's an art and art is all about performing, so I thought it might be interesting."

"I'm not that kind of chef, although I've never tried either." The shaft of Hanamura's spatula tapped-tapped against the counter as he considered it. "Hmm. . . You know, my siblings were money-grubbing hacks, but as escorts they had delectable self-confidence. If I combined that confidence and my rugged good looks, I would be a natural. Wouldn't that be a sight – me on the big screen! Can you imagine it, Naegi-kun?"

"You've asked me that question a dozen times before so yes, I can," Naegi deadpanned. Fukawa side-eyed him, uncertain if he was being hostile or himself.

Hanamura turned his back to them, but he waved them forward. "C'mon, get closer, won't you? The best seat in the house is the one where we're sharing body heat. Make sure your bodies are prepared for how hot it's going to get."

An innocent statement coming from anyone else. From Hanamura? Questionable but with company, Naegi was sure nothing would happen.

He stepped closer, mirrored a moment later by Fukawa. Hanamura's eyes slid to her as she moved, and he noticeably looked her over from head to toe. From where their arms brushed against each other, Naegi felt her tense.

"You've met Fukawa-san, right?" Naegi said loudly. "I think you've met her alternate personality, too."

"I certainly have." The hint of a purr seeped into Hanamura's tone.

"Yes. The Ultimate Murderous Fiend. Who is especially known for murdering boys Fukawa-san likes!"

Fukawa spluttered in disbelief. Hanamura got the hint though and with a feigned cough and red cheeks, he turned his attention back to the sizzling pan.

Despite his boast, Hanamura clearly wasn't a practiced performer. Half the time, he forgot they were there. But when he did remember, he indeed had the natural showmanship and confidence of a man capable of hitting on everyone he met. If Naegi hadn't discussed cooking with Hanamura before, he would have learned a lot. He hoped Fukawa was getting something out of it,

"I know your mother taught you to cook, but who taught her?" he asked.

"Hmm, there was some mentorship at the beginning, but most of it she figured out herself," Hanamura said as he whisked some pancake batter. "It was my father's restaurant you see, but he wasn't around forever and she still had hungry mouths to feed. Wasn't much time for floundering."

It was the first time Hanamura even mentioned his father, and it hadn't been without hesitation. Naegi acknowledged that as a warning not to pry.

"Oh, so your mother built her business just because she was worried about her children. Don't need to rub it in," Fukawa snarled under her breath. Now Naegi, of course, had heard plenty about Fukawa's parents. Hanamura knew nothing though, and his eyes alight with curiosity.

This could get nasty very quickly. Time for a subject change!

"Can you tell us about her? Like, what was she like outside the kitchen?" Naegi asked with perfect politeness.

Hanamura was all too happy to change the subject. Listening to him answer was easy soothing; it was like a lullaby. Naegi listened patiently as Hanamura finished up their multi-course super early breakfast.

He was still talking about his mother as he served their plates.

He was still talking about his mother as they sat in the dining room and ate.

Finally, Hanamura paused to breathe and Naegi knew that if he didn't speak now, there might not be an opportunity for a long time.

"You must miss her a lot."

. . . Wait, that's not what he meant to say. He had been thinking along the lines of 'You must care about her a lot.' Something plain and not at all controversial. But what was done was done.

"Well, yes?" Hanamura said, and he was confused rather than angry. "But she's only off at the store."

"This early?" Fukawa asked skeptically. Naegi hadn't expected her to be so bold.

"Restocking always happens during the morning or off-hours," Hanamura said dismissively. "Now, are you seriously going to let your food go cold while discussing mundane details like this?"

Fukawa glanced at Naegi, then shrugged and tucked in. Naegi lifted his fork, too, but paused. The conversation felt unfinished.

"Where exactly is she shopping?" Naegi asked. When Hanamura hemmed and hawed, he pushed. "There's not many stores around here. Or at all."

"Well. . . That is. . . Um. . ."

In his peripheral vision, he saw Fukawa slyly slip a package of pepper off the table. She wasn't saying anything, but Naegi could hear how slow her breathing was. What he was doing to Hanamura wasn't pleasant – oh, he knew exactly how awful it was to have the rug pulled out from under you. But the only alternative was playing along, and he couldn't do that forever. Plus, if he thought back, had playing along with anyone's delusion ever helped? It certainly hadn't helped him with Komaeda. It certainly hadn't helped Pekoyama with Kuzuryu. And while Naegi understood why Kirigiri had pretended she was on his side, had her actions helped him or made things worse? No, playing house had rarely gotten Naegi anywhere. Chaos had been his saviour. Chaos, and the calm that came afterwards once things settled.

Oh. So that's what he had to do. This. . . wasn't going to be pretty. Honestly, he should feel bad because it was going to hurt Hanamura a lot, but he found it hard to care that much. If anything, the concern Naegi was feeling right now was for his own well-being! Not that he was too worried. He had a sometimes-serial killer at his side who had to be hiding scissors somewhere, and he'd clashed with Ultimate Despair before. Yeah, it usually sucked and it usually hurt, but they'd never attacked him physically. Except for Komaeda because he was the worst of the worst.

(Except they had. They had, and he had the marks on his forehead and soul to prove it. They had done it though they had been friends and he might not have that edge anymore. He had no idea if they were his friends, let alone if he was theirs.)

(And. . .)

(And he wasn't sure how much he wanted to be friends anyways.)

His heart hardened and he spoke. "She's not coming back, is she?"

"No. She is. She'll be back –"

"From where?"

"I told you, she's shopping." Hanamura slowly rocked. "She's coming back. She will. . ."

"Closing your eyes and counting to ten doesn't change anything," Fukawa groused. "It doesn't make my scars disappear or those boys come back."

His heart thudded. Obviously, Fukawa knew what he was doing. And she, without a moment of hesitation, was backing him up.

She trusted him. And he didn't deserve it.

He didn't. He knew that. Yet she gave it anyways and. . . He didn't deserve it but he wanted. . . He didn't want her to regret it. He wanted so, so badly to prove her right.

His shoulders locked. What's wrong with that? After everything, I deserve a break. I'll prove it. I'll make her right.

Naegi said, "She's dead, isn't she?"

Hanamura flinched. "No, she's. . ."

"Then where is she?"

"Why," Hanamura shouted suddenly, standing up and slamming his palms on the table, "do you care so much? If I didn't know better, I would think you wanted to make a big mess. But, it can't be. You're not. . ."

"You used to talk about it all the time," Naegi said. "Before, you readily admitted to what you did."

"Wouldn't he have been fully in despair, before?" Fukawa squinted at him. "If that was despair and this is the opposite, isn't that. . .?"

"It's not that straight-forward." Naegi spoke to Fukawa, but watched Hanamura. "I wish despair could be defined as the stuff that makes you feel bad. It wouldn't spread like a disease if it was. But it isn't always like that though. Sometimes, it feels better to give in."

He remembered. Though he had since acknowledged that he had gone overboard, he remembered feeling nothing but grim, slick satisfaction as he watched Komaeda's classmates turn on him. It had been more than good. If he were to be honest, that time he had spent in despair had been the most confident and happy he'd felt for some time, even if it had been a form of psychosis.

"But even though it might feel good to give in and tell yourself you enjoy it, it's not real," he continued. "You're playing a part. In the end, nothing has changed. The past still happened. And it still hurts."

"Naegi, what do you want?" Hanamura said coldly. When he took a moment too long to gather his thoughts, Hanamura chuckled. "I was prepared for you try something. I didn't think it'd go like this though. I thought it'd be more . . . optimistic."

"What's the point in that? How would I make this optimistic?" Naegi raised his eyebrows. "If you have an idea, tell me because I really don't know."

"Then what you're saying is that since hope had failed you, you've gone back to despair." Hanamura smirked. "How very telling."

"Maybe it is. But it's also the truth. She isn't at the store. She's not coming back. We both know why."

Hanamura began to rise as faint swirls pulsed in his pupils. Naegi braced himself, knowing very well what a Despair could do while under pressure. However, an unamused Fukawa merely scoffed and said, "You don't actually expect this to go your way, do you?"

The threat was heard. Hanamura slowly sat down.

"It's interesting that you thought I would bombard with you with positivity," Naegi murmured. "If I look at things through those eyes, it makes a lot more sense why you guys never saw what was happening to me. You never got past your first impression of me. Hanamura-kun, did you already forget I've been exactly where you are? I hid myself in despair, too, because I didn't want to accept all the pain in my past. I understand you better than anyone in the world. That's why I can tell you that it won't end well."

"This won't end well? But you want to me . . . Why would I want to put myself through that pain?"

"Because it's the only way to move on to the future."

"Move on?" Hanamura's eyes bugged out. "You expect me to . . .?"

"Hey, wouldn't moving on like it wasn't a big deal be the despairful thing to do?"

"That's not . . .! Wait, is it? How could that be. . .?"

And now that he had successfully short-circuited Hanamura's brain, he could catch his breath. A quick glance sideways told him that Hanamura hadn't been his only victim. He patted Fukawa on the shoulder, whispering that she shouldn't think too hard about it, that Ultimate Despair's definition of despair was stupid to begin with.

"With this kind of logic, you could argue almost anything is despair," she said.

"I know!" he said gleefully. "It's come in handy way more than you think."

Hanamura was still babbling to himself. It was funny, but also sad.

"Look, Hanamura-kun, you love her," Naegi said simply. "You must have, or none of this would be happening. But why did you do it?"

"She had that knife since the day the diner opened, you know." Hanamura rubbed three fingers together, as if he held the handle of said knife. "It was her favourite – and yes, chefs do have a favourite."

Naegi tried very hard not to think about what he did with that knife. "But why?"

". . . I don't know."

"Huh?" Fukawa seemed surprised, but that was because she didn't know them. Even though it ultimately boiled down to 'despair' or 'Enoshima', they always had a surface excuse.

"I don't know," Hanamura repeated, and his tone also held an echo of surprise. "I didn't . . . When I went home to Mama, I wasn't planning to. . . I don't know. I don't remember why."

He muttered something about lights and singing which he didn't understand. In a way, Naegi supposed he shouldn't be too surprised by Hanamura's confusion. Of all his classmates, Hanamura had always seemed to have the greatest mental conflict with what he did. People like Kuzuryu and Nevermind had smugly explained their sins, but Hanamura had always lapsed into a fit.

"I don't know. . . Mama, what did she. . .? Why can't I remember? I can ask, once she comes back . . ."

But Naegi was no longer willing to play along. "You know she won't. She isn't coming back."

Hanamura's reach for his hand was quick enough to make him and Fukawa flinch, but slow enough that Naegi didn't feel that threatened. The Chef's chubby fingers squeezed his knuckles with an uncomfortable pressure.

"Stop," Hanamura pleaded, tears in his eyes, "Can't you let me stay like this? I don't want to live with it."

"What would the alternative be? Being stuck. Trapped by your past and not living at all."

"I don't deserve better."

"You don't," Naegi said, "But you can become someone who does. Give her that much, at least."

The hand fell away from his wrist. Hanamura's shoulder shook as he sobbed quietly. Naegi wondered what that emotion stirring inside him was. Could it be pity, or disgust?

Fukawa glanced at him, the question in her eyes clear. She, being new to this, wanted to know if they were done, if they had 'cured' him. The answer of course was that these things didn't have a checklist. Yet as Naegi watched Hanamura cry and pull at his hair, it felt like they had accomplished something.

"Come on," he said to Fukawa. She stared at him, clearly shocked that Naegi would ever abandon anyone that was crying. He considered that, and then shrugged. There wasn't anything else to be done here, for now.

Hanamura's sobbing was completely muffled when Naegi closed the door. He still didn't know why he felt uneasy, but he knew it wasn't from guilt, which honestly didn't make him feel any better. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he walked toward his motel room, only to sigh and turn around when the pressure of Fukawa's unspoken questions didn't fade.

"That's what it's like? It's a lot different than I expected," she remarked. "I thought it would be a lot sappier."

"Sometimes it might have been," Naegi admitted, "but it never works the same way and even back then, I was never sure if I was making things worse or better. I don't know when or how most of them abandoned despair; Pekoyama even claims that she cured Kuzuryu without me. I just noticed one day that they had changed."

"You slip more and more with the honorifics. Do you notice?" In the faint light, Fukawa looked and sounded unsure. Like a kid or someone who had only known Naegi for a few days.

"Honestly, sometimes it's out spite but usually I don't notice." He looked down. "I'm not sure what that says about me. Hey, Fukawa-san, I've never asked, but what happens after this? You always speak about Jabberwock like it's a temporary thing."

"Well, I don't know what th-those people are going to do." She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting Hanamura to be behind her. "But once they're on their feet and mentally stable, we're out of here."

"Is it safe to reappear in public like that?"

She laughed. "Naegi, we took down the leader of Despair at Hope's Peak, and then we took down Ultimate Despair. In a decade they might care how we did it, but who's going to bother looking so closely so long as they're gone? While we're on this subject, what about you?"

"Huh?"

"We were never sure what you would do," Fukawa said. Steam rose as she spoke. "You never got your memories back so from your perspective, you spent a lot more time with them than you did with us. You seemed a lot more attached to them, too – in a weird obsessive way that made me want to puke."

"I'm going with you guys. I-if you'll have me." He was 99% sure that they would, but that 1% of him was very loud and persistent. "I don't know if I can forgive, but I know I can't forget. I don't ever want to be in that position with them again."

"Even if they've changed?"

Throat dry, he swallowed. "Yeah."

"Well, your sister will be happy. We never brought up the subject with her because I know she wouldn't have stopped crying, but she'll still be happy to hear it."

"I have no idea to expect out there. I don't think those couple of weeks I was running around counts, so the last time I was in society was before Hope's Peak. I'm several years out of date," he lamented.

"I can fill you in on the basics, but you know who knows all the details?" Fukawa grinned lecherously. "Master. And if I go with you, he can't send me away because we have a legitimate reason to talk to him!"

He looked at her blankly. "Seriously, can't you aim a little higher? Even if it's only about looks, there are plenty of men more handsome than him."

"Keep talking like that and I'll cut out your tongue for blasphemy!"