47. Bloom
He'd talked big, but honestly, the idea of the tentacles being the solution for his condition filled him, for just a moment, with hope.
That thing was capable of completely altering human biology. Just look at Korosensei.
If Nao's condition was supernatural, then there can only be a supernatural solution— that was what he'd always thought, and he'd cursed himself for not being born in a fantasy manga instead. Assassination Classroom was fantasy, in a way, but it was a world of science most of all, and the science would not make it in time.
That was why, Nao clenched his heart and felt pain churn inside.
It's wishful thinking. It's all wishful thinking. And yet, for a moment, Nao felt relieved to realize that the solution had been that simple after all.
Wasn't he supposed to have completely given up on his own recovery?
How ridiculous.
Even with the tentacles, however, Nao was sure it wouldn't work. Call it instinct if you must— but Shiro had only approached him, knowing very little about Nao at all. He'd found a pawn and was eager to use it.
Shiro was not a man that planned far ahead. He moved systematically, from one plan to the next, depending on the situation. He does not plan for failure.
The tentacles cause immense strain to the body, and would be difficult to control without an ironclad will. Nao, with his tattered, corroded body, and weakened hopes, would never be able to withstand that kind of burden.
Even if he did, everyone knew the consequences. And the consensus, in the end, will inevitably be to remove them either way.
So even though he used that injection, no one could predict anything that would happen. He might even explode immediately, and kill the earth a few months in advance. Wouldn't that be a hilarious gainax ending?
There was no point in it.
-
Nao found Kayano at a cliffside overlooking the town.
He's breathing heavily, having hurried the whole way here. He clenched his heart from the effort, but mustered enough strength to lift his head to face her. Each throb of his heart sent pain through his body, but he knew it would pass.
For once, Nao wasn't the one that looked the weakest.
Kayano's breaths were ragged, and she was essentially soaked in cold sweat. Her clothing was disheveled, her eyes bloodshot, and her shoulders stiff from the constant migraine. She spun around, way too alarmed, when Nao approached.
The conversation did not go well, either.
"The tentacles asked me what I wanted," Kayano said, her eyes filled with agonized hope. The desperation of someone who had no one else to turn to. "I know what I want to be. I want to be a killer."
And Itona wanted to be strong. And Korosensei wanted to be weak.
"Do you ever have desires like that, Kuma-sensei?" she challenged, and somehow, those words hurt. Nao wondered if it was the pain in his chest, or if it was just his conscience.
Have you ever wanted anything so bad, you'd die for it?
"You don't."
Nao's never bet his life on anything, because he never cared for his life, ever.
"All you ever dream of is complacency— you don't hold grudges, you rarely even show frustration. You'll never understand how any of us feel!"
Nao doesn't manage to answer. He could only stare, bewildered, as his own student tore right into him, and clawed out, as painfully as possible, the very weaknesses he's always tried so hard to hide.
Maybe she's right.
Maybe Nao's assurances have always been empty, after all. In this classroom of desires, bright futures, and little soldiers, Nao was a rusted cog.
Korosensei spends every moment of his life burning away at his own time to make the most of it. Nao burns away his time leisurely, never really hoping to make the most of it. He's always just gone ahead, aimlessly, never caring where he'd end up.
("Do you really want to remain an outsider forever?" Asano had asked.)
Nao could do nothing as she ran off. He could do nothing, because in the end, it had to be Korosensei that saved her.
Nao had no role here.
-
"Oh, Nao-kun! Won't you help me out?"
In the days after the confrontation, school was out, so Nao took a break and stayed home to help out at the shop.
Winter was coming, which meant a change in the assortment of flowers available. In addition to that, Ms Sakurai tended to create fake flowers for the shop's variety, as they were a more viable purchase in this weather.
Nao folded in the layered petals of the sugarbush flower, inspecting its quality before making another. It was menial, but very monotonous work. Yet, it suited Nao perfectly, in that he didn't quite need to think as he made flower after flower, after flower.
Kayano's words have continued to ring in his head, for every waking minute.
Maybe this was how it felt to be on the other end of the conversation. He kind of felt bad for consistently tormenting Principal Asano with his nosiness now. He might have to apologize later.
"You've been lost in thought very often, Nao-kun," Ms Sakurai said, interrupting his train of thought, continuing to fold carnations. "Are things not going well at work?"
Nao bit his lip.
He stopped his hands.
Somehow, the words came easily. So easily. "I'm just not living up to my role," he said. "Everyone is unique up there— they're capable, reliable, and friendly. Sincere," every teacher up there was genuine,including Irina, "I thought I could be like them."
Compared to them, I just can't stand out.
From the very beginning, Kunomasu Naomasa was not designed to be as prominent and memorable as the others up there.
"But, are you trying?"
Ms Sakurai's question surprised him. It was not an accusation, not a demand. Just a question, a genteel wonder.
Nao was very sure. "I'm trying my best."
Her smile bloomed onto her face. She handed a flower to her son, stood up, and excused herself, because it was time to open shop.
"I like you as you are, Nao-kun," Ms Sakurai said. "You're my wonderful, dear son, and I'm so, so proud of you."
It was a blue orchid.
(You're a rarity in your own unique way, and that's how you should be.)
Nao didn't leave the room until his tears dried.
-
"I thought I was fine with it," Nao admitted, "I thought I was fine with the thought that I could just live a dull, boring life in the corner of nowhere, unnoticed until I'm gone."
He rested his head on his staffroom table, staring at the single plastic blue orchid in the vase.
It was Winter Break now, with Kayano still recuperating in the hospital and most of the students mulling over Korosensei's newly-discovered backstory. Korosensei himself was off in Mt Fuji or something, so Nao was here alone.
It's a little dumb, to be talking to a flower. But he was too much of a coward to actually talk to anyone, including Ritsu.
Somehow, this calmed him.
A single flower, and yet...
"I'm good at pretending to sympathize, maybe," Nao said. He thought he'd always had compassion. Turns out, he never did. His chest is heavy with a painful sort of loneliness. "I'm starting to understand why you wanted to be seen."
Did you live with this pain your whole life, Ran?
The desire to want something so desperately, you go mad for it... Everyone around him had that kind of desire— that kind of ambition. Kazane ran off into the world of danger for love. Irina's waltzing around in her own sense of individuality, hoping to find happiness and peace. Even Red Eye has resolved to find better sights to target, and Korosensei has his heart set for the betterment of his students.
And of course, every student in this classroom had individual visions of the future for themselves, too.
Nao's a little envious. He wanted to have something like that, too, but alas.
Nao's never been one for passionate ambitions like that, anyways.
-
"I'm going to die."
He'd shocked Kayano enough just by appearing in her hospital room, but when he said that, she choked on her strawberry milk and needed a long time to recover.
Then, there was a frantic attempt to get out of bed, but Nao stopped her, setting hands on her shoulders to hope she didn't resist them.
"Calm down, calm down," he said, to her tearful eyes. "It's not exactly new information."
"Yeah, but—!!" she stopped herself, sniffling. "I— I." It's not her fault, of course. It's no one's at all. "I'm sorry. That I said all that, even though..."
Even though she knew best how torturous it was to work with an indefinite but inevitable deadline.
"I've long come to terms with it," Nao said. "I'm just vocalizing it now, because I think you deserve to know. I'll tell everyone eventually."
Kayano's face scrunched up, displeased.
"Why aren't you more upset by it?" she's crying, but she knows why. There just wasn't a reason to be. It wasted time and emotional effort, and most of all, was meaningless.
Even when her sister died, her primary concerns after the shock were the funeral arrangements, the settlement of the remaining paperwork, and then revenge. It was only after a while that the loss sunk in, but by then, there was only numbness and acceptance left to go through.
That was how the world worked in modern society.
"It's not that I want to die," Nao admitted. "I just want to make the most of my life before I go. I want to do all I can, so I can leave all of you behind without regrets."
He's died once before and now he doesn't fear death, but he still doesn't want to die.
Kayano's cheeks streaked with tears, and she clenched her bedsheets, frustrated. "It's not fair," she said. "Nobody deserves to go. There's no reason for you to. I don't understand why nothing can be done for you and you're just accepting that as it is."
Nao curled his hands around hers, and sighed.
"Even if I find a miraculous cure now, we'll be back here in another decade or a dozen," Nao said. "Nobody's ever ready for death. Not with all the warnings or extensions in the world, you'll never be prepared for when it comes. Death will always elude your expectations, that's how it works."
It really didn't make her feel any better.
"It's all humans can do to move on," Nao said. "The people who are left behind, and the people who are passing on, too."
Kayano cried, clinging onto him. "Why can't you just stay with us forever? You, Korosensei, my sister... a world where all of you are here, as our teachers... why couldn't things just be like that?"
There's got to be a fantastical, beautiful, perfect world like that out there somewhere.
But alas, if Aguri didn't die, Korosensei wouldn't exist. And if Korosensei didn't, then neither would this world, this story, this universe, and neither would Naomasa.
Things had to happen to the will of life.
Nao sighed, his hands gently wrapped around her shoulders, cradling her gently.
"The next place I go may or may not be a better place than this. But it'll grow on me, just like all of you."
And surely, from there, another beautiful story will bloom.
-
"Kuma-sensei," Kayano asked, her face still half-buried in Nao's stomach. Her tears were dried by now, but her voice still croaked. "What do you want to be?"
("Do you intend to be an outsider forever?")
It's a little embarrassing, Nao realized, but he looked outside, toward the sunset, and realized that it didn't matter.
"I want to be Korosensei."
Kayano lifted her head in surprise, but Nao focused on himself. On the sunflowers in the vase of the bedside table, the way they bloom, undeterred by anything.
(Do you have desires like that, Kuma-sensei?")
He does. He wants to help people, any way he can. He knows how it feels to be stuck in a ditch, but instead of getting himself out, he wants to stay knee-deep in it, so whoever else falls in can get on his shoulders and help themselves, first.
Nao chuckled. "I mean, I said that, but my desire's nothing as grand or impressive."
He wants to be useful. He wants to be relevant.
He just wants to be something.
"It's fine if just a niche of people know me," he said. "I don't need to be remembered, I don't need to be honoured. But if my words mattered, maybe someone would think of me in passing. It's fine if I'm forgotten-- but just for a little while, I want to be something that isn't just an outsider in the end."
Whatever reaction he was expecting, it was not Kayano grabbing his shoulders fervently. With a tear-streaked face and ironclad resolve, she looked him dead in the eye and unflinchingly declared:
"You're already that!"
It was loud and clear.
"You're already important to me," Kayano promised. "To all of us. You matter to us, so much more than you think of yourself, and— and I just hate that you don't know it yourself. We love you, damn it!"
She continued to rant, long and naggy and fumbling embarrassingly over her words– but they were honest, expressive, and it was every bit the expressive Kayano Kaede that everyone in class had come to know over the year.
It was every bit the love and heart of CLass E that inevitably lived in her.
And now, it was directed at him.
Nao felt so much joy in his chest, he couldn't stop the thread of tears and brimming over his eyes.
"...is that so?" he said, genuinely relieved. "I've already achieved it, huh?"
So he managed to live meaningfully, after all.