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[ It's pretty late when she sends him a text, but after what just happened... She's a little shaken up. ]

Naegi-kun. Have you experienced anything strange in the past few hours?

[ And literally no one could blame her. ]

You too? It's...

[ A pause, before another text follows. ]

I'm not even sure what words apply. Are you okay, Kirigiri-san?

Yes, for the most part.

And you?

[ Aside from being terrified, she's perfectly fine. ]

I'm physically unharmed, so I'm counting myself as being pretty well.

[ It's...an improvement on his status at other times, okay........ ]

...That said, I don't think I'm going to be sleeping for a while.

Neither do I.

[ and then a minute later ]

Would you like to discuss what we saw in person?

[ Because being alone is the last thing she wants right now. ]

Sure. You know you're always welcome over here - or do you want me to come over there?

[ Naegi is always up to talking about anything he sees, always. It's probably something to do with his ahoge. Maybe. And, well, discussing things tends to make them less...

Scary? Maybe. It's probably a defense mechanism trained into him after so many school trials. If they discuss things, they can find the truth, and they're not alone...or something like that. ]

It's fine. I will be there in a few minutes.

[ She changes out of her sleep clothes, and into her usual skirt and dress shirt, but without the jacket. It's not like she's going out. Kyouko chooses to the lights on, knowing that she will want her apartment well lit when she gets back. After something like that, she's not too keen on coming back to a dark place.

Grabbing her CereVice, Kyouko slips into her slippers as she closes the door behind her. The hallway is dark, and it's creepy after what she just saw. Normally she wouldn't give it a second thought.

Since Naegi is just next door, before long Kyouko is knocking on his door. Talking it out with him will definitely help. Together they always manage to find something they hadn't thought of before, and maybe they can figure out an explanation for what happened. ]

[ Naegi, for his part, doesn't really bother to change. He doubts Kirigiri will particularly care if he's wearing his uniform pants or a pair of pajama pants, and it isn't as if a t-shirt and pajama pants and socks are really that indecent. Pretty much all they reveal is his continued preference for greens and browns and muted colors - Naegi isn't that into fashion, as proven by just about every choice ever made in the realm of clothes. He prefers comfort and warmth and familiarity.

He had bothered to put a kettle on for tea and to try the lights once again. Kirigiri's likely been over before, especially for at least dinner. Naegi's apartment is comfortable and generally clean. There are the pictures of them and their classmates framed and displayed around the place, in addition to a Naegi family photo, but few other decorations as of yet. Still, it's clear he's at least tried to decorate...kind of.

The door opens almost immediately. And while Naegi looks too awake and a little exhausted, his hair a mess (...not unusual, admittedly) he manages to offer his classmate a warm smile, if one tinged with worry. ]

Hey, Kirigiri-san. Come in - I put on a kettle, so it should be done soonish...

[ A vague hand gesture, as he steps aside to usher her in. ]

[ She's relieved he answers the door so quickly, as the darkness of the hallway wasn't comforting. Kyouko walks in immediately, glad he's turned on the lights. The dark doesn't typically bother her—after all, she did a lot of snooping around at Hope's Peak in the dark. However, with all the glitches, monsters, and just generally strange occurrences over the past few days... She could do without the dark for a while.

It's easy to see how tired Naegi is, and he looks just as awake as her. After several restless days, Kyouko had finally managed to fall asleep, but her sleep was interrupted tonight as well by that strange nightmare. She doesn't return his smile, nodding instead. Even if she wanted to, a smile wasn't something she could get herself to do right now.

Having been here before, Kyouko makes her way to Naegi's couch, settling in. ]

...Thank you. [ Tea would be nice right now.

She doesn't say anything more, though, opting to stare at the pictures he has around the apartment. She doesn't know where to begin. ]

[ Is there honestly a good place to begin when one of the pictures scattered around involves the entire class sans Kirigiri dressed up as cat people, though. Why the hell did Naegi frame that and display it...? The answer is, of course, that he's a sucker for anything involving his friends. He may or may not also own keychains of some of his classmates from the dumb con event.

...Which is to say of course he purchased keychains of them, since he wasn't allowed to leave until he bought something anyway. But he feels awkward about those at least, so they're shoved in a drawer somewhere. ]

Do you have a preference to what sort of tea, when the water's done...? I have a lot of different types. [ Mostly because he tries to accommodate other people. Naegi himself prefers pretty simplistic things, and just has green tea usually. He notices, finally, that she's staring at the pictures, and laughs a little nervously. ] Ah...I found frames for all of them, finally.

[ Kyouko is extremely thankful she's not in that cat cafe picture. She turns away from that one when she hears Naegi's voice. ]

Green tea is fine.

[ When he mentions the pictures, she turns back toward them. ] They look nice. [ Because they do, and while Kyouko isn't as gung-ho about friendship as Naegi, looking at the pictures is nice. It's nice to know that there were peaceful times with everyone, despite how it all ended up. ]

[ Honestly, who wouldn't be grateful for that. ...Aside from Naegi, who is used to being dragged into embarrassing shit for his classmates. ]

That's my favorite, too. [ Not that she said it was her favorite...but whatever, he seems pleased enough to have any indication of liking something from Kirigiri. ]

I'm not sure I'll ever remember those times - well, aside from that - [ He gestures to the family photo, because he does remember taking that one ] - but I like having them around. Maybe I should get a camera, and start taking other photos...though there's only the three of us. Ah, and the others, of course.

[ The other class. He does like all the students he's met from it; it's just a different sort of like. They're not his classmates, even if he wants to be friends with them, and considers a few to be friends. He hasn't been through the same things with them. ]

It's nice having them, at least. Even if we never remember. [ And she thinks they never will recover them, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's better to not remember, because it might make everything that happened even more painful. ]

...That is a good idea, Naegi-kun. [ There may only be three of them right now, but they can still take pictures. ] We have the other class, and any other friends we have here as well. [ Why just keep it to Hope's Peak students anyway? ]

All of them, yes. [ He doesn't know all of Kirigiri or Leon's friends, but he's...well, pretty happy they're making them.

Does that make me sound like a parent...?

The pictures are a distraction, even if he hadn't intended to distract. Just to talk. ]

About everything that happened tonight...

[ It was too easy to get distracted by the pictures, especially since Kyouko really wanted to think about anything but what happened. Even though she'd experienced some fairly odd things so far... That was the most terrifying thing that had happened here.

Still, they need to talk about it so she tears her eyes away from the photos. ]

Yes. I assume you heard the screaming as well?

...Yeah. [ Which she'd already known, pretty much, and which is why they're both frazzled - although Kirigiri's poker face is so much better than Naegi's. It's kind of comforting, even if he's pretty sure she is frazzled.

As frazzled as Kirigiri gets, anyway. No - that's not quite true. She'd been more overset a few times at school...

The school times that had linked screaming to death, always. ]

And then that woman... [ One hand reaches up to his neck, rubbing the back of it as he remembers. ]

...Yes. [ For a dream, it had been all too real. That robot not breaking eye contact, smiling as the life drained out of that woman... She hadn't experienced anything like that before, not even at Hope's Peak—that she remembers, anyway.

She clenches her fists, trying her best to keep her expression neutral. It's important to stay calm in situations like these. ]

I have to wonder if it was real, but... I've never experienced a dream like that before. [ Not to mention they both saw it. ]

I haven't, either. ...And with both of us experiencing it, it's not really likely that it was just a dream, right? Neither of us has that sort of ability...

[ Psychic stuff. Or magic stuff. So it was definitely a thing that happened. ]

That's what I'm wondering. Unless CERES can somehow control our dreams...

[ But she's leaning towards it being real for now. ]

...I'm hoping that's not the real option. But...if it's a matter of being "Real", it might have been something ViViD induced, right? If they just sort of, I don't know, pulled us all in at the same time and then dropped us back out?

[ he's not fujisaki, he has no idea how this works. ]

[ Kyouko shrugs. She knows a little about ViViD, but not enough to understand how it works. ]

It's certainly possible. For now, I believe we should treat it as real.

I don't disagree. [ Though he never really sore wa chigau yo's kirigiri that often...SHE'S NORMALLY RIGHT... ]

Which means they really wanted us to see that for some reason.

Yes. It's either some sort of message, or a threat.

[ And she definitely sees it as a threat. ]

I wonder if that woman was a rebel or something?

[ That would make more sense, if so. ]

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text; 1/21 IC SORRY, I'M DONE MOVING NOW...

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