Notes: October 7 is Naegami Day let's go

(you might have to squint to see the naegami)

You're My Favorite Subject

The first few weeks after Kirigiri's execution were difficult, to put it mildly. A thick, suffocating haze of apprehension and regret hung over the five surviving students, and Naegi felt it more acutely than any of the others. He kept running through the possible alternatives that could have opened up to them, had he chosen to trust Kirigiri instead. Naegi was confident that none of them had killed Mukuro Ikusaba, but had there been some way to lead the trial to that conclusion? He just couldn't put the pieces together.

With how vehemently Kirigiri had tried to point the finger of suspicion on Naegi, most of the simulations he envisioned ended with him being voted up in her place, and while he did value his life, Naegi wondered if that wouldn't have been the better conclusion. The key to the school's mysteries had supposedly died with Kirigiri, after all; wouldn't preserving that have been worth the sacrifice?

There was no going back, though, and it wasn't in Naegi's nature to be so despondent for so long. So he tried to look on the bright side: at least Monokuma hadn't announced any more motives.

It was by far the longest they had ever gone without the sadistic bear actively encouraging them to murder, apparently satisfied to have Kirigiri out of the way, so Naegi tried to treasure the life of relative peace that her death had granted them. Even so, the students found themselves growing restless from the abrupt shift in their school life, so he really shouldn't have been surprised when Asahina suddenly proposed an entirely different brand of chaos.

"Hey, everyone! Let's all have a slumber party in Naegi's room tonight!"

The other four, gathered for breakfast as had become a custom they just couldn't shake, stared at the swimmer incredulously.

Why a slumber party? Naegi wondered, but he found himself instead asking, "Why in my room?"

"'Cause your room has the least stuff in it," Asahina said as if it were the obvious conclusion. "All you have in there is that old lint roller and some capsule prizes, so it'll be easier to fit all of us."

"I think the most pressing question," Togami said, arching an eyebrow as he peered over his cup of coffee, "is why should we engage in such an uncultured activity as a slumber party?"

Asahina huffed indignantly. "Well, Monokuma wouldn't give me permission to do a late-night doughnut-baking party in the kitchen!"

"That d-doesn't answer the question!" Fukawa retorted.

Naegi stood up to try and defuse the argument before it could get started. "Um, well, I think I get what Asahina-san is saying," he said. "We probably all need to unwind and just act, you know, normal now that the killing game is apparently over."

Togami hummed thoughtfully. "And if it isn't over, I suppose having us all in one area eliminates the threat of a murder. Surely none of you are foolish enough to kill in front of witnesses."

Naegi suppressed a groan; he had realized that benefit to the arrangement, but he hadn't wanted it to be vocalized. "Guys, no one's going to murder anyone anymore..."

"Naegi-chi's right!" Hagakure held out a crystal ball with a flourish. "According to my predictions, there will never be any more murders in this school!"

"And the last time you said that it was all of, what, five days before Kirigiri killed Ikusaba?"

"Togami!" Asahina hissed, glancing quickly at Naegi before shooting a pointed glare at the heir, who simply rolled his eyes and returned to his coffee.

"It's fine, guys," Naegi assured them, smiling awkwardly. It wasn't uncommon for Togami (and Fukawa, following his lead) to openly express their suspicions of Kirigiri, and though Naegi had fiercely defended her in those first few days, he'd become resigned to the fact that they wouldn't change their minds so easily. He looked at Asahina, who was wringing her hands worriedly, and gently prodded her to continue. "So, we're doing that slumber party, right? I don't mind having it in my room."

The swimmer instantly brightened, bouncing on the balls of her feet excitedly. "Yes! We'll have games and snacks and we can all have fun for once, right?"

"I'm all for it!" Hagakure cheered.

"T-two guys alone with a girl late at night?" Fukawa muttered, breathing heavily. "L-like I'll just let you shamelessly s-seduce two men right under my nose, you hussy!"

"Fukawa-chan!" Asahina squealed, face going red. "That's not—"

"Well, I-I'm just gonna ruin those plans for you by sh-showing up for your stupid party!" Fukawa declared. "See how you like that!"

Hagakure grimaced. "It's okay to just say you want to go, you know..."

"Sh-shut up!"

Togami gave a long-suffering sigh and stood to leave. "This is ridiculous."

"Togami-kun?" Naegi looked over at him curiously. "Are you going to join us at the party? Everyone else will be there..."

Togami fixed him with a withering look. "If I feel like showing up for your silly little get-together, I'll do as I please." Without another word, he swept out of the dining hall.

Well, Naegi thought, he didn't outright say no. I guess that's improvement?

"Who needs him, anyway?" Asahina huffed. "Whatever. I'm going to the storage room to find supplies!"

"Ah, I'll come help, then!" Naegi hurriedly cleared away his breakfast dishes before following the swimmer out of the dining hall and around the corner towards the storage room.

Asahina cheerfully made conversation as they walked. "So what do you think we're going to need? Obviously snacks and games, but if we're all sleeping on the floor maybe we should start off with finding bedding for everyone..."

"Uh, sure," Naegi offered lamely. "Can I ask a question, though?"

"Hmm?" Asahina simply hummed her acknowledgement as she pulled the warehouse door open.

"What is this really about?"

Asahina paused, her shoulders slumping a bit as her mood seemed to deflate. When she turned back to face him, it was with a sheepish smile. "I guess I kind of forgot how perceptive you could be, huh?"

Naegi bit his lip, unable to help thinking that he wasn't supposed to be the perceptive one of the group, but he quickly pushed that thought from his mind. "So there is more to this than just having us all hang out together."

"Well, I mean, that's definitely part of it..." Asahina looked to the floor as she fidgeted with the hem of her track jacket. "But it's like... up until we found Ikusaba murdered, we had finally started to kinda come together as a team, you know? Just like..." She trailed off, but her words hung unspoken in the air between them. Just like Sakura-chan wanted.

"Yeah," Naegi agreed softly.

"But that last trial was just so messed up," Asahina continued. "At least all the others had real closure, you know? The culprit always confessed in the end. But Kirigiri-chan..." She glanced back up at Naegi nervously, as if unsure whether she was breaching a taboo subject.

Naegi sighed and nodded. "We have all sort of been growing apart, haven't we? We barely even talk to each other at breakfast. I guess it's because we need time to cope on our own, since our opinions are so divided..."

"I'm sorry," Asahina said, looking down and shaking her head. "I want to try to fix it, but you know I've never been too good at thinking things through, so this is all I could come up with..."

"Don't be sorry!" Naegi placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, prompting her to meet his gaze again. "I think it's a great idea! I mean, if we want to get back to living life like normal, it only makes sense to do normal things, right?" He grinned. "We probably would have hung out and had parties a lot if we had been regular high school classmates."

Slowly, Asahina brightened to her usual cheerful smile. "Yeah, you're right! Though my sleepovers would have probably been no boys allowed!"

"Even if it was my room you were taking over?"

Asahina stuck out her tongue and giggled before bounding fully into the storage room. "Now, what was it that we needed again? Snacks, bedding, games..."

"And don't forget the booze!" Naegi nearly tripped over his own feet in surprise when Monokuma popped up out of nowhere, brandishing what looked to Naegi's untrained eye like a bottle of vodka. "No unscrupulous high school party is complete without some of the hard stuff!"

"Are you kidding me?" Asahina backed up towards the storage shelves, frowning. "We're all underage, except Hagakure!"

Monokuma paused and tilted his head thoughtfully. "Oh that's right, there's still a year or two before you kids are of age, isn't there?"

"It's a little longer than that," Naegi commented dryly.

The animatronic bear fixed his gaze on Naegi, grinning knowingly. "Well, whatever you say. Either way, is society really in a state to care whether some kids are defying their totally arbitrary age restriction on alcohol?"

"Is this really something you should be encouraging as our supposed headmaster?" Asahina asked.

"I want my students to make the most of their school lives!" the bear declared, pushing the bottle into Naegi's arms. "Just don't bring it into the school building proper. That's a sacred institute of learning!"

Naegi placed the bottle on the ground, abandoning it in favor of following Asahina to search through the storage shelves. "We don't want it. If that's all you came for, you can just leave us be now."

"What, and miss out on the most interesting thing you kids have done since Kirigiri-san bit it?"

Naegi clenched his teeth, deciding to ignore Monokuma's rambling, and focused instead on scouring the shelves for party supplies. He located some bags of chips and grabbed them, then moved to the next row over where he spotted a stack of thin, long boxes on the bottom shelf. He knelt down and peered through the dim lighting at them. "Hey, Asahina-san, I think I found some board games!"

"Seriously?" Asahina rushed over, a bundle of blankets in her arms, and knelt down beside him. "Hey, you're right!" She put the blankets down and began pulling out the boxes one by one, brushing away the dust coating the lids. "Life, Risk, Clue... There's all sorts of games here!"

"Well, of course!" Monokuma puffed his chest out proudly. "I did say you were fully stocked to spend your lives comfortably here! What kind of bear would I be if you all wanted to have a family fun night and I couldn't even provide for that?"

"Did you really rebrand all of them, though?" Asahina scrunched her nose as she surveyed the box designs; the art was mostly familiar, save for the conspicuous addition of black-and-white bears.

"Um, let's not go with Clue," Naegi said, putting that box to the side. If Monokuma had gone so far as to shoehorn himself into all the games, he really didn't want to know what revisions that one had gotten. "Oh, here's a deck of cards! We could play Old Maid, I guess..."

"This one is Old Bear, actually," Monokuma corrected, pointing out the monochromatic bears adorning the card faces.

"So the objective is to get rid of the bear, huh?" Asahina peered over Naegi's shoulder, considering the cards thoughtfully. "I actually like the sound of that. I can think of one bear I wouldn't mind getting rid of entirely..."

Monokuma seethed indignantly. "How rude! And here I am supplying you with this generous selection of games!"

"No one wants your cheap knock-offs," Asahina retorted, glaring with distaste at a copy of Monopoly, complete with the bastardized logo they'd seen too many times during class trials.

"Fine then!" The deck of cards suddenly disappeared from Naegi's hands as Monokuma snatched them away, along with countless other board games from the shelves. "In that case, I'll just confiscate them all! You bastards can just find your own form of entertainment! I hear murder is pretty hot this season!"

"We're not killing each other," Naegi and Asahina said in bored, practiced unison.

"Yeah, whatever," Monokuma huffed behind the comically tall stack of games in his paws. Naegi was beginning to suspect that the animatronic bear was becoming as tired of bringing up murder as they were of rejecting it. "But don't come crying to me when you're all dying of boredom! I'm a very busy bear, and you've gotta book months in advance if you want me at your birthday party or bar mitzvah!"

With that, Monokuma disappeared, leaving only a battered copy of Pretty Pretty Princess in his wake.

Naegi was pretty sure that no one would be interested in playing that one.

He sighed and picked up the game from the floor, taking only a moment to inspect the childish graffiti scrawled across the cover (mostly along the lines of "Sis is ugly!" and "Sis is smelly!") before placing it back on the shelf. "I guess that didn't go so well. Maybe we could go get Othello from the rec room... no, that's only a two-player game. Any other ideas, Asahina-san?" She didn't respond right away, and when Naegi looked to his side, he noticed that she had disappeared; in her place was the pile of blankets she had been carrying earlier. "Asahina-san?"

"Aha!" The swimmer's triumphant voice came from the other end of the row of shelves, where she seemed to be rummaging through a box of miscellaneous supplies. "Found them!"

Naegi walked over to see what she had found: three pairs of disposable chopsticks. "Are those... for the snacks?" he asked, confused. Asahina didn't seem like the kind of person to eat potato chips with chopsticks.

"No way, these are for the game we'll be playing!" she answered as if it were obvious. "I'm not sure if we'll need this many, but just in case Togami shows up..."

Naegi frowned. "Hold on, what game is this going to be?"

"You don't know?" Asahina grinned mischievously, tapping the chopsticks against her chin. "Well, that's just going to be a surprise, then!"

Suddenly Naegi had a very bad feeling about how the night would go.

All things considered, spending the day setting up the impromptu slumber party was a refreshing change of pace. For weeks, Naegi's daily routine had either been half-hearted attempts to pick up investigations where Kirigiri had left off or hazy blurs of exhaustion from the resulting bouts of insomnia.

Maybe it was about time to stop harping on the issue, anyway. Whatever clues Kirigiri might have uncovered on her own were gone along with her, and the mastermind had surely retrieved Monokuma's secret tool, as well. Naegi had probably already done all that he possibly could, and preparing for a party with his friends had him feeling better than he had in weeks. It was nice to be able to focus on something lighter, though even that wasn't without its own issues.

He spent about two hours helping Asahina decorate his room, until she decided that the decorations were too cheerful for what little they had to actually celebrate, so he took them all back down. Then, after preparing some more snacks in the kitchen, they returned to find that Monokuma had put all of the decorations back up, accompanied by a large banner proclaiming in bright, bold letters, "Congrats on killing off Kyoko Kirigiri!"

So Naegi had to remove the decorations all over again.

When it came time for the party to start, they didn't actually have much to show for it except for five sets of bedding arranged in a circle on the floor, a few bags of chips, two trays of fruits and vegetables, and a large pile of crêpe paper and popped balloons shoved into the corner.

"G-great job, you two," Fukawa said dryly as she settled in on one set of blankets.

"Well, it's not like you helped at all!" Asahina retorted, huffing.

"Now, now, let's be nice!" Hagakure slipped off his jacket and set it to the side as he sat down and made himself comfortable. "This is supposed to be a party, yeah?"

Naegi sighed and pulled a bag of potato chips open before setting it down in the center of their sleeping area. He could feel the exhaustion from several weeks' worth of stress finally starting to tug at his consciousness now that he was allowing himself to relax. He just hoped that the "slumber" part of the party came sooner than later.

"Okay, so!" Asahina plopped down on the floor and grabbed a chip from the bag. "What should we do first?"

"I can tell everyone's fortunes!" Hagakure offered, setting his crystal ball on the blanket in front of him. "And since it's a special occasion, I'll even let the three of you split the hundred grand fee!"

"You're charging us?!" Asahina yelped. "We don't have any money in here!"

"A-and even if we did, that's still about th-thirty-three thousand yen per p-person!"

Three people... Naegi glanced at the empty bedding between Fukawa and himself. So Togami had decided not to show up after all.

Suddenly, the door to Naegi's room burst open, silencing Asahina and Fukawa's protests.

"Ta-da!" came the unmistakable voice of their captor. Naegi groaned and turned to see what he wanted, but was surprised to see that Monokuma had a mildly irritated Togami in tow. "Look what the bear dragged in! I just found this stray idling around outside Naegi-kun's room!"

"I am no stray." Togami sharply pulled his sleeve from Monokuma's grasp. "And I wasn't idling. You ambushed me as I was heading to my own room." Despite his claims, though, the heir entered the room without further complaint, walking directly towards Naegi before stopping at the edge of his blanket. "Naegi. Move."

Naegi blinked up at him for a moment, his mind drawing a blank, until he finally put the pieces together. "Oh, uh, right." He quickly shifted to the left, taking the empty space next to Fukawa so that Togami could sit down next to Hagakure. (Fukawa grumbled indignantly.)

"Well, enjoy yourself, kids!" Monokuma giggled, bounding back out of the room. "Papa Monokuma will be watching from afar, so make sure you behave yourselves!"

The door slammed shut again, leaving the five students in slightly uncomfortable silence.

"Um, so," Hagakure ventured, "with Togami-chi here now it's only twenty-five grand per person!"

"Forget the fortune-telling!" Asahina stood up and went over to Naegi's desk, quickly returning with a cup and the disposable chopsticks she had found earlier. "I've got a game we can all play!"

Naegi watched as the swimmer placed five chopsticks in the cup, narrow end up; dread began to pool in the pit of his stomach. "Wait, Asahina-san... is that...?"

"Yup!" She grinned and held the cup out proudly. "We're playing the King Game!"

Hagakure and Fukawa seemed to react positively to the news, but Naegi couldn't help but groan. He really didn't like the King Game; somehow or another, he never came out of it unscathed.

Togami sniffed derisively as he removed his jacket. "Explain how this game works," he all but ordered.

"Huh?" Hagakure looked at the heir in shock. "You don't know about the King Game, Togami-chi?!"

Togami made a face like he had just bit into a lemon, clearly unwilling to admit that Hagakure knew something that he didn't.

"It's okay, I'll explain!" Asahina cut in before any arguments could break out. She pointed to the cup in her hand. "See, I have five chopsticks here, right? Each one has either a number from one to four written on it, or the word 'King.' We take turns picking sticks and whoever pulls the 'King' gets to order a number to do whatever they say."

Naegi raised his hand to cut in. "Um, could we make a rule to add on to that, though? The king can't order anyone to do something harmful, or anything that could get someone sick."

"So nothing that could reopen the killing game," Togami offered.

"That's not what I mean!" Naegi sighed, then continued. "I just mean, like... One time in middle school when I was playing the King Game with some friends, I was ordered to lick the sole of the King's shoe. That could have made me really sick, so I think we should make a rule against orders like that."

Togami huffed. "It's foolish of you to even let yourself be put in that position."

"The King's orders are absolute," Naegi argued. "If I refused I would have been the laughingstock of the entire class!"

Asahina's eyes were round as saucers. "Did you really lick his shoe, Naegi?!"

Naegi thought back on the incident. "Well... no, actually. At the last second the King's parents called him home for a family emergency. But I got close enough to smell his shoe!" He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the memory. "That was bad enough, trust me."

"Hmm..." Hagakure put a hand to his chin thoughtfully. "So no licking shoes... but smelling shoes is okay?"

"I wouldn't mind if Byakuya-sama made me lick his shoes...!"

"Enough about licking shoes!" Naegi insisted, cheeks burning scarlet. "Just... no dangerous dares, all right? Let's just get started on the game."

"Right!" Asahina cheerfully shuffled the chopsticks in the cup before holding it out into the middle of their group. "Everyone pick a stick, then!"

Once the cup had been passed all the way around, Naegi looked down at the chopstick he held in his hand. Number two...

"So who's the King?" Asahina asked enthusiastically.

"It seems to be me," Togami announced, showing the King chopstick to the group. "Naturally."

"Okay, so make an order!" Asahina urged. "You're not allowed to see what numbers we are, though. Just choose someone at random!"

"Whatever." Togami shrugged, obviously not too invested in the game. "Then I order number two to pledge fealty to the Togami family."

Naegi revealed his chopstick and sighed. "That's me," he said. "But, uh... how do I do that? Pledge fealty, I mean."

Togami offered no explanation, simply making an unimpressed noise as he scoffed.

There was silence for a moment, until finally Naegi decided to do whatever seemed right. He held his hand up as if testifying under oath. "Uh, then... I pledge fealty to the Togami family...?" He trailed off uncertainly. "Is that good enough?"

"For you, yes." Togami returned his chopstick to the cup and sat back, crossing his arms. "I fail to see the amusement in this."

Asahina gathered the rest of the chopsticks back in the cup and shuffled them. "Well, maybe it'll get more interesting with the next King... okay, everyone choose again!"

They all pulled a chopstick again and checked to see their assignments.

"It's me, again," Togami announced, sounding completely uninterested. "Number three, pledge fealty to the Togami family."

"Hey, that's the same as what you said last time!" Hagakure protested.

"Don't you have anything more, uh... fun to use as a dare?" Asahina agreed.

"What does it matter?" Togami rolled his eyes. "I'll make all of you pledge fealty in turn. So number three, get on it."

"Uh, wait." Naegi took the opportunity to speak up. "I mean, the King's orders are absolute, but... I'm number three. You already made me do that."

Togami looked at Naegi, eyebrow raising. "You again? Hmm..." He tapped the chopstick against his chin thoughtfully, then pointed it at Naegi. "Very well. Number three, get to your knees and grovel."

"A-and don't you dare sully Byakuya-sama with your depraved sh-shoe-licking fetish!"

Halfway onto his knees, Naegi slipped and fell unceremoniously to the floor before rolling over to glare at Fukawa, cheeks ablaze. "I have absolutely no interest in licking anyone's shoes, Fukawa-san!"

For the next several rounds, the results were much the same. Every time, Togami somehow managed to pull the King stick, and every time, he somehow called out Naegi as his chosen subject. It got to the point that he would point decisively at Naegi as he pulled his stick, already convinced that he would be King and Naegi would be whatever number he chose.

"Number two, bark like a dog."

"Number four, do forty jumping-jacks."

"Number one, stuff as many apple slices in your mouth as will fit. No, not to the point of choking yourself, honestly Naegi. Must you be so repulsive?"

Naegi sulked as he wiped the mixture of apple and saliva dripping down his chin. Exactly whose fault was it that he had ended up like that?

"This isn't fair!" Asahina complained as she gathered together the chopsticks yet again. "We're not getting to do anything, it's just Togami and Naegi!"

"I want to be able to make b-Byakuya-sama my slave..."

Togami gave an exaggerated shrug as he pulled a chopstick from the proffered cup—King, again. "I'm not the one choosing for this to happen, the universe is simply bending to my whims. Such is the Ultimate Affluent Progeny."

Naegi wasn't exactly an expert on the matter, but he was pretty sure the Ultimate Affluent Progeny talent wasn't meant to apply to party games. "So why do you keep choosing me, then?" he asked.

"I'm not. You're simply lucky enough to be the one on the receiving end of my orders. Number one, three laps of bunny hops around the room, now."

Yeah, that definitely wasn't how that was supposed to work. But he simply sighed, placed the number one chopstick on the floor, and stood up to do the bunny hops.

"Can't we just play something else?" Hagakure groaned as Naegi hopped around the room.

"There isn't anything else," Asahina groused. "Monokuma confiscated all the games."

"Th-then we just have to sabotage the entire thing!"

Yes, please! Naegi begged inwardly, feeling like he was about to collapse on his second lap—bunny hops on top of the jumping jacks, crunches, and push-ups he had already been subjected to was nigh demonic.

He was peripherally aware of a minor scuffle over the cup as he finished up his hops, and when he collapsed back at his spot, Asahina stood up, thoroughly shuffling the chopsticks. "Okay! So me, Hagakure, and Fukawa-chan are picking first!"

"You've been doing that for the past five rounds," Togami said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, and this time the three of us are gonna keep picking chopsticks until one of us is King!"

"Surely that's against the rules?"

"You're against the rules!" Asahina countered, sticking her tongue out at the heir, then jamming her hand into the cup to choose a chopstick.

It took just a few seconds of mad chopstick-picking before Hagakure jumped up, cheering. "Got it! I'm the King now!"

"N-now do something about them!" Fukawa shouted.

"Sure thing! Okay, so Naegi-chi and Togami-chi, as punishment we're gonna lock you away for a bit!"

Asahina gasped, her cheeks turning pink. "You mean like that Seven Minutes in Heaven game you see in American movies?"

Fukawa made an indignant sound as Hagakure tilted his head, considering. "Uh, heaven doesn't really sound like much of a punishment, but yeah sure, seven minutes seems good!"

Naegi paled. Of all the possible activities he might want to add on to this slumber party, Seven Minutes in Heaven with Byakuya Togami ranked somewhere around the bottom.

"Wait just one moment," Togami said, plucking out one of the remaining two chopsticks with a flourish. "I think you're forgetting that you're supposed to call on numbers, not names. Unless your flagrant disregard of the rules extends to that as well."

Hagakure blinked and looked back down at the "King" chopstick. "Oh, right."

"No, not 'oh right'!" Asahina protested. "Forget about the numbers, Hagakure, just get them out of here!"

"No, c-call out the numbers!" Fukawa grabbed the last remaining chopstick and all but threw it into Naegi's lap. "Let fate pair m-me and Byakuya-sama together in heaven! L-lock me up with him and th-throw away the key!"

Hagakure massaged his temples, frowning deeply. "So, wait. Am I trying to lock up Togami-chi with Naegi-chi or with Fukawa-chi?"

"With Naegi! They're the ones ruining the game!"

"No, with m-me!"

"I'd rather not be locked up at all," Togami deadpanned.

"Hagakure-kun," Naegi said, finally catching his breath enough to cut through the chatter. "This is the King Game. You're not supposed to target specific people. Just choose two random numbers."

The room fell silent for a beat before Asahina turned to Hagakure and said, in a theatrical whisper, "But try to guess Naegi and Togami's numbers!"

"All right, good point, Naegi-chi! In that case..." Hagakure closed his eyes tightly, presumably concentrating hard. "Numbers... two and three, you're both getting locked in the bathroom for seven minutes!"

A tense silence fell upon the room in the following seconds, and Naegi looked down at the chopstick in his lap.

Number three...

"Did you do it?" Asahina whispered, clinging to her chopstick like a lifeline. "I'm number one, so you must have gotten at least one of them! Fukawa-chan, what number are you?"

Naegi could tell from Togami's thin-lipped glower what the answer must be, even before Fukawa said, as if her life force were draining from her body, "Number f-four..."

"We got them!" Asahina cheered, wrapping her arms around Hagakure in glee. "You did it! You hit your thirty percent!"

"Uh, yeah!" Hagakure laughed triumphantly. "'Course I did!"

Asahina began pulling Naegi up from the floor when he made no move to stand on his own. "You're both getting a time out now! Hagakure, you get Togami!"

"I can move on my own just fine!" Togami protested, pushing Hagakure away, but he only succeeded in tripping over one of Naegi's trailing legs, sending both boys tumbling onto the tile floor of the bathroom.

In the next instant, they were plunged into darkness when the door was shut firmly behind them.

Before Naegi could even pull himself back into a sitting position, Togami was on his feet and grabbing the door handle. He struggled with it for a moment before turning back to Naegi.

Naegi couldn't quite tell in the very minimal light, but he made an educated guess that Togami was glaring at him with all the venom he could muster.

"Tell me how to open this door," the heir hissed.

Naegi blinked up at him for a moment as his eyes adjusted. Oh, right. That door sticks. He had gotten so used to opening the bathroom door, as if it had been routine for more than just a couple of months, that he barely even registered the crooked frame anymore. "Uh, well..." His gaze wandered to Togami's hand resting on the doorknob. "I mean, I could tell you, but if you're just going to escape that's not very fair. This is part of the game."

By this point, Naegi's eyes had adjusted to the darkness well enough that he could see Togami's nostrils flare in anger. "And you're conspiring to keep me trapped in here just because of some game?!"

"You didn't hear me complaining about all the stuff you made me do, did you?"

Togami visibly fumed, then slammed his hand against the light switch as if it had killed his entire family and spat on their graves. As Naegi blinked rapidly against the sudden brightness, Togami crossed his arms and sat on the floor with his back against the door.

"So," he said. "Explain to me what this 'Seven Minutes in Heaven' entails."

Oh, god. Naegi suddenly felt as if his tongue had spontaneously turned to sandpaper. Of course the great Togami scion wouldn't bother himself with trashy American teen movies. "Um, well," he started, cursing the way that his voice cracked, "you lock two people in a small space for seven minutes and leave them to, uh... d-do whatever they want."

Togami scoffed. "Philistine."

"I know, right?" Naegi agreed—perhaps a bit too forcefully than absolutely necessary—while laughing awkwardly. "It's so stupid!"

There was no need to tell Togami what Seven Minutes in Heaven usually involved.

The two boys were silent for a moment; judging by what they could hear from the bedroom, Monokuma had crashed the party again because "playing the King Game with just three people is sooooo boring!" So maybe there was something worse than being locked in a cramped bathroom with Byakuya Togami. Sure, the hard tile floor was cold and uncomfortable, and Togami's long legs were seriously encroaching on Naegi's personal bubble, and he was too tired to even bother opening the shower door behind him to create more space... but, well. At least Togami wasn't an evil animatronic bear hellbent on making his life as miserable as possible.

Heck, in comparison, being with Togami was almost pleasant. It was almost relaxing, even, if only... if only...

"Hey, Togami-kun?" Naegi whispered tentatively. "Can I ask you something?"

Togami didn't react at first, but after a moment he gave a noncommittal grunt. Naegi figured that was as good of an affirmative as he was going to get.

"Why are you so convinced that Kirigiri-san killed Ikusaba-san?"

Togami slowly turned to look at Naegi directly, his sharp blue eyes gleaming in the light. "Why are you so convinced that she didn't?"

"Why? Uh..." Naegi fumbled over his words. "I asked you first!"

"But you were the one who presented the evidence that condemned her. You were the only one who could have done so." Togami's eyes narrowed. "Yet you're the biggest advocate for her innocence post-mortem. Why? Why are you so convinced now that you were wrong?"

Naegi paused, trying to find the right words to express his feelings on that matter. "I just... I regret that I ever brought up that secret tool. The way that she reacted after I presented the evidence... I really think that was genuine. I believe that she was right, that we got caught in the mastermind's trap. I trust that what she said then was true." He swallowed the knot forming in his throat. "I should have trusted her from the very beginning."

The two boys were silent for a long while, and Naegi dipped his head when he felt the telltale prickling behind his eyes; he hadn't cried over Kirigiri yet, he hadn't allowed himself to, and perhaps it was about time that he should. But he couldn't cry in that situation, not with Togami's icy stare locked on him...

Mercifully, Togami released his gaze, looking off to the side. "Do you realize what it would mean if Kirigiri hadn't been the true culprit?"

"Huh?" Naegi blinked back the tears and looked back up at him, brows furrowing in confusion. "Uh... it would mean that... there's a different culprit?" It would mean a great many things, really, but Naegi wasn't sure what direction Togami was going in.

"Yes, naturally," Togami said with a hint of irritation. So Naegi hadn't guessed the right answer. "More to the point, it would mean that Kirigiri was executed for a crime she didn't commit, and of course Monokuma would be privy to this information. This would be a blatant violation of his own rules. It would mean that his own game has never been a game; it's been rigged against us this whole time." He pinned Naegi with that sharp glare again. "Is that a truth that you're willing to face accept?"

Naegi almost answered immediately; of course he was willing to accept it. Of course it was terrifying to think that Monokuma's rules had all been a ruse, and that he could have done whatever he wanted to any of them whenever he wanted—that he still could. But had there ever been anything about their situation that wasn't terrifying? The "game" hadn't mattered at all in the long run.

But before he could say as much, he stopped himself. The game hadn't mattered to Naegi—but it had mattered a great deal to Togami, at least until Ogami's retaliation. Togami, with all his pride, had banked on the promise that the game was genuine, and that once he decided to become blackened he could orchestrate a scheme to make everything go his way, as was appropriate for the Ultimate Affluent Progeny.

It wasn't Naegi that wouldn't want to accept that it had all been a lie. It was Togami.

And, different though they were, it wasn't Naegi's place to make light of Togami's concerns.

"That's true," he agreed finally, speaking slowly as he carefully chose his words. "That could be pretty difficult to swallow. But... is it really right to deny a truth just because it might be painful?"

Togami simply stared at the luckster; his gaze wasn't as sharp as before, but it wasn't exactly kind, either. It was more pensive than anything else.

"Of course, it doesn't really matter much at this point." Naegi laughed hollowly in an attempt to lighten the mood. "Either way, Kirigiri-san won't be coming back..." Okay, that wasn't the most pleasant topic. "Uh, I mean, at the very least, I think... I think Kirigiri-san would want us to face that truth head-on."

Togami's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "So you're still going to search for that truth." It was more of a statement than a question.

"I mean, I'd like to, though I was thinking it might be time to give up," he admitted sheepishly. "I'm just don't think I'll be able to find anything at this point. I feel like there's so much that Kirigiri-san knew that we'll never learn now... Like she said, the mysteries died with her." He smiled lightly, feeling sleep tugging at his eyelids. Yup... it was about time for him to crash. "But... maybe I'll keep trying, for just a little longer."

"Hmm." That pensive hum was all that Togami offered in response, and there was something about it that Naegi found immensely comforting.

He leaned forward, subconsciously seeking out more of that deep, soothing sound.

"Naegi?"

"Sorry, Togami-kun," Naegi mumbled as his forehead made contact with the other boy's shoulder. "I'm just... kind of tired. Let me rest my eyes like this for a bit... just a few minutes. Until they let us out."

And without waiting for Togami's response, Naegi let himself slip fully into the darkness of slumber.

Togami was fairly sure that there was no way his shoulder could be a comfortable substitute for a pillow. And yet, there Naegi was, nestled against his torso, fast asleep, and apparently daring to even drool on Togami's shirt. Disgusting.

Try as he might, though, Togami didn't seem to be able to rouse the smaller boy from his slumber. Honestly, Naegi was a fool if he thought he could convince anyone that he was just "resting his eyes." The luckster was out like a light.

At the end of his rope, and growing increasingly warm with another body pressed against him, Togami decided it was time to just forcefully push the boy away. Pulling his left arm from where it had been trapped under Naegi's body weight, Togami grabbed him by both shoulders and pushed him back—

And he paused upon seeing Naegi's sleeping face. It turned out that that wetness on his shirt hadn't been drool.

Naegi was crying in his sleep.

Togami frowned at him for a moment, then, with a long-suffering sigh, he returned Naegi to his original position. The boy was absolutely hopeless, and Naegi would most certainly owe him for it, but Togami figured that it wouldn't hurt to grant his request to let him stay there until they were let out.

...Come to think of it, though, shouldn't they have been let out already? Surely the seven minutes had long since passed. Frowning, Togami rapped his knuckles on the door behind him.

From inside the bedroom, Togami could hear Monokuma making his departure while Asahina cried out, "Oh, shoot! We forgot about Naegi and Togami!"

"Yes, well done," Togami sneered through the door. "Let us out. Now."

"Yeah sure, I got it!" came Hagakure's voice, followed by approaching footsteps and a loud rattling of the doorknob. "Uh... I think it's stuck."

Togami rolled his eyes. "Of course it's stuck, this is Naegi's room. Surely one of you knows how to open it, though?"

"Wh-why don't you just ask Naegi yourself?" Fukawa suggested.

"Of course I would, you absolute halfwit, if he wasn't fast asleep."

"Ahhhh h-he called me an absolute halfwit...!"

"Asahina," Togami continued, ignoring Fukawa's disgusting squeal of bliss, "you were in this room all day, surely Naegi would have mentioned how to open this door?"

The swimmer didn't answer immediately, but her silence spoke volumes: Togami needed to wake Naegi up, now.

"Um, I mean," Asahina started, "I didn't really need to go in Naegi's bathroom, so I never asked..."

"Naegi!" Togami hissed, roughly shaking the boy. "Wake up! Now!"

"Uh, I'll go get my toolkit!" Hagakure called out before running off, his footfalls fading into the distance.

"Naegi!" Togami yelled, and this time the luckster actually stirred slightly, mumbling sleepily. Togami jumped on the chance. "Naegi, you need to tell me how to open your bathroom door, right now!"

Naegi rubbed one of his eyes and blinked blearily at the taller boy... before falling right back to sleep.

"Naegi!"

Notes: Okay, a few things:

- I started writing this in March 2016, then it sat in limbo for ages, went through a couple NaNoWriMos, and now I've FINALLY FINISHED IT...

- Yes, the title comes from "You'll Be Back" from Hamilton. I had just seen the show on Broadway when I started writing this lmao

- This was sort of inspired by Affected by LaureaDaphne because at the time Naegi and Togami were having an argument or something and my solution was "well just LOCK THEM IN A CLOSET AND HAVE THEM TALK OUT THEIR DIFFERENCES" so here I am posting that scenario long after it's relevant.

- also I just want these kids to be happy teenagers doing happy teenager things sobs

That's all I HOPE YOU ENJOYED!