A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I can only hope that the story remains interesting- I'm doing my best to twist the plot, but hopefully some are obvious to the reader even if they're not obvious to Hinata himself.

Hinata was already in the TV room when Nanami returned home. "Oh, hi Hajime-kun," was her only greeting, and she sounded very... drained. She yawned. "'had a hard day at work, don't suppose we could just order something?"

"Uh, sure," Hinata said. He watched her troop into the room and sit next to him. "So, uh... pizza?"

"I don't care," was her response.

Hinata left the room to go get his phone- it was charging in the kitchen- and when he returned from ordering, Nanami was already playing one of her games. He chuckled to himself and said, "All play and no work's going to be bad for your health, Nanami-san."

"Yes, Okaru-sensei," Nanami said, and she snorted. "Old bat, I was Ultimate Gamer, what did she expect me to do?"

Hinata shrugged- a futile gesture as Nanami was now focused on her game- and sat down next to her again. "So," he said, eyeing the latest shooting game, "you gonna let me play?"

"Sure," she said, and she handed him a controller. "Do you even know anything about FPS's?"

"Uh... no."

"Then why do you play them?"

"Because, because I..." Hinata was at a loss for words, and he put the controller down. "Call me when the food arrives, I'll be in the shower," he said, and he stood up to leave.

He was at the door to the hallway when Nanami said, "Hajime-kun, wait!" He turned around- she'd put the controller down too. She stood up. "I didn't mean it like that!"

"Like what?" Hinata said. "I can tell when you want to be by yourself. I lived with you for a year, I should know." Then he left the room.

While in the shower, though, he stewed in guilt. He had no right to snap back at her question, but to tell the truth he couldn't say why he wanted to play. Maybe it was just because he wanted to spend time with her, but he couldn't admit that- their relationship had "reset", after all.

When he left the shower, Nanami had taped a note to the adjoining bathroom's mirror- "I want to talk to you, pizza's here". Hinata left the bathroom into the hallway and found her in the TV room. The game was off, replaced with the news. "Sorry for overreacting," Hinata said as he joined Nanami on the couch.

Nanami sighed. "Look, Hajime-kun, it was a long day at work, I'm sure you've had a hard day too working for KDL, so I apologize for offending you," she said. "If you just wanted to play a game with me, you know, apartment mate to apartment mate, friend to friend, then just say so."

Hinata said nothing, only picking up a piece of pizza.

"But I'm not going to say that I'm also, ah, not to blame," Nanami said. "We've been avoiding each other, I think- usually, we'll just come home, say hello, then exit to our own rooms, yes?"

"Yes."

"So, let's see if we can break down that little barrier we've put up," she concluded, "tomorrow's Saturday, and there's a new movie I want to see. You're going to take me there. And we'll stop for dinner too."

"A date?" Hinata said quietly. Nanami nodded. "You know, I do have a job-"

"And clearly, Kirigiri-san doesn't care that you stop observing him at night."

"That's what the camera's for," Hinata said irritably. Nanami blinked. "In any case, I really don't think-"

"Listen, Hajime-kun," Nanami said, "we clearly need to get more comfortable around each other, and since I doubt you want to visit Dr. Otonashi, we're going to have to try and fix this our own way. Got it?"

Hinata stared at her, and she stared back. That look of determination was back again. "Fine," he said, finally, "but if something happens with Masaru, then you're answering to my boss."

"I thought you had a camera for that?" Nanami replied.

"It's only on after I leave-"

"Then we'll leave in the evening, when you're done with work," Nanami said, "although I was under the impression that you have weekends off, so..."

Hinata sighed, again, and slumped. She was right- another detective took over the weekend work, some other detective that the Kirigiris knew. "Fine," he said, again, "I'll go. I'll even dress up nice if you want."

"It's just an outing for friends," Nanami said. "Got it? Good."

And then she handed him the second controller and switched the TV back to their game.

Hinata was laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He could not hear the sound of video games through the wall- Nanami was asleep. He could feel his stomach fluttering from his date- sorry, "friends' outing"- coming up. He sighed. Again. He was doing that a lot tonight.

It wasn't that he was afraid- okay, he was. He was very afraid. Hinata knew that Nanami'd moved on. But he? He had not. And he knew that she, Komaeda, and Sonia knew that too.

And that got him thinking about the other mysteries, those of Despair. He was Izuru Kamukura, but what did that even mean? Furthermore, Komaeda had hinted at a game of some sort. And furthermore-

Hinata's thoughts were interrupted when his phone started buzzing. He picked it up. "Hajime Hinata."

"Hello, Hajime," replied Komaeda. "I heard from a little Monobear that you visited the headmaster today. Can I ask why?"

"No," Hinata said back, "no you can not."

Komaeda sighed. "Oh well," he said, "so long as you remember that you're the hope that will overcome despair, we'll be fine! Good night, Hajime."

And the phone clicked off. Hinata tossed the phone on the bedside table and then resumed staring at the ceiling. Slowly, he drifted off into sleep.

"Brave Soldier of KDL..." Nanami looked up at him. "Hajime, you think they're going to go after you next?"

They were both sitting at the kitchen table, a rickety little thing, in their apartment's kitchen. The time on the oven blinked 6:14 in bright red; Hinata had woken Nanami up, long before she normally would on a Sunday, so that she could see the text. "Hajime..." she whispered.

Hinata refocused. "Chiaki," he said, "don't worry- don't worry, like Kirigiri-san told us not to worry..." And his recurring nightmare replayed in his mind: Nanami, in a wedding dress, collapsing from the sudden bullet to her belly. "Don't... don't..." he trailed off.

Nanami shook him. "C'mon, Hajime, we need to consider how we'll treat this!" she said. "Are you just going to let despair win?" she said.

"It's gonna be all right," Hinata lied. "I'll go talk to my boss, we'll work something out, I know it..."

Nanami smiled at him and then sat up. "Alright," she said, "well, I'm going to go take a shower. You're welcome to join me, but make sure you call Kirigiri-san first." She left the room, leaving Hinata at the table, watching her leave, his eyes focused on her engagement ring.

He heard the shower turn on, the water flowing through the pipes, but still he waited at the table. At long last, he turned his attention to the phone and forwarded the text to Kirigiri. Then he added a second message- "I just got this"- and, slowly, left to join Nanami.

Their time in the shower was long and steamy, as usual... they really needed to get that shower-head looked at some time, too. Regrettably, at some point in the shower Hinata had carelessly spilled what was left of the women's shampoo on the floor, and Nanami had volunteered to go and get some more, along with the week's groceries. It was, after all, her turn.

Hinata kissed her goodbye and then set to his task. He pulled out a suitcase and filled it with as many of his clothes as he could while still leaving enough to appear normal, and then packed up his computer and whatever else he knew he had to bring with him, and, after a moment's hesitation, he packed up the DS Nanami had given him for his birthday two years ago. Then he packed up his spare toiletries, so as not to betray his intentions, and stored it all in the little closet in the hallway where the coats were stored, someplace he knew Nanami wouldn't look because of it being summertime.

And then Nanami returned home, talking excitedly of her and Koizumi's plans for the wedding. "Hopefully, dad will be out of the hospital in time for the wedding, but you know, like you said, we can just push it back," Nanami said while she and Hinata put the groceries away. "What do you think, honey?"

Hinata, who was busy thinking of the best time to leave, blinked. "Er, what, Chiaki?"

"I said, when should we push back the wedding to?" Nanami said, with a certain, bizarre cheerfulness. "Obviously, it can't be too far back, the doctors said they don't know when dad will have another heart attack, but it shouldn't be too long before Kirigiri-san and Ishimaru-san catch the people who shot Naegi-kun, sorry, Kirigiri-kun..." Her voice wavered as she noticed that Hinata was not paying attention. "Hajime? Hajime, please, talk to me..."

Hinata realized that Nanami's cheerfulness was all just an act; she was probably as scared as he was. "Sorry, Chiaki," he said, and he shut the refrigerator door. "I'm just... I'm just going to go lie down."

He threw himself onto their bed and thought about calling Komaeda for advice, thought about calling Komaeda so that he could talk Hinata out of his terrible plan. Every second with Nanami was becoming poison now, because every second was another reason for a bullet to come through the window and kill her.

The door to the room opened, but the lights did not flicker on. "Want to play?" Nanami said, sitting on the end of the bed, a remote in her hand. "A...anything?"

Hinata looked back up at the ceiling and said, "no."

"C'mon, Hajime," Nanami said, and she grabbed his arm, "c'mon, don't act like this, it'll be okay..."

"Chiaki, you're lying."

"I... yes, I'm lying, happy?" Nanami shot back. "But you are too, I'm just repeating what you said!"

Hinata sat up. "Chiaki," he said, "maybe we should just, just- call of the wedding." The words slipped out of him, and as soon as they did Nanami's face fell.

"No..." she whispered, and she grabbed him and hugged him savagely. "No! No! How can you- how can they- why would you-!?" And she started sobbing. "Not you too-"

Hinata did his best to comfort his fiancée, but he found that his mouth was too dry to speak. "Please talk to me," Nanami said through her tears, "please talk to me, the doctors told me dad doesn't have long to live, you're all I'll have left-" She was cut off as the crying became louder.

"Please talk to me- please..."

"So, ready to go?" Nanami said the next day. She was staring down at her fingernails, pointedly not looking Hinata in the eye, and she was dressed in jeans and a hoodie, much like she had at school all those years ago. As for Hinata, he'd just gone with a white shirt, tie, and slacks, much like his school days.

"Um, sure," Hinata said, and off they went. They arrived at the restaurant a short time later, and before long their discussion turned to work.

"So basically," Nanami was saying as she speared her food on a fork, "we're working on making a bipedal robot that can walk on its own-"

"Didn't the school have one of those?" Hinata asked. Nanami nodded.

"More advanced than those," she said, "it's hard to explain to a layman, but basically the school robots had some issues with their model, you know, like that one time when you threw a robot at Komaeda and it broke because of the vibrations."

"Oh, yeah," Hinata said.

"I mean, if you were to use those robots, you'd have to cover them with a whole bunch of shock-absorbent material, and even then the inner workings were very sensitive, so you'd probably still break it regardless," Nanami continued. She put her fork and food down, wiped her hands, and pulled out a pen and a scrap of paper from her purse. Then she drew a little diagram of the school's robots- short, bipedal devices made by the "Ultimate Roboticist" over a decade ago- and circled their heads. "See, this is where the main problem was, some very fragile connections. I mean, you might as well just attach a motion-sensitive bomb to the insides so that the robot would still be useful after you broke it."

"And that's what you're working on fixing?" Hinata said carefully.

Nanami nodded. Then she elaborated, "basically, we're trying to make it so that you can throw the robot around all you want and have it still work, as well as carry heavy loads while still moving as fast as the school's model could, you know, for military work."

"Then shouldn't you not be telling me this?" Hinata said.

"Well, no, but I doubt you could do anything about the design any more than I could interfere with your investigations," Nanami said, "and it's not like I'm working hands-on with it either."

"Well," Hinata said, "Nanami-san, what do you know about Izuru Kamukura?"

The effect was immediate: Nanami's eyes widened slightly and she dropped her pen. "I-I, um, I've, uh, never heard of him," she said, although she did not look Hinata in the eye.

"Please don't lie to me, Nanami-san," Hinata said, leaning forward. "Where've you heard about him?"

Nanami visibly swallowed. "That's not- that's not important," she said. "Listen, Hajime, don't look into that, please. It'll just- we'll just- I'm changing the subject!" She picked her pen up and looked back into his eyes. "So, um, the movie, do you think-"

"Nanami-san, why are you so... scared?" Hinata said. He could feel himself starting to sweat as her eyes darted away from his again. Clearly, she knew something. "Nanami-san?"

"Listen, Hajime-kun," Nanami said, "it was- after you left me, three years ago. I had an appointment with Dr. Otonashi, and she was talking to Dr. Matsuda about an Izuru Kamukura. Said he'd run off to Osaka. But- but that's it."

Hinata didn't believe he had the full truth, but he sighed and let it go. "So, then, Nanami-san, what movie are we actually going to see?" Nanami's face slipped into relief.

"Oh," she said, "it's a nice little movie about-"

"Ah, janitor-san and four-san, how nice to see you two here today! Out on a romantic evening perhaps?"

Hinata and Nanami glanced up to see Ryotsa Masaru, impeccably dressed, with a pretty brown-haired woman wearing an expensive-looking gown at his side, a woman Hinata had seen leave Masaru's apartment once or twice. The woman's eyes went between Nanami and Hinata and then glanced away. "You must forgive my wife," Masaru said, gesturing to her, "I'm afraid she doesn't like to speak in public. So, out on a date, eh? Didn't know you had it in you, janitor-san."

"We're not on-" Hinata began protesting.

He was cut off by Nanami, who said, "and so what if we are, Masaru-san? Am I not allowed to do something without your orders?"

"Of course not, of course not," Masaru said, "I just noticed that you two were over here and realized that we wanted to invite janitor-san here to dinner one night at our place." Hinata blinked, and felt cold sweat forming: Masaru was going to kill him, throw him in Tokyo Bay and he would be dead and-

"Listen, think about it, will you?" Masaru said, "And don't worry, I believe in proper hospitality. You can even bring your gun if you want!" Then he walked off, laughing, trailed by his wife, who sent one last glance at Hinata and Nanami before leaving.

"I didn't know he was married," Hinata said, "I just thought she was his girlfriend."

"Maybe she only left during camera hours," Nanami said. "But I know Masaru-san a little, and I know that he actually got married while at Hope's Peak, the first person since Nakejawa-san."

"Nakejawa-san was married at Hope's Peak?"

"Yeah, but they had a messy divorce and then his ex-wife's mysterious death sank his political career," Nanami said, and she trailed off as she watched the Masarus enter a private booth, one much like the one Komaeda had brought Hinata to. She turned back to Hinata. "Sorry, it's just- oh, nevermind, let me finish my dinner and then we'll go, I think the movie will be starting soon." Hinata checked his phone- 18:30, the movie started in half an hour- and nodded.

And thus the first half of their 'date' was over. As for the movie, the two did not speak during it, although (seeing as it was a horror movie of some sort) by the end of the movie Hinata was gripping Nanami's hand tightly to try and calm himself down. And once the movie was over, he did not let go either, mostly because he had been holding her hand for the last hour or so.

"Uh, Hajime, Hajime-kun," Nanami said as they left the theater, "my hand?"

"Ah! Sorry," Hinata said, and he could feel himself turning red, and he could see that she was blushing too. He let go. "Sorry, Nanami-san, it's just that, you know, well, um..."

"Scary, huh?" Nanami said, and together the two walked towards the parking garage, "by the way, Hajime-kun, you look like a tomato."

"Yeah, well... so do you!" Hinata said, as if he was a juvenile. "You're as red as... as red as Koizumi-san's hair!"

"I am not," Nanami huffed, "her hair was colored like bricks." They passed in front of a glass display (the theater was part of a shopping complex), and they both stared: both Hinata and Nanami were still light red. Then they turned and stared at each other, and then began laughing.

It was inexplicable, really: Hinata did not know what was so funny. Maybe it was because their behavior came right out of a school instead of reflecting their adulthood. Maybe it was because slightly-red faces were funny. And maybe it was just as random as one of the fortunes of the world-famous Yasuhiro Hagakure.

But in any case, Hinata could feel some of the tension, some of the awkward tension, evaporating. At last, their laughing receded: Nanami kept giggling and Hinata kept chuckling, but on the whole they were done and they resumed going towards the car, ignoring the staring of the shoppers and workers.

"So, uh, Nanami-san, can you forgive me for walking away?" Hinata said as he walked at her side.

"Never," she said, yet she still smiled. "I'll hold it over you until your dying day."

"Oh. Um, well then, should I thank Dr. Otonashi for not, uh, 'triggering' any bad memories by saying that?" Hinata said.

"You should, the woman's gotta be a witch with her abilities," Nanami said, "but you know what? Let's put that behind us, you know, a... proper 'reset'". She stopped, and Hinata stopped. Then she turned around and held her outstretched hand to Hinata. "Hello," she said briskly, "my name's Chiaki Nanami. Call me Chiaki."

Hinata smiled and took her hand. "My name's Hajime Hinata," he said, "but just call me Hajime, Chiaki-san."

"It's nice to meet you, Hajime-kun," Nanami said, and they shook. She smiled too.

Then they resumed walking towards her car; for the first time in years, Hinata felt content.

A/N: I hope the final scene wasn't too banal, but it's important. Okay, everything's important (or at least, I try to make it so), and by this point I think I only really have one or two more important characters to introduce, and one of them's mentioned in this chapter. I hope I'm also making past!Hinata and past!Nanami distinctive from present!Hinata and present!Nanami- they're supposed to be.

As always, review if you have any questions or comments!