Naegi recognized the look on Byakuya's face as he walked through the door to his room… and it was a look he had never wanted to see again. His throat closed tight around a sob that he didn't have the strength to make, and no matter how the bright glare of the monitors burned his eyes he couldn't tear his gaze away. He followed every slow, mechanical motion of locking the door, tracking the way that his boyfriend's bandaged fingers closed so tightly around the key that it made his whole hand tremble… and the way that Byakuya didn't notice at all. From the empty expression on Byakuya's face as he turned slowly around to face the room, Naegi knew he wasn't seeing much of anything.
How much was it hurting him to be in Naegi's empty dorm room? All Naegi could tell for certain that it was too much, far too much for someone who'd been through what Byakuya already had. Why had he even gone back there — just because that was the only room he could still lock, now that his own dorm key had been lost in the execution? Naegi wanted to believe that was the only reason… but a horrible certainty whispered through the back of his mind that Byakuya had gone in search of some memory of him.
And there wouldn't be anything to find, not in that bland and unadorned room. Of course there wouldn't — Naegi had never kept anything there. Even if Headmaster Kirigiri had thought it was important for everyone to have a room of their own in the shelter, Naegi had kept everything of his that mattered in the room he'd shared with Byakuya. Photos, keepsakes, a thousand objects with memories woven into their existence… objects that Junko had to remove in order to create the illusion that the last two years had never happened. Everything of his was gone, except for the traces of these last nightmarish weeks.
But Byakuya didn't know any of it. As far as he knew, that room was the place closest to Naegi that still remained in the school. And as he took one slow step after another into the center of the room, with all the quiet reverence of walking through a graveyard, he took painful care not to disturb a thing. He skirted around a pillow fallen haphazardly from the bed rather than replacing it, even though Naegi knew how untidiness grated on him. And when he reached out to run a light finger across the faint wrinkles in the bedspread, letting his touch linger on every mark of disorder without smoothing them away, Naegi had to close his eyes.
Seeing the effects of grief was bad enough… but watching as the self-contained, guarded heir openly mourned him was too much to endure. Pain was woven through every movement, knife-sharp and raw — the same pain that had been there in those first days when Byakuya had to learn to live in a world without the rest of the Togami family. Naegi remembered seeing that look before… but he couldn't understand why it blazed again so intensely now. For all that the amnesia Junko forced on them had caused a thousand griefs, shouldn't it at least have made this one hurt less? After all, it wasn't as though Byakuya was able to remember the place Naegi had in his heart.
Except… it almost seemed like he did. Naegi forced his eyes open again and made himself look at his boyfriend again, doing his best to study the grief instead of experiencing his reaction to it. The way he didn't notice his hands shaking, the emptiness stretching through his eyes, the careless disregard for the image he presented to the world… it was all too similar to the way he'd reacted to his other losses.
Or rather, the way he would have reacted if Naegi hadn't intervened. With support from Kyoko, Celeste, and the rest of their friends, he'd made sure Byakuya knew that the loss of his family didn't mean he was alone. Even if the sixteen members of their class had no one else left in the world, they had their friendship with one another. And more than that… Byakuya had him. And every time Naegi had seen a hint of that look in his boyfriend's eyes, he'd promised once again to stay.
A promise he'd broken. Guilt clawed at Naegi's stomach, a sharp reminder of just when the worst of this look had reappeared. It hadn't been there when Naegi had first seen his boyfriend on the monitors… no, not until the cafeteria, when the last four of his friends had pieced together the end of the trial.
"Man, talk about ingratitude!"
Junko's voice scraped through Naegi's thoughts, making every open wound bleed just a little more. His eyes moved towards her before he could think the better of it, and the sympathetic smile she wore made his throat twist closed with a scream he couldn't voice.
"It's like they don't appreciate what you did for them at all," she went on, clasping her hands together in front of her chest. "I mean, seriously — what's the point of all that boring self-sacrifice if it's just gonna make everything worse?"
She was trying to manipulate him. Naegi knew her words were a deliberate attempt to make him feel guilty about how he'd chosen to end the trial. But just because she wanted him to think so… that didn't make it a lie. He hadn't wanted this to happen… he hadn't had any other good options… but he'd still made the choice that had driven his friends to fight rather than stand together. Even if Junko was the one pointing it out… everything happening now was still his fault.
"Just think how awful it would be to watch your poor prince charming cry into your pillow all night because he thinks you pretty much killed yourself!" Junko heaved a heartfelt sigh, looking sadly up at the monitor — just an instant before bouncing to her feet with a brilliant grin. "Good thing we don't have to!"
Even if Naegi had the strength to ask what she meant, she didn't wait to answer. Junko threw herself across the room like she had an enemy chasing her, flinging open the bizarre black and white door and disappearing into the room beyond. Naegi tried to squint past it to see what horrible thing she'd gone to do, but he couldn't catch more than a glimpse of some very high tech equipment blinking and whirring. He could hear her clattering away at something just beyond the doorway, moving around and pressing buttons. She slammed down her hands and laughed —
And Monokuma's bright laughter echoed through the room as he bounced onto the monitor of Naegi's room, landing on the bed directly in front of Byakuya. "Looks like someone could use a little company!"
Schedule note: Next chapter will be up in two weeks, on Sunday January 7. After that, I'll be resuming the weekly posting schedule. Happy holidays!
