A/N: For the Haiku Challenge (As autumn deepens / I wonder about our neighbors; / what does he do?) on the Anime and Manga Fanfiction Challenges forum.
{[in the ( blink ) of an eye]}
"Hinata-kun... Please don't ever forget..."
It starts on the beach.
In the blink of an eye, he's there. Offering his hand in support, fingers enclosing yours in a quasi-intimate gesture, pulling you staggering to your feet.
He's always been there.
His eyes first caught yours when you jerked to life on the sweltering wind-blasted sand—his ash-grey eyes, the colour of cremains and anguish and aching despair. It's a quirk to him, that machiavellian glint that doesn't quite corroborate with his carefree smile, and those winter-dashed eyes that are always unfocused, as if he's not quite there, even when he spiels with flawless eloquence and coherence, or when his gaze flickers to you during a trial, the twinkle in his eye an inside joke shared between you you don't understand.
Nagito Komaeda is a mystery you'll never solve.
"Hinata-kun," he says, your name rolling off his tongue, and that one word is apricity on your skin, laughter like a fleeting caress tracing wistfulness in circles on your back.
And you hate him; hatehatehate how he's proven himself as a strategist, formulating a one-step equation to make you pause for a moment, take in the sense in his preposterous words that weren't there before. You hate how he tugs at your heartstrings and orchestrates a symphony that is both insanity and clarity.
Ironically, trying to make sense of him is hopeless.
"Wait, Hinata-kun—!"
(You're done with his nonsense. Your hands are balled into fists, teeth gritting his careless lies, the world a blur of white and grey. Heat suffuses your face, and it's too hot, too bloody hot, and he's still blathering, but you need to sit down and calm your frayed nerves and think, but there's too much noise, always—)
"P-please don't ever forget... That I love..."
(The world stops. He trails off, carmine soaking his cheeks, confidence reduced to a stuttering lisp. Your breath hitches, your throat constricting in a suffocating way—)
"I love your hope from the bottom of my heart."
(—almost like how his words stab your heart.
You hatehatehate how he and only he can make you feel like this.)
You never could figure out his cryptic clues deliberately scattered to crack the code of Komaeda himself. You were always scrambling in the dust his sneakers left behind, raking up grime and dirt spelling out indecipherable meanings which left you even more confused than before. He was a million-step algorithm riddled with interlocking caricatures of mysteries that you never understood and never will now.
When finally, finally his last words to you clicked and the final puzzle piece fell into place, it was too late.
In the blink of an eye, he's there—and in the blink of an eye, he's gone.
.
("Despite all this ridiculous talk, you don't have any hope of your own, do you, Komaeda?" you once spat, venom curled into your words.
"You are my hope, Kamukura-kun," was his sarcastic reply, and you gave an acerbity-laced laugh in response.
"Another toast." You raised your glasses in unison. Mirror reflections. "To the Super High School Level Despairs.")
.
Fin.
"Please don't ever forget... That I love you."