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Makoto felt more than heard someone behind him, and he slowly turned.
Kyoko.
The left side of her face was purple and still streaked with blood, and she had a slight limp that he barely noticed. She was breathing heavily, as though struggling to stand, and her left arm hung limply at her side.
But she was alive.
He didn’t run to her. He couldn’t. Instead, he slowly ambled in her direction, one hand stretched in front of him, reaching out as though to touch her.
He stopped before he could.
She took an unsteady breath, and tears streamed steadily down her face. She was softly smiling, and her voice was shaky when she spoke. “Makoto… it’s me.”
He put one hand on the healthy side of her face and wiped the tears away with his thumb, feeling her, identifying her, desperately convincing himself that she was somehow, miraculously, inexplicably alive.
He stumbled forward into her, embracing her in a tight hug as his eyes burst with tears.
She pulled to her right, wincing at the contact on her left side. Makoto immediately pulled back, keeping his left arm around her other side as he released her with his right.
“I’m sorry, I--”
She was shaking her head, her mouth struggling to speak. But instead, she pulled him back into the hug, even tighter than before. “Don’t let go. Please.” An urgent whisper, and he pulled her close, head on her shoulder, the both of them crying.
He didn’t care how or why she had survived. He was just so overjoyed that she did, and for now that was all he could have possibly hoped for.
His most amazing, closest, best friend was alive. His favorite person in the world, who he had thought dead, was here, right now, and they were holding each other and they would never let go again.
They were alone. No-one was there to watch, or interrupt, or in any way ruin the sanctity of this moment.
“Makoto, I’m so sorry. I…”
He reached a hand up to press against the back of her head, feeling her light, lovely, lilac hair. “Don’t be. Please, don’t be. Just…” He swallowed thickly. “Just promise you won’t leave me again. Not without telling me.”
She nodded fervently, choking on quiet sobs. “I won’t… I swear I won’t. I’m sorry.”
Makoto shut his eyes tight, frantically committing to memory as much of her as he possibly could. For over a minute they stood there, rocking slowly back and forth, silently holding each other. There was nothing else in the world. There didn’t need to be.
“Kyoko,” he finally ventured. “I wish you’d told me. I… I get it… You didn’t want me to do anything stupid.” He sniffled. “But I’m sorry. I still did. I… almost did. I just--” A sob racked his body and he couldn’t speak. Instead, he pulled back far enough to look Kyoko in her perfect purple eyes, her right eye still beautiful despite how bloodshot it was. He couldn’t look away, and he didn’t want to.
“There were so many things I wish I’d had the chance to tell you. I…” His eyes darted away momentarily. She was nodding at him, her face awash with a melancholy smile as she scanned every inch of his face, not with investigative curiosity but with horrified need.
“No, that’s wrong. I had the chance to tell you. I had so many chances, but I didn’t… I wasn’t..” He shook his head. “I didn’t realize how much I needed to tell you them until it was too late. I--”
He was shaking now, too much to talk, and he let his head fall forward to press against her shoulder and her neck. She struggled with his weight, weakened as she still was, and so he switched to supporting her. They carefully lowered themselves to the ground, sitting at an angle to each other, still holding each other with all they had.
With a futile effort to suppress the emotion in her voice, she half-spoke, half-whispered her response. “I wanted to tell you, Makoto. So much. Not just about my forbidden action, but... so much else. Things I didn’t know how to say. And I knew it would just hurt you when I-- After I-- I’m sorry...”
He moved his hands up her back to hold her head, not daring to let go of her. “Kyoko,” he choked out, resting his forehead against hers. “It’s not too late anymore.”
Her smile was gorgeous, and he swallowed the lump in his throat. He was deathly nervous, but he wasn’t afraid. Not anymore. He’d already lost her once, her body lying dead on the floor as he looked on and cried. But he’d survived it, and she’d come back.
He’d survived it.
She’d already died. He had nothing greater than that to risk.
So he said it.
“I love--”
He didn’t get to finish, because she was already kissing him, desperately pushing her lips against his as though she had nothing left to cling to, save for him. He was caught off-guard, and for a moment he could not react. Then, he was pulling her head against his, pushing into the kiss just as much as she was. She was all that he had, all that he wanted; she was all that mattered. And so he lost himself in her, frantically, urgently.
He could want for nothing else.
They pulled away, finally, gasping for breath. They gazed into each other's eyes, each of them smiling deeply, so deeply it hurt Makoto to feel it. He had always hoped she would start smiling more, and moments like this were exactly why. Her smile curled her face in the most perfect way, framing it with a happiness she was usually so reluctant to show, and it melted his heart to see it, filling his eyes with tears.
He pulled her in and kissed her forehead, drawing it out for as long as he could.
“Kyoko, I love you. I love you so much it hurts. I wished so much that I’d told you, that it could’ve changed something, anything. I felt so lost, like I’d had everything taken from me. But you’re back, and I have to say it. I can’t miss out on the chance again. I love you Kyoko. I always will.”
She was nodding fervently, lips pursed, face streaking with tears anew. Eventually she managed to choke out the words for herself in a desperate, cracking whisper. “I love you, too. I love you. I love you. I can’t not.”
And they sat there, quietly, lost in each other.
But even now, with everything turning out alright, his stomach was still in knots at what had just occurred. So he voiced his worries, as he was wont to do.
“You almost died, Kyoko!”
She shuddered, pressing her head into his shoulder. “I know. I know.” She was whispering into his ear, and he could still barely hear her. He slid a hand into her hair and tucked her against his neck, shaking almost as much as she was.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered back. “You must have been so scared. And not telling anyone, it must have been horrible.” She flinched, pressing tighter against him. More subdued, he continued. “I just… I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine what it was like. And… thank you. Kyoko. So much. For everything you did for me. For us. Thank you.”
She nodded frantically into his shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m alive. I’m alright now.” Her voice was breaking, and he knew everything had scared her so much more than she had let on. His heart broke for her, as it had so often.
“Kyoko, it’s okay to be scared…”
She pulled back to meet his gaze, her eyes lost, beseeching. As though reciting a speech, she answered emotionlessly. “There’s nothing to be gained by showing your fear.”
He reached out to grip her by the shoulders. “It’s me. It’s Makoto. What could you lose?” He grinned. “And you’re wrong. There’s so much you can gain by trusting someone! You can talk to me, if not now, then whenever you’re ready. I’ll always be willing to listen. Always.”
Kyoko’s eyes were wide and wet, filled now with the fear she had been hiding for hours. With a sudden sob, she pulled back into him, clinging to him, holding on to him for her life. She was crying, sobbing without care, weeping into his chest as she let the memories flood back.
Eventually, through her crying, she managed to choke out words.
“It was so cold. So… empty and alone. I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, and there was nothing there at all. I… I thought I was dead, Makoto.” She shuddered and sobbed, then pushed herself up to kneel in Makoto’s lap, a frenzied attempt to melt into him and prove to herself that everything was real, that she was alive. She hadn’t realized how afraid she had been until she told Makoto.
But he held her, all the tighter now that she had given into her frightened bawling, now that she was sobbing away all the deathly horror of the past ten hours.
“I thought I had died, and that all I’d ever experience again would be nothing! Nothing but cold, pitch emptiness! I felt despair, Makoto, and I thought I was doomed to it forever!”
She pushed her forehead against his neck, and he held her head close and rubbed her back, murmuring soothing reassurances into her hair as she continued letting her sorrows run free, words that wouldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be stopped, feelings she’d now rather die than hold in any longer.
“And I just wanted to feel anything, even just a little bit more! Even for a second! Anything, even unfiltered agony, just so I wouldn’t have to keep feeling nothing!
“And the worst part, the part that made me want to go sick with madness, was that I didn’t regret any of it! I was glad I had died, because the alternative was for you to feel what I was feeling, Makoto, for you to know that horrid void! And I would rather suffer it for an eternity than watch you feel it for even a minute!” She let go of him and clutched her arms as tight against her chest as she could muster. “Please, Makoto, I can’t be alone like that ever again!”
And he was supporting her, cradling her, swaddling her in his arms as he rocked her back and forth. “You won’t. Never. I won’t let it happen!” He was sobbing too, and she was so, so thankful that nobody else was nearby, not even Hina, her closest friend apart from Makoto. It was just the two of them, and she was free to be who she only was around him. And she had realized that that was exactly what she needed right now. Her guard was down, because it needed to be, because after everything that had happened during what she desperately hoped was the final Killing Game, she couldn’t be stoic any more. She couldn’t hide from what she felt, because it was all so overwhelming.
But Makoto was here, and she wasn’t alone. She peppered his face with quick, desperate kisses, while he held her tight and told her it was going to be okay. And because he was Makoto, she could let herself believe it. Because she knew that when Makoto said something, he meant it, it was real, and he would do anything in his power to make it be true.
So she clung to him, in the wake of her own death, and let herself breathe in his hope.
And she sobbed, and sobbed, until she couldn’t any more.
“What did you mean,” she asked, “when you said that you almost did something stupid?”
They had migrated several feet, so that they were now leaning against the concrete rise of the pier. Kyoko had her legs draped over Makoto’s, and they were leaning against each other’s side, still holding on tightly as though the other would disappear if they let go. She had pulled off her gloves and lain them at her side, desperate as she was to actually feel him.
In response to her question, Makoto closed his eyes and looked away from her, towards the horizon lying over the ocean. “I… don’t want to make you worry, Kyoko.”
She raised a hand to his far cheek, guiding his head back to face her. “I’ll always worry about you, Makoto, just as much as you’ll always worry about me.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “Please, just tell me.”
“I…” He paused, still not meeting her eyes. “I… You told me not to give up, but… I almost did. No, I did give up. I almost… It was bad, Kyoko.”
She pressed a kiss against his cheek. “Please, don’t hide this from me. I forgive you. Whatever it was, I forgive you. But you need to trust me with this. Please.”
He shuddered, tears beginning to spill from his eyes.
“We read your notebook.”
Her heart skipped, remembering the fear she felt as she penned those final pages. She shook those thoughts away, then nodded. It was Makoto who needed to talk, now, not her. Neither of them would get better right away, but it was something they could start working toward now.
“You thought that… maybe the monitors were responsible for people killing themselves. And… the evidence backed it up, but… we needed proof. So I volunteered.”
She gasped, pulling his head tight against hers. “Makoto…” she whispered.
He cleared his throat, eyes shut tight. “No, it’s okay. I… I need to tell you.” He swallowed thickly, then forced himself to continue. “We needed someone to see what was on the monitors. So… I told Munakata to tie me up, so that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. And then I was the attacker, and I watched the video, and… I managed to get myself untied. Then the monitor dropped a knife, just like you said it would. And… I saw you, Kyoko. You, and Sayaka, and everyone else--”
He cut off, sobbing. “And the two of you were telling me to… to come see you. That it was easy, that all I had to do was… was…” He was shaking now, and she couldn’t bear to see it. She straightened her legs, then shifted so she could rest Makoto’s head on her lap, wrapping one arm around him. As tenderly as she could, she stroked his hair, her hands slightly shaking as she blinked away tears.
She was horrified by what she was hearing, the words clawing at her heart, but she knew he had to continue. For his sake or for hers.
“You were right there,” he said, clutching her hand to his chest. “You were so close, and I knew, I knew I could see you again if I just did it. And that was all I wanted to do. That was all that mattered. I didn’t want to be there if you were gone, so… I didn’t even hesitate. I grabbed the knife, and I held it in front of me, and I tried, I tried to do it, with everything I could.
“I would’ve done it! You have to believe me, I would’ve done it! But Sakakura… Juzo. Juzo was there, and he slapped the knife from my hands. He told me that I couldn’t. That he wouldn’t let me. And he held me against the wall until I was back to normal, until I stopped struggling.
“But I still wanted to do it, so much. Every second. I couldn’t stop thinking about it, even as I met up with everyone else, even as things ended up working out. I said goodbye to Hajime and the others, and I was still thinking about it.”
He rolled over to look up at her, his teary eyes lost in agony. Their eyes met, and without even thinking about it, she pulled him to sit upright, holding him in both her arms. Now she was the one cradling him, just as he had rocked her gently earlier.
“And, Kyoko, I don’t know what I would’ve ended up doing if you hadn’t shown up. I… I might have done it. Even though you told me not to lose hope, I… I gave into despair, Kyoko.”
He was so fragile, and she couldn’t help but to shudder. Part of her -- the naive schoolgirl that still believed Makoto Naegi to be infallible -- screamed that the situation was wrong, that it couldn’t be real. He had to be lying.
But she knew that he wasn’t. He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t infallible. Makoto Naegi was just human. He was an amazing, brilliant, beautiful human, but that was all. And that was okay. That was enough. That was the person she had fallen in love with.
And even if he wasn’t infallible, there were still lengths to which he would never fall. Just like, she had learned, there were depths she would never let herself reach. She had proven, finally proven to herself beyond a shadow of a doubt that she would never sacrifice him again. And just as much as she could never do that, Makoto could never turn fully to despair.
And so she looked at him, stared into his eyes for far too long to be anything but fully sincere.
“Makoto Naegi. You are the person I love. I know you better than I know anyone else. So believe me when I tell you that would you never have fully given into despair. You would never kill yourself just because it was easy. There is too much goodness in your heart, Makoto, and I know with everything I am worth that you could never give up.”
She let out a small choked laugh. “You’re far too stubborn.”
He let out his own chuckle, tiny and still hurting, but better, less torn than he had been. He sat up, then, and moved his hands to grip hers, marveling at the fact that today he had held her bare hand for the first time. And then he had done it again.
He was overwhelmed by the sheer trust she had in him, to be able to show him her scars which she hid from almost anyone else. She had shown him earlier, thinking it was her last chance before she died. But now she didn’t have that limit hanging over her, and he knew she was doing it because she wanted him to see her, wanted him to know how much she cared about him.
He gazed at every inch of her face, marveling at how beautiful she was, at how perfect, at how much he loved her. He could not believe the potency of his own luck, for her to not only have survived, but to love him back.
Nagito had been right. Not even he could possibly have been so fortunate.
Makoto was staring at her, and she knew her face was flushed. She didn’t care. She loved the sensation of it, the notion of him trying to memorize all of her. She wanted to do the same, but she knew a memory would never be enough.
She knew he didn’t realize just how handsome he was. Even if he did know, she knew he’d never admit it. But he was handsome, and now that handsomeness was hers to enjoy. She had survived. Makoto loved her. It seemed his luck had won the day for the both of them.
They held each other until the sky began to darken.