Togami kept his eyes fixed directly on the camera as he waited for Monokuma to answer him, arms crossed with his fingers drumming against his elbow. He locked his face into the slightly bored, impatient expression he'd always worn back at the Togami Corporation, when he'd waited in the executive suite for a subordinate he'd summoned. It was hardy the same situation, but the memory let him draw on the type of attitude he wanted to present, especially after so many moments of the bear catching him unawares.
"Oh, my, what's this? An unexpected middle of the night call to visit you in the wrong dorm room?" Monokuma finally appeared in the middle of the room, looking around as if he were surprised at where he found himself.
"I want to ask you something," Togami said.
"Ohh? It must be a real emergency!" Monokuma's paws flew to cover his mouth. "Do you want to ask me about the school's stockpile of special lotions?"
"What?" Despite his efforts to appear cool and collected, Togami couldn't stop a hint of pink from flushing his cheeks. "No!"
"Huh? That's not it?" Monokuma asked, sounding shocked. "But why else would you want to talk in the middle of the night? Is it something… private? Something you can't bear to talk about in front of anyone else?" He tilted his head, giving Togami a bright grin. "If you have any health questions about rashes or burning, Doctor Monokuma is open for business!"
Togami did his best to pretend that he hadn't gone red at that blasted bear's insinuations. "It's nothing so childish. I want to know whether your order for Ogami to murder someone is still in effect."
"Order?" Monokuma paused for a long time, staring up at the ceiling. "Oh, that's right. She was supposed to kill one of you, wasn't she?" He shook his head. "It's so hard to keep ancient history straight, isn't it? I'm a forward-facing bear myself – the future is where it's at!"
"That isn't an answer," Togami said, scowling.
"Oh, my, so demanding!" Monokuma said, leaning away and sweating as if he were frightened. "You really do like to have everything laid out for you in black and white, huh?" He laughed loudly at that. "I like your taste! All right, then, if you want a plain answer – no! Sakura Ogami's order to kill is no longer in effect – because she already fulfilled it!"
"She did what?" Togami frowned, his mind racing through the possibilities of what Monokuma could mean by that. When had Ogami had the opportunity to kill someone? Had she caught Kirigiri in the moments after she'd left Naegi's room? Or – he remembered her claim about what she'd intended to do with that second bottle of poison. Had she gone through with her suicide threats after all?
"She sure did!" Monokuma said. "Breaking down her own door to carry out Asahina's little rule-breaking plot sounds like causing a death to me! Be sure to congratulate her on a job well done!" He threw back his head and laughed again, the sound echoing around the room as he disappeared.
Togami scowled at the empty place where the bear had been, thinking over what he'd said. So Ogami could count her order as filled by Asahina's execution? That didn't sound like it ought to qualify to him, but he was hardly going to press the issue. At least now he could go to sleep with one less thing to worry about – that was one silver lining to Kirigiri's intrusion, anyway.
He switched off the light and headed back over to the bed, deciding that he ought to try to salvage some rest from the remainder of the night. They'd presumably have a new area of the school to explore tomorrow, and he needed to be alert enough to search for potential clues or new threats.
But as he lay down in the darkness, he couldn't clear his mind of the thoughts still swirling around about everything that had just happened. The thought of Kirigiri wandering around the room while he and Naegi slept sent cold shudders coursing through him, in spite of the warm blankets on the bed. She could have done anything in here – rummaged around in the room, planted something among Naegi's possessions, or worse.
He couldn't avoid the truth, not when it was this plain – she could have killed them both in their sleep, without even trying. Or worse, she could have just killed one of them, and left the other to take the fall. If he'd woken up beside Naegi's dead body, with no idea what had happened – the thought was too horrifying to let himself finish.
It would have been so easy for something like that to happen that he couldn't find any comfort in the fact that it hadn't – not when he wasn't sure why not. Had he thwarted her murder attempt by waking up unexpectedly, forcing her to pretend she'd wanted to have a conversation instead – or had she had some other plan that he couldn't see? And if it had been something other than murder, then had she actually accomplished her goal before he'd sent her packing?
He didn't know. He couldn't know, not without understanding whatever goal she'd been aiming for by sneaking into this room. All he knew was that it had to be something underhanded. After all, even if the door had been unlocked, she couldn't have known that from the outside. For her to have learned that the door was open, she would have had to try the handle in the first place – something that a person acting honestly wouldn't have had any reason to do at this hour of the night.
The only bright spot that he could see in this whole mess was that at least Naegi didn't seem to have been overly disturbed by everything that had happened in the room while he slept. The encounter with Kirigiri would have been so much worse if Naegi had been awake for it, what with his unreasonable insistence on continuing to treat her as a friend. At least she hadn't had the opportunity to try to manipulate him again – after poison and a head injury, Togami shuddered to think about what other terrible things she could arrange.
Unable to escape from the unsettling thoughts of everything that might have happened, Togami moved closer to Naegi, wrapping an arm around the sleeping boy so that he could feel his reassuring warmth. Naegi nestled back against him with a small sound of contentment, his head settling against Togami's shoulder as though even in sleep he knew that was where he belonged.
In an impulsive gesture that he doubted he would have gone through with if Naegi had been awake, Togami pressed his lips to Naegi's temple in a soft kiss. "Stay alive," he whispered, the words no more than a breath as his lips brushed Naegi's skin. "Stay with me."
With Naegi in his arms, warm and alive, some part of the anxiety plaguing Togami's mind eased, just a little. For all the dangers they faced, there was something safe in a moment like this – a fragile bubble of peace surrounding them. He wasn't ridiculous enough to think that it was anything more than an illusion, not when the mastermind had made certain no one could find peace in this nightmarish place – but at least for now, it could soothe away enough of his worries to let him rest. Tomorrow, it would all return, the murders and the betrayals and the questions – but at least when it did, he would have had this first.
