As horrifying as it had been for Naegi to have to see Byakuya turn a blade on his own wrists, the sight of empty monitors was far worse. He scanned the whole row of screens that had been displaying the entire fifth floor just moments ago, but every one of them had gone dark. His eyes shot towards Junko in disbelief, searching for some hint that this was all a tasteless joke, that she hadn't been serious, that she would turn the screens back on any second now — but her hand never even twitched back to the pocket where she'd stashed the remote.
"Turn it back on!" As soon as he realized she had no intention of fixing the displays of her own accord, the plea tore itself from Naegi's throat. "Please, I have to know what he's doing — I have to see if he's okay! Please!"
"Huh? You're changing your mind already?" Junko tilted her head from side to side, pigtails bouncing around her shoulders. "Tell you what, sweetie, I'll give you a little free advice — flip-flopping is not an attractive quality in a guy."
"This isn't funny!" Naegi had no patience for whatever game she thought she was playing. "He could be — he might be —"
"Dead?" She shrugged. "Or he might not be." A dark smile twisted across one corner of her mouth. "And if that's the case, then isn't it better not to know for as long as possible? Isn't it better to keep that precious flame of hope alive just a little longer?"
What she was saying was wrong — Naegi knew it was wrong, felt the wrongness deep in the core of his soul — but he didn't know how to say it. He didn't have time to think it through, to come up with the words that would convince Junko to see his point of view. Byakuya was in trouble, he was hurt, and that thought overwhelmed any other, lesser fears.
He couldn't let himself dwell on the worst possibility, not unless he knew for sure what had happened — but even knowing that, Naegi couldn't stop his thoughts from careening down a dark spiral of awful scenarios. What if Byakuya hadn't stopped? What if this really was the end — this moment, now, when Naegi had finally remembered what they'd been to one another? What if he never got the chance to see his boyfriend alive again?
"Let me see him — please, you have to let me see him!" Even though he knew that begging wouldn't help, Naegi couldn't stop the pleas tearing free from his throat. "Please, please, this can't be the last time!"
"Hmm? Is that really what you want?" Junko twisted one long curl of hair round and round her finger in a never-ending corkscrew. "But once you know, that will be it. Everything will all be over, and you'll never have anything to look forward to again."
"I don't care about that!" The words scraped his too-dry mouth, and Naegi realized somewhere in the back of his mind that he'd shouted. "It doesn't matter! I just want to see him, please!"
"I know you do!" Junko beamed down at him. "You want something that you know you can't have, and even though it's impossible, you'll just cling and cling and cling to any possibility of getting it." She heaved a sigh, clasping her hands tight against her chest. "That's what hope feels like, right there. And I'd never want to steal it from you — so I'll just let you sit with it for as long as you like."
Togami didn't resist as Jill hauled him away from the bloodstained bench where she'd attacked him. She dragged him to sit with his back to a nearby tree, and he let her prop him with his back against the trunk so that he would stay upright no matter how little energy he expended. What did it matter if she wanted him in one place or another? It would all be the same in the end. Even the distant jolt of something like pain when she took hold of his injured wrist wasn't enough to make him fight.
Only when she started to press the tattered hem of her skirt against the wound did he try to yank his arm away.
"Stop that." Jill's fingers snapped around the back of his hand, a deceptively light grip that held his wrist utterly immobile. He tried again to pull away, but he might as well have been straining against an iron cuff. Was she really so much stronger than him, or had he let himself grow so weak that he'd lost the ability to fight back?
The reason didn't matter. Nothing could, not with the knife-edged shears far out of reach and the blood flow slowing as Jill applied pressure to his wrist. His mouth curled into a bitter sneer at the sight of his own blood staining the genocider's hands.
"I never took you for a hypocrite."
Was that his voice, rasping through the air like broken glass? He couldn't recognize any part of himself in the sound… and yet he knew the words were the ones he'd had in his head.
Jill didn't seem to think twice about it, though — assuming she was capable of giving serious thought to any subject other than murder. "Sticks and stones, darling," she said, not even bothering to look up from his injury. "You're gonna have to try a little harder than that if you wanna make me feel it."
What did he care how she felt? He'd never thought of her as anything more than a nuisance and a stalker — and now, as she tore the ruined shreds of her skirt into a makeshift bandage, she was choosing to be even worse than that. "And here I thought you wanted to see me die. Did you decide it's more fun to watch me suffer?"
"Suffering doesn't suit you any better than red does." Jill did what she could to tie the cloth around his arm in spite of its piecemeal state. "Sure, I fantasized about killing you — I mean, who wouldn't?" For a moment, a trace of her usual grin flickered across her face — but then her eyes dropped back to his arm, and any hint of amusement vanished. "But not like this. You deserve a better death than this."
"Then do it."
Jill froze, eyebrows knitting together in a confused expression that eerily echoed Fukawa's. "What?"
"You heard me." Togami leaned forward, catching and holding her dark red eyes. "Do whatever you want — I won't try to stop you."
She stared at him for a long moment, and then one hand slowly moved to pull a pair of scissors from her side. Togami held his breath as she held the scissors out in front of her, frowning down at the blades like she'd never seen them before. She clicked them open once… twice… and then looked back up at him.
"Sorry, baby… but I can't."
"You — what?" That was the last response he'd been expecting. "You mean because of the game?"
"Nah." She gave a lazy one-armed shrug, twirling the scissors idly between the two of them. "Sure, losing one of those trials doesn't sound like my idea of a good time — but it's not like I'm some dilettante with a chainsaw! I'm willing to suffer for my art if that's what it takes."
"Then what's the problem?"
Jill's hand shot back to her side, and the scissors vanished again. "I don't want to kill you."
