For the next few months, things were normal - easy and good, the way they had been before.
Maybe Makoto was naive for expecting it to stay that way, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Like he should be so lucky.
He wasn't prepared for Kyoko to pencil another appointment at the fertility clinic into the kitchen calendar. When he noticed it, his stomach flipped.
"Um, Kyoko?" he pointed to calendar and tightened his hold on his mug of coffee. "What's that?"
She didn't look up from the homework she was helping Koichi with - basic Kanji spellings, although she'd taken it upon herself to up the difficulty and introduce their English and Manderin translations as well. "What's what?"
"Um, the appointment?" Makoto took a long sip of coffee, but once he swallowed, his mouth was dry as dust again.
"Oh, yeah, I meant to tell you." Met with his silence, she finally lifted her head. "What is it? If you have meetings that day I can go alone."
"It's not that." He nodded towards the hallway. "Can we talk for a sec?"
Kyoko sighed, but got up from the table, spelling book in hand. "So you can't cheat," she warned Koichi, who gave a sullen pout in response. Makoto shut the door to the kitchen behind them so their son wouldn't overhear.
"We should hold off," he said, before he lost his nerve. "I don't think...Kyoko, this isn't the right time."
She folded her arms. "Why not?"
There was a list of reasons, really, and she had to know that. Makoto had never been the practical one and even he knew it was a terrible idea. They hadn't had a single conversation about their separation, or the miscarriage or any of the things they'd said to each other during that time. They were pretending it hadn't happened, obviously, which was fine if it got them through the worst of it but wasn't a great basis for bringing another kid into the world.
The thought of losing another baby terrified Makoto especially because it came with the very real risk of losing Kyoko as well, but it still felt like too much of a touchy subject to raise. He worried, too, that she would be able to talk him out of his concerns or, worse, she'd take it as a rejection.
So Makoto cited money instead. "We should work on putting money back into our savings," he insisted. "IVF's expensive, you know? Let's take some time and save."
While, technically, they could afford another cycle, it wasn't a lie that it certainly wasn't the best financial decision they could be make right now. It wasn't like there was a big rush anyway, Makoto reasoned. They were still so young.
For a few days, Kyoko seemed to have accepted this, until the appointment edged closer and he noticed it still written on the calendar. When he questioned her about cancelling it, she said that there would be no need, thanks the delayed payout from an old case.
Makoto spent the day before the appointment trying to find the words to tell her that money hadn't been the (only) issue - that he still wanted to take a rain check on the whole thing. He put it off until Koichi was tucked up in bed and then, in the end, she beat him to it.
"I need to tell you something," she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and pulling her knees to her chest where she sat on the couch.
Every time she had said something to that effect since they first started sleeping together, one of the first possibilities that sprang to Makoto's mind was that she was going to say she was pregnant. This was the first time in all that time that the prospect filled him with dread and guilt and fear and not excitement.
"Oh?" he tried, and failed, to sound calm.
"The money didn't come from a case, Makoto." Kyoko looked up at him. "My grandfather wrote me a cheque."
His mouth fell open. For a long moment, they just stared at each other. "W-what did you just say?"
Her eyes slipped away from his, guiltily. "You heard correctly."
Makoto couldn't believe that: Kyoko was brutally honest and trustworthy and she didn't go behind his back, least of all to her grandfather for money. She was too proud for that, too independent and stubborn. And in what world was Fuhito cutting out cheques to fund their lifestyle anyway?
"There's no way," he said, blankly.
"I should have spoken to you first, but I knew you'd never let me take it."
"Damn right I wouldn't have, Kyoko - what the hell? Were you going to mention it, or were you just going to let your grandfather buy us a baby without telling me?" He demanded, furious. "Did you even think about what that would be like for us - for the kid? He thinks he owns you and Koichi as it is."
"Which is why I let him think it was for Koichi's school tuition."
"That's even worse!" At his yell, she flinched, but Makoto couldn't find it in himself to lower his voice. "That's practically stealing!"
She had the audacity to scoff. "My grandfather isn't exactly struggling for money, Makoto."
"That doesn't change the fact that you lied to him and to me. How are you seriously still defending that? Can you hear yourself? Who are you?"
"I don't know," Kyoko said, quietly. She rested her head against the back of the couch, frowning listlessly up at the ceiling. "I just thought if we had the money, you'd be happy about it."
Makoto could hear the implication of that - I thought you'd be happy but you're not. It explained why she was telling him now. Did that mean if he had been happy about it, or just more convincing, she would have gone ahead with it?
"You didn't do this for me, you did it for you." Makoto grabbed his keys from the coffee table, knowing he had to take a drive before he said something he would regret. He didn't turn around when she called to him.
He didn't come home until he was sure she'd be in bed. He slept on the sofa and turned over the situation in his mind until it didn't seem so uncharacteristic of her anymore. Hadn't he always loved how fiercely Kyokowent after what she wanted? Hadn't it been endearing to him, once, how she could remain so unwaveringly fixated on a single goal? Did it only seem like such a shock now because he'd forgotten what it felt like to be collateral damage in the wake of her determination?
He spent the next day feeling a lot like he had just been thrown under the bus and down a trash chute all over again, except nowhere near as forgiving.
She showed up in his office in the afternoon with an apology that seemed sincere, but no explanation. Makoto coolly told her they would talk about it at home and she left, visibly hurt, so it wasn't much of a surprise when he later received a text that said was meeting Hina for drinks after work. She got in sometime after eleven. He watched her almost lose her balance twice as she attempted to take off her boots.
"Are you drunk?"
"Little bit." Sitting on the edge of the bed, she looked over her shoulder at him, the smile she was wearing disappearing when their eyes met. "Oh. You're angry. I forgot."
He didn't think for a minute that she'd actually forgotten - more likely, she just assumed he would pretend it hadn't happened, like he usually did. It would have been easy to let it go, to beckon her into bed because a drunk Kyoko was endlessly amusing - last time, she'd fallen asleep in his arms after hours of sprouting random trivia and giggling at every kiss he gave her.
She already apologised, his mind reasoned. Let it go.
Because he was tired of people taking his softness for granted, he got out of bed, intending to go downstairs. He'd only gone to bed in the first place in the hopes they could talk when she got home. If Kyoko really cared about fixing things, he figured, she wouldn't have come home drunk. "You shouldn't be drinking."
He meant because of the medication she was on, hormones and other fertility drugs, in preparation for the latest IVF cycle. He didn't think it made a huge deal, but the doctor had warned against alcohol consumption for best results. Although, on seconds thoughts, that hardly mattered now.
"Why?" Kyoko flopped back on the bed. "It's not like I'm pregnant, is it?"
Makoto ignored the edge to her voice and gathered his phone and the book he was reading. "We'll talk when you're sober," he said.
"You'd get it if your body was the one that kept screwing up," Kyoko said, stopping him in his tracks. He turned to her, perfectly still where she lay.
"I've told you, it's not your fault."
Abruptly, Kyoko sat up to face him, her eyes wide and blank. "Do you think you saying that makes me feel any less empty?"
He didn't know why that struck him so hard, but it did. As much as he'd grieved their lost baby, as hard as it had been for him, he was feeling better - if she had to be drunk to be comfortable enough to tell him that she wasn't, obviously he wasn't being as attentive as he thought he was. All the while he'd been afraid to bring it up to her, maybe she'd been afraid to bring it up to him.
"You sleep here." Kyoko stood up, staggering only a little before steadying herself. "I'll go downstairs. I'm not tired anyway."
He didn't stop her, but the next morning, he got up early to make her a cup of coffee and woke her up with a kiss to the cheek. She sat up, sluggish, and he joined her on the couch.
"You don't have to forgive me, you know," Kyoko said, suddenly very interested in the pattern on the side of the mug to avoid looking at him. "I went too far. I betrayed your trust. You get to be mad about this for a long time."
"I am mad," Makoto admitted. He slipped an arm around her waist and pressed his face against her neck. "But you're my favourite person in the world. You know I'd forgive you anything."
"Maybe you shouldn't this time." Kyoko stilled, her tone serious. "Maybe I crossed a line."
"Then it's my job to pull you back." Makoto shrugged. "That's what marriage is about."
This came back to bite him less than a week later, when he received an email from Munakata in the wake of a terrorist attack on a Japanese college. My offer still stands: your assistance would be appreciated, Naegi.
"Listen, I know you're not crazy about this - "
" - That's quite the understatement." As he sorted through his wardrobe, tossing clothes into a bag, Kyoko was unpacking it. He tried (and failed) to prise a pair of his trousers out of her hands.
"Kyoko." He blew air in her face in an effort to deter her, but even as her bangs feathered and her eyes shut, her hold remained just as tight. He gave up and whined instead. "You're being difficult."
"I'm being a good wife," she corrected, smoothing the fabric over her knee to get rid of the wrinkles. "You're having some kind of early mid-life crisis and I'm pulling you back from it. That's marriage, remember?"
He sighed. He understood her objection to him working with the Future Foundation and he valued her opinion, but he couldn't shake the desire to feel useful again. He was tired of seeing carnage on the news and putting it to the back of his mind just because it didn't directly involve him. What if, instead of changing the channel, he could have a hand in changing the world?
"I love you for looking out for me," he said, giving the trousers another gentle tug, "but I need to do this. What if next time something bad happens, it's my school? Or what if it's Koichi's?"
With a sigh, Kyoko released her hold. "So that's all this is? You want to stop the terrorists?"
"'All'?" Makoto packed the trousers away and zipped the bag before Kyoko would yank out anything else. "I didn't realise that was me aiming low, but sure."
"I meant is that the only reason you're going."
Makoto moved the bag to the floor so he could sit down beside his wife on their bed. "What other reason would there be?"
Kyoko didn't miss a beat before replying, "Me."
"You?"
"You don't want a baby, you do want couples counselling - now you're accepting a frankly ridiculous offer to get out of town." Kyoko shrugged but continued, "I'm trying not be that girl who thinks her husband is going to walk out on her because her father did but - Makoto, you're really not making it easy right now."
"It's not that I don't want a baby - you know that. And couples counselling is just to help us communicate, and I get it's not your thing,which is why I dropped it." He nudged her with his elbow, and when she turned to him, he pressed their foreheads together. "And you're too good of a detective to not...uh, detect, the way I look at you; the way that I've always looked at you. I'm not going anywhere, ever. You're stuck with me." He brought a hand up to thumb her cheek. "You trust me, don't you?"
"Of course." She turned her head out of his touch, but leaned in when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Regardless, I still don't trust Munakata." Despite this, the next day, as he stood in front of the hallway mirror and fixed his tie, she nodded her approval from the stairs. "You look very smart. And official."
"Thanks. Um, Kyoko? What do I say when they ask me what I've been doing this whole time?" It had been eight years since the last killing game, and all he really had to show for it was a haphazard career as headmaster of a school that wasn't anywhere near as prestigious as it had once been. It was quite a downgrade from the reputation he'd held before.
"Tell them the truth - that you were living your life." Kyoko frowned. "There's no shame in being normal. You didn't sign up to fight every battle."
She drove him to the airport. He'd said his goodbyes to Koichi that morning before school and it had been every bit as horrible as he imagined it would be. Kyoko assured him Koichi would be alright and Makoto knew he would be, but that didn't make not knowing when he was going to hug him again any easier. Heartbroken at the sight of Koichi's tears when he told him he had to go away for work, he'd asked Kyoko how she did it, how she reconciled missing their son with what she had to do. He expected her to say something about teaching Koichi that he couldn't always have what he wanted, or that it was important to maintain who she was while still being a mother. I tell myself I'm making the world safer for him, she said instead, and so Makoto took this wisdom and tucked it away for the hard nights to come.
At the departure gates, Kyoko huffed. "You know you've always been extra pretty when you're thinking that I'm an idiot," Makoto teased.
He couldn't tell if this amused her or if she was just humouring him. "I must be beautiful right now then."
"Breathtaking." He launched kisses at her, one after another after another and so on, not stopping even when a stewardess called his flight.
Kyoko broke away first. He could tell by the way her swollen lips twitched she was trying not to smile. "You'll miss your flight."
"I'll bring you home a souvenir," he said, pressing a final kiss to her cheek, "Remember the pens that had lasers at the top? Those were cool."
"I'd settle for you home in one piece," Kyoko countered, tugging on his tie. "Promise me you'll be safe. I can't swoop in and rescue you if you take risks: you need to be smart."
He didn't want to break that promise, so he did his best. Munakata seemed pleased to see him and immediately took him on a tour of the headquarters. It was much like Komaru had described, all glass walls and group offices, transparent and modest and nothing like the building he'd once worked at, where he'd brought the girl he was married to now endless coffees and tried for months to work up the courage to ask her out.
Munakata's staff seemed to have known he was coming. They were very welcoming, especially one in particular - a green haired woman with striking eyes, who beamed up at him from her wheelchair.
"Makoto Naegi," Monaca Towa greeted him. "At last we meet!"
"Uh, hey." Technically, the only time they had met previously was through a electronic puppet. "Last I heard you were in space."
"Sure. That was fun for a while. But then I got bored, you know? Monaca likes to be entertained."
"S-sure. Makes sense." Makoto knew it had been Komaru's belief that Monaca would come back eventually and team with Hope, she just needed to grow up a little first. Still, he knew Kyoko would tell him not to trust her. He turned to Munakata. "We should get going?"
The next few days passed in a blur. He was introduced to so many new people - people who already knew of him, and who seemed to think that meant they were old friends - that he started keeping a log of the names in the note section of his cellphone. Munakata had him out to dinner every night with a group of division heads, who laughed at all of his jokes and asked questions about Junko's game like it were a conspiracy theory they only half believed in, all dark glee and anticipation. Stil, they were all kind enough to understand when he left before drinks each time to call home.
On the fifth day he was sent on his first mission - a level two risk, which was, from what Makoto gathered, the norm: low risk, but low reward in terms of information. He'd had some training, but he knew he was mostly sent along to watch. Before he left, he tried to surrender the gun in the holster on his hip to Munakata.
"I'm not going to use this," he insisted.
"You will do whatever you have to do to get out of there alive," Munakata warned, pushing Makoto's hand away. "I do not want to deal with the wrath of your friends and family, Naegi."
For all the fuss, the mission was without incident. A lone gunman had held up a hospital and was ranting about how damned the world was, how it would have been better if despair had triumphed. The man appeared to be in his sixties, but he had the hesitation of a man much younger, and was easily taken down by much bigger members of the team Makoto belonged to. He volunteered to be one of the few who escorted the fugitive to police custody and while his superior was busy signing off the exchange, he managed to charm a station clerk into letting him talk with the man.
"Hello, sir," he said as he came into the room. "I'm Makoto Naegi."
"Everyone knows who you are," the man said, bitterly. He was handcuffed, but that didn't stop him from thrashing against the table as Makoto sat down. "My wife died because of your ideals."
"Oh." Makoto frowned. "I'm so sorry. I hate that anyone had to die. What was her name?"
The man seemed to be debating as to whether he wanted to disclose this information. After a moment, he muttered, "Kaiya."
"That's a beautiful name. What was she like?"
"Good." The man's eyes filled with tears. He looked smaller and older then, more fragile and so much less scary. "She was good - so good. She loved animals. She loved tending to her garden. She loved the world. She wanted the world to be saved. She said you would be the one to do it. But they killed her for it."
They. The real despair sympathizers. This man wasn't the problem, he was a victim.
"How long were you married?"
"Twenty-nine years. I promised her I would take her to Paris for our next anniversary but she died before - " He began to thrash against the table again. "This is all your fault! You did this! I wish despair woulda won. I'd still have Kaiya. I'd still have her. If it weren't for you and that stupid hospital. I told them to keep trying to resuscitate her, but they said she was gone. She wasn't! I knew she wasn't. I knew -"
When Makoto put his hand on top of the man's, he went still and quiet.
"Kaiya's garden...I bet you keep it up for her now?"
In the creases of the man's hand were dry dirt stains, but even without that observation, Makoto could have made the same guess. It was the same reason Fuhito had kept Kyoko's childhood bedroom the same despite the years that had passed, or why Makoto had found a quiet place in the local park under the cherry blossoms that he went sometimes to daydream about the baby that could have been - when you weren't ready to let go of someone you loved, you sought out and preserved some corner of the world where you still had them.
"I'm not good at gardening," Kaiya's husband admitted, sadly.
"Sure, but I bet it would make her happy to know you're looking after it. I bet she would like that you feel the peace that she used to feel when she was out there. I think," Makoto hesitated, "I think that's the kind of legacy a woman like your wife deserved, not one with more bloodshed. I think you not doing what you could have done today would have made her proud."
Makoto wasn't sure which part of it made the man break down, but break down he did. Makoto stayed with him until the detective came to book him. In the hallway, Munakata was waiting.
"You need to talk to the officers here and tell them to let him go."
"How can you be married to a detective and have such a lack of understanding of the law?" Munakata scoffed. "Naegi, he held a hospital ward at gunpoint. He's going to die in prison."
"That's not fair!" Makoto insisted. "He's not going to do it again."
"Oh? Did he promise?"
At Munakata's mock, Makoto straightened. "He lost the woman he loved and for a minute, his mind went with her." He stared up at Munakata, unblinking. "If he doesn't deserve a second chance, then what the hell are we doing here?"
After that, he went back to his hotel and facetimed Kyoko. "Have you ever been to Paris?" he asked when she answered.
"When I was a kid, sure." She was cooking dinner - so she turned away from the camera a few times to check on the stove. "Why? Are they sending you to Europe?"
"No. I wanna go. With you."
"Makoto." He didn't know what it was that had given his mood away - he really had tried to sound (and look) happy - but Kyoko could tell instantly he wasn't okay. She leaned across the kitchen counter and picked up the camera, so she was talking directly to him. "You can come home if you want to. There are plenty of other ways to make the world a better place."
"I know." He tried not to dwell too much on her offer, for fear of taking her up on it. "Is Koichi there?"
"I'll go get him in a minute." Kyoko narrowed her eyes. "He asked me if you were staying with my grandfather too."
"Ha, as if." Makoto realised Kyoko wasn't smiling; it wasn't a joke. "Why would he think that?"
"He thinks that's what happens when he has an 'accident'," she explained delicately.
Makoto couldn't recall exactly when Koichi had first wet the bed, but it was definitely possible it coincided with the miscarriage and Kyoko leaving and it definitely happened again a few weeks ago. Of course there was no correlation - but to a small little boy for whom a few days away from either parent felt like an eternity, like a punishment, it made perfect sense.
What had Fuhito told them? If you're not careful, he'll begin to draw his own conclusions.
"Yeah," Kyoko said, soberly, noting his shock. "I tried to reassure him but - well, you're better at all of that than me. Have a word, will you?"
He nodded. "You got it."
She disappeared for a few seconds, before returning with their son in tow. Only Koichi's hair and forehead could be seen from where the phone sat on the kitchen counter, so Kyoko handed it to him. They chatted idly for a few minutes - Koichi, recanting the story of his day at school with great embellishment - before Makoto eased into the topic of his being gone.
"Hey, buddy, you know why I'm not home right now, don't you?"
Koichi pouted. "You have to work."
"Right. And that isn't your fault - it's nothing to do with anything you've done or didn't do. You're the best kid there is." Makoto wished he could reach out and ruffle his son's hair, but he had to settle to touching his finger to the screen of his phone. "Me and mom, we love you more than anything."
"I know." Koichi gave a small shrug. "Yumi told me it wasn't my fault, but I didn't believe her."
"Yumi?"
"Oh," Koichi said, brightly, "Yumi's my friend. But she's secret."
"Secret?"
"Imaginary," Kyoko corrected, pointedly, from the other side of the kitchen.
"She's real!" Koichi protested, frowning. "You just can't ever see her."
Makoto stayed on the call while they ate dinner, which seemed to brighten Koichi up, as he derived endless entertainment from trying to feed him a forkful of his spaghetti through the screen. When they eventually hung up, Koichi was offering to help his mother with the dishes in exchange for a game of hide and seek in the garden and so it seemed order was restored.
The next day, Munakata approached Makoto at his assigned desk. He handed him the release paperwork for Kaiya's husband, along with a psychological evaluation marked 'CLEAR.'
"It's handled. He'll have to pay a fine and there will be restrictions on his ability to purchase firearms but aside from that, he's escaped this whole debacle relatively unscathed." Munakata stared hard at him. "He has you to thank for that."
Makoto didn't think having to bury your wife and being driven insane with grief really constituted escaping 'unscathed' but he knew Munakata was trying, so he let it go. "Thanks, I uh, appreciate the update."
"You breached protocol by talking to him, you know." Munakata sighed. "There is talk I'm letting you run riot. I mean this respectfully, Naegi, but you are a guest here and as such, you need to abide by the rules you are given."
"You said you were open to suggestions. I'd like to make one, I think."
"Oh?" Munakata's mouth was a thin, straight line. "Go on."
"You should have trained counsellors to talk to the suspects you capture. A team of people who aren't judgemental, who believe in a positive future that includes everyone and who want to make a connection, even when it's difficult." Makoto looked up to meet Munakata's stare. "With all due respect, handing them over to the police doesn't seem to be very effective."
"You want me to dedicate time and resources to the training of a team for the purposes of what? Rehabilitation?" Munakata seemed uncertain. "And just where would I find these people like you?"
"They're everywhere." Makoto thought of Kaiya and her garden, where, even after her death, things were still growing. "And not just people like me. People like Chisa Yukizome."
At the mention of her name, Munakata stiffened. "Idealistic people tend to be the first to fall into despair."
"That's why I said a team." Makoto smiled. "So they can share the task and the experience. So they can help each other out and ground each other."
Munakata cut the conversation short then, citing a meeting, but Makoto suspected it was the reference to Yukizome that did it. It was the end of the week before Munakata brought it up again.
"Well, such a task force would require a leader." Munakata looked at him, very carefully. "It would be a permanent position. We offer excellent healthcare benefits and an impressive pension scheme." Munakata gave the smallest hint of a smile then, so Makoto didn't know if the next part was a jab about Hope's Peak or a thoughtful reference to the fact he was a father now, "there are some excellent schools in the area."
"I - um, thank you, Munakata. It's really nice of you to offer, but, you know, I have responsibilities back home."
"Discuss it with your wife," Munakata suggested, tightly. "I'm sure she's solved all the mysteries Tokyo has to offer by now."
He wasn't wrong. Kyoko, who had spent most of her own childhood travelling, made no secret of the fact she didn't want to confine Koichi's life to central Japan. It was why she made a point of introducing other languages at home; why she'd been hesitant about buying a house instead of renting. Makoto knew that if it weren't for Hope's Peak and her aging grandfather, they would have been raising their son somewhere else entirely.
Munakata excused himself after this, but an hour or two later, he sent for Makoto to come to his office. Makoto wasn't expecting to find Munakata standing in front of a television screen, flashing with the images of a building engulfed in flames.
"Wha-" As he stepped closer, he realised he recognised the building. The pit of his stomach dropped. Togami Corp.
He took out his phone, that he'd had on silent for the morning meetings. He had a missed call from Kyoko and two from Hina. Before he could call either of them back, Hina called again.
"Where are you?" She half-screeched. "What the hell is going on?"
They hadn't spoken since he told her he was coming to the Future Foundation. Hina was more forgiving than Kyoko, so he didn't think Munakata had been the reason, more that she felt he was being a crappy headmaster, although in truth he hadn't felt too guilty about it - it wasn't like he was on vacation, and he'd left the school in Kane's very capable hands.
"I don't know. Have you spoken to Byakuya?"
There was a slight hesitation. "No? Why would I?"
"What?"
"What? Makoto, what am I supposed to tell my class? They're freaking out!"
"Hina," Makoto really didn't want to ask this, but it was dawning on him they were having two different conversations, "What's happening at the school?"
"That's your job to figure out! No one's told me anything since Kane raised the lockdown alarm."
Makoto swallowed hard. "Hina? Listen to me – don't panic. All you need to do is follow the usual safety procedure, okay?" He hung up, then looked helplessly at Munakata. "I need to go."
Just then, his phone vibrated again. A voicemail message of commands from Kyoko. You're closer to Togami Corp - go there, see what you can find out. I'm on my way to the school. There was a pause, and then she gave three concise commands in a tone so serious, it had the hair on the back of his neck rising up: Don't panic. Don't talk to the press. Don't take the car Munakata offers.
"You're going down there?" Munakata asked. He crossed the room to his desk and picked up the phone on his desk. "I can have someone drive you."
"I'm fine," Makoto said, shaken by Kyoko's warning and the entire situation. "I gotta go."
In the end, he called a taxi. By the time it arrived - and, by the time they made it across town - he didn't stand a chance at getting anywhere near the building in question, which was still on fire.
He was whisked away quickly by a detective who recognised him as 'Kirigiri's husband', a rare, but not unwelcome occurrence, particularly as this guy seemed to know what he was doing. He was led to a ground floor office across the street, where he heard a familiar voice barking orders at a man dressed in a bullet-proof vest reading 'SECURITY.'
"You are an imbecile and altogether entirely worthless. Consider yourself fired."
"Byakuya!" Makoto couldn't help himself. He ran to his friend, around the burly man shuffling out
with his head hung low.
Byakuya narrowed his eyes. "Why on earth are you here?"
"I'm so glad you're okay."
"As am I, I must admit." Byakuya adjusted his tie and sighed. "And you? I believe the official word on your end is a hoax?"
"When did you hear that?" As far as Makoto was aware, whatever was going on at the school hadn't been on the news.
"I received a...call a few moments ago." Byakuya eyed him up and down. "How is it you got here so quickly?"
"Um. I'm doing some work in the area." When this answer didn't seem to suffice, Makoto gave in and elaborated. "With the Future Foundation."
"Ah, so you took their bait?" Byakuya made a noise of contempt. "I turned it down, myself."
"Munakata...wanted you?" The realisation that he hadn't been Munakata's first choice stung more than it should have.
"I shall try not to take your shock personally." Byakuya rolled his eyes. "He went as far as to offer me a job when I first moved to the area. I turned down his offer of course. It's all optics. Anyway. I don't suppose Kirigiri has any theories as to whether there is a connection between my building being blown up from the inside and Hope's Peak being targeted with an apparent bomb threat?"
He wouldn't hear anything from Kyoko until that evening. Makoto watched footage of himself arriving at the scene on the television in his hotel room, took in the headline along the bottom, FROM HOPE'S PEAK TO HOPELESS, and groaned.
"It's a PR nightmare, I know." Kyoko sighed over the phone. "Still, it could have been worse. Togami Corp was evacuated due to a routine drill fifteen minutes before the first explosion and the incident at Hope's Peak was a false alarm."
"Doesn't it seem like a crazy coincidence?" Makoto shut off the television. "Munakata asked Byakuya to come work for him months ago but he declined. Then, today, he offered me a job. That's suspicious, right?"
"He offered you a job?" Kyoko sounded intrigued. "What did you say?"
"Nothing. I didn't have time to think about it before - y'know, everything."
"Hm." Kyoko did not sound nearly as appalled by the thought as he expected. "Are you going to take it?"
"No! I mean, right?" Makoto asked, confused. "Didn't you just warn me not to get into a car with him?"
"I couldn't decipher a motive at that time and I wasn't prepared to risk your life to figure it out," Kyoko explained. "Since then, I've been able to determine that the student responsible for the threat was working alone. I'm waiting on the report on the incident at Togami Corp, but I expect it will cite an electrical fault."
"And we believe that?"
"There was CCTV evidence of the student in question delivering a package to your deputy this morning." As an afterthought, Kyoko added, "He's been expelled, effective immediately, although I imagine it won't be processed officially until you return."
He'd already received an email from Kane, detailing how Itoh Sotan was defiant even when faced with the evidence. It is with regret that I had to dismiss him. I suspect it was the corruption of the former student Maida Yuji that insticated the event.
"I meant the 'electrical fault.'"
"Oh, of course not." Kyoko didn't say, 'duh, Makoto' but he knew it was implied. "It was Munakata. He wanted to scare you into staying put. He tried to manufacture despair in an effort to stress necessity of the Future Foundation. He wanted you to think your friend was in danger to spur you into being a hero and taking the job."
Makoto wasn't ready for the confidence Kyoko had in this assertion. It didn't leave him a lot of room to argue. "Does that mean he's been behind all of it?" He thought of all the attacks in recent months, all the bloodshed, all the death. He shivered.
"Unlikely. There's a big difference in this and what usually occupies the news."
It took Makoto and moment, but then - "There were no casualties."
He could hear the proud smile in her voice when she said, "Right."
"I need to talk to him." Makoto felt wounded. "How could he do this? I really thought he'd changed."
"Well, he has, in a way. I don't think he wanted anyone to actually die." Kyoko paused. "I expect the Future Foundation will even make a generous donation to Togami Corp in the coming weeks, to help with the rebuilding. In the name of restoring hope, of course."
Munakata, to his credit, didn't deny Makoto's accusations - although a small part of Makoto had hoped he would. He listened patiently to the speech Makoto had prepared, about how in his desire to make Juzo and Chisa's deaths mean something, he was losing sight of the man they had believed in, and then, when Makoto announced he was going home, Munakata stood up and held a folder out to him.
"Something I think you should see," he said, by way of explanation.
Makoto flipped the file open and frowned at the picture of that greeted him - was that...Kane?
"You've been stalking my staff?"
"Not stalking," Munakata corrected. "I had some concerns about his...interest in the Future Foundation on the night of the Hope's Peak anniversary party. I did a little digging in our records and found he used to live under a different identity. Did he tell you his partner was a leading member of the resistance against Hope? The man killed multiple members of this very organisation before he was shot in self defense by a task force Juzo was leading."
Makoto closed the folder. He could remember pretty well what Juzo's definition of self-defense was - both he and Kyoko had nursed the bruises for weeks after Tengan's game. "That's not true. His partner was killed in a hate crime."
"Yes, I imagine that's what it was to him - because as Future Foundation agents, we did 'hate' despair." Munakata frowned. "I assure you, Naegi, this information is accurate."
"And his child? Was she self-defense too?"
"I believe you already know the answer to that. She is your niece now, after all."
"Emi?" Five years ago on a mission with the Future Foundation, Komaru had come across an orphaned little girl, seemingly traumatised by the violence and despair she'd witnessed. When she was never claimed, Komaru took her home to live with her and Toko. These days, she was a well-adjusted ten-year old with the widest smile Makoto had ever seen and an impressive collection of both anime and novels.
"Yes. I doubt it is any coincidence that you find him working so closely with you." Munakata looked very serious, then. "I'm telling you this so you can protect your family accordingly."
"I'm sure," Kyoko scoffed, as Makoto relayed this to her as he waited downstairs in the lobby for his taxi to the airport. "He was so concerned he sat on the information for how long?"
"Should I call Kane?"
"No. It's better to wait and confront him in work, you've always been better at reading people face-to-face. I'll talk to Emi about it, see if he's approached her."
"Thanks." Makoto shut his eyes, stress eased only by the certainty in Kyoko's voice. She hadn't even wanted him to come here, he thought with dejection, but still, she'd had his back every step of the way, fixed problems before he even knew they existed. In light of how much he seemed to have failed her in her grief, and how hard he'd shut down having another baby, he wasn't sure he deserved it. "I don't know what I'd do without you, you know."
"I'm aware," she said, sounding a little smug. It was enough to make him smile, if only for a moment. "I'll let you go. Wake me up when you get in."
As he hung up, he heard the sound of a soft mechanical hum. He looked up from his seat to see Monca Towa staring back at him.
"Uh, hi, Monaca."
"You're leaving?" she asked, peering at him curiously with her wide eyes.
He nodded. "Yeah. Family stuff. You know."
"Sure." There was a pause, and then she smiled. "You don't trust me, do you, Makoto Naegi?"
He thought about lying, but Monaca was a pretty intimidating lady despite her small size and the wheelchair and he knew she'd be able to tell. "I - I want to," he admitted.
"That's fair!" Monaca didn't seem too bothered by this. "I expect it. I did some crazy things when I was a kid. I wanted to be a mini Junko soooo bad before it got boring."
"Uh, yeah." That was a bit of an understatement in Makoto's book. "But hey, it was a long time ago. It was a different world then."
(He said this as if saying it would make it true. He thought of Koichi, of Emi; the children he loved for whom the world was still so brand new and full of promise. Their lives seemed so far-removed from the turmoil inflicted by the Warriors of Hope. He could only hope they would stay that way.)
"I can't believe I ever thought being Junko's lil sis would be a good idea. I mean, it wasn't that fun, you know?" Monaca tilted her head in thought. "I still wonder what happened to her though."
"Hm?"
"Junko's sister."
"Oh. Mukuro died, Monaca." Makoto thought that was common knowledge, but reasoned that maybe Monaca hadn't watched the televised game.
"Not Mukuro, silly! The other one."
Makoto hadn't understood the expression of feeling your blood run cold until that moment. "The...other one?"
"Yeah. She was my age. That's why Junko took to me I think - because I reminded her of her baby sis." Monaca shrugged. "Guess she's living life under the radar. Probs for the best. Munakata would probably have her captured if she showed up! Hey, is that your taxi?"
He tried not to let what Monaca had said freak him out too much. So what if Junko and Mukuro had a sibling out there somewhere? She was just a kid when all the despair happened and she had probably spent the last decade trying to escape from it. It was a hell of a shadow to shake off, Makoto imagined. And all of that was only if Monaca could be trusted. For all he knew, she was plotting something herself, and was just using the threat of another Junko to freak him out. He made a mental note to tell Komaru to keep a closer eye on her next time she went to the Future Foundation - assuming there was a next time at all, after what Munakata had kept hidden.
By the time he got home, the house was silent and dark. Before going upstairs, he went to the kitchen for a glass of water. On the table was a banner Koichi had obviously been working on in preparation for his return. 'Welcome home Daddy' it read, in his crayoned scrawl. 'I missed you.'
He knew he shouldn't risk waking him, but he couldn't help it - glass of water be damned, he went straight to Koichi's bedroom and placed a kiss on his forehead, before fixing the blankets he'd kicked off in his sleep. "I missed you more," he whispered.
"I thought I heard you come in." At the sound of Kyoko's voice - quiet, so as not to stir their son - he turned. "Are you okay?"
He joined in her the hallway, easing Koichi's bedroom door shut behind him. "Do you think we can just - I dunno, wait, I guess, and talk about it tomorrow?"
Kyoko understood. She took his hand in hers and led him to their bedroom, before sitting him on the bed and framing his shoulders. He took in the sight of her in a black silk robe with plum trim. He tugged at the ties, curious, and sure enough, it opened to expose some very enticing lace underwear.
"I figured you wouldn't want to talk," Kyoko said, by way of explanation and then she climbed into his lap and for the first time in a while, his luck didn't seem like such an ironic joke.
The sex was great, but better was the way Kyoko threaded her legs through his afterwards and shifted down the bed to rest her head on his chest. When he cuddled her close, she hummed, content. The 'I told you so' never came.
"I know we're not talking about it," she said, as she linked their hands together, "but it's their loss, you know. You're brilliant and Munakata knows that."
"Would you have still loved me if my thing hadn't been hope?" Makoto questioned. It was one of the many questions that had plagued him during the flight home: who was he really, if he wasn't the person everyone expected him to be? Was it really enough if all he ever was again was a headmaster?
"I don't know." He couldn't see her face, but she sounded deep in thought. "I don't think you'd be you if that were the case. Why?"
"I guess I just don't feel so useful these days."
"But hope is what the world needed most. It's what I needed." Kyoko looked up at him. "It's what I still need, sometimes."
Kyoko was always saying things like that - that he'd taught her about hope and the right way to love someone, but sometimes, Makoto thought it was the other way around. The way he loved her was easy and full that it was enough to engulf his thoughts, but Kyoko's love was different - she was measured, she was rational. It was how she'd been able to put aside her own feelings of rejection to support him, the way he hadn't been able to when their roles were reversed.
After a moment, Makoto asked, "Did you give your grandfather back the money?"
Kyoko stilled and looked away again. "He's been away. I will when he gets back."
"You need to tell him what you really wanted it for," Makoto said. "You need to make sure that accepting it doesn't come with some weird conditions that are gonna shackle our kids to Kirigiri detectivehood indefinitely."
"Accepting it?"
He lifted their hands, locked together still. "We don't give up, remember?"
Confronting Kane proved to be relatively easy - the older man caved at the mention of his partner, and broke down in way that felt so raw, Makoto almost felt guilty for being a witness to it. Kane confessed that he was ashamed of his lover's evil, that he was afraid of telling Makoto the truth.
"At first, I didn't want to jeopardize the job," he said, turning away from Makoto to hide his pain. "And later, I did not want to jeopardize our friendship."
Makoto could believe that, but that didn't answer the question of Emi. Kyoko had questioned her about Kane under the guise of a case she was working on, both so Emi would take it seriously and to keep the details from her. She'd said she'd never met Kane and Kyoko believed she was telling the truth, although that had only left them more confused by Kane's targeting of him. What was the point if he wasn't even going to get to know her?
"And your daughter?" Makoto asked now.
"She's alive," Kane admitted. "I've known that for a long time. Where she is in the world I don't know, although I believe in my heart she's with good people. I know it's too late to be her father, but I hope that someday, I'll get a second chance with another child."
It was the best possible thing Kane could have said - that he hadn't been preying on Emi this whole time, that he wasn't seeking her out at all - but it left Makoto feeling worse, and not better. He got that to Kane, his daughter had been gone for a long time, but to say she was dead when she wasn't was something Makoto, as a father himself, couldn't quite shake off.
When he ran it past Kyoko, she shrugged and reminded him that being less sentimental than he was certainly wasn't a cause for suspicion. Komaru agreed, after questioning Makoto at length about Kane, and then she announced they weren't to tell Emi.
"You can't keep it from her!" Makoto protested.
"She's really young to have to relive all that despair stuff, Makoto," Komaru said. "And besides, they weren't her birth family. She only lived with those guys for a year or two as a baby. She's been with us longer than she was with them."
He thought his sister was being selfish - that she was keeping Emi from Kane because she was afraid of losing her. "She has a right to know she had a father once," Makoto fumed to Kyoko on the way home. He figured if anyone would agree with him about the shittiness of parental alienation, it would be her, whose father was basically banished from her life - even if she did seem to take her grandfather's side, even now.
"Maybe so," she said, "but it's not our right to make that decision." When Kyoko looked at him, there was a sternness in her eyes. "She's not your child. You're going to stand with your sister on this, not some stranger you just met - a stranger who, remember, is a proven liar."
He resented that, because even if he was a liar, Kane had been there for him a lot in the last year. He'd had his back in work; he'd been his shoulder to cry on after the miscarriage; he'd been the only one who encouraged him to go to the Future Foundation which, yes, in hindsight was not the best idea he'd ever had, but still. Kane had been a great support system to him, when his friends and family hadn't. Even if he didn't feel totally comfortable with the way he'd handled things, it still felt like he a betrayal to lie to him.
They were friends, after all.
Yet, each time Makoto planned to tell Kane, something would go wrong - once, the lightbulb overhead smashed and shattered all over the room; another time, they kept getting interrupted by phone calls and students requesting they sign their yearbooks. Eventually, when he lost his voice literally moments before Kane arrived in his office at his request, Makoto took the hint. His luck was telling him to keep quiet and somewhere along the way, his gut had come to agree.
Maybe Kyoko was right, he decided. He had enough to focus on with his own family, after all.