"Ah, I see," Komaeda said as he took another cracker out of the pack he had on his lap. "So to recap it all: we've been in some virtual simulator in order to help us recover from Enoshima-san's brainwashing, though something glitched out and now we're the only ones who're awake?"
"More or less, yeah," Hinata said. He glanced over to the others, who were on the other side of their line of beds. The group had decided that it would be best to have Hinata explain the situation to Komaeda by himself; though they said it was because he had the best grasp on the situation and thus would be able to tell it better than any of them, he guessed it was also because they plain just didn't want to interact with Komaeda.
They definitely don't want to interact with him, Kamukura said.
I didn't ask for confirmation, thanks, Hinata said. Turning his attention back towards Komaeda, he said, "Do you have any questions? Anything I didn't explain well enough?" When Komaeda shook his head, he continued, "Now know what's basically going on here, can I ask you some things?"
"Sure, fire away," Komaeda said.
Hinata took a deep breath. "First of all, how much… do you remember?"
"About the simulation?"
"Yeah, if that's alright with you."
Komaeda chuckled. "Yeah, that's fine." He leaned against the wall, the empty packet of crackers crumbled next to him. "Let's see… I definitely remember we were all in a classroom that looked a lot like the one we were in back at Hope's Peak, though at the time I definitely thought it was my first time there. Then, this weird white rabbit popped out of nowhere, introduced herself as our teacher, Usami, and suddenly we were all on a tropical island! And that's where I met you, if I'm remembering right." Hinata nodded, trying to keep the surprise off his face. "Usami told us to go around and talk to everyone to collect these 'hope shards, and once we got all of them, she told us to go towards the central island."
"Then…" Komaeda furrowed his eyebrows. "Then… I can't really remember. I guess that's when the glitch happened, as you called it."
Hinata sighed with relief. Though Komaeda had remembered more than everyone else, he at least couldn't remember anything about Monokuma, or the killing game they'd been forced into. "Thank you, that answers my question." He could feel a twinge of amusement from Kamukura, but chose to ignore it for now.
"Anything else you need to know?" Komaeda asked.
"Just a couple things, though they're mostly just for evaluating your current physical condition." Komaeda nodded and gestured for Hinata to go on. "How are you feeling right now?"
"Tired. Shaky. Though I can't quite feel my left hand," Komaeda said with a laugh.
Hinata grimaced as he glanced at the appendage in question. "We can get Souda to make you a prosthetic replacement, if you like."
"Nah, this is fine for now," Komaeda said. Smiling, he said, "I don't want to burden all of you with my talentless self."
Ah, there he goes. Hinata was hoping that breaking out of the simulation would mean Komaeda's strange obsession with hope and talent would be gone, but alas, such was not the case. "It wouldn't be a burden at all, I can promise you that."
Komaeda shrugged. "I think it's important that I keep it with me, at least for now. I don't want to forget about… well, about what we've done."
Why anyone would want to keep a piece of Enoshima with them was outside of Hinata's comprehension, but he took Komaeda's word for it. It wasn't the strangest thing he'd ever done, that's for sure. Not wanting to linger too long on the subject, Hinata asked, "Are you hurting anywhere?"
"Just some sore muscles." Komaeda rolled his shoulders a bit, and Hinata saw a bead of sweat running down his neck. That's right, he'd just woken picked up a pillow and put it behind Komaeda's head. "Ah, thanks."
"No problem, though I think that should be enough for today. Your body is still weak, more so than anyone else due to your previous health issues."
"I'll be fine, Hinata-kun."
"No," Hinata said firmly, "you need to rest now. Doctor's orders." He took a quick glance over Komaeda's body, noticing just how badly the other was trembling. He didn't need to be an expert to know Komaeda was probably overexerting himself right now just to talk to him.
Komaeda, however, laughed at that. "Since when were you a doctor?" He pretended to think for a moment, before saying, "Oh, right, you're the Ultimate Hope. Of course you'd be a doctor."
"That's-"
"Anyway, I'll go ahead and take that nap you prescribed, Doctor Hinata. Good night!"
Hinata rolled his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile as he watched Komaeda fall asleep. When he was sure his friend had passed out, he made his way over to join the rest of the group on the other side of the beds. Owari waved at him as he sat down.
"Hey, welcome back!" she said, her mouth full of bits of bread and ham.
"Yo," Hinata said as he picked out a sandwich for himself. "What've I missed?"
"We did not want you to be excluded for anything important, so we have just gone over what we found on the Third Island," Sonia explained.
Hinata nodded. "So I guess now it's time for Souda and Owari's report?"
"Eh, nothing new on our part, 'cept for Komaeda randomly waking up," Souda said with a shrug. "There's only so much I can do to upgrade the pods with the materials I have. Optimized them so that they use less energy, that's about it." He paused for a moment and stared at Hinata for a moment. "Uh, hey man, I didn't realize it when you walked in, but, er…"
"What happened to your hair?" Owari asked. She picked up a lock and frowned. "It's all gone!"
"I cut it for him," said Kuzuryuu as he proudly puffed his chest. "Not a bad job, huh?"
"It's still longer than I'd like it to be," Hinata muttered. Owari and Souda both burst out laughing, only for Sonia to shush them with a quiet "shhhh".
"I'll tell you what, Hinata," Owari said in between fits of laughter, "I'll fix your hair back up next time we go out, even though you look really pretty right now."
"Absolutely stunning!" Souda added.
Hinata sighed. "That'll be great, if you don't mind. Thanks, Owari."
"No problem!" Owari said, beaming brightly.
"Ha?! You're saying I cut it badly?" Kuzuryuu said with mock offense.
Hinata defensively put up his hands. "No, no, not at all! I'd just prefer it to be shorter, that's all,"
Kuzuryuu huffed. "Ungrateful bastard."
"So… what's our plan for tomorrow then?" Owari asked.
"W-w-w-wait! What about me?!"
"The hell are you going on about, Souda?" Kuzuryuu asked with a raised eyebrow.
Souda wildly gestured towards his currently occupied bed. "I need a place to sleep! How can I sleep if Komaeda's there?"
"You could share the bed with him," Owari said.
Souda grimaced. "Eugh, no way! I think I'll just take a cottage, thank you!"
Hinata blinked, an epiphany suddenly hitting him. "That's actually an excellent idea!" he said, almost shouting. He clapped a hand over his mouth as he reminded himself that there was a sleeping person in the room.
Souda looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Huh? What was with that sudden outburst?"
"Well… if Komaeda's woken up, it shouldn't be long before others start waking up as well, right?" Hinata said.
"If we assume it wasn't his luck that woke him up way before everyone else," he heard Kuzuryuu mutter. Hinata chose to ignore that.
"If they start waking up, they'll need a place to rest while they recover. However, they'll likely be weak like we were when we first woke up, so it'll be best if they stayed here and took the beds. And since we're all basically well enough to walk around now, we could go sleep in the cottages instead."
All of them seemed to think for a while. "That's not a bad idea," Owari finally mused, "but how will we communicate with each other? Y'know, in case there's an emergency, or whatever."
Sonia took out the cellphones and walkie-talkies from her bag. "We got these from Electric Avenue. I am unsure if the phones will work, but the walkie-talkies should function well enough for our purposes."
"Oooh, what an excellent solution, Miss Sonia!" Souda excitedly grabbed one of the walkie-talkies and looked it over. "Hm, maybe I could tweak these so that their range extends over all the islands. What do you think, Miss Sonia?"
Sonia, however, was looking at at Hinata now. "So we will go rest at the hotel from now on, correct?"
"Er, yeah, pretty much," he said.
"But do we not still need someone to watch over our friends, should something happen to them?"
Right, that would be an issue. Hinata scratched the back of his head. "I guess I could do that for now. I mean, I'm the only one with medical knowledge and stuff to know how to deal with potential complications."
"You mean Kamukura's the only bastard with medical knowledge," Kuzuryuu pointed out.
Hinata took a deep breath. "Yes, but you get what I mean. It'll be one less bed, but we could always move more mattresses from the cottages if we ever really need to." Plus, Hinata noted to himself, if he stays here, he gets to keep an eye on Komaeda, should his condition suddenly worsen. When everyone nodded in agreement, Hinata said, "Alright, with that solved, what about our plan for tomorrow?"
After a bit of short discussion, the group came to the conclusion that exploring the fourth island could be put on hold. Souda insisted that he needed to go to the Third Island and take a look at Electric Avenue, and see if he could scavenge anything there that he could use for the pods and whatever else they might need. Owari and Kuzuryuu had agreed to go with him. Meanwhile, Sonia would stay behind to help look after their other classmates while Kamukura worked on hacking into the simulation and looking into precisely why Komaeda had been able to wake up before everyone else. When everyone agreed to the plan, the group dispersed, with the other four picking up what few belongings they had (mostly just clothes and the walkie-talkies) before waving at Hinata and leaving the building.
Hinata exhaled loudly, making his way over to his bed. Komaeda's heavy breathing let him know the other man was still fast asleep, despite all the noise he and the rest of the group had made. For a second, he wondered if Komaeda had somehow slipped back into his coma; with his already poor physical condition, it wouldn't be surprising if he somehow did. He found himself reaching over to adjust the blanket, only for Komaeda to curl away from him.
He'll be fine, Kamukura said. He's been fidgeting in his sleep and responds to touch in a non-reflexive way.
Hinata sighed in relief. That's good to know. He looked at Komaeda for a while longer before finally pulling his covers over himself.
It's alright if I fall asleep then, right? He'd had a long day, and found his eyelids quite heavy now that he was lying down.
Komaeda Nagito's condition is relatively stable, though I'll check up on him once every two hours to ensure that his health does not worsen while you're unconscious.
I'm not sure our body can take tha-
You forget that our body has been enhanced beyond normal human capabilities.
Hinata rolled his eyes, but didn't argue any further. Alright, suit yourself. Good night, Kamukura.
Night.
(A/N: I'm so sorry it took me so long to update, but I've had so much on my plate lately it's been hard to find time to continue writing. Updates will be sporadic, depending on how much I can get done, but hopefully I can keep to some sort of schedule.)
