happy birthday komaeda nagito!
much thanks to yara for helping to motivate me through this. i love you so much you're such a big inspiration to me
When Nagito Komaeda opened his eyes, the light came in slowly, brightening his dim, dark vision after what felt like an eternity. It quickly became all too much, the fuzzy and blurry mess he saw turning into nothing but harsh, nearly blinding whiteness. He immediately shut his eyes again, suddenly becoming aware of the coldness of wherever he was, and his thoughts could only hazily drift towards a vague desire to go back to a warm, peaceful sleep.
"Komaeda?" The voice sounded distant, and it probably should have been impossible to tell who it was, but the gut feeling - or perhaps it was hope - of who it was caused him to open his eyes again, this time even slower.
Things came into focus at a turtle's pace, darkness and light mixing and blending and separating again until they eventually formed solid shapes. Above him was a white, tiled ceiling, and little else was in his field of vision except for on his sides were what must have been bars to a hospital bed.
"Komaeda?" The voice came again, this time with enough clarity that he knew who it was instantly. Komaeda turned his head, and there he was, sitting at the edge of a seat next to the bed, head leaned in and eyes meeting his directly.
"Hinata-kun," he said, voice weak and a bit hoarse, as if he hadn't used it in weeks. Hajme Hinata. Hinata-kun. He knew him. He was - at their school? At Kibougamine. No, there was more to it than that. He was -
"You're awake," Hinata stated, as if saying it out loud would make it an irreversible truth, one that could never be taken away. His eyes remained focused on Komaeda's, like he was trying to take in their every detail, like it had been ages since he last saw them.
"Hinata-kun…" Komaeda repeated, eyes finally tearing themselves away from the other, and scanning the room around him. It was nearly empty; he was next to a window and there was a door on one wall, and there were a few IVs stuck into his arm that lead up into a bag next to his bed, but other than that, the room was bare. He looked back over at Hinata. "What… happened?"
Hinata's head tilted to the side a bit, a slightly worried expression coming across his face. "Do you… not remember?"
Remember. Remember what?
"Anything?" Hinata pressed, leaning in a bit further, voice becoming a little anxious. "You remember me. Do you remember Kibougamine? Do you remember - the island?"
"Kibougamine," Komaeda said quietly. "Yes. I went to school there. And then…" He gazed down. He was covered by not just a blanket, but also by his own jacket, spread neatly across his torso as a makeshift cover. Absentmindedly, he raised one of his arms, and his breath caught in his throat. Where his wrist should have connected into his hand, it simply ended, covered in several white bandages. Right. Of course. He lost it when -
"Komaeda," Hinata said quickly, "listen -"
"It's all right," Komaeda interrupted, visions and memories suddenly flooding into his mind faster than he could keep up with. "I remember." Kibougamine, Junko Enoshima, the worst, most despair-inducing incident in the history of Kibougamine, the island, Hinata-kun and his other classmates, finding out they were a part of Super High School Level Despair, and -
He met Hinata's gaze again. He was completely still, staring at Komaeda with a mix of apprehension and worry. Finally, he let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, and cast his eyes away to some corner of the room. Komaeda hadn't verbally asked for an explanation, so Hinata wasn't quite sure why he just knew that he was asking for one with the way he looked at him. "Everyone remembers," he said, unsure of where to begin. "Everyone else is awake, too. We're still on the island. After… after your trial… Nanami - the Future Foundation mole - was… executed." Hinata paused, biting his tongue, eyes looking back over to Komaeda, who remained expressionless. "After that, things got… weird. We had one more trial, and we ended up being helped by some Future Foundation members who came into the program. And everyone was alright in the end. That's… the short version, anyway. It's… it's been about a month since that happened."
A long silence ensued as Komaeda's gaze moved to look out the window, Hinata's eyes still watching him closely. "Why are you here?" He eventually asked.
"Why?" Hinata repeated. "I… I check on you everyday. I've been waiting… for you to wake up."
"Don't you hate me?"
"No," Hinata said, almost instantly, almost like he preemptively knew that Komaeda would ask him that. Which was strange, because he hadn't thought about what this conversation might be like at all. He hadn't thought about what they might talk about when Komaeda woke up; he had been so focused on waiting, every day, anxiously, waiting for him to open his eyes, especially once the others had already woken up, there wasn't much else he thought about. So it was strange that Hinata felt like he knew Komaeda would ask that, and it was strange how when Komaeda had voiced the idea that he thought Hinata hated him, Hinata's chest felt like it was gripped in a vice, constricted painfully around his heart.
"You're just like you were then," Komaeda said, eyes moving back to meet the other's. "Even when everyone else avoids me, you don't. Even though I did such horrible things…"
"Komaeda…" Hinata took a deep breath, gaze looking over Komaeda - his fluffy hair that was nearly translucent in the the light, his pale, pale skin, and his sad, lonely eyes. It was a look Hinata felt like he had seen before - it only took a moment for him to place it, the memory hitting him like a weight pushing into his chest. It was vivid, like it had happened minutes before, though it felt like ages ago.
"Don't forget," Komaeda had said, with the same, lonely look in his eyes, though with a small, sad smile, "that I love...the hope sleeping within you… from the bottom of my heart."
"Everyone… has made some mistakes," Hinata said, trying to shake off the memory for now as it was making his heart sink like it was made of lead. "But we're all trying to move past them. We all have some things we haven't forgiven yet, and… it may be a while before we do. But… we're all moving toward a future, together. So…"
"But -"
"It doesn't matter," Hinata continued. "It's not going to be like before. Like I said… everyone is trying to put what is done behind them." Again, Hinata had answered the question before it was asked. But that's because it was obvious. It was obvious what he was going to ask. Because it was Komaeda; the same Komaeda he had spent all that time talking to, the same Komaeda that Hinata had come to understand. The same Komaeda that perhaps he couldn't forgive yet.
And yet, he was also the same Komaeda that was -
"Besides… we're friends. So I'll be looking out for you."
"Hi… Hinata-kun." There was a pause, Komaeda's eyes a bit wide, but also shimmering just a little. Hinata's mouth cracked into the tiniest smile. "Hinata-kun… you're crying."
He hadn't realized it himself, but Hinata only shook his head, as a few tears trailed silently down his cheeks, a small still on his face. "I'm happy. You're awake." After a moment, he leaned down, his arms coming up along Komaeda's sides and wrapping around his neck as he pulled him into gentle, loose, but firm hug.
For a long time, there was silence, until eventually came the sound of Komaeda's arms slowly and hesitantly sliding up Hinata's waist, returning the loose embrace, along with the soft, muffled sound of him holding back a quiet sob. "Hinata-kun… I'm sorry. And thank you."
OTL i hate how it turned out so much lmao rip me i'm not going to proofread so sorry for mistakes uhh. i wanted to include some line(s) about how hinata's the one who draped komaeda's coat over him because he seemed cold but it never seemed to work wherever i put it. so.