Hajime Hinata liked sitting on the beach.
He liked sitting there – alone, no Komaeda in sight, no Souda trying to drag him into something weird, no Mioda shrieking in his ear, and no Saionji being bitchy to someone who couldn't handle it – and looking out across the sea and thinking. Thinking about how nice it'd be if they didn't have to murder each other. Thinking about how nice it must be to actually attend Hope's Peak instead of get there, get that false hope, and then get spirited away to The Island of Death.
Except this time his sitting was interrupted by someone crashing down into the sand next to him, sprawling out so fast that said someone's beanie nearly fell off of his head.
"Souda," Hinata said, and he couldn't really help but feel a little bit disappointed, because he'd had a plan for the rest of the day that had not involved trying to spy on Sonia Nevermind while trying to convince Kazuichi Souda that he had no interest in Sonia Nevermind. But Souda didn't mention Sonia, and if he noticed the tone in Hinata's voice that said he was less than pleased he didn't take any notice of.
"Hinata, man-" he said, his hand finding its way up to his head and shoving his beanie further onto his head. "Where've you been? You're not avoiding me, are you?"
Hinata sort of was, but he said," No."
He didn't want a yelling or crying Souda on his hands.
"Then what're you doing out here all alone? Trying to get away from Komaeda or something?"
That wasn't entirely a lie, so Hinata just shrugged. He gazed out across the sea, trying to get some of the peace he'd had before Souda had turned up back. It didn't quite work. Souda sat up and clapped a hand on his shoulder hard enough to make him jump.
"I know better place to get away from that weirdo."
"This is fine," Hinata said. He dug the heels of his hands into the sand and brought up a handful, tossing it at Souda lightly. Souda yelped and shoved him over, and Hinata chucked a harder handful at him. This went on for a few more minutes until Souda swore and cupped a hand over his eye.
"Shit – um, -"
"What's wrong with you?" Hinata asked, sitting up and putting a hand on Souda's shoulder. He leaned close and used his other hand to try and peel Souda's hand away from his eye, but Souda held tight. Hinata leaned closer, peered at Souda's face; tried to see around the hand if he couldn't get it off.
"I got – sand, in my eye-"
"Blink."
"No, it's under my contact!" Souda wailed. His teeth were gritted, and there was a bit of blood oozing from the corner of his mouth where he must've bit his lip. Hinata felt the weird urge to wipe it off.
"Then get your hand away from your face so I can help you," Hinata said, and Souda scowled and muttered and took his hand away from his face. The eye that had sand in it was running, and it was a little bit red where it shouldn't have been red – Hinata reached up and held open his eye. "Do you want me to stick my fingers in your eye, or can you do it by yourself?"
Souda responded by shaking and whimpering and trying to close his eyes.
Hinata sighed and then his fingers were in his friend's eye. He didn't wear contacts, so he floundered around for a little bit before he managed to get the contact off on his finger, and it was the weirdest thing ever to see Souda stare at him with one pink eye and one brown eye.
"Is it still in there? Blink. What am I supposed to do with this? Take your other one out, you're freaking me out."
Souda took his other contact out and squinted. "You're going to have to help me back to my cabin."
"Why?"
"Because I can't see! You're not a very good soul friend if you won't help a friend in need."
"When did I say I was your soul friend? I never said I was your soul friend."
"I thought we had something special!"
"My God, that sounds like we're dating."
"No it doesn't. That's weird. Why'd you bring that up?"
Hinata rubbed his temples and leaned away from Souda, who had gone from 'too close' to 'nearly on top of him too close' in the past little argument. "I'll help you back to your cabin," he said. Souda scowled and glared at him. The blood was still at the corner of his mouth, and Hinata thought fuck it, and wiped it off with his thumb.
Souda shrieked and fell backward. Hinata rolled his eyes.
"You're bleeding," he said. He still had Souda's contact on one finger. "You wanna take this?"
"Oh, yeah," Souda said, and he sat up and held out the hand that was holding his other contact. Hinata slid the contact to rest with its brethren, and then stood up, pulling Souda behind him. Hinata had to do a lot more of 'drag him around' than 'guard dog', and overall it hadn't been the most successful 'peaceful beach time', but at least it wasn't Komaeda.
I was writing the next chapter of one of my multichaptered fics and I was just like 'fuck it. Soul Friends.'