HIDDEN THINGS ;- identities

You don't like hiding things from her.

After everything you'd both somehow managed to pull through, after all the heartache and chaos and (despair despair despair despair despair) you'd really hoped that you could be fully honest with each other.

Naïve, you now realize. Naïve if not flat-out stupid.

You hadn't accounted for Hinata's regression into his current state. Komaeda's death was probably inevitable, even without intervention. He really had been dying… Hadn't he?

Hinata had sent you a rambling email the evening of Komaeda's burial, a confusing and disjointed thread that alternated between Japanese and other languages—English and French, you eventually concluded. He relayed all he knew about Komaeda's history, emphasizing the astounding powers of his luck, both good and bad, and how he'd broken a "curse" of some sort by "releasing" the poor bastard before he could wreak havoc on the living occupants of the island. You're proficient enough in English to understand most of what he relays in that language, but the French is hopelessly alien to you. You briefly consider commissioning Sonia's help, but decide against it.

The fact that Hinata had murdered Komaeda was certain. You almost thought you could detect the faint smell of almonds lingered around the body. It was hardly noticeable, and if you hadn't known the death was foul play, you wouldn't have noticed the odor—something that should have been unmistakable to you, who oversaw so many murders in your twenty years of life.

How he got his hands on the poison is an utter mystery. However, you manage to commandeer the cyanide from him the following night. He was surprisingly cooperative, giving it up without much protest. Wearing gloves from the kitchen, you filled the little bottle with sand, screwed the lid on tight, and flung it into the ocean. The gloves went in the trash, and you returned to your cabin, where Peko was pretending to sleep.

That was a week ago.

Now you're waking up to a loud banging at your cabin door. You curse under your breath and stand up, motioning for Peko to lie back down before you swing the door open and mutter at Souda to shut the fuck up.

"N-No! No! Y-Y'don't understand! It's Saionji!"

You feel a cold stone like a block of ice sink in your stomach, and you step outside. Blinking in the early morning sunlight, you shut the door and hiss, "What about her?"

"She's gone! Missing! Vanished!"

You stare at the half-hysterical mechanic, a sudden dizziness hitting you like a sharp blow to the head that nearly sends you reeling backwards. It takes a moment for you to gather your bearings, and you take a deep breath before ordering Souda to take a few steps back; you don't want to have to smell his disgusting morning breath. And finally, you react.

"What do you mean she's 'missing'?"

"It's just what it says on the box! I was doin' the morning rounds, checkin' on the pods, an' suddenly I realize one of 'em's open! She just up and disappeared! And Hinata won't answer his door!" The poor guy is in tears at this point, and he wipes his nose on his sleeve.

You balk at the mention of Hinata's evasiveness. Based on how Souda had pounded on your door, you doubt he could have just slept through the mechanic's attempt at getting his attention. You swallow a lump in your throat.

You turn around and walk back into your cabin, locking the door behind you as Souda flings himself against the blocked entryway, crying, cursing, threatening, begging you to come help him. You hardly hear him though. You see a myriad of colors; they distort your vision, a hypnotic kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. Souda's voice seems to break and distort as well. A raucous chorus of voices rings out from every direction, too loud and too many for you to pick out any real meaning. You feel lost in that stupor for hours, days, months, an eternity, a place where time no longer exists, where one of two people you've ever fully trusted holds a knife to your throat, where the orange and yellow hues of dancing kimonos draw nearer and nearer until they're a blazing red. You don't know if you scream or if you just imagine yourself screaming, but something powerful breaks the illusion that surrounds you and you're suddenly leaning back against something warm, the voices fading, the colors dimming until you're unsure if you can see at all. Two arms hold your shaking form, and you can feel the soft brush of a gentle breath at the back of your head.

It takes you some time to orient yourself, but as your trembling stops and your breathing returns to normal, you realize you're on your bed with Peko kneeling behind you, arms wrapped around you, rocking you gently. You reach up and wipe the sweat from your brow and murmur an apology, which receives no verbal response, although her arms briefly tighten around you.

You hate hiding things from her. You expect she heard about what happened to Saionji, but what about everything else? No, no, no no no, you tell yourself. This is for her own good. Any mention of Hinata's recent behavior would put her on high alert. She's dealing with enough as it is. So, as you recover from the throes of the worst bout of panic you've ever experienced, you swear to her that fatigue and shock had gotten the better of you. She doesn't believe you for a second, but she accepts your explanation and offers to make you tea.

It dawns on you, yet again, that you worship the ground she walks on.