Notes: The previous chapter was uploaded during FFN's chapter alert glitch (posted on May 5), so if you missed it, make sure you read that before continuing on! Thanks!

This chapter went through like 7463827593 rewrites as the characters kept changing direction, and it's also unbetaed, so if there are any mistakes or plot holes... that's entirely my fault, haha. But please do point out anything out that seems to need fixing!

The Death of Makoto Naegi
Part 2

For a few weeks, nothing changed. Naegi had been telling the truth when he said that he and Togami rarely crossed paths—sure, he worked at one of the Togami family's businesses, but he was almost always assigned the graveyard shift. It wasn't exactly prime time for upper management to make a visit.

He passed the time as usual, letting the nebulous promise made to his sister sit at the back of his mind, but not completely forgotten—Komaru made sure of that, texting him for updates at least once a week.

-You better not be hogging him all to yourself!

-im not. what does that even mean? i swear i havent seen him at all. shouldnt you focus on graduating instead?

Naegi sighed and locked his phone. Nearly a month had passed since the udon incident, and rather than beginning to lose interest, his sister was becoming increasingly restless. He didn't know what she expected him to do about it, though; it wasn't like he could predict when and where the Togami heir would appear.

The time on his phone's lock screen indicated that he still had a bit of time before he needed to be at the udon restaurant, so he decided to take a detour and stop by the convenience store to check the next week's schedule. If there happened to be any sort of issue with it, he'd be more like to find a shift manager who could quickly resolve it than if he waited until he showed up that night.

When he stepped into the staff room, though, it wasn't a shift manager he found there.

It was Byakuya Togami himself.

Naegi froze. Despite all of Komaru's badgering, he had never completely planned out what he would say the next time he did encounter Togami. The scion didn't seem to have immediately noticed him, focused as he was on what appeared to be a folder of sales reports, so Naegi briefly entertained the idea of just quietly slipping away...

...except that Togami did look up at that moment, his chilly gaze focusing directly on the shorter man.

Naegi still hadn't figured out what to say. "Um," he started lamely, before deciding to go with his gut and leaning forward in a bow. "I'm really sorry for spilling udon on you last month! I didn't really get the chance, so if you'd like me to reimburse the cleaning costs—"

"Enough, Naegi."

Naegi was struck silent by the sound of his own name. Had he mentioned his name when he had tripped on Togami? He couldn't really remember, but a lot of the incident was just a panicked blur.

With an annoyed sigh, Togami snapped the manila folder shut and placed it on the accounting desk. "If I didn't make it clear enough before, I don't need your reimbursement. I derive no pleasure from bankrupting those who are less fortunate."

Naegi winced. He had expected that the cleaning costs wouldn't have been in his budget, but hearing it from Togami stung a bit. "I- I guess..."

"Right. So if we're done here—"

"Ah, wait!" Naegi held up a hand, ignoring Togami's indignant expression in response to being interrupted. "Look, I still want to, I guess... I want to make it up to you somehow? So, uh, maybe if you'd like..." The words died on his tongue. What was he doing? Why had he even agreed to Komaru's little scheme in the first place?

Togami glared down at him. "You're wasting my time. Spit it out."

"Yes sir!" was Naegi's instant response, making him feel even more ridiculous, but if he had already made himself out to be such a fool he might as well just go the extra mile. Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Maybe I could treat you to lunch or something sometime?"

A beat of silence fell between them. "Lunch?" Togami repeated, an incredulous tone in his voice.

"I-it wouldn't be anything really special," Naegi warned. "But I know some pretty okay places?" Suddenly remembering the other part of his promise, he quickly amended, "Also, my sister and her friend want to come along too so—"

"Why in the world should I have any interest in your sister and her friend?"

Naegi paused. The question made sense. Perfect sense, even. There was no reason Togami should care about two girls he'd never even met. But... "To be fair, why should you have any interest in me?" he pointed out. "Honestly, I'm surprised that you even remembered my name."

Togami arched a golden eyebrow. "Why shouldn't I? Are you aware of how many times your name has appeared and reappeared on our businesses' payrolls?"

Naegi felt his cheeks redden. Of all the reasons to catch the attention of a well-known entrepreneur, an inability to hold down a job wasn't very high on the list. "You actually noticed that?" he asked weakly.

"Of course," came the matter-of-fact response. "It's very unusual. Quite strange how you continue to be hired despite your track record."

"You make it sound like you suspect me of something immoral."

Togami smirked. "Perhaps I would, if your supervisors didn't often speak so highly of your work ethic. It's more of a mystery why you continue to be let go. Are my store managers just that incompetent?"

"No, no, not at all!" Naegi shook his head fervently, feeling dumbfounded and a little lightheaded from the unexpected compliments (were they compliments?) but somehow managing to find his voice regardless. "No, they're all great! I just... keep messing stuff up by accident. Bad luck, I guess." He gave a wry laugh.

"Hmm." Peering at Naegi through his glasses, Togami took a moment to consider. "Is that so? You'd have to have some nerve to claim bad luck when you're being permitted to treat me to lunch."

It took a moment for Naegi to understand what the taller man had just said. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me. I am allowing you," he placed particular emphasis on that word, "to treat Byakuya Togami to lunch. Be grateful."

Naegi stared dumbly. What was going on? He was going to have lunch with Byakuya Togami... alone? Without Komaru and Fukawa?

What had he just gotten himself into?

"Unless, of course," Togami added, "you're backing out now."

Naegi sort of wanted to, honestly, but he knew that if he did he'd only make himself out to be a bit of an idiot—though he already had, really—except Togami had kind of sort of praised him, so maybe he hadn't? Either way, Naegi couldn't manage much more than a shake of the head to indicate that he wasn't chickening out.

Togami moved to leave then, and as he passed Naegi, he handed over his business card. "Email me the place and time," he commanded simply before exiting the staff room.

For a while, Naegi stood rooted in place, unsure of what he was supposed to do. Finally, through the dizzy whirl of his mind, he remembered the text conversation on his phone.

Sorry, Komaru, he thought. I guess I'm hogging him to myself after all.

"Wh-what are we even doing here, Komaru?!"

Komaru shushed her friend, never taking her eyes off the two men halfway across the dining room. She wasn't to be disturbed; she was a woman on a mission.

Even if she wasn't entirely sure what that mission was herself.

Over the past week, she had managed to get Makoto to tell her quite a few details about his upcoming lunch with Togami. Maybe it was due to the guilt over reneging on his promise to her, but it hadn't taken much effort to get him to admit to the date and time.

The one point that Makoto had resolutely kept quiet about was the location. He probably thought he was being shrewd, keeping Komaru in the dark just enough to prevent her from crashing his lunch date.

Fortunately, Komaru knew her brother nearly as well as he knew himself.

Makoto had worked at a few restaurants in the past, so of course he'd choose to go to one of them. He probably wasn't too familiar with many other places, aside from fast food joints. And of the restaurants that Makoto had worked at, the ones backed by the Togami Corporation were automatically eliminated—her brother wasn't stupid enough to bring the Togami heir to one of his own restaurants.

That left two possible locations for their lunch—and a quick Google search revealed that one of them had since gone out of business. Bingo.

So that was how Komaru had ended up at a fairly nice family restaurant on the day of her brother's lunch date, disguised in a pair of enormous novelty sunglasses, with Touko Fukawa in tow.

"Seriously Komaru, can we just g-go?" Touko hissed. "I'm not interested in seeing your brother cozy up to my Byakuya-sama!"

"Of course we can't go! Look how much of this parfait we have left!" Komaru gestured towards the large dish of ice cream shared between them. "You've barely eaten any of it, Touko-chan. It's going to melt if you don't hurry!"

As Touko took a tiny bite of ice cream, grumbling under her breath, Komaru focused again on the back of her brother's head. (Touko had insisted on sitting on the side of the table that would have her facing away from the men, because she "wasn't worthy of directly witnessing Byakuya-sama's pure knightly aura" or something. It didn't stop her from peeking over her shoulder every few minutes, though.) To be honest, Komaru wasn't entirely sure why she had wanted to tail her brother; it was definitely part revenge, and maybe part curiosity, but it was also part something else that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

But whatever that something was, it was nagging her endlessly in response to what she was seeing. She tapped her spoon against the table, pondering.

"You know, Touko-chan... I don't think they're really talking."

Touko anxiously glanced behind her. "We're not close enough to hear them."

"Well yeah, but they don't look like they're talking." Komaru huffed, resting her elbows on the table. "Like, Togami-san's lips aren't moving at all, except to drink his coffee."

"D-don't stare at his l-l-lips!"

"And I can't see Oniichan's face," she continued, disregarding her friend's retort, "but he's not, like... moving around like he does when he talks. What's the word?"

"Gesticulating? What, is he a foreigner?"

"He doesn't move around that much, but still..." Komaru frowned in her brother's direction, as if trying to glare a hole through the back of his head would spur him into action. What was he doing? Going by Makoto's body language, it was pretty clear that he was just sitting at the table awkwardly without saying a word—Komaru doubted he had even touched much of the sandwich he had ordered.

It occurred to her that the third factor that had brought her there was actually concern. She was worried about her brother... but she wasn't entirely sure why. It wasn't like he was at risk of blowing a date or anything like that.

...Oh. Oh. Komaru hid her growing grin behind a hand, trying to suppress the laughter bubbling up in her chest. It wouldn't be fair to Touko if she suddenly started giggling about her sudden revelation.

Gosh, that definitely made things a lot more complicated, but at the same time it was so interesting. It was like Komaru's favorite kind of steamy manga plot!

"Wh-what are you leering about?" Touko looked over her shoulder, frowning. "Nothing happened. Why are you being so w-weird?"

"It's nothing!" Komaru waved her hands in front of her, giving up on her failed attempt to conceal her expression. "Nothing at all, don't worry about it!"

Touko turned back towards Komaru briefly, before her eyes suddenly grew wide behind her glasses. She quickly glanced at the two men before fixing her friend with a glare. "Don't tell me you're shipping them!" she hissed.

"I'm not!"

"Komaru!"

"Well okay maybe a little!" she admitted. "I'm sorry! But don't you think they'd kinda look cute together?"

"You're d-disgusting," Touko spat. "Just like the rest of your godforsaken manga club. Here I thought y-you were on my side."

"I am on your side!" Komaru insisted—though she had to admit that maybe her loyalties were a little torn now. Just a little. "I'll support you, Touko-chan, I promise! Look, if you want to go up and say hi to Togami-san I'll be right there with you."

Touko's response was a strange mix of expressions, mostly of apprehension and fear. "L-like I could do that!"

"You totally could! But you have about five seconds to make a decision because he's about to walk right past us."

"Wh-what?!" Touko made a panicked scramble, catapulting her ice cream spoon across the table, and opened up a menu to shield her face just as the blond man passed their table.

Komaru felt jittery with nerves, knowing that their booth probably looked a little ridiculous—one girl hiding behind a menu, the other wearing the least inconspicuous disguise possible, and melted parfait splattered across the tabletop—but Togami barely spared them a glance as he strode towards the door.

Only after Togami left the restaurant, the door jingle fading away, did Touko peek past the menu again. "H-he's gone? Did your brother do something stupid?"

"I wasn't paying too much attention, but I think he just left normally." Komaru turned her attention back to Makoto, his back hunched as he signed the credit card bill.

As he stood to exit, Komaru grinned, waiting for the perfect time to strike, right when Makoto was about to pass their table—

"So, how was your hot date?"

Makoto nearly jumped right out of his hoodie, before recognizing his sister behind the sunglasses and sighing. "Komaru, what are you doing here...?"

"We're tailing you, duh." She reached up and tugged at her brother's sleeve, urging him into the booth. "Now come on, have a seat! And have some of this parfait too, we're not gonna finish it." She scooped up a spoonful of soupy ice cream and shoved it into Makoto's face as he slumped into the booth beside her. He kept his mouth firmly shut in a frown, resulting in little more than smearing the cream over his cheek and lips.

"Could you two p-possibly be more incestuous?" Touko groused from the other side of the table. "It's bad enough I had to witness Byakuya-sama being snatched from under my nose, now you're just m-making me sick...!"

"Whoa, wait, hold on." Makoto used his sleeve to rub the ice cream from his face, flustered, and turned to look at the writer. "Fukawa-san, you have it all wrong! I'm not trying to take Togami-san from anybody, and Komaru and I definitely aren't—"

"So what was that, then?" Komaru broke in, nodding towards the door from which Togami had exited just a few minutes earlier. "Sure looked to me like a new couple's uncomfortable first date."

"Wha—!" Makoto glanced nervously at Touko's dour expression before focusing back on his sister. "This was all your idea in the first place, anyway! I knew it would be awkward, so I have no idea why I listened to you..."

"It was awkward because you didn't listen to me," Komaru pointed out. "The original plan was to have me and Touko-chan there too, remember?"

"I really don't think that would have made much difference..."

"Oh, come on." Komaru leaned an elbow against the table, grinning devilishly at her brother. "Without our feminine powers to point you in the right direction, you were totally lost. You needed a wingwoman or two to help salvage that disaster."

"N-no way am I being his wingwoman!"

"Wait, wait. Wait." Makoto looked rapidly between the two girls, his cheeks beginning to grow red. "Why do you keep acting like that was a date? I don't get why—"

"Okay, so why are you acting exactly like you used to act about that singer girl in middle school?" Komaru said pointedly.

Makoto fell silent, his blush deepening. "Am I really...?" he asked softly.

"Sure are." Komaru grinned cheekily. "So spill it. Do you like him? Is it his face? Did he say some nice things to you?"

"I—" Makoto leaned away from his sister, shaking his head. "He didn't say anything to me today at all, really."

That was fair enough; Komaru had seen that for herself. Just as she was about to turn her line of questioning elsewhere, though—

"What do you mean 'today'?"

Touko's accusatory tone broke through the space between them, steady and sure, and Komaru's eyes widened. "Yeah," she added, catching on to the weak point, too. "What do you mean by 'today,' Oniichan? What's with the specificity?"

Makoto wore an expression like that of a cornered prey, the blush fading as his face paled. "What do you... There's no special meaning, really? I just—"

"There'd be no reason for you to qualify your statement with 'today,'" Touko said, her calmness contrasted by the way she gripped the edge of the table—with enough fury that it seemed to be just moments from splintering between her fingers. "Unless, of course, Byakuya-sama charmed you with something he said previously?"

Makoto was silent, gaze flickering between the two girls nervously, but to Komaru that was as clear as if he had shouted the answer from the restaurant rooftop.

"No way, seriously?!" she gushed, eagerly leaning into her brother's personal space. "What did he say?! I've only ever heard that the guy's a total asshole and there's no way you're into that kind of stuff the way Touko-chan is, so what in the world did he say?!"

Makoto raised his hands in defense. "Komaru, I don't—"

"Confess, Makoto Naegi!" Touko demanded, her knuckles turning white and her gaze pure acid. "Give me reason to believe you aren't pursuing Byakuya-sama and I won't consider you a rival! But during this entire conversation, you have yet to deny a romantic interest in him!"

Makoto gaped blankly at the two girls, mouth flapping uselessly, and as Komaru watched, she practically see the gears turning in his head, running back their conversation to find a point of rebuttal, and when he ultimately came up with nothing—

His blush returned full-force.

"I guess," Makoto started, slowly, carefully, as he tried to hide his face in his hood, "I can... agree with Fukawa-san that he's... pretty cool."

If Makoto hadn't been on such friendly terms with the restaurant owner, Touko's indignant screech would have certainly gotten them a lifetime ban from the establishment. As it was, the girls were tersely asked to leave immediately after paying their bill.

But that was okay. Komaru got what she came for—even more than what she expected, really. And when it came down to it, she had a bigger worry than having caused a public disturbance.

Komaru didn't want to have to pick sides; how could she possibly choose between her best friend and her brother?

But, from an objective standpoint, she had to admit that Makoto had the upper hand.

"You know," Komaru said to Touko, on the train home a half hour later, "you might want to think about finally writing that love letter now."

Notes: That's the end of this particular story, but I want to come back and write more about these four later! There's still so much fun to be had... :)