Togami stared across the room at Naegi, frozen in place by the relief sweeping through him. Naegi was safe, alive, not harmed any more than he already had been. He'd worried about the other possibilities, but he hadn't realized just how anxious he'd been about it – not until now, when the tension left him at the sight of Naegi well and whole.
What had happened during the hours they'd been apart? Had Naegi just been alone and bored, or had one of the others tried something? Had he recovered at all from his head injury, or was he still in pain? Togami needed to know, to understand the threats still facing the other boy. He stood, preparing to go over and speak to Naegi.
"Don't."
Togami turned sharply at the sound of Kirigiri's voice, to find the girl's cold eyes boring into him from across the room as she got to her feet.
"Excuse me?" Togami scowled at her, not at all liking the curt order she'd issued.
"You heard me." Kirigiri walked over to stand in the path between Togami and Naegi, so that neither of them could cross without passing by her. "The separation is still in effect."
"What, because you think we're going to plot mass murder over breakfast with all of you in hearing distance?" Togami asked, cold rage trickling through his veins. "You can't be serious."
"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Kirigiri said, her face as unreadable as ever. "The situation hasn't changed to make the pair of you look more trustworthy."
Togami looked back to Naegi, only to see the smile fading from the boy's face at the realization of just how inflexible Kirigiri intended to be. Togami's heart clenched at the sight of Naegi's brief moment of happiness disappearing, leaving him dispirited and sad. How could that girl justify doing this to him? Naegi had only ever been nice to her – nicer than she deserved, with all she'd put him through.
"Then what would make it change?" Togami demanded. "What are you waiting for? Or do you expect us to let you keep this idiocy up indefinitely?"
"We told you already – the separation is because we can't trust the two of you together," Kirigiri said, unfazed by Togami's anger. "It will end when you've satisfied us about that issue either way."
"What do you mean, either way?" Naegi asked, frowning.
Kirigiri didn't look his way, expression going icier than before. "Either we find out for certain that we can trust you both, meaning that the two of you acting together isn't an issue – or we find out for certain that we can't."
The look on Naegi's face stabbed right through Togami's chest. "And what would prove our trustworthiness?" Togami asked, since anything had to be better than seeing that crushed expression in Naegi's eyes.
But Kirigiri didn't seem to agree, shrugging as if it barely concerned her. "I'll let you know. But it hasn't happened yet."
Togami clenched one fist, just one – but so tightly that he could feel his nails biting deep into his palm. He wanted to gouge them into her face instead, to rip her apart and make her feel some of the hurt he could see on Naegi's face – but he knew it wouldn't help. It would just make her dig in her heels further, insist that he and Naegi couldn't be trusted at all, and who knew what else she might try in that case.
No, Kirigiri held all the cards right now, and they all knew it. She could demand whatever she liked, at least until he could figure out a way to get around her. As long as she could prey on Naegi to enforce this separation, Togami didn't have much of a choice in the matter.
With one last furious glare in her direction, Togami whirled back into his seat. Only long practice at not showing weaknesses too overtly let him resist the urge to hurl his half-empty coffee cup at the wall with a satisfyingly destructive crash. He knew breaking glassware wouldn't deal with the issue, anyway – what he needed to break now couldn't be so easily smashed.
Naegi sent one last look in Togami's direction, making what seemed to be an extremely poor effort at smiling again, before taking the seat across from Asahina. Togami glowered back, etching the misery he saw into his memory along with the rest of the sins to lay at Kirigiri's feet.
"So is this it, then?" Hagakure asked, looking around the room. "Are we the only ones still coming in the mornings?"
"Who else are you expecting to turn up, one of the corpses?" Togami snapped, glaring at the idiot. "If you're going to speak, at least try to say something of enough value to make up for the air you use to spew it."
"I just meant there's only five of us left, if Fukawa and the Ogre aren't going to come anymore," Hagakure said. "That – that's only a third of what we started with!"
"Your ability to do basic math astounds me." Togami rolled his eyes.
"No, it's true," Asahina said, looking up from her hands with red-rimmed eyes. "We've lost so many people. It's only been a couple weeks, and so many of us are gone – from fifteen down to seven of us still alive. We can't lose any more!"
Togami was about to make another scathing remark – but something about the statement made him pause. Fifteen students – was that really the right number? When he and Naegi had first questioned Ogami, she had tried to say that it wasn't, that the number was actually sixteen. The idea was bizarre, of course, and he'd dismissed it as nothing more than an attempt at a dodge – but it seemed like a rather complex way to attempt to avoid blame, if so.
And now that he thought about it, Togami recalled something else that had struck him as similarly odd – the empty seat the mastermind always left among them during the class trials. Not only did every student have a place, regardless of whether they were still alive, there was always one seat left open and unclaimed. It didn't necessarily confirm Ogami's story, but it did suggest that someone might want the story to look like it had been confirmed.
Togami huffed out a sigh, pushing his now-empty coffee cup away. It was useless to think about. In fact, this whole meeting was useless, an infuriating waste of his time. He'd only bothered attending because he'd thought he'd get a chance to check in with Naegi, but he hadn't even been allowed to do that. He'd been reduced to staring across the cafeteria at Naegi like a lovesick schoolgirl, daydreaming about conversations they couldn't actually have.
Well, no more. He wasn't going to stay here where the rest of the students could revel in how pathetic they'd made him look. He got up, preparing to head out the door.
"Just a moment." Before Togami could go, Kirigiri stood as well, briskly circling the tables towards him. "If you're ready to leave, there's something I'd like to show you."
