"There's more beauty in truth, even if it is dreadful beauty."
- John Steinbeck, East of Eden
-ooo-
"Look, I mean, it's nothing personal, but…" Souda trailed off looking like he'd rather be grinding his teeth to points with a hand-sander than standing on the deck of the ship attempting to speak with him about sleeping arrangements on the boat.
No, not him.
Them.
Talking to them about sleeping arrangements.
Because it was clear that Souda was attempting to address his proclamation to the two of them.
Komaeda, for his part, was slumped forward against the low railing beside him, dozing against folded arms, oblivious to both Souda's presence and his words.
"I mean, it's just…." Souda tried again before trailing off.
He was floundering, flailing about like a drowning man in search of a lifeline.
And while he could have taken pity on him and removed the burden of explanation by confessing he had known this was how things would work out long before they'd finally come aboard and begun counting rooms and realized they'd all need to share, he didn't.
It was far more interesting to watch him squirm beneath his stare.
He was aware it was disconcerting.
But as far as he was concerned, Souda had no one to blame but himself for agreeing to take on this thankless task.
He'd done well enough to start, informing them with a strained smile, it had been decided by the rest of the group, after much apparent discussion, that they should be given the captain's cabin to share since it was the biggest and the nicest.
And because it- oh, by the way, though it's really barely even worth mentioning - was the only cabin aboard on the ship with only one bed.
Though Souda didn't volunteer any more specific information about the decision or how he'd been elected to tell them the news, it wasn't difficult to determine that it had almost certainly been Koizumi's idea or that it had also been Kozumi who had had Sonia ask Souda to deliver the news.
The fact that Sonia was the one who had put him up to this was easy enough to determine, Souda wouldn't have looked half so red in the face if he'd been ordered to do this particularly thankless job by anyone else.
He sighed heavily and started again at the explanation he'd been tripping on for the better part of ten minutes, "Look, just it's… I mean… you're both kind of…"
He made a vague helpless gesture that could have meant anything at all, but in this instance almost certainly meant something in the neighborhood of: you're both really creepy and no one wants to room with you.
Which was not inaccurate, he supposed, but clearly also wasn't something Souda or anyone else were entirely willing to say to his face.
"You're, uh, you know, um… friends, right? And um…" He trailed off, clearly as a loss, turning over words in his head, looking for something, anything, that wasn't: you're both freaking everyone out just by existing.
He could see the moment he finally struck upon inspiration, could practically see the light bulb spring to life above his head as he blurted out: "Lucky!"
He nodded adamantly, with a wide relieved grin as he immediately and completely committed to the idea, leaping upon it like it was the last bus out of town before doomsday, "Yeah, you, um, you both have that luck thing, right? So, it's probably better if you room together."
He looked relieved to have stumbled into an excuse, particularly one that was actually plausible and only mildly offensive.
Something that he immediately ruined by not simply quitting while he was ahead.
"And, I mean, aren't you guys also like…." Souda made a vaguely rude gesture that was neither accurate nor anatomically possible.
"No," he replied simply.
He's pretty sure he would have said it differently before, protested the suggestion more firmly, maybe even been offended by it or at least embarrassed, but he couldn't quite bring himself to be bothered by it now.
It was inaccurate, of course, but he could admit to himself- as he'd been unable to before- that he'd enjoyed their time together on the island even if it had often made him feel ill-at-ease. Komaeda had been and still was, surprising and chaotic and anything but simple, but he liked that about him. It held his interest in a way few things could.
"You shouldn't suggest he'd do something like that with someone like me," Komaeda murmured, contrarily rousing himself from his impromptu nap at the worst possible moment. His voice was still thick with sleep his response likely born from long habit rather than deep thought. "Though his talent isn't even real, so it's not like he would have many prospects."
The insults didn't particularly bother him.
They would have once, but that had been before.
That had been in the simulation during those last few terrible days before the trial and after when Komaeda had looked him as if he were… a disappointment, a betrayal, barely worthy of his attention at all and every word and dismissive glance and cut deeper than the last.
Well.
They'd both been different then.
Things had been easier between them in the aftermath, quieter. They hadn't actually spoken much since Komaeda had awakened though he wasn't sure if that was chance or if they just didn't quite know what to say and not knowing the answer to that question is a novelty that has not yet grown stale.
Whatever the reason, it certainly wasn't because they weren't spending much time together.
Since he'd woken from his comatose state, Komaeda's sleep schedule had been erratic at best. He was awake throughout the night, occupying his hours with cleaning every nook and cranny of first the island and then the ship as if trying to make up for lost time by being as useful as physically possible during his waking hours. Thoroughly exhausted by overexerting himself throughout the night and made drowsy by the medications he was on to manage his condition until they were able to cure the last of his physical ailments, he then spent most of his days falling asleep in odd places. Since he already didn't sleep much and the others were so very obviously avoiding him and demonstratively ill-at-ease when he was around and Komaeda seemed unperturbed by his presence, he'd made a habit of keeping tabs on Komaeda throughout the day. Always lingering nearby to make sure he didn't accidentally fall into the ocean or burn in the sun or get eaten by one of the hungry, feral animals that roamed the islands.
He was already well-used to watching over Komaeda as he slept, after all.
He reached out and caught a lock of pale hair that had slipped free of the ponytail Komaeda had knotted it into earlier that day.
"I don't mind," he commented, coiling the hair around his finger and giving it a gentle tug before releasing it back into the afternoon breeze.
"I do," Komaeda replied, turning his head to glare at him though the effort was undercut by the vague, bleary lack of focus in his gaze. Komaeda wasn't at his best in the early afternoon even on his better days, usually wilting beneath the merciless rays of the sun and retreating to huddle in the shade once the heat of the day really set in.
"Do you want the room to yourself then?" He asked, ignoring the sputtering noise from Souda that made him sound like broken water spigot springing to reluctant life.
Komaeda frowned, "That would be best. Most accidents happen in the home, you know, and I think sharing a room would qualify as a home. Though I'm grateful someone with your talent would be willing to share space with someone like me... even if your talent is artificial and barely worth mentioning. Oh, not that I think you'd want to make your home with trash like me, but you might slip in the shower or fall out a window or…."
His pale face was flushed and he chewed at his bottom lip, thoughts already running in circles around all the terrible possibilities.
"I think, of the two of us, you're far more likely to slip in the shower."
"All the more reason not to room with me. I might break a pipe and flood the room and you'd drown."
"You realize I know the likelihood of any of that actually happening, right?"
Souda made a choking noise somewhere between a laugh and a groan, but he doesn't bother to look up at him, keeping his gaze trained on Komaeda instead as he continued to mutter his way through all the reasons no one should ever room with him or exist near him or breathe the same air as him, the relentless stream of words running together as his eyes began to droop again.
He waited until the words had almost run out, becoming a soft mumble he might not have been able to make out at all if he weren't sitting so near, before turning his gaze back to where Souda was still hovering over them looking torn between interrupting and running away screaming, "You can tell the others it's fine. We'll room together."
"Cool, I'll, um, just go do that," Souda replied, sounding a little nervous.
If he were a better person he might have spared a moment to put him at ease, but as it was he just let him go.
None of them were really good people, after all, though they were trying their best to become something better than they'd been.
"Hinata."
When he turned back to look at him, Komaeda seemed to have gained a second wind, fully awake once more, his gaze intense and unrelenting and he could already hear the echo of the inevitable admonishments ringing in the air before Komaeda even opened his mouth to offer them.
"I already know everything you're going to say," he cut in smoothly, waving a hand between them as if that alone might be enough to clear away Komaeda's doubts. "I'm not concerned about the risks and I don't want to share with anyone else. And no one else would be willing to share with me even if I was. If you don't want to share a bed with me, that's fine. I don't require much rest so I can always nap when you're out of the room, but everyone is going to be rooming with someone. The ship isn't big enough for other arrangements. We're already going to be one too many as it is once we successfully retrieve Mitarai Ryota."
There was no room within him, within any of them, for the idea of failure.
Mitarai was one of theirs... even if he didn't quite realize it yet.
Komaeda sighed and shook his head, "I probably shouldn't be surprised that all that surgery has impaired your judgement."
"Thanks for that," he muttered dryly, rolling his eyes. Sometimes when he's with Komaeda like this, he finds himself drifting back into old habits. Remembering how it felt to be Hinata Hajime rather than a shadow of Kamukura Izuru, rather than someone with too much and not enough of either of them. "You make it really difficult to like you sometimes."
"I'm sure that's probably true," Komaeda replied serenely. "I'm really-"
"Look, do you want me in your bed or not?" He cut in sharply before Komaeda could start spiraling down that particular rabbit hole again.
Komaeda's breath hissed out sharp between clenched teeth, pale fingers tightening against the railing, gaze going vague and unfocused again, eyelids fluttering.
His stomach dropped and his fingers clenched into fists where they'd landed against his knees, heat rushing to his face as he realized he'd worded that last bit extremely poorly.
Or perhaps he'd worded it exactly right.
His predictive abilities weren't what they'd been, dulled by emotion and memory and the loss of the cold, ruthless clarity with which Kamukura Izuru had viewed the world, but sometimes… sometimes he still caught glimpses of what might be, images as bright and consuming as a lightning strike.
And for a moment, he saw Komaeda above him, felt his palms fever hot and ice cold, flesh and synthetic fibers and metal framing his face, holding him still. His eyes were huge and dark, cast in shadow by the moonlight that's made his hair practically glow, pale and tangled and messy where it framed his face.
He's beautiful.
He's also wearing the stupidest shirt he's ever seen.
Bright yellow with a picture of some sort of cartoon dog with its tongue hanging out. His knees are bare where he sat straddling his waist. the checkered pattern of his shorts just peeking out from beneath the hem of the too large t-shirt which- besides being eye-searingly hideous- was also enormous on him, hanging loose and crooked across his pale shoulders.
He can feel himself smiling up at him.
And just as sudden as it came upon him the image was gone and the Komaeda of the present was frowning at him, his cheeks pink and eyes bright, as he chewed at his bottom lip thoughtfully.
"Okay, I guess it's fine," he answered finally.
He nodded slowly, taking a shaky breath, "Okay. We should go look at the cabin then. It probably needs to be cleaned thoroughly again otherwise you'll have trouble sleeping there," he commented, getting to his feet and offering a hand to Komaeda who took it slowly, reluctantly, allowing him to help him to his feet in uncharacteristic silence.
They'd spent the remainder of the afternoon cleaning, finding new bedding at the hotel, and choosing from the limited selection of undamaged books in the library to fill the crooked shelves that some enterprising former occupant had screwed to the wall in one corner of room.
That night they'd set out, disabling the Future Foundation ships as they arrived and leaving them dead in the water near enough to the shores of Jabberwocky Island that they wouldn't have any difficulties making their way to shore to call for aid from their compatriots.
The first night had been quiet, sober, most everyone turning in early to their private spaces, all vaguely worried about what they would find when they reached their intended destination.
He had stayed up through the night on the bridge, steering the boat and keeping an eye on the waters for signs of trouble.
Eventually, during the quiet, blue hours of early morning, Komaeda had wandered in to join him, slumping into one of the chairs with a yawn.
For a awhile, he'd been so quiet he'd thought he'd simply fallen asleep.
And then came the question, slow and quiet: "Why did you come for me?"
It wasn't a question he wanted to answer.
Which, to be fair, is likely why Komaeda had chosen to ask it.
He'd been expecting it sooner, if he were honest, had been waiting for it since the moment Komaeda had opened his eyes in that dark room lit only by computer running lights and loud with the unrelenting hum of electronics.
"I came for all of you," he answered, keeping his gaze on the dark of the ocean beyond the windows. "Why would you be any different?"
It was an answer, but it wasn't the answer, but Komaeda had sighed and excepted it without protest or complaint.
They'd spent the rest of the night in relative silence as their ship cut through the water towards their destination.
After their clash with the Future Foundation, things had slowly begun to change for the better.
The tension between them and the others had eased almost immediately upon their return to the boat with Mitarai in tow as if somehow fighting and defeating that last bastion of despair had been enough to bind them together in all the ways the program had ultimately failed to do.
They all made the decision together to stay aboard the ship, to travel and do what they could to help rebuild the world they'd helped destroy. In the long weeks that followed, he made a point of teaching any who were willing to learn what he knew about navigation and steerage and ships. And while some had not taken to the lessons at all, others had excelled and they'd set up shifts and more and more frequently in the days and weeks that followed he found himself at loose ends. Found himself drifting to their cabin as the night grew dark and more and more frequently, he spent the lion's share of his nights laying beside Komaeda in their bed- a bed that was just big enough for two- as he stared up at the ceiling unable to sleep and unwilling to be out haunting the deck of the ship like a restless spirit.
And, if he were honest, he might be willing to admit that he liked Komaeda's company.
Even if- as he had discovered three weeks after their confrontation with the Future Foundation- Komaeda had rather questionable tastes when it came to how he preferred to pass the time.
When they couldn't sleep, usually during those late, hot, sticky nights when the ocean air was strangely calm and the cabin walls felt as if they were pressing too close around them, they played games.
Child's games, mostly, simple things they could play in the dark.
Harmless games that always turned a bit too harsh in adult hands.
"Never have I ever been so desperate to be special that I allowed a school to engage in illegal experimentation on my brain," Komaeda offered, a smile in his voice and no doubt on his lips as well.
"Never have I ever killed myself trying to prove a point," he snapped back after taking a quick drink from his water bottle.
No game ever lasted particularly long, exchanged for something new whenever it began to grow stale or turn too cruel... though no game was every particularly kind either.
Most often, they took turns asking questions and offering answers that they knew would be unwelcome. Words that would sting and echo long after the syllables had faded from the air, some caustic enough to strip the chipping paint from the walls. As the weeks passed, it became a competition of sorts, to see how far they would take it, each of them poking at wounds that had barely healed or wounds that were still as fresh as the day they'd been made.
The same questions, the same answers every time, more or less, each of them always dancing so very carefully around the truth at the heart of each.
Truth, after all, was a challenge for them both.
A challenge to give and a challenge to receive and he imagined that if the others saw or heard them, they'd have been horrified by every cheap shot and low blow, each its own strange, compact, carefully crafted hell.
"Never have I ever forgotten my favorite color."
Both sip their water.
"Never have I ever forgotten what my parents look like."
They drink.
"Never have I ever wondered if I deserve to be here."
And drink.
Firsts and favorites, preferences and experiences, so much of what they had been was missing or forgotten or had never been known at all and neither of them can say with any certainty which is which more often than not.
The games confirm for each of them again and again that they don't actually know very much about themselves at all.
Still, there was a certain comfort in it.
In shared pain.
In knowing they weren't alone.
Early on, they'd tried out a number of different games, but they'd found out quickly enough that luck had presented an issue with guessing games.
"Are you an animal?"
"Yes."
"Ah... um, are you a platypus?"
"Correct."
"Are you an object?"
"Yes."
"You're a fireplace poker."
"You're really good at this."
"So are you."
It had grown painfully boring before the first hour had passed and they'd both agreed that guessing games weren't for them.
They'd barely lasted three rounds playing two lies and one truth for very much the same reason.
The few word association games they had attempted presented issues of sustainability on the other end of the spectrum as neither of them had ever faltered at their guesses. No matter how seemingly random those guesses had been, they had always proved inevitably correct.
"Bread."
"Dough."
"Money."
"Hope."
"What? Seriously?"
"You don't think so?"
"Seems a little off trend."
"There's hope to be found everywhere, Hinata."
"Fine, okay, but you can't use it again this round."
"Oh, okay, that's fine."
"Komaeda."
"Hm?"
"No, that's my word."
"Oh."
Even when one of them attempted to get the answer wrong on purpose, it rarely worked out as the other was almost inevitably attempting to tank the game at the exact same moment.
They'd once kept a round going for hours and it had ended only when Komaeda had fallen asleep murmuring the last of his answers against his collarbone, the syllables slurring and running together as they had eventually trailed off into nothing.
Over the long months they spent at sea, eventually all their games had been retired one by one until at last all that had remained had been a simple question exchange that they played until one or both of them drifted off to sleep in the early hours just before dawn.
A question for a question and an answer for an answer.
When they were lucky- and they were always lucky- they found they knew instinctively where best to strike on any particular day. Precisely which questions would yield the best result, would most efficiently needle at their insecurities or cut the deepest. It hadn't actually taken very long for each of them to realize in turn that all those questions they couldn't answer were never quite as painful as those they could.
Every cut, every bruise, he received from Komaeda's deftly wielded words reminded him that he was real, that Komaeda was real, that each day they spend together was nothing close to ideal and somehow never quite what he expected... and each of those realizations is a relief that makes it easier to breathe, to exist in the spaces between.
He hadn't the least idea what Komaeda got from their exchanges, but he hoped that one day he'd have the courage to ask and find out.
For months, they traded barbs like blows in the soft moonlit dark of their cabin and eventually, sometimes, most times, there was something sweet to be found in the aftermath.
Quiet, earnest confessions edged with the kind of honesty only pain could bring. Sometimes there was a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on. Always there were moments of reluctant intimacy that were easier to accept and trust once they'd gotten the verbal bloodletting out of the way beforehand, each exchange gentler for the cruelty that proceeded them.
"Why did you come for me?" Komaeda asked again one clear, humid night when the sky was filled with clouds and the light of the moon was weak where it peered in through the windows of their cabin.
The question was soft and sober and utterly impossible to take seriously because he was wearing that stupid novelty t-shirt Owari had purchased for him at their last stopover.
It was hideous and yellow and familiar in a way he couldn't quite place.
Unsurprisingly, Komaeda had absolutely loved it, proclaiming it beautiful though it was anything but.
"Haven't you asked me that question before?"
"You didn't answer it then either," Komaeda laughed, still all false good cheer and subtle lies. Nothing real yet, but that would come and he was content to wait for him.
The real Komaeda- the one beneath the pleasant mask he so often wore, the one whose real smiles were slow and hard won, who was proud and a little mean and capable of making demands instead of accepting what meager offerings were given him, who kissed like he'd crawl inside him and live there if he could- that Komaeda was always worth the wait.
"Well, it's not a very interesting question," he shrugged, examining his shiny, red tipped fingernails. He'd gotten in the habit of allowing Komaeda to paint them however he liked when he felt like it. Sometimes they'd be bare for weeks at a time. Other times he'd find himself lying on his belly, arms stretched out and fingers spread wide while Komaeda carefully wiped away the old colors to replace them with new painstakingly drawn strips of vibrant color across the nail of each finger.
He always gave each new color scheme a name and they were all completely awful, always something like Hopeful Sunset or Promise of Sunrise or something equally nauseating.
"Well, if you can't answer it, I suppose I'll take the forfeit. Someone like you can't really be expected to answer a simple question. There's really no telling what kind of lasting damage those alterations would have on someone so unremarkable, after all."
The words stung, they always did, but they were a relief as well so he laughed, shaking his head as he lunged across the bed and pressed Komaeda's bare shoulders back against the mattress, straddled his hips, pinning them down firmly beneath his greater weight.
Komaeda didn't struggle, he never did, simply stared up at him serenely with those half-mad, laughing eyes he'd come to know so well, "Well?"
He brushed the back of his hand against his cheek, watching his smile vanish like the moon disappearing behind a wayward cloud.
"I wanted to see you again," he answered, sudden and honest, taking satisfaction in the way Komaeda's eyes widened, the way his breath punched out of him like his words were an unexpected blow. He could feel the reaction, the sudden tension in the shift of his hips, the stillness in his muscles like a rabbit sensing a predator and preparing to run.
"It's not nice to lie, Hinata."
"I don't," he replied quickly, easily. "Not to you."
And he hadn't.
Not in a really long time.
Not since the island and even then he'd never lied to him intentionally.
"What did you dream about?"
Komaeda's hand was warm where it landed against his thigh and he let him roll him over, watched impassively as Komaeda shifted to straddle his waist in turn.
He smiled down at him almost sweetly, "A world in which you didn't exist and everyone was happy."
It hurt.
"And then you came and ruined everything," Komaeda continued unasked, gaze half-shuttered, soft and grey in the moonlight. "Why?"
"Everyone else might have been happy, but you weren't," he murmured, enjoying the way he winced at that, the way he frowned.
He always bruised so easily.
They both did.
Komaeda's inhale is like the rattle of a snake before the strike, "I was."
And it wasn't quite a lie, but it wasn't quite the truth either.
"Content to stand at the sidelines and watch life happen around you," he replied easily, pushing him back so that he fell to the bed beneath him and he could lean forward and push that ridiculous t-shirt up and press the words into his flesh, trace their shape across ribs that still stood out too prominently even after months of treatment and double helpings of Hanamura's cooking. "Happiness by proxy isn't happiness, Komaeda."
"It was more than I deserved," he replied, meaning every word of a lie he might never fully escape. "He said you weren't watching."
It's not quite an accusation, but it's close.
"I didn't need to look to know what world you would create for yourself," he answered though it hadn't truly been a question. "You're predictable, you always have been."
"That must be boring," Komaeda commented, fingers tangling in his hair, coiling the length around his hand before pulling hard enough to hurt, tugging him off balance. He allowed himself to be tumbled over once more and Komaeda clamored on top of him once more.
His hair was getting too long again.
He'd need to ask Mioda to cut it soon.
Last time she'd insisted on giving him a mohawk and upon seeing the end result Komaeda had laughed and apologized for laughing and then laughed some more for the better part of a day.
Komaeda's hair was a soft tangle so pale that it almost seemed to glow as the clouds moved briefly aside to wash their cabin in heavy shadows and bright white light.
His shirt was ridiculous and so was he.
His hands settled against either side of his face, synthetic cool and human warm, as he dropped his face down close enough that their noses bumped, "I thought you hated things that bored you."
It's not quite a question, but he answered anyway, smiling, his chest warm and tight.
"I do," he answered carefully, smiling up at him. "But I don't mind when it's you."