Fanfiction: And All the Drawers Were Full (Danganronpa)
Back in 2013, I saw an anonymous prompt on the Danganronpa kink meme. I started writing a fill and posted the first part. And then I just... never continued it. I always felt slightly bad about this.
So, er, here is the entire fic, seven years overdue.
This fic uses the conventions of orenronen's fan translation; it was the only translation available when I started writing it!
Title: And All the Drawers Were Full
Fandom: Danganronpa
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,500
Summary: Kirigiri has accidentally killed Fukawa. Now there's going to be a trial, and Kirigiri will be executed. Unless she and Naegi can get rid of the body without getting caught.
It takes Naegi a long time to become aware that the tapping noise is someone knocking on his door. When he forces his eyes open, the room is dark and his head feels like someone has filled it with cement.
He can feel his shirt stuck to his back, drenched with sweat. Did he... did he not undress last night? He’s on top of the bedcovers. He thinks he might still be wearing his hoodie. It’s hard to be sure of anything; it’s hard to concentrate.
The room sways as he drags himself upright. He pauses for a moment, trying to settle his sense of balance, but he just feels more like gravity’s about to throw itself sideways as the seconds pass. He stumbles across the room, braces himself against the doorway, takes a few deep gasps of air that seems far too warm.
Why is he... why did he...?
Tapping. That’s right. Someone’s at his door.
Naegi pulls open the door; the light from the corridor hits his eyes hard, but he doesn’t feel up to shading them. Did someone... replace his door? Maybe Monobear, while he was sleeping? It feels so much heavier than before.
Outside the door are two Fukawas.
Naegi blinks, twice. The images in front of him swim into each other and line up. It’s just Fukawa.
“Fukawa-san,” he manages to say, with some effort. “H-hello.”
Fukawa stares at him.
“Ah,” Naegi mumbles, “sorry, I don’t think I’m very well... is this about Togami-kun?”
Fukawa keeps staring, and then she breaks suddenly into a full-on sneezing fit.
“A-are you-” Naegi begins, in vague thickly-shadowed alarm.
Fukawa stops sneezing and raises her head to look at him, very sharply. Her eyes are red. Her tongue lolls obscenely out of her mouth.
She leers.
It may be difficult to focus clearly on anything right now, but Naegi still has a creeping bad feeling about this.
“Ma-kun!” Syo snaps. “Do you realise what you’re doing to me? How dare you be all weak and shaky and vulnerable?” She twirls a pair of scissors between her fingers; Naegi didn’t even see them appear. “And when I was so sure Byakuya-sama would be my next, too! I’d better get some top-class whimpering to make up for this.”
And someone must have cut time and shuffled it together differently, because it doesn’t seem like there’s any interval between that and Naegi finding himself pinned across the bed, Syo silhouetted in the light from his doorway as she straddles him, and in a flash of clarity he realises what this means and he doesn’t want to die and he tries to - to - he can’t speak, he can’t move
and time skips again and Syo is slipping sideways off him, her head down and her tongue slack, and Naegi’s breathing is shallow and jumpy and terrified and
and his door is closed and the light is on, and he thinks through the haze of sweat and fear and fever that he might still be alive.
Naegi closes his eyes for a second or two, and then he opens them.
Is Syo still...?
He tries to sit up.
Kirigiri is here. She’s... how long has she been here?
“Kiri...” Naegi begins, pushing himself shakily to his feet, and then he follows Kirigiri’s gaze and sees Syo, sees Fukawa, lying face-down on the floor.
For a moment, he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. When his mind begins to clear, he finds himself missing the hazy confusion.
“F-Fukawa... san?”
Fukawa doesn’t answer. She doesn’t move.
There’s something sticking out of her back, through the dark-stained fabric of her dress. Naegi tries to pretend it doesn’t look like the handle of a pair of scissors.
He thinks he might throw up.
“Naegi-kun, are you hurt?”
Naegi’s legs have started to shake so much that he can’t stay upright any more, and he sinks down to the floor. Fukawa is still face-down on his carpet, no matter how hard he tries to imagine her away. She’s close enough for him to reach out and touch her.
He really doesn’t want to reach out and touch her. As long as he doesn’t touch her, this doesn’t have to be real. He’s sick and he’s hallucinating and tomorrow Fukawa will still be around, being as resentful and paranoid and closed-off as always, and Naegi’s going to be so glad she’s alive that he might actually try to help her win Togami over.
“Naegi-kun,” a voice says, and Naegi finally registers that Kirigiri is speaking to him. If Kirigiri is here. If any of this is real.
“K-Kirigiri-san,” Naegi manages to croak out, “are you really here?”
“I am,” Kirigiri says.
Okay. That’s not good, because if Kirigiri is real then maybe Fukawa is as well, but at least he knows...
Wait.
“Um,” he says, “if - if you’re a hallucination, should I believe you?”
“I’m real,” Kirigiri says. She says it with such authority that Naegi can’t make himself doubt her.
“Okay,” Naegi says. He takes several deep breaths, because this is the question he really doesn’t want to ask.
“She’s real as well,” Kirigiri says. “I’m sorry, Naegi-kun. Genocider Syo attacked you. I had very little time to act.”
This is real. This is all real. Kirigiri is really here, her gloved hands cool on his burning skin as she clinically checks him for wounds, and Fukawa... Fukawa is...
“You’re feverish,” Kirigiri says, “but I don’t think you’re hurt.”
And now Kirigiri’s going to be executed. There’s no way to escape it. Naegi will have to expose her at the trial, and she’ll be killed because she tried to save him, and he can’t watch any more friends die. He can’t.
He wants to scream. He thinks he might have forgotten how.
Kirigiri looks as calm as ever, but he can feel her hands shaking. Or is that just his own trembling?
“Only two people have discovered the body,” Kirigiri says. “Or perhaps one.” She takes a breath. “Do we know whether the murderer is counted?”
The question startles Naegi; no matter what Kirigiri might have done, he can’t think of her as a murderer. “Ah, I don’t - I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“In any case, we can’t let anyone else see her.”
Naegi can’t focus; he can’t follow. He feels too hot and too cold at the same time, like someone’s dragged him out of a bath of ice and shoved him into an oven. What is Kirigiri saying? It doesn’t make sense to him.
“The trial hasn’t been announced yet,” Kirigiri says. “If the body is never officially discovered, there may not be a trial at all.”
Something gets through to him this time. No trial?
No trial, which means...
“Can we... if she stays here...” Naegi has to pause and breathe, trying not to look at Fukawa’s body. “I could keep my door locked.”
“That’s not an option,” Kirigiri says. “When Fujisaki-kun was killed, Monobear unlocked the doors so the body could be discovered.”
It would have been the easiest solution, but he’s glad to hear it shot down; he doesn’t think he would have been able to cope. “S-so, we...”
“We need to dispose of the body,” Kirigiri says.
“We need to dispose of the body,” Naegi echoes.
It’s a dream, he tells himself. There’s still a chance it’s a dream.
“You’re on cleaning duty, aren’t you?” Kirigiri asks.
Naegi swallows. His head’s starting to clear, just a little, now that he knows what they’re supposed to be doing, but he still feels a long way from steady. “You want to take her to the trash disposal room?”
“If we hide the body, it will start to decompose,” Kirigiri says. “The smell will lead people to it. We have to destroy it.”
“You want to put Fukawa-san in the incinerator?”
She might not fit through the opening. Not unless they...
Naegi feels like he might cry.
“I can take care of any dismemberment,” Kirigiri says, as calmly as she might say I can take care of the laundry. She so often seems to be reading his mind; it reminds him of Maizono sometimes. He wonders if she can see what a mess it is in there. “Do you have the key to the disposal room’s gate?”
“Um...” How is he supposed to focus? He’s sick and shaking and there’s a corpse on his bedroom floor. “Um, no, cleaning duty switched over yesterday. It was...” He falters. “It was Fukawa-san’s turn.”
Kirigiri is examining the body almost before he’s finished speaking, delving into Fukawa’s pockets, hiking up her skirt to check the unsettling scissor holster on her thigh. Naegi has to look away.
“It must be in her room,” Kirigiri concludes at last. “She doesn’t have her dorm key on her either, so her room is probably unlocked. I’ll find the key to the gate. You stay here with the body.”
Naegi’s going to be... alone with the body?
“Keep the door shut,” Kirigiri says. She raps a short rhythm on Naegi’s bedframe. “Don’t open it unless you hear this.”
-
Somewhere inside him, Naegi is half-hoping Kirigiri won’t be able to find the trash room key. It’d be bad if she didn’t - he doesn’t know what they can do next, in that case - but, if she does find it, that means the next step is carrying their friend to the trash room to dump her into an incinerator, and he’s not sure he can handle that.
He’s going to have to handle it. Kirigiri comes back with the key. And they can’t wait for daytime, when people are going to be moving around and Fukawa’s disappearance is going to be noticed; they have to do this now.
Fukawa doesn’t weigh much, at least, but Naegi’s not particularly strong, and she’s taller than him, and carrying a body is awkward enough even when you’re not trying not to get blood all over yourself. He has to half-drag her towards the corner of the dorm corridor. If they can just get her around the corner and then down to the trash disposal room...
“Kirigiri-san?” he asks. “Can you help me carry her?”
“In a moment,” Kirigiri says, frowning at Naegi’s door. “Are you not locking your room?”
“Ah, I didn’t think I’d be able to with... with Fukawa-san. I just left the key inside.”
“Leaving it unlocked is risky,” Kirigiri says. “Someone could look inside and see the bloodstain on the floor. I’ll lock it.” She vanishes back inside Naegi’s room, leaving Naegi to struggle along the corridor with the body.
He counts his own heartbeats, desperately waiting for her to re-emerge. He’s on his own, in the open, with a corpse.
It feels like much longer, but it’s probably only a few seconds before he hears the click of his door opening again, and he internally sighs with relie-
Wait. Not just his door. The overlapping clicks of two doors opening.
Naegi almost passes out on the spot.
Togami steps out into the corridor.
He’s not looking in Naegi’s direction. Naegi’s already managed to get the body past Togami’s door, he’s a little further along the corridor. Togami is looking the other way, in the direction of the dining hall.
The dining hall and Naegi’s room, which Kirigiri is just emerging from.
Kirigiri’s eyes flick towards Naegi, standing frozen behind Togami.
“Good evening, Togami-kun,” she says, perfectly calm. “Moving around during Night Time?”
“I didn’t observe the Night Time ‘rule’ even before we learnt it was a tool to make it easier for Celes to plan her murders,” Togami says. “I don’t see why I should respect it now. In any case, I could say the same to you.”
What can Naegi do in this situation? Togami doesn’t seem to have noticed him yet. He’s probably not planning to head in Naegi’s direction; there’s not much this way, other than the disposal room and the rest of the dorms. Can Naegi just stay perfectly still until he leaves?
The alternative is either to slip into Fukawa’s room, which is probably still unlocked, or to try to drag Fukawa’s body around the corner. Either option would make noise.
His legs are shaking.
Naegi tries not to breathe. He stares desperately at Kirigiri, silently begging her for help.
Kirigiri isn’t looking at him. Of course she isn’t; she needs to act like she and Togami are the only ones in the corridor. Naegi understands, but it still makes him feel very alone.
“I don’t think that’s your room,” Togami says. “Paying a midnight visit to Naegi?”
“Perhaps,” Kirigiri says. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
Naegi’s hands are so slick with sweat that he can barely keep his grip on Fukawa. He focuses very, very hard on keeping her held still. Looking at her body makes him feel even more sick, but he doesn’t have a choice.
“I cannot imagine why you might think I would take any interest whatsoever in your petty affairs,” Togami says. “If you slept with him, it’s irrelevant; if you murdered him, the investigation can wait until the morning. I only mention it because-” and then he stops.
It occurs to Naegi, after several more seconds of silently wrestling with Fukawa’s body, that perhaps Togami has stopped talking for a reason.
He looks up.
Togami is looking straight at him.
“Well,” Togami says, “I suppose this particular petty affair might catch my interest.”
Naegi starts to shake so badly that he loses his grip and Fukawa slips to the floor. “Sh-she’s not - she fainted,” he says, because it’s the only thing that comes into his head. “She saw some blood and she fainted.”
“Is that so?” Togami asks, his eyes on Fukawa. “I suppose that makes sense, given how profusely she’s evidently been bleeding.”
This is very, very bad. “You - no, you don’t understand-”
“I understand perfectly,” Togami says, shooting Naegi a glare that shuts him up very effectively. “One of you is the murderer, I take it. There are three of us here, after all, and there’s been no announcement.” He looks at Kirigiri. “You, of course. He wouldn’t have the fortitude.”
There’s been no announcement, Naegi thinks. Maybe... maybe there’s still hope.
“This will be a very dull trial,” Togami says. “Two correct votes of five secured before it can even begin. Or should I understand, Naegi, that you will be assisting the murderer this time around? You do appear to be transporting the body on her behalf, after all.”
“We don’t want a trial,” Naegi says. “We don’t want anyone else to die.”
Togami pauses. Glances at the turning to the trash room.
“So that’s your plan,” he says. “Why kill her at all, if you weren’t planning to graduate? Not that I can’t understand the temptation.”
“It was unavoidable,” Kirigiri says. “Syo had taken an interest in Naegi-kun.”
“Touching,” Togami says. “I notice you didn’t go to these lengths when she took an interest in me.”
“C-can you help us?” Naegi asks.
“Hmm,” Togami says. “But a dull trial is still more interesting than no trial at all, wouldn’t you say? And Kirigiri’s execution would certainly be convenient.”
“Convenient?” Naegi echoes.
“Well, consider the opportunity this presents. I only need to target you in the next round, Naegi, and all our little detectives will be cleared out of the courtroom. I’ll be facing a jury of Asahina and Hagakure. Do you imagine they will be difficult to deceive?”
Naegi swallows. He can’t mean it, right? Talking so easily about killing... it’s all been a bluff from the beginning, right?
But he didn’t think Kirigiri was capable of murder, either.
“So we can’t rely on your help,” Kirigiri says.
“You should be flattered that I consider you a threat,” Togami says.
“Do you intend to tell the others?” Kirigiri asks.
Togami smiles. “I intend to stand back and see whether you succeed.”
-
Carrying Fukawa goes a lot quicker with Kirigiri helping him. In a way, that makes things worse. When he’s not struggling so much with the physical act of carrying the body, Naegi doesn’t have that distraction from the situation. The fact that Fukawa is dead. The fact that, if they don’t manage this, Kirigiri will die as well.
He keeps thinking: what if Kirigiri is executed and then they really do end up living out the rest of their lives here? What if Naegi lives for decades without seeing a single human being other than Togami, Hagakure and Asahina? The idea of being trapped here forever has never exactly been appealing, but it becomes a lonelier prospect with every death.
He can’t think like that. They’ll get out of here. And, if they don’t, at least a few other people is better than none.
They make it to the trash room. They’re almost there.
Monobear is standing in front of the incinerator, arms folded.
Naegi sees him through the gate and freezes. Kirigiri barely reacts; she just drops Fukawa’s feet, with a lack of care that makes Naegi flinch, and unlocks the gate.
Kirigiri picks up Fukawa’s legs again and begins moving, and all Naegi can do is move along with her.
“Where’s your school spirit?” Monobear demands, as they approach the incinerator. “I don’t approve of this at all.”
“Move,” Kirigiri says.
“Why would you deprive everyone of a trial? Are you really so cruel?”
“Three of us already know the culprit,” Kirigiri says. “Enough for a majority vote from the start. A trial wouldn’t be interesting either. Move.”
“There’s still the execution,” Monobear says. “You’re not going to let me use it? Do you know how much work I put into designing those things?”
Kirigiri looks at the incinerator, looks down at Fukawa. “I think we can fit her in,” she says to Naegi. “It might be a squeeze.”
“Hey!” Monobear protests. “Don’t ignore me!”
Trying to squeeze a friend into an incinerator doesn’t sound good. But Naegi will take it over having to cut her into pieces. “What about Monobear?”
“Monobear would certainly fit in the incinerator,” Kirigiri says, “but I think that might qualify as violence towards the headmaster.”
“Well,” Monobear grumbles, “it’s good to know you respect the rules, at least.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Naegi says. “I mean... how do we get her past Monobear?”
Kirigiri sets Fukawa’s legs down and crouches. She puts a hand on Monobear’s chest.
Naegi feels his heart stop. “Kirigiri-san, don’t-”
Gently, firmly, Kirigiri just... slowly pushes Monobear out of the way.
“Hey!” Monobear objects, flailing his arms. “Hey hey hey!”
“I don’t think you can call this violence, can you?” Kirigiri asks, pressing the button to turn on the incinerator with her other hand.
“You’re violently breaking etiquette rules! You can’t just push people around!”
But he doesn’t attack her, even when Kirigiri whirls back, grabs Fukawa and starts trying to force her into the incinerator.
There’s a hideous burning smell, rubber and hair and cloth and flesh.
It’s around this point that Naegi passes out.
-
Fukawa’s nowhere to be found in the morning, obviously. Asahina’s in a panic over it, pacing the cafeteria, and Naegi feels terrible. He and Kirigiri know exactly what happened, but they can’t tell-
“I killed her,” Kirigiri says.
What?
“Seriously?” Hagakure asks.
Is Naegi still feverish, or did Kirigiri actually just say that?
Asahina stares at Kirigiri, turning ashen. “You...?”
“Syo attacked Naegi-kun,” Kirigiri says. “I did the only thing I could in the moment.”
Asahina claps a hand over her mouth. “No! No, that’s - how awful, poor Fukawa-chan-” and then her eyes become, if possible, even wider. “Kirigiri-chan, the trial-”
“Why would you say that?” Naegi demands, almost in tears. They went to so much effort to dispose of the body!
“The trial is only announced after a body is discovered,” Kirigiri says.
“We don’t know he’s not going to announce it just because we know someone died!”
“When everyone in the school knows who did it,” Kirigiri says, gesturing to Asahina and Hagakure, “and there’s no body to examine? It seems like a waste of time and effort. And of potential future murder victims; there aren’t many of us left.”
Naegi hates that argument, wants to say that nobody’s going to kill anyone else. He bites it down, because he realises what she’s trying to do. She’s not speaking for his benefit; she’s speaking for Monobear’s. If she can persuade the mastermind it’s more interesting to have no trial, there won’t be a trial. “It’s still risky!”
“If Fukawa-san disappeared and some people didn’t know what happened, it’d just cause suspicion,” Kirigiri says. “More tension, more deaths. It seemed like a risk worth taking.”
That... okay, Naegi can understand that. But still, if Kirigiri is executed because of it-
The chimes ring out, ding-dong-ding-dong, and Naegi nearly throws up. It’s a body discovery announcement. They failed.
“A body hasn’t been discovered,” Monobear announces over the monitor. “You guys are the worst.”
So, er, here is the entire fic, seven years overdue.
This fic uses the conventions of orenronen's fan translation; it was the only translation available when I started writing it!
Title: And All the Drawers Were Full
Fandom: Danganronpa
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 3,500
Summary: Kirigiri has accidentally killed Fukawa. Now there's going to be a trial, and Kirigiri will be executed. Unless she and Naegi can get rid of the body without getting caught.
It takes Naegi a long time to become aware that the tapping noise is someone knocking on his door. When he forces his eyes open, the room is dark and his head feels like someone has filled it with cement.
He can feel his shirt stuck to his back, drenched with sweat. Did he... did he not undress last night? He’s on top of the bedcovers. He thinks he might still be wearing his hoodie. It’s hard to be sure of anything; it’s hard to concentrate.
The room sways as he drags himself upright. He pauses for a moment, trying to settle his sense of balance, but he just feels more like gravity’s about to throw itself sideways as the seconds pass. He stumbles across the room, braces himself against the doorway, takes a few deep gasps of air that seems far too warm.
Why is he... why did he...?
Tapping. That’s right. Someone’s at his door.
Naegi pulls open the door; the light from the corridor hits his eyes hard, but he doesn’t feel up to shading them. Did someone... replace his door? Maybe Monobear, while he was sleeping? It feels so much heavier than before.
Outside the door are two Fukawas.
Naegi blinks, twice. The images in front of him swim into each other and line up. It’s just Fukawa.
“Fukawa-san,” he manages to say, with some effort. “H-hello.”
Fukawa stares at him.
“Ah,” Naegi mumbles, “sorry, I don’t think I’m very well... is this about Togami-kun?”
Fukawa keeps staring, and then she breaks suddenly into a full-on sneezing fit.
“A-are you-” Naegi begins, in vague thickly-shadowed alarm.
Fukawa stops sneezing and raises her head to look at him, very sharply. Her eyes are red. Her tongue lolls obscenely out of her mouth.
She leers.
It may be difficult to focus clearly on anything right now, but Naegi still has a creeping bad feeling about this.
“Ma-kun!” Syo snaps. “Do you realise what you’re doing to me? How dare you be all weak and shaky and vulnerable?” She twirls a pair of scissors between her fingers; Naegi didn’t even see them appear. “And when I was so sure Byakuya-sama would be my next, too! I’d better get some top-class whimpering to make up for this.”
And someone must have cut time and shuffled it together differently, because it doesn’t seem like there’s any interval between that and Naegi finding himself pinned across the bed, Syo silhouetted in the light from his doorway as she straddles him, and in a flash of clarity he realises what this means and he doesn’t want to die and he tries to - to - he can’t speak, he can’t move
and time skips again and Syo is slipping sideways off him, her head down and her tongue slack, and Naegi’s breathing is shallow and jumpy and terrified and
and his door is closed and the light is on, and he thinks through the haze of sweat and fear and fever that he might still be alive.
Naegi closes his eyes for a second or two, and then he opens them.
Is Syo still...?
He tries to sit up.
Kirigiri is here. She’s... how long has she been here?
“Kiri...” Naegi begins, pushing himself shakily to his feet, and then he follows Kirigiri’s gaze and sees Syo, sees Fukawa, lying face-down on the floor.
For a moment, he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at. When his mind begins to clear, he finds himself missing the hazy confusion.
“F-Fukawa... san?”
Fukawa doesn’t answer. She doesn’t move.
There’s something sticking out of her back, through the dark-stained fabric of her dress. Naegi tries to pretend it doesn’t look like the handle of a pair of scissors.
He thinks he might throw up.
“Naegi-kun, are you hurt?”
Naegi’s legs have started to shake so much that he can’t stay upright any more, and he sinks down to the floor. Fukawa is still face-down on his carpet, no matter how hard he tries to imagine her away. She’s close enough for him to reach out and touch her.
He really doesn’t want to reach out and touch her. As long as he doesn’t touch her, this doesn’t have to be real. He’s sick and he’s hallucinating and tomorrow Fukawa will still be around, being as resentful and paranoid and closed-off as always, and Naegi’s going to be so glad she’s alive that he might actually try to help her win Togami over.
“Naegi-kun,” a voice says, and Naegi finally registers that Kirigiri is speaking to him. If Kirigiri is here. If any of this is real.
“K-Kirigiri-san,” Naegi manages to croak out, “are you really here?”
“I am,” Kirigiri says.
Okay. That’s not good, because if Kirigiri is real then maybe Fukawa is as well, but at least he knows...
Wait.
“Um,” he says, “if - if you’re a hallucination, should I believe you?”
“I’m real,” Kirigiri says. She says it with such authority that Naegi can’t make himself doubt her.
“Okay,” Naegi says. He takes several deep breaths, because this is the question he really doesn’t want to ask.
“She’s real as well,” Kirigiri says. “I’m sorry, Naegi-kun. Genocider Syo attacked you. I had very little time to act.”
This is real. This is all real. Kirigiri is really here, her gloved hands cool on his burning skin as she clinically checks him for wounds, and Fukawa... Fukawa is...
“You’re feverish,” Kirigiri says, “but I don’t think you’re hurt.”
And now Kirigiri’s going to be executed. There’s no way to escape it. Naegi will have to expose her at the trial, and she’ll be killed because she tried to save him, and he can’t watch any more friends die. He can’t.
He wants to scream. He thinks he might have forgotten how.
Kirigiri looks as calm as ever, but he can feel her hands shaking. Or is that just his own trembling?
“Only two people have discovered the body,” Kirigiri says. “Or perhaps one.” She takes a breath. “Do we know whether the murderer is counted?”
The question startles Naegi; no matter what Kirigiri might have done, he can’t think of her as a murderer. “Ah, I don’t - I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
“In any case, we can’t let anyone else see her.”
Naegi can’t focus; he can’t follow. He feels too hot and too cold at the same time, like someone’s dragged him out of a bath of ice and shoved him into an oven. What is Kirigiri saying? It doesn’t make sense to him.
“The trial hasn’t been announced yet,” Kirigiri says. “If the body is never officially discovered, there may not be a trial at all.”
Something gets through to him this time. No trial?
No trial, which means...
“Can we... if she stays here...” Naegi has to pause and breathe, trying not to look at Fukawa’s body. “I could keep my door locked.”
“That’s not an option,” Kirigiri says. “When Fujisaki-kun was killed, Monobear unlocked the doors so the body could be discovered.”
It would have been the easiest solution, but he’s glad to hear it shot down; he doesn’t think he would have been able to cope. “S-so, we...”
“We need to dispose of the body,” Kirigiri says.
“We need to dispose of the body,” Naegi echoes.
It’s a dream, he tells himself. There’s still a chance it’s a dream.
“You’re on cleaning duty, aren’t you?” Kirigiri asks.
Naegi swallows. His head’s starting to clear, just a little, now that he knows what they’re supposed to be doing, but he still feels a long way from steady. “You want to take her to the trash disposal room?”
“If we hide the body, it will start to decompose,” Kirigiri says. “The smell will lead people to it. We have to destroy it.”
“You want to put Fukawa-san in the incinerator?”
She might not fit through the opening. Not unless they...
Naegi feels like he might cry.
“I can take care of any dismemberment,” Kirigiri says, as calmly as she might say I can take care of the laundry. She so often seems to be reading his mind; it reminds him of Maizono sometimes. He wonders if she can see what a mess it is in there. “Do you have the key to the disposal room’s gate?”
“Um...” How is he supposed to focus? He’s sick and shaking and there’s a corpse on his bedroom floor. “Um, no, cleaning duty switched over yesterday. It was...” He falters. “It was Fukawa-san’s turn.”
Kirigiri is examining the body almost before he’s finished speaking, delving into Fukawa’s pockets, hiking up her skirt to check the unsettling scissor holster on her thigh. Naegi has to look away.
“It must be in her room,” Kirigiri concludes at last. “She doesn’t have her dorm key on her either, so her room is probably unlocked. I’ll find the key to the gate. You stay here with the body.”
Naegi’s going to be... alone with the body?
“Keep the door shut,” Kirigiri says. She raps a short rhythm on Naegi’s bedframe. “Don’t open it unless you hear this.”
-
Somewhere inside him, Naegi is half-hoping Kirigiri won’t be able to find the trash room key. It’d be bad if she didn’t - he doesn’t know what they can do next, in that case - but, if she does find it, that means the next step is carrying their friend to the trash room to dump her into an incinerator, and he’s not sure he can handle that.
He’s going to have to handle it. Kirigiri comes back with the key. And they can’t wait for daytime, when people are going to be moving around and Fukawa’s disappearance is going to be noticed; they have to do this now.
Fukawa doesn’t weigh much, at least, but Naegi’s not particularly strong, and she’s taller than him, and carrying a body is awkward enough even when you’re not trying not to get blood all over yourself. He has to half-drag her towards the corner of the dorm corridor. If they can just get her around the corner and then down to the trash disposal room...
“Kirigiri-san?” he asks. “Can you help me carry her?”
“In a moment,” Kirigiri says, frowning at Naegi’s door. “Are you not locking your room?”
“Ah, I didn’t think I’d be able to with... with Fukawa-san. I just left the key inside.”
“Leaving it unlocked is risky,” Kirigiri says. “Someone could look inside and see the bloodstain on the floor. I’ll lock it.” She vanishes back inside Naegi’s room, leaving Naegi to struggle along the corridor with the body.
He counts his own heartbeats, desperately waiting for her to re-emerge. He’s on his own, in the open, with a corpse.
It feels like much longer, but it’s probably only a few seconds before he hears the click of his door opening again, and he internally sighs with relie-
Wait. Not just his door. The overlapping clicks of two doors opening.
Naegi almost passes out on the spot.
Togami steps out into the corridor.
He’s not looking in Naegi’s direction. Naegi’s already managed to get the body past Togami’s door, he’s a little further along the corridor. Togami is looking the other way, in the direction of the dining hall.
The dining hall and Naegi’s room, which Kirigiri is just emerging from.
Kirigiri’s eyes flick towards Naegi, standing frozen behind Togami.
“Good evening, Togami-kun,” she says, perfectly calm. “Moving around during Night Time?”
“I didn’t observe the Night Time ‘rule’ even before we learnt it was a tool to make it easier for Celes to plan her murders,” Togami says. “I don’t see why I should respect it now. In any case, I could say the same to you.”
What can Naegi do in this situation? Togami doesn’t seem to have noticed him yet. He’s probably not planning to head in Naegi’s direction; there’s not much this way, other than the disposal room and the rest of the dorms. Can Naegi just stay perfectly still until he leaves?
The alternative is either to slip into Fukawa’s room, which is probably still unlocked, or to try to drag Fukawa’s body around the corner. Either option would make noise.
His legs are shaking.
Naegi tries not to breathe. He stares desperately at Kirigiri, silently begging her for help.
Kirigiri isn’t looking at him. Of course she isn’t; she needs to act like she and Togami are the only ones in the corridor. Naegi understands, but it still makes him feel very alone.
“I don’t think that’s your room,” Togami says. “Paying a midnight visit to Naegi?”
“Perhaps,” Kirigiri says. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
Naegi’s hands are so slick with sweat that he can barely keep his grip on Fukawa. He focuses very, very hard on keeping her held still. Looking at her body makes him feel even more sick, but he doesn’t have a choice.
“I cannot imagine why you might think I would take any interest whatsoever in your petty affairs,” Togami says. “If you slept with him, it’s irrelevant; if you murdered him, the investigation can wait until the morning. I only mention it because-” and then he stops.
It occurs to Naegi, after several more seconds of silently wrestling with Fukawa’s body, that perhaps Togami has stopped talking for a reason.
He looks up.
Togami is looking straight at him.
“Well,” Togami says, “I suppose this particular petty affair might catch my interest.”
Naegi starts to shake so badly that he loses his grip and Fukawa slips to the floor. “Sh-she’s not - she fainted,” he says, because it’s the only thing that comes into his head. “She saw some blood and she fainted.”
“Is that so?” Togami asks, his eyes on Fukawa. “I suppose that makes sense, given how profusely she’s evidently been bleeding.”
This is very, very bad. “You - no, you don’t understand-”
“I understand perfectly,” Togami says, shooting Naegi a glare that shuts him up very effectively. “One of you is the murderer, I take it. There are three of us here, after all, and there’s been no announcement.” He looks at Kirigiri. “You, of course. He wouldn’t have the fortitude.”
There’s been no announcement, Naegi thinks. Maybe... maybe there’s still hope.
“This will be a very dull trial,” Togami says. “Two correct votes of five secured before it can even begin. Or should I understand, Naegi, that you will be assisting the murderer this time around? You do appear to be transporting the body on her behalf, after all.”
“We don’t want a trial,” Naegi says. “We don’t want anyone else to die.”
Togami pauses. Glances at the turning to the trash room.
“So that’s your plan,” he says. “Why kill her at all, if you weren’t planning to graduate? Not that I can’t understand the temptation.”
“It was unavoidable,” Kirigiri says. “Syo had taken an interest in Naegi-kun.”
“Touching,” Togami says. “I notice you didn’t go to these lengths when she took an interest in me.”
“C-can you help us?” Naegi asks.
“Hmm,” Togami says. “But a dull trial is still more interesting than no trial at all, wouldn’t you say? And Kirigiri’s execution would certainly be convenient.”
“Convenient?” Naegi echoes.
“Well, consider the opportunity this presents. I only need to target you in the next round, Naegi, and all our little detectives will be cleared out of the courtroom. I’ll be facing a jury of Asahina and Hagakure. Do you imagine they will be difficult to deceive?”
Naegi swallows. He can’t mean it, right? Talking so easily about killing... it’s all been a bluff from the beginning, right?
But he didn’t think Kirigiri was capable of murder, either.
“So we can’t rely on your help,” Kirigiri says.
“You should be flattered that I consider you a threat,” Togami says.
“Do you intend to tell the others?” Kirigiri asks.
Togami smiles. “I intend to stand back and see whether you succeed.”
-
Carrying Fukawa goes a lot quicker with Kirigiri helping him. In a way, that makes things worse. When he’s not struggling so much with the physical act of carrying the body, Naegi doesn’t have that distraction from the situation. The fact that Fukawa is dead. The fact that, if they don’t manage this, Kirigiri will die as well.
He keeps thinking: what if Kirigiri is executed and then they really do end up living out the rest of their lives here? What if Naegi lives for decades without seeing a single human being other than Togami, Hagakure and Asahina? The idea of being trapped here forever has never exactly been appealing, but it becomes a lonelier prospect with every death.
He can’t think like that. They’ll get out of here. And, if they don’t, at least a few other people is better than none.
They make it to the trash room. They’re almost there.
Monobear is standing in front of the incinerator, arms folded.
Naegi sees him through the gate and freezes. Kirigiri barely reacts; she just drops Fukawa’s feet, with a lack of care that makes Naegi flinch, and unlocks the gate.
Kirigiri picks up Fukawa’s legs again and begins moving, and all Naegi can do is move along with her.
“Where’s your school spirit?” Monobear demands, as they approach the incinerator. “I don’t approve of this at all.”
“Move,” Kirigiri says.
“Why would you deprive everyone of a trial? Are you really so cruel?”
“Three of us already know the culprit,” Kirigiri says. “Enough for a majority vote from the start. A trial wouldn’t be interesting either. Move.”
“There’s still the execution,” Monobear says. “You’re not going to let me use it? Do you know how much work I put into designing those things?”
Kirigiri looks at the incinerator, looks down at Fukawa. “I think we can fit her in,” she says to Naegi. “It might be a squeeze.”
“Hey!” Monobear protests. “Don’t ignore me!”
Trying to squeeze a friend into an incinerator doesn’t sound good. But Naegi will take it over having to cut her into pieces. “What about Monobear?”
“Monobear would certainly fit in the incinerator,” Kirigiri says, “but I think that might qualify as violence towards the headmaster.”
“Well,” Monobear grumbles, “it’s good to know you respect the rules, at least.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Naegi says. “I mean... how do we get her past Monobear?”
Kirigiri sets Fukawa’s legs down and crouches. She puts a hand on Monobear’s chest.
Naegi feels his heart stop. “Kirigiri-san, don’t-”
Gently, firmly, Kirigiri just... slowly pushes Monobear out of the way.
“Hey!” Monobear objects, flailing his arms. “Hey hey hey!”
“I don’t think you can call this violence, can you?” Kirigiri asks, pressing the button to turn on the incinerator with her other hand.
“You’re violently breaking etiquette rules! You can’t just push people around!”
But he doesn’t attack her, even when Kirigiri whirls back, grabs Fukawa and starts trying to force her into the incinerator.
There’s a hideous burning smell, rubber and hair and cloth and flesh.
It’s around this point that Naegi passes out.
-
Fukawa’s nowhere to be found in the morning, obviously. Asahina’s in a panic over it, pacing the cafeteria, and Naegi feels terrible. He and Kirigiri know exactly what happened, but they can’t tell-
“I killed her,” Kirigiri says.
What?
“Seriously?” Hagakure asks.
Is Naegi still feverish, or did Kirigiri actually just say that?
Asahina stares at Kirigiri, turning ashen. “You...?”
“Syo attacked Naegi-kun,” Kirigiri says. “I did the only thing I could in the moment.”
Asahina claps a hand over her mouth. “No! No, that’s - how awful, poor Fukawa-chan-” and then her eyes become, if possible, even wider. “Kirigiri-chan, the trial-”
“Why would you say that?” Naegi demands, almost in tears. They went to so much effort to dispose of the body!
“The trial is only announced after a body is discovered,” Kirigiri says.
“We don’t know he’s not going to announce it just because we know someone died!”
“When everyone in the school knows who did it,” Kirigiri says, gesturing to Asahina and Hagakure, “and there’s no body to examine? It seems like a waste of time and effort. And of potential future murder victims; there aren’t many of us left.”
Naegi hates that argument, wants to say that nobody’s going to kill anyone else. He bites it down, because he realises what she’s trying to do. She’s not speaking for his benefit; she’s speaking for Monobear’s. If she can persuade the mastermind it’s more interesting to have no trial, there won’t be a trial. “It’s still risky!”
“If Fukawa-san disappeared and some people didn’t know what happened, it’d just cause suspicion,” Kirigiri says. “More tension, more deaths. It seemed like a risk worth taking.”
That... okay, Naegi can understand that. But still, if Kirigiri is executed because of it-
The chimes ring out, ding-dong-ding-dong, and Naegi nearly throws up. It’s a body discovery announcement. They failed.
“A body hasn’t been discovered,” Monobear announces over the monitor. “You guys are the worst.”