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The photos in Kirigiri’s gloved hands were clearly planted by the mastermind. There was no doubt about it. Their intentions were clear as day: to turn the remaining students against one another and cause yet more chaos. She knew it and yet she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pictures she held. There were two that depicted her entire class except for her, engaged in various activities. The intention was obvious in these. The mastermind wanted her to believe she was the only one not in cahoots with them. It wasn’t going to work, obviously.
But it wasn’t these photos that had her unable to look away, it was the three others that sat beneath them.
Photos of her and Celeste.
In the first they were sat beneath a tree. Kirigiri was reading a book and smiling slightly as Celeste leaned her head on her shoulder, eyes gently shut, hands sat in her lap and a small smile on her face betraying the fact that she was not really asleep, presumably pretending in order to rest her head on Kirigiri’s shoulder. Kirigiri supposed that she needn’t have pretended as she would be happy to have the raven-haired girl pressed against her, even during the killing game. It didn’t really matter now though, Celeste was gone, crushed beneath tonnes of rubble. She would never again even touch Kirigiri, and she couldn’t even remember the one time it had apparently happened. She had always detested the mastermind for stealing her memories but never as much as she did now.
The smaller girl looked so peaceful beneath that tree, so different from the guarded, emotionally turbulent girl that had entered the killing game. And yet she loved both sides to the girl, the calm, and the storm that came afterwards. She hoped that death felt as peaceful for Celeste as lying under the tree looked to be. She deserved that. Even if she knew that none of her classmates would ever agree with her, would never see Celeste how she had.
The second photo was far less peaceful but just as gut wrenching. Celeste was sat on Kirigiri’s shoulders as they chased after Leon who was laughing as he ran, clutching Celeste’s drills in his hands. Celeste had her mouth open in a shout and yet she still didn’t look angry with Leon at all, in fact she rather seemed to be enjoying the chase, eyes crinkled with mirth. Kirigiri almost smiled as she ran through the scenario in her head. She could see almost exactly how it would have played out. Leon would have playfully plucked the drills right off of the girl’s head, maybe even pretending to wear them, Celeste would have tried to run after him, maybe grabbing Kirigiri’s hand as she ran off, before tripping on her tall heels and maybe bringing Kirigiri down with her and maybe the purple haired girl would have planted a small kiss on the tip of Celeste’s nose, chuckling as she pulled the two of them up, enjoying how Celeste’s face flushed bright red. Celeste would have insisted that Kirigiri should give her a piggyback and she would happily oblige, swiftly lifting Celeste onto her shoulders and maybe Celeste would panic at the sudden change in altitude and maybe she would wrap her hands round her maybe girlfriend’s head, maybe pressing her cheek to Kirigiri’s hair.
All those maybes were running round her head, swirling and whirling and mixing themselves in with the only Celeste that Kirigiri had truly known, not the girl in these photos but the girl who was a beautiful killer. She just wanted to know. To know what it had really felt like, not just these fictional propositions she couldn’t stop thinking about.
She didn’t even know if she would feel better if she could remember these events. Is it worse to experience love and not remember anything about it until after it’s already gone, or is it worse to remember everything and still be helpless to save them from their own actions.
She took a deep breath before looking at the final picture. This was it, the last thing she would ever see of her and Celeste. If she destroyed these three pictures, she could pretend it had never happened, pretend that she wasn’t mourning and move on with her life, pretend that she didn’t love Celeste, that she was indifferent.
She didn’t want to be indifferent about Celeste.
The last photo was taken at the school festival, there were fireworks and yet, despite the extravagant display happening in front of them, the two girls were facing one another, staring deeply into each other’s eyes as though they were more beautiful than anything they’d ever seen. Just one glance at the pair was enough for Kirigiri to realise something horrible:
The two had been in love.
A single tear splattered onto the photo, right on the spot in between the two. Kirigiri sniffled, pulling her gloved hand up to her face to wipe away the newly forming tears ready to fall.
She had been in love with Celeste and Celeste had been in love with her.
And that love had been torn from them in the harshest way possible, eradicated. Celeste had died thinking that everyone had hated her, Kirigiri included. Had she felt the same pull towards Kirigiri as she had towards her? Had she ignored it because of the circumstances? Or had she woken up without her memories and felt nothing for Kirigiri at all. Not love, not hate, but nothing.
Kirigiri doesn’t think she could bear that.
She moved almost robotically, tucking the photos away in her breast pocket, turning to leave her room. The killing game was not over yet. She would remember Celeste and keep her alive in that way.
And the one who had done this to her, wrenched from her the only semblance of happiness in her life, the mastermind of her personal torture,
She was going to destroy them.