Naegi stared at the wheelchair emblazoned with Monokuma's likeness for a long moment, then glared at Junko. "No."
"Well, that's pretty rude, after I went to all the trouble of getting it up here." Junko kicked the door closed and flicked the lock firmly back into place before turning to peer back down at him. "Keep acting like that and I might start thinking you don't like me!"
Trying to parse out what she meant by that just made Naegi's head hurt. He shook it away and dragged his focus back to the main point. "I'm not sitting in a chair with Monokuma's face on it."
"Huh? You think it looks like him?" Junko leaned forward to squint at the wheelchair from above. "I dunno, I think you might be imagining things."
Naegi stared at her in disbelief. "You're kidding."
"Obviously!" Junko giggled like they'd just shared some kind of private joke. "As if a face this adorable could belong to anyone else!" She bent down again to press her cheek against the soft black fur of the nearest ear.
He couldn't hold back a grimace at her affectionate touch towards the symbol he could remember emblazoned across so many monuments to despair in the world outside. Watching her snuggle up against that mockery of a teddy bear brought sour nausea burning in the back of his throat.
But then — she stopped, pulling away from the chair with a sigh. "Oh, don't be like that, sweetie! I know the design's not up to your usual ultra-boring taste, but are you really gonna reject my awesome present just because of that? I thought you'd at least appreciate a chair that you could move around yourself!"
She patted the wheelchair's arm, where an elaborate control panel sat. Though the interface did look complicated, none of it looked physically difficult to operate — Naegi could probably manage it on his own, even weakened as he was. Once he worked out the way it operated, she was right — he'd be able to move.
He'd be able to move.
Against his will, Naegi's eyes flew back towards the door.
There had to be a trap in this, he knew it. She wouldn't really give him the means to escape without any strings attached. No matter how confident she might be that she could keep him penned up in the data center, there was no way that she would really give him this kind of chance.
But even so… even so… how could he ignore the possibility? How could he turn his back on the chance to leave, just because he didn't like the way it looked?
A knife-edged smile flashed across Junko's face. "So should I take it back out into the hall? Or better yet, maybe drop it off in the trash room? I mean, as long as you don't want to use it…" She trailed off, raising her eyebrows invitingly.
Naegi pushed aside the frantic whispers that he was making a terrible mistake, and said, "No — don't get rid of it. I'll use it."
She laughed. "Of course you will."
Anything that made Junko smile that way had to be a terrible idea… but even knowing that, Naegi still couldn't bring himself to object as she bent down again to lift him from the ground. No matter how clearly he knew that this was likely to end badly, he couldn't help but think that maybe, maybe there was a chance that it wouldn't. Maybe he could get out, maybe he could find a way to his friends, maybe there was still some way to escape from this nightmare… as long as there was even a sliver of hope that he could see those possibilities come true, what else could he do but cling to it?
So when she wrapped her arms around him once again to pick him up from the sleeping bag, he clenched his teeth and endured the slimy touch of her hands. He almost found himself relieved when the inevitable pain began, because at least it gave him some respite from the sensation of filth pressed against his skin.
When the pain finally cleared away, perhaps a little more easily than it had the first time, Naegi blinked to find himself ensconced in what was actually a pretty comfortable wheelchair. The cushions curved to the shape of his back, giving his weakened body the support he needed to keep himself upright. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the prospect of being stuck in a wheelchair for any extended length of time… but if he had to be, he supposed this one wouldn't be too bad.
Or at least, that was what he thought until the bright flash of a camera snapped his attention back to the girl in front of him. He blinked away the white remnants of the flash that echoed across his vision until he could see Junko grinning down at the screen of a small digital camera.
"Well, isn't this just the cutest thing anyone has ever seen!" she cooed, with all the saccharine gooiness of children in ad campaigns. "You and Monokuma, in the same picture? I bet this would be enough to beat out even the cutesiest of kittens for the social media spotlight!" And then the brightness vanished from her face as if it had never even existed. "Too bad there's nowhere left to post it."
Naegi stared at her — or more accurately, at the camera in her hands. She'd wanted a picture of him here, like this? The thought sent chills running down his spine. "W-what are you going to do with that?"
"Huh?" Her head jerked back up towards him like he'd startled her, although no glimmer of surprise broke through her deadened expression. "Oh, I don't know, really. Treasure it, I guess. Maybe I'll stick it on the wall or something. Isn't that what you're supposed to do with pictures of your friends?"
Naegi had a flash of her pinning that picture to the data center wall beside the monitors, like some sick kind of trophy, and his stomach lurched in response. "Don't," he choked out, before he could think about whether or not it would be a good idea to say so.
One of her eyebrows twitched upwards, ever so slightly. "No? Should we try for a better one, then? I'm pretty sure this thing has a self-timer function — we could get a shot of both of us together."
He drew back against the soft cushioned back of the chair, fear clutching at his heart. Nothing she'd said was a threat, not really, not in the actual words she'd spoken — but somehow, he couldn't hear anything else.
"Well, maybe not." She shrugged, tossing the camera down onto a nearby table with a clatter. "No point going to all the trouble of setting up a cute besties shot if you're just gonna make that face in it. I'll hold off till you've got a better expression — once I win our bet, maybe."
"Win… the bet?" Naegi's forehead creased in bewildered whiplash. "You mean… Togami? But… he didn't kill anyone." His eyes flew back to the monitors, confirming that all four students were indeed waiting impatiently in the room outside the elevator. "They're all still alive — so the bet's over!"
"Not yet, it isn't," Junko said, one finger tapping meaningfully at the opposite wrist — the place where a watch would be. "We said twenty-four hours, starting at the last nighttime announcement. Nothing's over till ten tonight."
"But… he's going into the trial now," Naegi said, trying to puzzle out what she meant. "Those take hours… and he can't kill anyone in there."
"Yeah, that was your bet, wasn't it?" She shrugged again, just a single shoulder this time. "Guess we'll find out. Personally, I'm still pretty sure I'll be the one who gets the prize."
"Prize…?" Naegi was getting the uncomfortable feeling that this conversation wasn't heading in the direction he'd thought. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, we bet about getting a friend back, right? You win, and one of your precious friends gets their memory back." She rolled her eyes, as if deeply annoyed by having to explain something so obvious. "So it only makes sense that if I win, you have to give me one of my friends back."
Naegi stared at her, trying to force the words she'd spoken to make some kind of sense. She wanted one of her friends back…? What friends — surely she couldn't mean the ones she'd killed, could she? And even if she did, even if she'd begun to regret what she'd done to them… how could she possibly think that he could give that to her? Was it just an impossible task she wanted to force him to try… or was there something else that he was missing?
"So like I said, we can try taking the picture again later," she said, sparkle flooding back into her face as she gave him a brilliant grin. "It'll be a great way to celebrate when we're really BFFs!"
She blew him a kiss before skipping through the Monokuma door that led to the control room, leaving Naegi to slump back down in the wheelchair as horrified realization hit him.
