Naegi had been aiming for the podium in front of Togami when he threw the handbook, but even fully awake and uninjured, his aim had never been great. Instead of bouncing harmlessly off the wooden podium, his handbook smacked directly into the heir's shoulder with a thwack that made Naegi wince.
Togami spun immediately, a sharp alertness crackling from every line of his body as he scanned the area for the source of his attack. But when his gaze fell on Naegi, the tension evaporated away, leaving only confusion behind.
Before the other boy could say anything — or worse, decide to look back at Kirigiri — Naegi leaned forward. "I said that's wrong! You and Kirigiri both need to stop talking this way!"
Togami rolled his eyes, huffing out a sigh that struck Naegi as a little too superior, even for him. "I know this must be difficult for you to hear —"
"Do you think that's the only problem?" Naegi interrupted, eyes narrowing as anger began to fizz along his skin. "I'm not upset because you're talking about what might have happened — it's the way you're talking about it!"
"We've been debating what happened," Togami said, crossing his arms tightly, as if to defend himself. "That's the entire point of these trials, if you recall."
"Not like this." Naegi had to concentrate to keep his words slow enough for the other boy to understand instead of blurting them out in a passionate rush, but the intense effort worsened the dull throbbing at his temples. "The two of you are acting like you've both already made up your minds, and you're ignoring all the rest of us. That's not right, not when the outcome of the trial will affect all of us, too. You can't just decide all the answers on your own — you have to include all our friends in it, too."
"Stop calling them that!" Togami snapped, his eyes flashing. "You're only making this harder on yourself when you insist on thinking of everyone here as friends! You have to accept that wanting to believe the best of everyone can't make it true!"
"I won't!" Even knowing that Togami wouldn't hear the volume, Naegi couldn't hold back the angry shout. In fact, he didn't want to — not after listening to Togami and Kirigiri snipe at each other for so long with no way to intervene. The frustration and pain at their senseless bickering built up into an unbearable pressure at the back of his throat, one that only screaming could relieve.
Togami started back, eyes widening. Apparently he could understand what was happening even without hearing it — and it didn't look like he'd expected it. Had he really thought that Naegi would just sit by and listen while two of the people he cared about most tore each other to shreds?
"I won't," Naegi repeated, slow and clear so that Togami couldn't possibly misunderstand his meaning. "I'm never going to stop thinking of all of you as my friends. How can I? How could any of us think otherwise, after everything we've been through together?" He turned to look around the circle, looking living friend and gray portrait alike in the eye. "We're all friends, and we can't ever forget that."
They all stared back at him… Jill and Ogami, Fujisaki and Celeste, Enoshima and Asahina, the suspects and murderers and victims all tangled together by the same monstrous scheme. They were all connected, both by the life at Hope's Peak that they'd never been allowed to enjoy and by the horrors they'd undergone during the killing game. If he let himself stop believing in the others — if he gave up on the connections he knew existed between them — that would be like saying their bonds with their fallen friends were meaningless, as well.
"We can't forget that we're friends." As he completed his gaze around the circle, Naegi found himself staring up at Monokuma's throne, the bear's red stare burning through him as their eyes met. "We can't let ourselves forget."
Red spots flashed in front of his eyes, bloody splatters that turned the whole room to a wound. His vision blurred, and for a moment the world around him twisted into something out of nightmares. He saw buildings collapsing into streets littered with corpses, ruins of houses where loved ones turned on one another under a sky that burned. And above it all, echoing round and round in his head, he heard a wild laugh, a laugh that he recognized, that he could almost remember —
"Naegi?" The alarm in Togami's voice jolted Naegi back to the trial room, and he looked up to see concern lining the other boy's face. "Calm down and stop shouting — you're going to make yourself sick if you aren't careful!"
"No —" A cough cut short Naegi's first attempt at an answer, hacking through his lungs as he gulped for breath. He felt as though he'd only just resurfaced into the open air after an eternity of drowning in that bizarre vision, like his lungs had been deprived of clean air so long that they ached. He choked the coughs down as best he could and glared stubbornly back at Togami. "No. I'm not going to calm down until you start listening. You can't keep leaving the rest of us behind."
Togami scowled. "I'm not stopping anyone from talking. But you need to understand —"
"Then explain it to all of us," Naegi insisted. "If you're right, then — then we'll have no choice but to see it when you've told us what convinced you. But if you're not right — don't you want to know before we have to vote on it?"
A tremor ran through Togami's frown, leaving something a little less unyielding in its place. "As long as you're willing to believe the truth when you see it."
Naegi nodded once, then risked breaking eye contact with Togami so he could turn the other way and face Kirigiri. She'd tilted her head to one side as she watched them, stoic mask back in place. He hesitated for a moment as he met her steel-cold eyes, wondering what it was he ought to say to convince her to stop going after Togami so single-mindedly. After all, he couldn't very well refer to the plan she'd confided in him away from the cameras…
But as he looked at her, a smile twisted one corner of Kirigiri's lips upward. "You sound very reasonable," she said at last. "I can hardly argue against listeners staying open to learning the truth."
Naegi smiled, relief flooding through him at how easily they'd both agreed. Maybe there really could be a way forward from here, if only they could work together to find it.
Junko frowned at the monitor displaying the view through Monokuma's eyes, tapping one perfect nail lightly on the controls. The mood of the trial room had shifted a little, and not in one of the directions she'd expected when she'd set this plan into motion. Sure, there had been a few minor changes along the way, a couple details that hadn't been part of the original plan… but even if the path got a little twisted, she'd known the destination was still going to be the same.
Except… was it? She slid her favorite glasses onto the tip of her nose… and as she peered through them, the world realigned itself in a colder light. She could see clever, clever Kirigiri, struggling to defend herself against the relentless pressure of the trap closing in around her, and poor deafened Togami, dependent on the other students' kindness to participate in the trial even as he attacked them. And between them…
In the arc of the circle directly opposite from Monokuma's throne, Makoto Naegi stared up at her with the eyes of a boy who had seen despair.
Junko leaned forward, looking past the cameras and lenses to meet the eyes of her darling friend. For a moment it was like there was nothing between them, like he'd looked beyond the games and the trials and the lies to see her where she stood above them all. It was as though…
As though he knew her.
The trial shifted, moving onward towards its ending point, but Junko hardly bothered listening to the individual words her friends spoke amongst themselves. Through it all, her eyes stayed locked on Naegi, watching the hope that bubbled up to mingle with the echo of despair in his eyes. It was so close to perfect, just one little push away from something beautiful… but it wasn't what she'd meant to happen. Something had changed, and it wasn't what she'd wanted. And it was starting to get dangerous.
Junko grinned and blew Naegi a kiss through the cameras. How nice of her friend to remember that she liked high stakes games the best!
Note: Apologies to those of you who commented on the last chapter, but I'm not up to responding at the moment. I should be back to normal by Sunday!
