Naegi stared up into Byakuya's empty eyes, searching for some hint of meaning hidden beyond the darkness. Because there had to be some other meaning there, one that he'd missed somehow. There had to be another way to interpret what Byakuya had just said… because it couldn't be what it had sounded like he'd said.
But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't see any deception in his boyfriend's face. No tricks, no lies, no confusion… just an endless abyss, deep and terrible enough that it would drown him if he looked too long.
"I don't understand," he said at last, when he couldn't bear to look another second. The huge room swallowed his voice, leaving only the thinnest tendrils of sound between them. "What do you mean, you love me because —" His throat closed against the words, tight and aching at the thought of repeating something so terrible.
"Because you're the mastermind," Byakuya said again, without even flinching. He could have been simply commenting on the shade of Naegi's hair, rather than accusing him of murdering ten of their friends. "It will take a little time for me to figure out how to do it — but since you've asked, I promise that I will."
"I — what?" Naegi felt as though he'd suddenly been dropped in the middle of a different conversation entirely. "No — that isn't what I meant!"
"I know you didn't want to ask." It was like Byakuya couldn't even hear his protests. "And it's true — you shouldn't have had to. I should have seen the truth sooner, especially after so many people tried to tell me." He leaned forward to lay one hand on top of Naegi's, and everywhere they touched felt like their fingers were sheathed in ice. "But I won't close my eyes any longer. I'll see you for who you really are."
"No — you're not doing that!" Naegi clenched his fingers into a fist beneath the cold weight of Byakuya's hand. "I don't know what you think I said, or what you thought you heard, but — but it's not true. I'm not the mastermind!"
And a faint mist of disappointment settled across Byakuya's face. "You don't have to keep hiding it from me now. I know I don't understand everything, but —"
"You don't understand anything!" Naegi could hear the desperation flooding his voice, overwhelming him in a way that it hadn't since that terrible first trial. That moment seemed so long ago, now, when he'd realized that his friendship with Sayaka had meant something to him that it hadn't to her… but it wasn't gone at all. He could feel it again here, in this trial room… and the revelation that he'd been on a different wavelength from Byakuya struck so much deeper into his heart.
"Maybe you're right." Byakuya shrugged — like it didn't even matter who was right. Like he didn't care. It was nothing like Byakuya ought to be at all, and cold chills snaked down Naegi's spine. "But I want to understand. Whatever you want to tell me, I'll listen. You can trust me."
Naegi jerked backwards, hand shuddering beneath Byakuya's heavy grip. If he'd had the strength to shake the frigid weight away, he would have done it without a second thought. He'd never pull away from a chance to hold his beloved boyfriend's hand… but this wasn't Byakuya. Not in the ways that mattered. Holding his hand when he was like this would be like saying it didn't matter that Byakuya had gone so horribly wrong somewhere along the way. Like the man standing there in front of him didn't matter.
Like Byakuya was saying about him.
Cold sank through him, chilling deep into his bones, seeping into every cranny of his being. How could the man he loved believe him capable of such atrocities… and still stand there pledging his love? How could the same man who'd fallen to his knees and cried at their reunion so easily exchange the one he'd mourned for someone else entirely? How could the one person who'd known Naegi better than anyone else in the world, who'd seen every truth of Naegi's soul and found something to love, see another person when he looked into Naegi's eyes?
He couldn't.
Of course he couldn't.
Air flooded deep into Naegi's lungs, as though he'd just resurfaced from drowning. Byakuya couldn't think any of that, not really. He loved Naegi, both before they'd lost their memories and after — his actions had proclaimed it as much as his words. He couldn't really act the way he seemed to be now.
Naegi tore his eyes from the emptiness of Byakuya's face, turning to look across the circle to where Junko grinned at him from her throne. "Looks like your boytoy has you dead to rights, sweetie!"
The world snapped into clarity around him, as if he'd been engulfed in fog until that moment. This was why she'd done it — why she'd let him return to his friends, why she'd joined them in person when they'd really had no way to compel her, why she'd claimed to be the mastermind with so much enthusiasm. She'd been aiming for this from the moment he'd woken up in the data center. Maybe even earlier.
But that should have been impossible. How could she have known what would happen in the trial? Even if she'd known that Kyoko believed the worst of him after finding no body in the morgue, she couldn't really have predicted every move the other students would make. No one could have figured out so far in advance that all four of his surviving friends could be convinced that he'd been the one behind their nightmares.
Except… how many times had the mastermind manipulated them all? The motives, trained on their hearts with laser precision… the hints Monokuma dropped, nudging them ever so slightly in the right direction to encounter the most suffering… even the data Chihiro and Alter Ego had worked so hard to uncover, only to learn that it had been a plant from the very beginning. With all the other accurate predictions Junko had made, he couldn't say for sure that this one had to be impossible.
He narrowed his eyes at Junko, and she beamed back at him like he'd just given her an elaborate compliment. "Aww, it's so nice to have all my hard work appreciated!"
Appreciated — like she'd been doing all that work for him. Like she'd only ever been acting on his orders, and he really had been the one behind the game. "Stop saying that!"
"Huh?" She tilted her head, eyes wide with a sickening innocence. "But they've all figured it out. Seems kinda dumb to keep fighting back when every single person here is on the same page."
And in spite of himself, knowing she wanted him to do exactly this, Naegi couldn't stop his eyes from darting around the circle of his dearest friends. Sakura and Jill stared back with hate in their eyes and any shred of friendship destroyed. Kyoko could have been a steel-cold statue, frozen beyond any touch of emotion. And Byakuya… one glance, and Naegi couldn't bear to look his way again.
There was only one conclusion… they all believed it. No matter how many arguments he ran through in his head, he couldn't see how to break through their conviction. How could he prove he wasn't the mastermind, when they thought they knew he had to be?
Schedule Note: Real life is demanding my attention for the next couple weeks, so the next chapter won't be posted until March 29, 2020. See you then!
