AN: Reaper Arc next chapter!

40. Ease

It was a day of sore throats and wet coughs when Nao heard the news.

The kids had been reckless with their free-running, and there were injuries in the form of a poor old man with a fractured thigh.

He was already in the hospital-- luckily-- so he had to rush into the room, and together with Karasuma's subordinate-- get on his knees to plead for forgiveness. If they screwed up here and didn't earn the man's favour, the entire state secret's a blowout.

Fortunately, with Korosensei's fervent challenge of 'look how many flowers I can FIT IN THIS TINY ROOM!' and his overenthusiastic dogeza of sheer babadook horror-- they managed to terrify the old man long enough for him to hear them out.

(Nao immediately proceeded to deliver one good-headed SMACK to the octopus' head. Seriously, there's a fine line between desperation and dramatisation, and creating new seeds of trauma in an old man goes beyond it.)

He watched quietly as the students were brought in (with a new print of a tentacle-slap bright red against their faces) and the situation was explained.

It looks like their next two weeks will be spent helping out the nursery, and no studying would be allowed in the time frame. After all-- this incident was caused by the students who couldn't set their priorities straight. What better way to truly teach them what mattered?

It looks like the next term's exams are a bust, but it will be fine.

He held up an OK when Korosensei glanced his way for approval.

And then, after bidding a polite goodbye to the old man, he hurriedly excused himself. It wasn't the most polite thing the teacher-in-charge should do, but he was desperate.

His throat was burning and his migraine was peaking-- a sharp throb punctuating his ever step as a drill crams itself through his the head-- he sought out his house in the fog of dizziness, taking effortful, surging steps as upright as he could manage-- making it to a couch where it was finally safe to collapse and start emulating a strangled frog.

He was not having a good day. Or week. Or month, for that matter.

-

The kids are spending this moment of reprieve from their studies working at the orphanage, but Nao spends most of his time in bed.

He didn't feel well enough to get up most days-- but when he did, he visited and watched from afar. Korosensei had instructed him (and the rest of the human teachers) to stay away and let the students handle the situation without adult help, and he respected that decision to cultivate their independence.

The coffee in his hands was warm.

The satellite campus was quiet, with an occasional tap of Irina's stilettos somewhere else in the building. Karasuma was around too, but he was preoccupied, doing reports for the government on account of their previous losses, arranging for hush money and other expenses to be paid out.

It was going to be October soon.

"You made it today," Korosensei observed, watching the main campus with binoculars. "You didn't have to, you know? The students are all down in the main campus for their second semester midterms."

Nao cleared his throat. "Well, I didn't want to waste the energy I had." He swatted away an encroaching set of tentacles, "what are you trying to do?"

"Spying," was his rather evasive answer. "I seek solutions to the many questions that have been laid out for me."

(Cryptid arse.)

Nao sighed. He didn't have the energy to decipher what he meant by it-- but he might actually know already.

"You can treat me, can't you?" It's a rhetorical question. "Or, you can try to."

Korosensei isn't fazed by the question. "I aim to," he promised. Until Nao let him take a closer look, there was nothing he could do, though.

Nao managed a smile.

"Well, I appreciate you waiting for my consent first-- but please, just don't do it."

"Hmm?" Korosensei turned to him, lifting his eyes from the binoculars. "Do you not wish to live longer?"

Well, that certainly isn't true.

Nao has plenty of things he wants to do, that he knows he won't have time to do.

(He wants to see the children graduate-- not just from junior high, but into high school, too. He wants to see Asano Gakuho break down and recover, and begin building again. He wants to see the culmination of the love between Karasuma and Irina one day.)

(And he wants to talk about flowers with the Grim Reaper, both the past and the present.)

But he doesn't want to be healed.

"Do you know what waits for you after death?" Nao asked, instead of answering.

Gently, he tapped upon the memories he'd shoved down all this time, and closed his eyes-- trying to remember the last moments of his previous life.

He would say he remembers the pain, but that would be a lie.

"Heaven? Hell?" Nao suggested, and then finished, "it's just darkness. And the feeling of crushing emptiness in your chest, where something used to be. There's nothing there, and you have to wander forever, only thinking about yourself and what you left behind."

As expressive as Korosensei usually held himself-- he was frozen now. The empty semblance of a meaningless smile was stuck on his face, but it definitely held no joy. There was no amusement-- only confusion, and inner turmoil.

"And that's when the emptiness will ask you--" Nao smiled for what Korosensei could not, "--what do you regret? Did you leave anything unfulfilled?"

A moment.

"Do you want to go back, or do you want to go on? Think carefully."

The coffee in his hands had gone cold, but Nao took a sip anyway, looking out into the distance-- to the sunlight-- to the scenery, full of everything.

"So imagine this," Nao began again. "You have nothing to think about. Your regrets weren't too significant anyways-- and you achieved nothing that was worth fulfilling. You stand before the judge, and yet-- you have nothing to say. You don't wish for more time, but you don't wish to pass on, either."

Finally, Korosensei interrupted.

"Is this an introspective hypothetical, or is it something more?"

Nao managed an exasperated chuckle. "It's just the blabber of a literature teacher high on too much caffeine, sir. Please, pay it little mind."

With a heavy sigh, Nao turned back toward the Class E building.

"I'll head on in first, then," he said, "I've got classes to plan."

"Wait, Kunomasu-sensei," Korosensei spoke, and Nao turned back, their eyes meeting. "What happens if you don't have an answer?"

Nao seemed to think on that.

"Well..." he shrugged, "you're given more time to come up with an answer, I guess."

(That's why he doesn't want to be healed in this life. He doesn't want to be healed-- he doesn't want to be given things, to be led on. If he lives, he wants it to be his choice. If he dies, he wants it to be on his own terms.)

(Learning how to treasure the little time he has left-- that's the key to his answer.)

But really.

Who would've guessed that the gateway question to the afterlife would be 'what's the meaning of life?' Certainly not Nao, that's for sure.

"I thought learning literature would let me find the answer in time," he said. "Turns out I brought more questions on myself instead. Ironic, isn't it?"

He's always worked better with a deadline, after all.

He'll definitely find it.

And then, he'll die-- contented or regretful, he still doesn't know-- but he'll be happy with how far he's found himself, and that's all that matters.

-

"I can really get anything I want?" Irina asked again, still skeptical.

They're in the cutest bakery in town, seated opposite each other like a rather fancy couple, to the pure interest of way too many passersby.

"Yes, everything," Nao said, holding out his wallet. "I give you permission until my wallet is dry. Don't put my mom in debt, though."

"Of course, I wouldn't be cruel to that dear lady!" she said, offended at the implication. But she still snatched the wallet away and checked its contents greedily. "I want her as a mom! I love her. With all my heart."

"Come to the shop more often, then. She'll adopt you before you even know it."

(Seriously, all it took for Ms Sakurai to earn Irina's favour was to fashion a fresh cornelia corsage as a gift. Nao thought for a moment that she might be the most dangerous honeypot in existence-- she captured Irina's heart in seconds!)

Anyways. She still wore the corsage now, around her wrist-- she evidently loved it, and it didn't even clash too much with her clothing.

"No take backs?" Irina asked once more.

"You don't ask your victims to second-guess, do you?" Nao challenged. "Go on now. Spare me a couple dimes for a coffee and a green tea cheesecake, though."

Nao looked up briefly to see the generous bosom of a very well-endowed woman, two inches from his face-- and in his shock, he barely felt the lips at his cheek, the gentle fingers tilting his chin aside so the woman could access the side of his face.

"Love you! Be right back."

Nao did not know how to move for a long moment after that.

But he found himself smiling. Irina was the most affectionate person in the entire campus-- she would french kiss the kids, after all-- and she threw around confessions of love for a single free drink, anytime she could.

But if you asked her to do the same to Karasuma-- she would rather die.

(Perhaps, living so long in the honeypot business has made her desensitized to common expressions of love. For her, a kiss to the mouth was work; and a dramatic love confession was simply the setup for a lovely death.)

(That was why in reality, the more chaste her actions were-- the more honest her feelings were.)

Honestly, a kiss on the cheek was probably the sweetest thing she has ever given to a human male in her life, out of her own heart-- and Nao honestly felt quite honoured.

Maybe the world will explode when she finally gets to hold hands with Karasuma, you know. Nao will look forward to it.

He knew better than anyone that Irina only saw Nao in the most wonderfully platonic ways, after all. The emotion only went that far both ways, and they both had eyes elsewhere, anyways.

(Or at least Irina did. Nao was fairly sure his romantic preference lay somewhere between himself and the sun, more specifically how much energy was needed to yeet an octopus into it.)

Then, "goddammit, Irina!" he searched his pockets frantically, "I kept my credit card out of that wallet for a reason!"

"Don't be a spoilsport--" Irina swipes the cards and finds the ID, "--Naomasa? That's such an old-fashioned name!"

"That's it-- birthday or not, deal's off! Give that back, you thief!"

"Nuh-uh! You said no take-backs!"

(He didn't notice himself calling her on a first name basis until much later, but by then, first names were thrown at )

It's been an awful month-- but for some reason, Nao felt at ease here.

-

In the satellite campus, on Nao's table, a bouquet of fresh white orchids bloom.

A young woman peruses the table, observing the arrangement of the books, the scribbles against the edge of the table, and the gentle way the flowers reflected light against the sky.

With a sigh, she sits at the table, a hand reaching up to brush a strand of sandy brown hair behind her ear. 

"You sure caught the eye of one dangerous fellow, Nao..."

The door slams open, and Korosensei looks around, head swirling around in alarm. There was no one in the staffroom. In a flash, he makes his way to Nao's desk, taking note of the white orchids on the table. 

These were not here before. Three days ago, Nao brought them uphill-- but these were fresh ones-- which meant that someone had delivered a new batch.

Someone was here. Two people, in fact-- they'd come one after the other, in the short one hour time frame Korosensei was absent. 

"To come here just to change flowers?" 

That was absurd. He did a quick sift, but there were no listening or tracking devices on the flower, either. No such thing.

So, why?

He couldn't smell anything-- no perfume, no odour-- nothing. There wasn't even the telltale natural fragrance of earth and pollen that every florist would have.

Whoever it was, it was someone adept at infiltration-- so anyone in the underground, really. 

But there really was no reason to go to such lengths just to deliver flowers. They didn't want to be identified? Were they in a rush, perhaps?

"Is someone in the underground trying to court our Kunomasu-sensei, I wonder," Korosensei mused to himself, unable to come up with a more liable explanation however.