a/n: spoilers for the whole game. pre-canon/canon/post-canon. minor ooc!kirigiri for the sake of fluff.
red-faced shenanigans
[Five times he makes her blush. One time she makes him.]
i.
Kirigiri Kyouko stared at the sheet of paper she held in her hand, rows of text in a double-columned chart, one side depicting each title given to the ones elite in their own professions to be accepted into Hope's Peak Academy. Her eyebrows knitted upwards as she checked off her own title, proceeding to scan the hall for the other students, trying to decipher their own various titles.
She wasn't blessed with the title of Detective for a reason; a glance spared and she could spot those that fit he criteria on the sheet of paper of the school's little icebreaker game. The one who regarded their classmates without more of a glance was the Heir; the one wielding the sparkling glass orb and making dramatic gestures was they Fortune Teller (or at least a variant of one); the one with her hair in twin drills and behaved with a prestigious manner was the Gambler. As someone of her standard, none of this was of any difficulty to decipher.
But still...
Who was the one with the hazel hair and amber-like eyes?
Dismissing the rest of the titles, it was clear enough that this person should be the title bearer of Good Luck; still, by his child-like demeanor, it was a little hard to believe that he was accepted into he school. He looked all-too child-like, with what people would describe as a "baby-face"...
And now he's walking up to her...
"Uhmm, hi," he greeted her rather lamely. It took her a while to snap out of her little daze and affirm him with a response.
"Hello."
Huh, he did seem pretty cute, after all.
"U-Uhh, thanks...?" The boy replied, scratching his head awkwardly; he seemed a tad flustered, but he was smiling. She deduced he might have got that a lot.
...wait, she thought out loud, didn't she.
An awkward silence followed (she didn't know how to break it when she was trying to keep her cool from voicing such an embarrassing thought) but the boy was quick to break it. "Well, I'm Makoto Naegi, Super High School Level Good Luck. It's nice to meet you, uh..."
"...Kyouko Kirigiri." She replied curtly, shaking his outstretched hand. "Super High School Level Detective. Its nice to meet you, too."
"Super High School Level Detective, huh..." Naegi jotted onto his paper. She spied at his messy, boy-like handwriting (although it was neater than most), and noticed his hesitating.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh! Well," Naegi hesitated, but Kirigiri cut in before he could.
"It's 'Kiri' as in 'mist', and 'giri' as in 'cut'." She smiled.
"Thanks. You really are a detective, after all." He praised lightly. She was used to it, but she didn't hold back her smile. Not a bad guy, either. "Hmm... So your name means 'fog cutter', huh... That's a really great name."
"...it's nothing, really."
He was cute when he smiled, too.
Heat creeped up her face, and before she could register her happenings, Naegi was calling out worriedly, "K-Kirigiri-san, are you alright? Your face is red..."
She wanted very much to duck her head, or hide them in her hands or anything that will divert his attention from her face. What was wrong with her? "I'm fine. Don't concern yourself with me." She scattered off, clutching at her paper tightly as it almost tore, pretending to search for other students to fill their names in. Shaking her head and steadying herself (cool, Kyouko, cool it, this isn't you to be flustered by a boy you've just met and is maybe interested in shut up Kyouko) she pressed the pen against the paper, then halted.
"It's 'Naegi' as in 'honest', Kirigiri-san."
Whoops.
ii.
"...are you sure this is a good idea, Asahina...?"
"Oh, come on, Kirigiri-chan!" The mahogany-haired swimmer let out a cheery laugh, patting the detective on the shoulder supportingly. "Naegi-kun will love you in this swimsuit, I swear. Even I feel like jumping all over you in that cute swimsuit."
"...let's not word it that way." Kirigiri hesitated, and when she did, it wasn't the greatest of signs; the title-bearer of Super High School Level Detective wasn't known to hesitate, to be firm and confident with her course of actions. At the moment, she stared at the reflection of herself staring back at her, phantom violet eyes sweeping over the sight of herself donning the blue one-piece swimsuit that Asahina assured her "brings out the colour of your eyes!" To be fair, the school barely had any swimsuits to issue out anyway, and there was no way she was going to squeeze herself into a bikini scattered around the locker rooms (she was pretty sure those were just lures set up by the boys).
"Done?" Asahina grabbed the girl by her shoulders, to which she responded with a garbled yelp, "Okay! Let's go! Just you wait, all of their jaws are going to drop at the sight of you!"
Not quite, Kirigiri thought rather morbidly, that the boys would rather peg her for being too "tame". She certainly didn't want to see Naegi jaw-dropping upon seeing her. Even the thought of it wanted to make her duck her head in embarrassment.
" — ahh, there they are!"
"Woo! Bring out the ladies!"
"C'mon in, Kirigiri-san! The water's warm!"
Kirigiri was quick to make out Naegi's voice from the crowd, and she didn't want to open her eyes. Still, the moment Asahina unlatched from her shoulders to join Oogami, she calmed herself and straightened up, her head held high, refusing to let her minuscule trinket of problems discourage her from having fun. Yes, that's why they were at the pool, weren't they? To have fun. Not to see who wore the cutest swimsuit (though Maizono would've dominated in a heartbeat; the faces of the men gawking at her in the bikini was priceless).
She stepped towards the edge of the pool, dipping her toes in slightly, testing the waters. As she did, the person she needed to see the least swam up to her to greet her. She couldn't avert her gaze as he greeted her with that smile of his.
"Wow, Kirigiri-san," Naegi commented cheekily, almost in a casual conversation manner, "you look really cute in that swimsuit."
Red dusted her cheeks and it was the last time she ever went swimming, if she did at all that day.
iii.
There was a time where their idle chatter suddenly came to a halt. All her absentmindedness towards their conversation was zapped away and she turned to face him, effectively silencing him in the process.
" — what did you just refer to me as?"
"H-Huh?" Naegi entered a trance of thought before giving her a puzzled look. "I don't understand."
She didn't bother holding back the scoff that came to her. "I believe you just called me 'Kyouko-san'..." she prompted, trailing off slightly, anticipating his explanation. Hearing her weary reply, Naegi let out a smile, a hand rising upwards to scratch the back of his head a tad awkwardly. He almost seemed a little embarrassed, but he didn't show it all that well.
"Oh, that," the boy chuckled, "just something Mukuro-san mentioned the other day... She said you and I look pretty close, and I figured she was right. You wouldn't mind if I called you by your first name, would you, Kyouko-san?"
Whatever clue he was trying to get her to catch on to, she wasn't doing all that well. He let out another laugh, and she found herself averting her gaze. Wait, what was wrong with her?
"...for what reason?"
"Well, we are pretty close, aren't we? I think we're close enough that we can address each other by our first names... You can call me Makoto, too, of course. ...Kyouko-san? K-Kirigiri-san, are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine!" She couldn't help the stutter and how her words came out a little too forcefully, only urging Naegi to be more hesitant around her; neither could she help the red dusting her cheeks once more. "I'm fine," she said once more, turning around as she ought to (as Hagakure might have worded it) skedaddle. She definitely couldn't let him catch her blushing like that again.
"O-Oh! Alright, then. See you, Kirigiri-san..."
The clicking of her boots against the floor came to an abrupt halt, prompting Naegi's hesitation once more. Without turning back, Kirigiri spewed out,
"I-I don't mind being referred to with my first name... M-Makoto."
And as she scrambled (in her cool façade) away from the scene, she swore she could hear Naegi smiling behind her.
iv.
"W-What? Me and Hagakure? No way! He's such a dork. What makes you think I'm gonna hook up with him? I'd have a better chance with that Heir."
"B-Byakuya-sama is mine!"
"Haha, we know, Syo. By the way, sis, doesn't Ishimaru seem interested in you? Guess your regal soldier-ness pays off in the end, huh?"
"D-Don't call me that!"
"W-What? Sister! H-How could you... I-I don't..."
"D'awww, someone's blushing!"
Kirigiri had a better chance in an all-boys sleepover than this.
She didn't understand. All girls seemed to just want to talk about makeup or fashion or dieting or that hot celebrity or boys. Boys. Everything led to boys in the end. She didn't understand. This was the only thing her detective mindset couldn't decipher. Girls and their obsession with boys.
She couldn't lie that she was a girl too. And she did have a thing with boys, too. And she couldn't understand that part of her, too. Which frustrated her to no end.
"Hello, earth to Kirigiri?"
Her attention snapped back to the chatter, and she realised she was being stared at by the rest of the group when she was isolated in her thoughts. Oops. "W-What is it?" She demanded, to which the others burst out into a fit of giggles. Embarrassment creeped up to her, but she kept her cool.
"We were asking you who suited sis better before you fell into dreamland, Kiri-chan." Enoshima Junko chided, gnawing on one of many Pockys they smuggled for their pyjama party. Her light blue eyes glimmered at her, and for a moment Kirigiri thought the title of a model suited her well. "Whaddya think? Is it Ishi-Ishi or Naeggy?"
"Makoto?" She couldn't help her slip-up. It never crossed her mind that Ikusaba held an interest for Naegi at all. How could she not have noticed? Such shame. She had her suspicions that Ishimaru had a thing for Ikusaba, but Naegi? Naegi?
Before she knew it, she heard the girls hooting at her, and she realised her slip-up and what it had cost her.
"Wait, Kirigiri-chan's interested in Naegi-kun?" Maizono held a hand to her mouth in surprise, "Oh, I never knew! Ahh, since when?"
"Since icebreaking," Junko helpfully provided; first line of gossips were always produced by the pink-haired lass. "'Sides, you're too busy thinking about Leon to notice, anyway."
"What? S-Since when? N-Nhh..."
The girls erupted into giggles once more, and Kirigiri thought the spotlight had been shifted away from her. Surprisingly, Oogami was the one who initiated the comeback towards the topic of her and Naegi: "I'm surprised you're referring to Naegi-kun with his first name, Kirigiri-san."
Kirigiri's attention spiked, and the chatter piled onto her like a sack of bricks.
"My interest has caught on, as well," Celestia added, leaning forward and smirking at Kirigiri. "Since when have you been referring to him on a first-name basis, Kirigiri-san?"
"I-I — " Kirigiri stuttered, trying to regain her composure. "That's preposterous. I have never referred to him so casually."
"Well, you just did, hon," Junko helpfully provided, "and you've been doing so for awhile, now, haven't you?"
Her face must've sold it, because everyone was chattering like there was no tomorrow about the two.
"Kyahh! I never expected that! This is great! They're perfect together!"
"Yeah! They're like two great toppings on a donut! Meshing perfectly! Right, Sakura-chan?"
"Hmm... This gives me inspiration for a novel."
"Write about their love story, Syo!"
Too much. She felt like the walls were closing in on her. No, no, no, no, no. She stood up, and everyone eyed her. Lowering her face — she didn't need everyone to see her embarrassed face — she made a quick dash to the door, avoiding comments like "aww, she's making a runaway to her Prince Charming! Too adorable" and just focusing on getting out, getting out, get out get out get out get out get —
"Ah!"
She crashed into something — it's not the door, for sure, she didn't even get to grab the doorknob — and she leaned onto it to support herself. Steadying, she realised the girls were hooting, which wasn't a good sign at all, so she looked up to whatever she crashed into and noticed —
"...K-Kyouko-san?"
She blushed because she was against his chest and why didn't she want to leave his grasp and the girls were hooting — "W-Wait! That isn't how it is, I just wanted to tell you guys to quiet down and — " "Denial! Denial!" — and she scampered to her room and locked herself in until her heart finally didn't feel like exploding.
...damn it.
and then it's goodbye
v.
Her mind still hurt from the murder.
It was hard to believe it all, but it was happening. And Kirigiri kept her cool. She knew she had to. There had to be a cool head, amongst the rest, that could dictate and lead whenever it was necessary. Of course, the Heir could do a good job at it as well, but he thought far too much of himself, and two heads were better than one.
In any case, she didn't know why, but she felt the obligation to. She was heading down the hallway, looking out at the signs to determine which room belonged to Makoto Naegi. He was shaken after the murder, needless to say after the trial, and to be the one to discover a close friend's corpse... She couldn't even begin to think how it would effect her.
She rapidly knocked the door a few couple times, and it took awhile for him to answer; considering the previous case, it was sensible. Anyone would have been a tad jumpy.
He seemed relieved it wasn't anyone else but her. They conversed awhile, and he seemed to have recovered slightly, at least. He even had the mood to joke, which she found relieving, at the very least.
"Kirigiri-san."
The name sounded so foreign for a moment. She couldn't pen down why.
"Yes?" She prompted, and Naegi shifted uncomfortably; as patient as ever, she waited for him to calm a bit, and he did. He smiled at her, seemingly grateful.
"Thank you, Kirigiri-san..."
She stared at him for a moment, a little stunned at his odd words, but he shook his head and smiled again, reaching out to scratch the back of his neck awkwardly. "Haha. I'm sorry. I... I just think I'm a little tired, that's all. You... You should go back to your room. You might get suspicions from others..."
She stared at him for a few more moments before nodding lightly, turning to leave the room. She heard Naegi word a "goodnight" to her, and she nodded in reply, leaving the room and closing the door behind her.
She leaned against it and hid her face in her hands. She was so sure red dusted her cheeks, and she had not an ounce of a clue why.
It all felt so familiar.
and back again.
vi.
"Kirigiri-san!"
Kirigiri tensed at the familiar voice, parting her gaze from the book Fukawa took the time to write and staring into Amber eyes radiating kindness and warmth.
"This is too much to be a coincidence," she stated blandly, urging the boy to smile awkwardly and scratch the back of his neck, as per usual.
"Haha, you're right. I'm just, well, I was looking for you, Kirigiri-san." Naegi replied, settling beside her on the plush couch. He peeked at the book she held, and his expression perked up to an even brighter smile. "Oh. That's what Fukawa-san wrote, right? I'm surprised she's letting you read it. She got really defensive when I asked, like, 'It's for Byakuya-sama to read it and no-one else! Scram!'" He laughed, and she couldn't suppress her smile.
He laughs as cutely as he smiles.
"Anyway, I was just hoping to spend some time with you, alone, y'know." He continued on. "Is that alright, Kirigiri-san?"
"You don't need my permission for that," she replied, flipping a page on her book, "the library's empty, anyway. So we're alone."
"Great! I guess." Naegi chuckled. "So, uhh..."
"We can read together," Kirigiri prompted, and Naegi looked a little dazed for a moment — what she suggested was definitely not on his mind — but he smiled, nonetheless.
"That'd be great."
He scooted off to gather some books to read, and she stared blankly at the book she held. Not that Fukawa's novel was boring — she found it quite intriguing, actually. It's just that she was getting tired. Fukawa's novel was lengthy, and she'd been in the library by herself for awhile. She enjoyed the isolation, but then again, a little company every so often didn't hurt.
Naegi came back holding a few poetry books, namely a few collections of them. He settled down beside her, and she folded the edge of the book's page — Fukawa would be mad, but Kirigiri wasn't really thinking — and placed it onto the armrest. Naegi stared at her quizzically, but Kirigiri merely smiled.
"Naegi," she began; she liked the way his name sounded. Naegi. Naegi. Honest. "If you wouldn't mind, is it alright to request of you to read to me?"
"Oh... O-Of course!" Naegi replied, smiling, "that would be fine." He scanned the pages of the poetry books before he settled on one he found interesting.
"To be, or not to be; that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing to end them."
"Soliloquy of 'Hamlet'," Kirigiri identified swiftly, recognizing the penmanship of Shakespeare easily; he was a favourite, and she remembered the days she poured hours over his works. At the corner of his eye Naegi bobbed his head up and down in a nod, and continued on.
"To die: to sleep:
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished."
His voice was nice to listen to. His reading voice, specifically, but it was nice either way. His words began to blur and her thoughts were set free, wandering to the edges of the Earth, thinking about anything and everything about the boy she was privileged to have met.
In her blurred state, she had come to realise she liked him. It was a fact her normal self would've refused to acknowledge so openly, oppressing the thought deep down, but now anything came and went. She wondered how much she was missing out on, without the memories of the school years all of them spent together. How many moments she had spent with this embodiment of Hope, lost along with their friends who were subjected to murder and execution.
But now is a nice time, too.
She couldn't help smiling to herself at the thought, yes, as precious as the time they lost was, now was more important than anything. This time she's spending with Makoto, it means more than anything else could for her.
I like you, Makoto. I dare say I love you, too...
Her head fell to the side, onto Naegi's shoulder stiffly, but she didn't mind at all. Slowly she slipped away into the world of endless dreams, the lulling voice of his reciting serving as her lullaby.
She didn't know it, but red coloured his cheeks as he read to the fast-asleep detective.