Hinata woke up from his sleep slowly, like his dream was trying to reel him back into the safety, the comfortable feeling he had had in his dream. He couldn't even remember at this point what the dream was, but he knew his hand had been warm like it had been held and everything had felt alright. It was almost tempting to just return to sleep, but at the same time he felt something pushing him awake.

The warm feeling of having his hand held felt like it lingered longer than the rest of his dream, like it was an anchor keeping him still. Eventually, he opened his eyes slowly, blinking a few times before his eyes focused on anything.

But when his eyes finally began to focus and his mind come awake, he slowly started to understand his surroundings. He saw Komaeda's face and his hair resting on the pillow like some fluff had escaped from inside of it. Hinata thought for a moment that the other was awfully close, and he realized he was still holding someone's hand despite being awake. It didn't take long for him to realize he was holding Komaeda's hand and he jumped to sit up in the bed, pulling his hand away.

For a moment he was scared that he had woken Komaeda up when the other mumbled something, but Komaeda just turned to lie on his back. Hinata sighed quietly and got up from the bed trying his hardest not to wake the other up.

The memories from last night came back to explain why they had been sharing the bed, but… Hinata squeezed his hand in a fist. It didn't explain that…

He shook his head as he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He had probably done it in his sleep, after that dream he had had. It was nothing to get confused about. He should just be glad that Komaeda hadn't woken up because of it, because while it was just something he had done unconsciously, he still felt like it would have been bothersome for Komaeda.

But well, he was still glad that Komaeda had not escaped to the floor…

He frowned as he stared at his reflection on the mirror. 'Happy'? He would understand if he just felt satisfied or something but what was there to be really 'happy' about? He bit on his toothbrush as he felt frustrated.

So few things made sense lately with his feelings and actions. It was frankly scaring him; there were so many things he couldn't control in his behavior and thoughts, and he was afraid of losing even more control over himself.

He sighed as he began to spit out the toothpaste. He would have to work harder.

The room had been quiet for a while, only the sounds of paper rustling and occasionally people speaking outside disturbing the silence, when Komaeda woke up. Hinata closed his notebook when he noticed this and turned to look at Komaeda.

"Good morning, Hinata-kun…," Komaeda said, sounding like he was still half asleep.

"Morning," Hinata answered shortly, feeling slightly awkward now. Komaeda was just staring at his blanket, clearly still in the middle of waking up. He might not have slept well after all if he was this tired… Hinata bit his lip as he felt a pang of guilt for a moment, but then he made himself remember that the other option would have been the floor. This was still better than Komaeda getting sick again.

Komaeda seemed to have woken up completely now, and he was shifting around in the bed with a conflicted look on his face. The air felt heavy all of a sudden and Hinata turned his eyes back to the closed notebook.

"Aren't you going to get up?" Even to his own ears his voice sounded unnatural and he pressed his lips together.

"Ah, yes. You probably want to get moving soon after all." Komaeda got up from the bed and walked into the bathroom after picking up his clothes. He passed Hinata on his way there; Hinata clutched his notebook as he did. When the bathroom door closed, Hinata let out a sigh of relief before he began to put his notebook away. He wasn't really in any rush to leave but then again there was no reason to linger here either. He began to pack the little stuff they had even taken out of the bags.

And when Komaeda came out of the bathroom, Hinata had already packed up everything.

"Would you like to go eat somewhere?" Komaeda asked as he packed his pajamas to his bag.

"Sure." Hinata decided not to tell Komaeda that he was pretty hungry already, having woken up a couple hours ago already, but instead settle for just agreeing. He had a feeling Komaeda would apologize to him again if he did, and he… really didn't want that. He frowned at his thoughts.

"There's a café about twenty minute drive away, is that okay?"

"Yeah, whatever," Hinata answered a bit more harshly than he meant to, but Komaeda just smiled in response to that, awkwardly like usually. Hinata looked away from him in response.

"Did you sleep well…?" They were sitting at the café Komaeda had mentioned, eating sandwiches for their breakfast. They had been mostly quiet before Komaeda had broken the silence.

"Yeah, I slept well… How about you? Did, did you wake up during the night or anything…?" Hinata asked, immediately regretting the way he put that. But the mood had been so awkward the whole day that he was slowly getting paranoid about it, that the word had just slipped out. Komaeda seemed a bit surprised by the question, but soon a familiar smile spread to his face.

"I slept well enough, thanks to you. I'm sorry for making you share a bed with me," Komaeda answered and Hinata bit his lip. The other had ended up apologizing again. He felt frustrated but he didn't want to end up yelling again so he decided to keep his mouth shut and take a bite of the sandwich he was holding. Komaeda had ordered a plate of them, but Hinata was starting to suspect they'd have some left over, with how little Komaeda was eating. The other didn't seem to eat a whole lot in general now in hindsight, but Hinata hadn't really paid attention to it until now.

Even now Komaeda seemed to be done eating already, despite the fact that Hinata still felt hungry himself.

"Are you sure you won't eat more…?" Hinata asked and Komaeda seemed taken back by his question. He tilted his head slightly before he answered.

"Um, is there a problem?" Komaeda said slowly, like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. Hinata frowned as he thought why did this whole matter bother him in the first place, when he hadn't really paid attention to it before. It just kind of… pissed him off. Komaeda would fall sick if he kept this up after all, but if he said that Komaeda would just argue that he wouldn't cause trouble to him, and that wasn't what Hinata meant at all…

What he meant was more like…

"It just worries me."

Komaeda seemed even more taken back by this and he opened his mouth a few times like he was about to say something but decided against it.

"Worry? I'm not planning on doing anything…" Komaeda seemed incredibly confused by his words and Hinata shook his head.

"No, that's not what I meant. It's more like that I'm worried about you… or something like that," he added hastily. Komaeda didn't answer him for the longest time, instead staring at him like he was having trouble processing what he said. It was making Hinata feel awkward and want to pull back his words to get rid of the weird mood, but he just kept still and tried to focus on eating the sandwich he had.

"I, uh…," Komaeda stuttered out, and now that Hinata glanced at him again he noticed Komaeda was staring at the table now, and he could somewhat see that his face was red. "I'm so glad to hear you are worried about trash like me, but there's no need for you to worry about someone like me, I'll be fine… I'm not one to eat that much." Komaeda's voice was really quiet in comparison to normal, and even though Hinata wanted to argue against what Komaeda had said, he decided to just leave it. It didn't feel right to say anything against it.

"I see." Hinata didn't look at Komaeda again, and instead took another sandwich.

Right after him, Komaeda took one as well and began to nibble on it.

Hinata leaned against the car window, listening to the quiet music coming from the radio. Today had been so quiet, but for some reason it didn't feel negative. It was heavy, but there was still something about it that made Hinata still feel a bit comfortable with it.

He glanced at Komaeda, who was leaning back on his seat as he drove, clearly deep in thoughts. There wasn't even much for Hinata to say to break the silence, so he just returned to looking out of the window. They had been on the move for an hour already, and even though he had been reading books until now it had kind of been causing a small headache for him so he had decided to stop.

It was sort of relaxing to just sit back and listen to music, without speaking or doing anything.

Hinata let out a small sigh. Even though there hasn't passed that much time yet, he still felt like he had been traveling with Komaeda for a long time. So much had happened that it seemed to have made the time passing feel different from normal. It felt like forever ago when he had almost been driven over by Komaeda, then invading his car and threatening Komaeda to help him.

Even if Komaeda seemed like he appreciated this change, Hinata kind of realized that really in the base of all this, he had forced the other to come with him. He had taken Komaeda away from the life he had had, just to be able to reach his own goals. Without him, Komaeda would still be at his home, going to work as usual and seeing the people he had known back in Kyoto.

Komaeda had said he didn't miss that life, there was still a part inside Hinata that was telling him that what he was doing was incredibly selfish. Even though he really couldn't find it himself to dwell in that guilt after all that had happened, there was still the thought that if he had just taken Komaeda's money back then and traveled to the north alone, there would have been so much difficulties saved for the both of them.

Especially… since Komaeda had seemed really important for his workplace.

"Was it really okay for you to just leave your workplace behind? I was thinking about what you told me and it seems like there was a reason you were working there after all..." To his surprise Komaeda just chuckled in response.

"No, I didn't really even need to work at that place. The stocks Togami-san gave me to the company have already made me more money than I could ever use and I keep getting more, so me working in the company was just to have something to do. And even though I say our department dealt with the important customers, I was more like… working with the cases where it didn't matter if I succeeded. If I did, it'd be good but it wasn't really a requirement for the company to grow."

"So… dealing with the yakuza was part of it…?" Hinata asked hesitantly.

"Ah, yes, I suppose… Togami-san didn't really like the idea, but he felt like it would be useful to have some relations to that side so that everything under him wouldn't get trouble from that side. So he made me seek out the biggest clan and try to make them allies, to have their name scare everyone who was thinking about causing trouble for Togami corp," Komaeda explained and flashed him an awkward smile. "It was the ones I got lucky with."

"Ahh, I see…," Hinata said. That explained a lot. But it was also making him feel kind of scared. To imagine Komaeda had that much money, so much that he probably couldn't even imagine the actual amount, was just… mindboggling. And to think Komaeda was just about to let him leave with all that money… He shuddered at the thought of it. That was too much for him to think about.

But at least it also made him feel a lot less about wasting money on the travel. He had felt a bit bad about all the money Komaeda had spent on the hotels and foods and everything, but when there was so much money that it was basically endless, it kind of made him feel like it didn't matter.

He was now starting to understand how Komaeda felt like about it , probably. There really was no need for him to care about the money they were spending, and Hinata felt like soon he'd be able to adapt the same line of thought, the more he got used to it.

There was some feeling in the back of his mind though, not related to the money, but more like to the fact that Komaeda was explaining about this stuff to him, a feeling that made him feel… a bit lighter. Learning about the other was making him feel nice, but he was also a bit uncomfortable with this feeling because he still didn't really understand it. Perhaps he was just starting to think of Komaeda more as a friend than just someone he was traveling with.

But for some reason that didn't feel like the right answer either.

Thank you so much for reading all the way here! I've been really overwhelmed lately by stress, but I'm glad it's starting to pass~ I don't really have much else to say this time, so the next chapter will be up on 20th of May, I hope to see you there!