Naegi stared at Monokuma, feeling as though the bear had just hit him across the back of the head. He understood the words Monokuma had said to him, but when he tried to put them all together and look at their meaning… they didn't make sense.

"What do you mean?" he asked, clinging to the brittle hope that maybe if Monokuma would just take a few moments to explain himself more clearly, it would all start to fit together.

"This whole game from start to finish has been the ultimate reality show!" Monokuma announced with his brightest smile. "Genuine despair programming delivered live to every television in the world!"

The screens on the walls surrounding them seemed to blaze across Naegi's vision, and it was all too easy to imagine those images lighting up the televisions out in the rest of the world. He could see the boys' locker room where Owada would have stood blood-splattered and panic-stricken over Fujisaki's corpse. And there was the physics equipment room where Celeste's machinations had caused Yamada to turn on Ishimaru. And there, in the cluster of screens showing the dorms, he could see Ogami's bed, where Fukawa's poisoned needles had misfired to take Hagakure's life instead of Togami's. And just a few screens down from it… he could see his own room, with the camera pointing directly into the empty bathroom where Kuwata had turned Maizono's murder plot around on her.

So much death had happened in those rooms, under the unrelenting gaze of the security cameras. It had been bad enough to know that the mastermind had been watching them, observing the horror for some inexplicable reason of their own… but now, Monokuma was telling him that it had been even worse? People across the world had been watching as the mastermind's despair drove them apart and dragged them into darkness?

Naegi frowned at Monokuma, trying to get as much of a measure of the robot's sincerity as he ever could. "Are you telling the truth?"

"Of course!" Monokuma didn't gloat or laugh or make it into a joke. With any of that, Naegi almost might have been able to dismiss the words. But this statement, as matter-of-fact as Monokuma ever said anything… there was no way around the bald truth. Naegi didn't want to believe it, didn't want to accept that it could be true… but however many horrible things Monokuma had done, he had never outright lied to them. The painful truth had always been his favorite weapon, withheld until the moment when it could do the most damage.

"What is he saying to you?"

With a start, Naegi's gaze jumped away from Monokuma's horrible smile and towards a much friendlier face. Togami looked down at him through narrowed eyes, his mouth a thin line that barely split enough to let his words escape. He clearly knew that Monokuma had been saying something terrible, but that was just a reasonable guess when it came to the bear. Togami couldn't possibly suspect just how horrifying this particular revelation was.

But no matter how bad it was, Naegi knew he had to tell the other boy. The look in Togami's eyes was more than mere curiosity, a fierce and desperate hunger for the knowledge he was being denied. He would want to know the truth, no matter how painful the knowledge would be. And that meant that somehow, Naegi had to find a way to put this horrifying, unthinkable new reality into words.

"Oh no, what's this?" Monokuma's sing-song words cut through Naegi's thoughts, a nasty current of mockery running through them. "Don't tell me you've caught a bad case of stage fright now that you know you're being broadcast live! After all, it's not like you care about getting filmed anymore, right? Right?"

Naegi blinked, a little puzzled by the way Monokuma had emphasized those last few words. He didn't especially enjoy the constant scrutiny of the cameras, but he supposed it was true that he didn't find it quite as upsetting in and of itself as some as the others had. He'd never exactly been able to forget they were all under observation, but outside of the times when he'd had to try to communicate without being overheard, it hadn't really impacted him that much. The only time being filmed had really bothered him was —

Heat flooded through Naegi's face, burning his cheeks to a painful scarlet as the memory of Monokuma's awful film screening assembly came rushing back to him. The mastermind had aired the recordings of the two times he and Togami had slept together, putting those first fragile moments at the start of their relationship on display where all their friends had been forced to watch — recordings that had been captured by the security feeds on the screens around them now.

The same screens that Monokuma just revealed had been broadcast to the world.

"Naegi?" Togami's eyes widened with alarm, and his grip tightened a little on Naegi's shoulder, though not enough to hurt. "What's wrong? What is he trying to tell you?"

Naegi tried to answer, but only a strangled noise twisted its way from his throat. The revelation that the killing game was being broadcast would have been horrible enough — but this, on top of it? Togami had been mortified to know that fewer than a dozen of their friends had seen those recordings, for the few minutes they'd played before Naegi had torn down Monokuma's projection. How could he tell the proud boy that the whole world had been watching the moments that should have been so intensely private?

"Oh my, am I about to witness a genuine case of translation error?" Monokuma's red eye sparkled as he watched Naegi. "Or maybe… it won't be so much of an error after all! It's not like he'd know the difference if you decided to make a few little alterations to the truth."

That hadn't even occurred to Naegi until Monokuma suggested it. He couldn't lie to Togami, of course, that would be unthinkable… but maybe he didn't have to explain right now. He could wait for a better moment, one when they weren't face to face with the mastermind's puppet. It would be so much easier to find the words he needed if he didn't have the security monitors surrounding him and Monokuma leering up at him. If he just put the explanation off…

Then it would be the same thing as lying by omission. Looking up into Togami's eyes, Naegi could see worry, anger, frustration… but not so much as a shred of doubt. The other boy had been stricken deaf — temporarily deaf, it had to be temporary, he couldn't let himself believe anything else — because Naegi had insisted that they investigate the corpse immediately. He'd lost the use of one of his senses in the worst possible situation to be at a disadvantage, but he'd never so much as suggested that Naegi was at fault for the injury, even though he would have been perfectly justified in believing that.

No, all he'd asked for was an accurate explanation of the words he couldn't currently hear — and he'd trusted Naegi to tell him the truth. Naegi had asked for Togami's trust, back when they'd fumbled towards the start of a romance, and now Togami had kept on giving it past the point when Naegi would have expected anything. He couldn't betray a trust that deep by misrepresenting the facts, even in so minor a way as delaying a piece of information.

"Aw, too shy to talk with your headmaster right in front of you? Should I give you some privacy?" Monokuma laughed. "I mean, seven billion people minus one have to be better than having the whole world watching, right?"

Naegi tried to swallow, but his throat had gone dry and scratchy at the thought of so many people listening in on his conversation. He'd never considered himself to be too self-conscious, at least not until he'd been invited to join Hope's Peak and its cadre of Ultimates — but now, with the security camera blazing down at him like the lens of a microscope, all the words he could have said seemed to drain away.

"And it's not like you have anything to complain about!" Monokuma went on, grin widening. "After all, you and your sweetie-pie get to be the romantic subplot on the world's highest rated show! Even arrogant corporate hotshots can't pay for this kind of exposure! Just imagine all those people glued to their screens, cheering you on at every moment!"

Naegi's stomach lurched at the thought of the moments people would have been watching the most closely. He would have liked to think that people would have been kind enough to look away or turn off their televisions to give an unknowing couple some small scrap of privacy — but even if everyone had the best of intentions, that wouldn't have been possible.

A horrible vision flashed before his eyes — row after row of huge demo units in electronics stores all plastered with the frantic passion of their first kiss, the surround-sound speakers filling the air with gasps and moans that had never been meant for anyone else's ears. The sounds would have drawn people from all directions to turn towards the screens, to watch with horror and morbid curiosity as he'd pushed Togami onto his back and thrust between the other boy's legs. And — he'd screamed, Naegi remembered, sour humiliation rising through the back of his throat as the sounds echoed through his head. Even people who might have tried their best not to listen would have heard how Togami had fallen apart on the library floor. He bit his lip, his face twisting with the effort to hold back tears.

"Whatever you're saying to him, stop it immediately!" Togami snarled, spinning to face Monokuma. "You have no right to talk like this when I can't understand you!"

"Oh my! It looks like the cold-hearted ice prince has completed his evolution into a knight in shining armor! Could this be the work of True Love?" Monokuma clasped his paws together in a pose of dreamy delight. "Man, I sure hope nothing could happen to make him change his mind!"

A wave of dizzying nausea shuddered through Naegi at that idea, and he had to look away from the pair in front of him so that he wouldn't be sick. He knew Togami cared about him, but… how could a romance of barely two weeks be strong enough to withstand this kind of international shame? Once he knew what the rest of the world had seen of the two of them together, how would Togami ever stand to look at him again?

Suddenly, a shadow fell across his vision, muting the too-bright glare of the screens surrounding them. Naegi looked back up to see Togami standing directly in front of him, blocking his view of the horrible screens and everything their images implied.

"Don't listen to him," Togami ordered, his voice too loud for the room — loud enough to drown out everything else around them. "Nothing that comes out of his mouth could be worth this. Trust me, Naegi, you can ignore whatever nonsense he's been telling you."

Trust me.

Naegi gulped, staring up in to his boyfriend's furious eyes — full of anger directed not at Naegi himself, but at everything in the world that had brought him to this point. Time after time, Togami had said that he cared, that Naegi's wellbeing mattered to him, and he'd never done a thing to make Naegi doubt his word. When Naegi had asked the other boy for trust, he'd gotten it. Now… it was his turn to do the same.

"The security camera feeds are being broadcast to the whole world."

After he blurted out the words, Naegi's fingers clamped painfully tight on the music stand pole, knuckles going white as he watched Togami's face go ashen.

"They're — what?" Togami's eyes darted to the television behind Naegi, and then up to the images on the walls. "But — no, that's not possible. To do that, you'd have to take over the airwaves — and not just in Japan, but all over the planet!"

Monokuma's laughter sliced through the fragile bubble of peace Togami had briefly created. "Someone sure thinks he's smart! But hijacking the airwaves is Easy Mode — if you've got the resources to pull it off!"

Togami's eyes narrowed at the shift in Naegi's attention. "Is he talking to you again?"

"Uh — yeah," Naegi said. "He says that you're right, he did take over the airwaves."

Togami considered him a moment longer. "This can't be all he said. You're too upset. What else is there?"

Naegi's stomach dropped as he realized what the other boy meant. Togami hadn't figured it out yet.

"Naegi!" Togami glared at him impatiently. "What aren't you telling me?"

Naegi opened his mouth, then snapped it closed without forming any words. Telling Togami the truth about the cameras had been bad enough — did he really have to spell out the humiliating implications? Surely Togami would work it out on his own, any second now. He didn't have to force himself to say it.

And then with a loud crackle, the television behind him changed. Naegi stiffened with dread, not quite able to bring himself to turn around and look — but he didn't need to be facing the screen to recognize the sound of his boyfriend crying his name.

Togami jerked backwards, his hand jolting away from Naegi's shoulder like he'd been scalded, and Naegi looked up to see the other boy's eyes filling with the horrified shame of full comprehension. His face flooded with painfully bright crimson, and every emotion Naegi had feared scorched its way across his features.

It was too much, especially with Monokuma's mocking laughter echoing through the room. Naegi turned around and found the power button on the side of the television, jamming it off with all the strength he could muster. The terrible images disappeared… but it didn't make him feel any better.

"That…" Togami's eyes were still locked on the blank television screen. "That… that can't be legal!" He spun to face Monokuma again. "Distributing sexually explicit content involving minors violates the laws of every civilized country!"

"Huh? Civilized?" Monokuma tilted his head inquisitively. "What do you think makes a country civilized? Is it when everyone sits down quietly and does what they're told, just because it's the law? But if that were true, then there wouldn't be any criminals who try to find sneaky little ways to avoid following rules." A nasty smile crossed his face. "Maybe the rest of the world isn't as civilized as you think!"

Togami's rage only became more obvious as Monokuma made a lengthy speech he couldn't understand. "Why would you do something like this?" He spun towards Naegi. "Why?"

"Uh…" Naegi looked past his furious boyfriend to the cheerful bear. "I don't know…"

"Aw, you don't? Are you sure about that?" Monokuma heaved a heavy sigh. "Well, I guess it's a headmaster's duty to give remedial lessons to the slow kids." His red eye gleamed. "There is a reason for all this, you know. Everything has a meaning. All those tantalizing little tidbits I've been giving you about this school's mysteries, even luring you here… why would I do anything like that without a reason?" He brandished a paw, claws flashing through the air. "It was all for my captive audience — to show them true despair like they've never seen it before!" He threw back his head and laughed wildly.

Naegi's gaze darted from Monokuma to Togami, who was waiting for a translation with gritted teeth. "Um… he says he did it to cause despair."

"What? That's all you have to say about my plan?" Monokuma's face fell like his feelings had been genuinely hurt. "I know you can't capture the true beauty of my adorable voice, but you could at least make the effort! If that's the best you can do, maybe I won't bother giving you any more hints!"

He started to bounce out of sight — then paused. "Oh, right — I guess there is one more thing I have to do before I go, huh? I mean, I've put it off too long as it is!" He waved a negligent paw.

Ding dong, ding dong.

The yellow security monitor, the only blank screen left in the room, flickered to life, revealing Monokuma's grinning face. "A body has been discovered! After a certain amount of time, which you may use however you like, the class trial will begin!"