The Mortal City

by MidnightRun42

(Post-SD2) Waking up is never the hardest part.

2. Moving On and Moving In

"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said - no. But somehow we missed it. "
― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

DAY ONE
-continued-
-ooo-

"So, you want some pants or something?" Akane asked minutes or hours later when they were all still sprawled together on the floor, no longer hugging, but still touching gently, thoughtlessly, silently. Sometimes holding hands or just leaning against each other.

Hajime closed his eyes, pained, as he realized that he had, somehow, in the terror of the hair and falling out of the pod and in the shock of seeing them again as they truly were and the joy of holding them, utterly failed to notice that he was completely stark naked. And now that he was thinking about it his skin itched where the hair lay against it and his butt and legs were cold and numb where they pressed against the concrete floor. "Please," he murmured, the word coming out straggled and his face hot with delayed embarrassment. "Sorry."

Fuyuhiko snorted, "Like you can even really tell with all that fucking hair everywhere."

"Do you have to say it like that?" Hajime sighed, opening his eyes again just as a pair of black pants hit him in the face and dropped into his lap. "Thanks," he managed, darting a glance up at Akane who shrugged and flopped back down on the floor across from him between Sonia and Souda.

Sonia cleared her throat and straightened, looking away pointedly as he wiggled into the pants, cursing softly as his too long hair continued to just make everything more and more difficult. He collapsed back to the ground once he'd finally managed to tug the pants on, panting and exhausted like he'd run a mile instead of just putting on a pair of pants. "We were all like that at first, I believe." Sonia murmured, glancing back at him with a wan smile. "We all woke up a few hours ago. It was time enough to get dressed and get a little used to moving around again before you...hm..." She paused, clearly trying to come up with a kinder way to describe it than 'had a screaming, hysterical fit like a giant freak and broke your pod', finally settling on an apologetic, "...woke up."

"So, you're you, right? No crazy super mega-talented nutballs jangling around in there?" Souda asked finally, changing the subject and winning a grateful look from Sonia that would have had him blushing if he'd noticed. Instead he was focused on Hajime, nudging Hajime's leg with his bare foot. None of them were wearing shoes and that seemed kind of weird, but then nothing about this situation was exactly normal.

He nodded slowly, hesitantly, and it didn't feel like a lie, but it didn't feel quite like the truth either. "I'm definitely Hinata Hajime. I don't know that Izuru is gone for good, but I'm definitely me."

"I am so very glad," Sonia whispered, reaching out to give his hand a quick squeeze. "So very, very glad."

Akane made a rude noise, shifting back to lean on her elbows. Just like in the game, she didn't sit so much as she sprawled, heedless and uncaring that they could all see her panties because her shirt had ridden up too high (and she had for whatever reason chosen to forego pants altogether). Fuyuhiko kept darting glances at that shirt, his cheeks red, the mildly sour expression on his face making it look like he couldn't decide whether to tug her shirt down or just leave it alone. "I wasn't worried," she scoffed. "I knew you'd be fine."

Fuyuhiko punched Hajime's shoulder gently before leaning his head down to hide a smile glowing with pride, apparently deciding to leave the issue of Akane's indecency alone for the moment. "Too fucking right. No way you weren't gonna to make it through."

"As much as I hate to interrupt this touching reunion," a voice called from across the room, sounding anything but sorry. "We do have a few pressing issues to address not that everyone is awake."

"Come on, Byakuya, give them a few minutes."

"They've had a few minutes. They've had half a damn hour. Exactly how long do you expect me to coddle them, Naegi? What exactly might be the appropriate amount of time to wait before we remind them that their circumstances are quite a bit less than ideal and that time is rather of the essence?"

"I don't think they've forgotten that and I'm not asking you to coddle them. I know that's just not in your wheelhouse. Just give them like an hour to bask in the fact that they're alive and get to know each other again a little bit before dropping the weight of the world on their shoulders. They've had a hard couple of weeks. You remember what it was like for us. I seem to remember you-"

"Shut. Up. One more word, Naegi, and you're going to wish-"

"You both realize that they aren't actually deaf, correct?" Kirigiri Kyouko interjected, leaving her partners behind to stride across the room to the small knot of people on the ground. Her suit was smart and expensive and stylish and her hair hung long around her, her gloved hands folded neatly in front of her. She didn't look so very different from the image of her they'd seen in the game, none of them did really- just a little older, perhaps, and a little more care-worn, but not so different that they weren't easily and immediately recognizable as themselves. "I apologize. It would be ideal if we could wait a little longer and give you all some time to process both what has happened to you and your present circumstances, but we're all concerned that time may well be the one thing we don't have enough of."

"Is it the Future Foundation? Is that why…?"

Kirigiri offered Hajime a tight smile, "You're quick to see to the truth of things. That will only continue to aid you on the long road ahead. As you might have already guessed based on the information you received in the simulation, we are standing in opposition to the Future Foundation in regards to how they wish to deal with you all. It was their opinion that the best way to heal the world and the only way in which to deal with you, irredeemable as they believed you to be, was to allow you to stand trial for your crimes and eventually to kill you. We believe you all to be victims of Enoshima Junko just as surely as we were and we don't believe in punishing victims. It was our belief that if we could use the program to help correct some of the damage she had done to you all that we would be able to make the Future Foundation see the fallacy of treating victims as criminals. Obviously, things haven't quite gone according to plan. Nonetheless, we still believe that we shall be able to convince them to leave you be, but time is rather of the essence if we're going to assure the safety of your friends."

"If they even try to hurt her, I'll fucking kill them." Fuyuhiko snarled, his fingers tightening painfully on Hajime's shoulder as he pushed himself shakily to his feet. "If they try to fucking hurt them, I…."

"Fuyuhiko," Hajime murmured, steadying his friend and clamoring to his feet beside him. His legs felt like wet noodles and his muscles screamed in protest at even this small effort. The others were pulling themselves up as well, climbing laboriously to their feet and, though they were all listing a bit and leaning on each other for support, they stood together. "It's okay. They already know that. They probably know better than anyone what we'd do to protect our friends now that we have a chance to do it right." Hajime glanced around the room, a room that was still more than half full of closed, glowing pods. He met Kirigiri's cool, assessing gaze, "A lot of people you guys loved died because of in Junko's first game, right?"

Togami snorted, a soft disbelieving noise that was undermined immediately by Naegi's whispered 'hush' and Togami's lack of further comment.

Kirigiri hadn't taken her eyes off him, hadn't bothered to look back at the men behind her, instead she simply nodded once, her features betraying not a hint of her true feelings on the subject whatever they might be. But Hajime figured the fact that she- that they- had been willing to go this far for them in the first place, when they could have easily just written them off as the organization they worked for had clearly wanted to do, probably said more than enough about how they felt. "Very well. As that is the case, we need to begin making arrangements."

-ooo-

Several hours later, they began the long and painstaking process of moving the pods containing their comatose friends to the hospital. It turned out that the game's world had been pretty loosely based on the actual place and that many of the larger features and attractions were present in both versions of Jabberwock Island even if the actual article were quite a bit larger and had quite a bit more in the way of private housing and ordinary stores and that sort of thing.

"It was meant to be a tourist destination originally after all," Togami commented, arms still folded tightly across his chest.

It would have been easier to leave the pods where they were in the administrative building on the central island, but easier wasn't always better. None of them had been able to stand the thought of leaving their friends in the same building as the computer system that had held the AI that had so closely mimicked Enoshima Junko.

Or as Fuyuhiko had so succinctly put it:

"I'd rather fucking kill them myself than take even the smallest fucking chance that they're stuck in that machine at the mercy of that crazy fucking bitch."

"You do realize that the shut down program effectively killed the system and any trace of the virus, right?" Togami replied, his tone practically dripping sarcasm, as he rolled his eyes and tapped his foot impatiently.

"Byakuya…" Naegi began, brushing a hand across the small of Togami's back. It was a strangely intimate gesture and Hajime couldn't help but notice the way some of the rigid irritation drained from Togami's posture at that simple touch.

Togami sighed heavily, raising a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. After a long moment he dropped his hand and turned sharply on his heel and stalked towards the exit. "Fine, do what you want. I'll go see to having the power restored in the hospital on the third island. It's the only place out here that is equipped to handle the electrical load of all these damnable pods. You'll need to figure out making them ready for transport yourselves."

Naegi offered them a tentative smile after Togami disappeared through the door into the bright sunlight outside. It seemed weird and wrong to think of a world existing outside the door that was so bright and warm. "He's right, I think. If not here then it's going to have to be the hospital. I understand that isn't the perfect solution, but if you don't want them here, I think it's the only option. I do understand why you wouldn't want them here and… it's really not a terrible idea to move them. My friend would have done everything he could to make sure he took the virus down, but Junko… well… at this point I wouldn't put anything past her, you know?"

Hajime nodded swiftly, "Yeah, that's what I think too. So, how much of the pods do we need to move for them to be safe? I mean… the pods are the reason our muscles didn't atrophy, right? At least not like they should have. The reason we're in pretty decent shape all things considered?"

"Ah, caught that, huh? Yeah, the pods were built specifically to stimulate your muscles at set intervals to prevent the on-set of atrophy. And a bunch of other technical stuff about waste disposal and purification system and temperature regulation and monitoring equipment and a bunch of other stuff that I don't even begin to understand; Byakuya would be able to explain it better than I can. He's the one who commissioned them after all. There wasn't really anyway to build it into the system itself so the pods are all pretty self-contained, they just use a lot of power. I mean, we were always planning to keep you guys in there for as long as it took and we thought that would probably be a couple months."

He sighed and frowned and not for the first time Hajime noticed how different Naegi seemed from his game counterpart. He looked pretty similar just as Kirigiri and Togami did, a few years older, hair in a slightly different style, but pretty similar even down to the constant between how he dressed and how the other two dressed. While they both wore clean, pressed suits like they'd just come from a business meeting, Naegi was wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans that had clearly seen better days and had that vaguely distressed look clothes get when you've worn them a few days in a row. He seemed worn though, tired, in a way his determined younger self hadn't been, as if he'd seen a lot of things and found most of them exhausting. But it was really the tattoos that really sealed the deal. Hajime couldn't think of the kid Naegi's avatar had been adorned with those long swirling black tattoos that swept up and down his tan arms from just above his wrists to disappear beneath the short sleeves of his shirt. They probably wouldn't be visible at all if he were wearing long sleeves, but with the t-shirt they were eye-catching and difficult to look away from. Whirls and and bursts of spiraling black made up of the characters for 'earth' and 'peace' and 'cherry blossom' and a hundred other things. It didn't take a genius to know what those characters probably represented. Naegi noticed the direction of his gaze and shrugged, glancing over at Kirigiri who had removed herself from the conversation for the moment, content to observe. "It's so I don't ever forget again. So no one can ever make me forget what's important to me."

Hajime nodded, because that was an impulse he could understand. Naegi smiled and tucked his hands in his pockets, looking at each of them in turn. "Well, that was the original plan anyway, to be able to keep you all healthy however long it took for you to bond and start to heal. Things didn't work out that way, but without the pods you'd still have experienced a lot of problems after you woke up and… we kind of thought you'd have enough to deal with without adding more problems to the pile. So, the best thing would be to keep as much of it intact as possible, I guess. That'd be the best thing."

"I'll take a look at it," Souda volunteered, knotting his long, scraggly pink and black hair behind his head in a loose careless knot as he padded over to one of the pods. "Do you have the plans for these things or what?"

"Yes, we have all the paperwork," Kirigiri replied stepping away to pick up a briefcase that had been leaning against the wall near the door. Naegi looked at her as if he intended to question that, but she cut him off with a shake of her head. "I figured when everything managed to work out that we might need a way to dismantle the pods."

"Thanks, Kyouko," Naegi replied with a dazzling smile.

He looked a lot younger when he smiled.

-ooo-

Seven nerve-wreaking, exhausting, virtually sleepless hours later, Souda had managed to dismantle and remodel most of the pods for transport. There had been a lot of cursing and they'd had to scavenge a lot of tools and supplies he needed from the other islands, a task that took hours since there were indeed no bridges linking the islands in the real world. If they wanted to go to a different island it was take a ferry, a motorboat or swim. The islands themselves were utterly deserted and devoid of any life except for them. It was unsettling. Not just because of the emptiness, but because it gave all the islands a strange, unfinished air like life had just up and taken off in the middle of a meal, food left on the plate and glass half full. There weren't many signs that people had been here before, but occasionally he'd run across a pair of discarded baby shoes in the high grass or a empty soda can on the side of the road or an abandoned bicycle leaning against a fence. Just little things that told a larger story he couldn't quite hear.

He'd asked Togami about that when he'd run across him on the third island, suit jacket off and sleeves rolled up, hair swept back behind his ears as he worked on the hospital's generators. He'd been on his own as the others had already gone on ahead to the next island when he said he'd finish up here and catch a ride back with Togami. He'd asked the question while he sat near the door of the generator room waiting for Togami to finish up, a bucket of things for Souda beside him. Togami had looked at him as if he were the world's biggest idiot, "Yes, because it seemed such a wonderful idea to bring fifteen mass murderers to a remote island filled with tourists. How you managed to survive Enoshima is beyond me. I can only assume that little monster gifted you with some of his unnatural luck."

"Komaeda?"

"To whom else might I be referring? Honestly," Togami snapped, tweaking some last thing before slapping the panel closed and flipping several large switches before hitting a blinking green button. The generators coughed and spat out a little smoke. Slowly but surely though they both rumbled and hummed to life which Hajime was pretty sure meant they were working. Togami nodded and hummed to himself apparently satisfied with the result and wiped his hands with a ragged towel before rolling his shirtsleeves back down. He cut his eyes at Hajime, "Was there something you needed, Hinata?"

"Uh, um, no. Just... how did you clear the islands out?"

Togami sighed in a long-suffering manner that spoke of someone who did not suffer fools gladly, but was resigned to the idea that he would have to suffer them constantly nonetheless. "Most of them were already dead. It wasn't difficult to convince the few who remained to leave the island with a generous relocation package and the promise of a new life somewhere that didn't smell of rot where they weren't quite as likely to starve to death. Then it was just a matter of disposing of all the corpses and cleaning up and restocking provisions. Hardly the work of years or magicians, just steady cash flow and a rather impressive number of trash barges."

"How many people were there?" He whispered, because it seemed important to know suddenly, because if the people on these islands had died it was because of what they helped do. Another sin for the rather impressive stack they'd built.

Togami stared at him for a long moment before answering, his voice as bland as if he were reading entries out of a dictionary. "Nine hundred and eighty-two were killed in the rioting, the terror attacks or starved in the aftermath across all six islands. Fifty-three people survived until we arrived and all of those were hospitalized for one reason or another. Ten of those were clinically insane and ended up killing themselves within the first few days. The other forty-three are still recovering and it seems as likely as not that they'll make it. Most of the survivors were younger than we are. It would seem the young have proven to be the most resilient in the face of all this in those instances when they managed to survive the initial violence. Though I suppose we're all prime examples of the truth of that fun little factoid."

"Okay," Hajime managed, feeling sick to his stomach and glad that he hadn't eaten anything since they woke up. If he had, he'd probably have thrown up all over Togami's expensive shoes. "Okay. So. Nine hundred and ninety-two, just on these island."

Togami rolled his eyes, sliding into his jacket and straightening the lapels before pulling the boat keys from some inner pocket. They jingled in his hand as he tapped them impatiently against his leg. "This is why I don't like talking to you people. From now on, ask Makoto if you have any questions about this. I'm sure he'll be able to put the facts in a less traumatizing context for you, softhearted, overly sympathetic idiot that he is. Yes, you had a hand in this; you are not entirely blameless no matter how much Makoto might wish it to be so. You had a choice and all actions have consequences. That's life. You can't run from the past or forget about it. It'll always catch up to you eventually. I haven't the least idea how much of all that happened you're actually personally responsible for and I honestly could not possibly care less. I will, however, tell you what I do know and that is that none of this would have happened if it weren't for Enoshima. She helped each of you onto the paths you ultimately chose and made quite certain you wouldn't easily be turned aside. None of you would be here if not for her. So before you flog yourself repeatedly with the guilt of countless deaths, do try to remember who is ultimately responsible for everything that happened and all that came after. Also, stop crying, it's embarrassing for both of us. Now you can follow me and I will take you back to the main island on the boat and we can never speak of this again. Or you can stay here and continue to sob like a child and swim back on your own later. I don't actually care what you do, but I would rather not have to listen Makoto bitch about my leaving you here by yourself."

With that, Togami turned on his heel and stalked out of the hospital. Hajime trailed behind him, wiping frantically at the dampness on his cheeks with one hand while he tightly gripped the bucket of things he'd found for Souda with the other.

-ooo-

The ride back to the Central Island was quiet save for the roar of the engine and the crash of water against the boat. When they arrived, Hajime left the boat and Togami behind and jogged all the way back to the Meeting Hall that housed the pods. When he arrived, Souda was alone, tucked under one of the pods, his bare feet tapping impatiently against the cool concrete. "Hello?" He called, sounding vaguely nervous.

"It's just me," Hajime replied, crossing the room to stand near the pod. Looked like it was the one that belonged to Ibuki. "I found some pliers, some tweezers, some more duct tape, a dozen nuts and bolts and some more oil."

"Awesome, go ahead and set those down anywhere. I'm gonna be done pretty soon. Just got three more pods to do. Everybody else went to the first island to pick up supplies or something, I don't know."

"Okay," Hajime replied, setting the bucket down near Ibuki's pod with a clank and then moving to go lean against the far wall. There was no point in leaving to find them if they were on another island. He'd probably have had to ask Togami for a ride and… he'd kind of rather swim there than talk to Togami again anytime soon. "I'll just stick around here then. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"Sure, no problem." Souda replied, waving a hand in his general direction before snagging a wrench from the floor behind him and going back to whatever it was he was doing. They'd managed to find everything Souda needed, but just like all the pods he'd already reconfigured, it still felt like most of the modifications were being held together by luck and sheer bloody-minded determination.

-ooo-

The island was hot, but the beach could get cold at night, the breeze off the ocean, chill. It wasn't always cold, sometimes it was humid and warm even well into the night, but it could be cold too and tonight was one of those cooler nights. The breeze that stirred his hair caused a chill to shudder down his back.

Komaeda stood at the edge of the water, rocking back and forth, heel to toe and back again, his bare feet leaving a soft, barely there impression in the wet sand that washed away every time the cool water swept up and over his toes and under his heels. His hair blew around his head like dandelion fluff, like seaweed dancing in water currents. "Back again?" He called, his tone mocking, but it was more gently amused than mean for the moment. It was strange how Komaeda seemed able to sound like he was mocking everyone and himself in a thousand different ways.

"Shouldn't that be my line?" Hajime murmured, stepping up beside him, his own bare feet sinking into the damp sand as water splashed over his toes. "My dream and all."

"Is it?" Komaeda replied, tilting his head quizzically as he continued to stare out across the dark ocean. "I thought so too, but I've been here all day waiting for you."

"You were waiting for me?"

"Not because you're special, obviously, just because I thought you might show up anyway so I thought I might as well. It's just my luck that it's you here with me after all," Komaeda turned a bit and Hajime could see the dark stain on his t-shirt where the spear had fallen and punctured his stomach. It was almost black in the shifting moonlight.

"You're staring, Hinata. Have a got something on my chest?" He asked, soft and wry.

"Why'd you do it that way?"

"Hm?"

He reached out to touch fingers to the dark sleeve of Komaeda's long coat. He'd never seemed to find it too warm to wear it before. So many of them had been dressed wrong for the season and it had never occurred to any of them that there was anything weird about that. He wondered if things would have been different if they'd noticed the oddities. He shifted his hand lower to brush against the back of Komaeda's hand, still wet with blood, as he'd known it would be.

"Ah," Komaeda murmured, shrugging his narrow shoulders. "It isn't so bad as all that, here, feel."

He forgot how quick Komaeda could be or maybe he'd never known or maybe he was faster here like this, something, because suddenly Komaeda was right in front of him, the smallest fraction of space between them, taking up his hand and sliding Hajime's fingers into the pulsing warmth of the wound the spear had left behind in one smooth improbable motion. He flinched at the soft squelching sound that seemed to echo like a gunshot between them and his fingers were warm, wet, pressing into a soft throbbing dampness that his mind kept shying away from, unable to quite come to grips with what he was touching, only that he was touching parts of Komaeda that he shouldn't be.

Komaeda's eyelids fluttered a little and the noise he made was somewhere between a groan and a sigh, the kind of noise you sometimes heard in films or through too-thin dorm walls in the middle of the night, usually accompanied by the squeal of protesting bedsprings or the rhythmic thump of a headboard against plaster. The dorms used by the students of the reserve class had always had thin walls and it seemed like he'd spent half his time at Hope's Peak listening to his classmates' sexual escapades. He couldn't remember all of that time, it was still foggy and indistinct, but he remembered enough. Enough to know that none of those noises, those grunts and moans and muted screams had ever moved him, had ever punched through him like that one sound slipping free from Komaeda's lips. Every thought he had about how wrong this was fled from his head in the wake of that sound and he just let Komaeda hold his hand and guide his fingers, sliding them deeper and deeper still.

Komaeda's barely there smile was both beautiful and terrible as he looked at him from beneath drooping eyelids. His soft grey gaze completely at odds with what they were actually doing and it stole his breath away and he knew he was shaking as he managed a whimpered, "Komaeda."

He wanted it to sound like a protest or maybe like he was disgusted or anything really that except so… wistful. Like Komaeda was someone he longed for instead of someone who set his nerves on edge… though maybe that was part of it too.

Another pleased quirk of Komaeda's lips and another sound, this time a whisper of a moan that could have been 'Hajime' though Komaeda had never called him that before. His legs were trembling with fear, with want, with a need that was darker and more consuming than either. He licked his lips nervously, inhaling suddenly, his breath stuttering into his lungs, as unsteady and fragile as the rest of him.

When Komaeda finally spoke, real and certain, his voice was bedroom soft and barely a whisper though it seemed like the sound a well-sharpened knife might make as it sliced through flesh, intimate and horrifying all at the same time, with a pain that he might not feel immediately, but that would come in the end just the same. "This isn't quite how I imagined you inside of me, Hinata, but perhaps this is just right for trash like me, hm?"

-ooo-

He woke with a startled yelp and Souda's hand on his shoulder, his face a mask of concern like he was trying hard not to show whatever he actually felt. "You okay? You were mumbling a lot."

"It's…" Hajime swallowed hard, ignoring the twist of his stomach and the compulsion to wash his hands instead settling for just wiping them against his pant legs again and again. He was half-hard, aching with it, and the thought made him want to throw up because he could still feel the warmth of Komaeda's blood on his fingers, the throb of the wound, still hear that terribly pornographic moan echoing in his ears.

"It's fine. I'm fine." He finally said aloud and it was nothing but lies; he was anything but fine. He was sick. Obviously, there was something desperately wrong with him if these were things he was dreaming about, thinking about, if these were the things he wanted now.

"You, uh, you… you said his name… Komaeda, I mean. Do you… do you wanna talk about it or something?" Souda asked even though his expression clearly conveyed that he'd rather do just about anything else, but the offer was still strangely sincere. He was a good friend and he didn't deserve Hajime's lies anymore than he deserved to have to listen to the truth either.

Still, they were going to have to do things differently now, they had to if they wanted to stay sane, if they wanted to fight off the creeping presence of despair. Honesty was probably a good step in that direction. Maybe not about everything, but… maybe about some things, maybe not all the details of things that made him want to hide his face in the ocean and maybe drown there, but enough. If he could let some of it out, maybe the shame over the rest wouldn't choke him.

He thought about what it had felt like to when his fingers slid inside Komaeda's body, to be held him there and what it had felt like to have Komaeda push him deeper still. He thought about the obscene noises Komaeda had made and how they had slid through him, lodged within him, deep down in his belly. How he'd wanted him in those moments and how he wanted to hear those noises again even now and he shuddered, "No. Really, really no. But… I… I was dreaming about Komaeda. I dreamed about him before too. When I was in the dark, in the pod, before. It's… I don't know. Awful, maybe, but nice too and obviously, really completely fucked up. Definitely fucked up."

For a moment Souda looked surprised at the confession, but then a tentative smile curved his lips. "I dreamt about, um, Tanaka, before I woke up, but he… he wasn't like he was on the island or… maybe… I don't know. I kind of remember how he was before, before the island, a little, and… it was weird. You'd think if I was gonna dream about someone, I'd dream about Miss Sonia or somebody, right? Or maybe even you. I don't know, anyone else really. Someone I liked or someone I was close to or spent a lot of time with. All Gundham and I did on the island was fight. I mean, we barely even talked to each other at all and then he was gone. I think… maybe we knew each other a little better before. Maybe. I don't know. But… thinking about him, remembering him, wasn't totally terrible." He shrugged, fiddling with the wrench balanced against one bent knee. "So, Komaeda, huh?"

Hajime shrugged tiredly, "Yup. He confuses the hell out me in my dreams too, I guess. I can't even imagine a version of Komaeda that doesn't weird me the heck out."

Souda nodded knowingly, "Can't say I can blame you on that one. He was kind of a weird guy."

"Yeah, he kind of is," Hajime sighed, gesturing towards the pods. "How's it coming?"

"Slowly, but I'm almost done with Mikan's pod. Just about as ready at it can be to be taken off the network I just need to fix one last thing and that'll be the last one done. Then it's just figuring out actually transporting these things without risking messing them up too bad. We're lucky they already have wheels on them. The batteries you guys managed to dig up should do the job keeping them operating while we move them, but we'll need to decide on an order and we'll only be able to move a couple at a time. So… we're almost there. Kind of."

"You look exhausted," Hajime commented reaching forward to tug on a lock of pink and black hair that had fallen free of the knot at the back of his head.

"Yeah, you'd never know we'd been sleeping for weeks, huh? I guess what they say about it being less about the quantity and more about the quality is totally true," Souda replied, flopping down to sit beside him and all but falling back onto his elbows. "Think the others will be back soon? I wouldn't mind getting this started. Sooner we get them moved, the sooner we can all crash."

"Yeah, they should be anyway. I'll go check on them, see where everybody's at, maybe I can help speed things up a little."

He clamored unsteadily to his feet and shuffled out the door into the humid heat of evening. It didn't take him long to find the others, they were trudging back down the path carrying backpacks and sleeping bags. The question must have been in his expression, because Fuyuhiko just shot him a ghost of his old smirk, "Kirigiri mentioned that there wasn't much in the way of supplies at the hospital so we grabbed some food and shit from the store to hold us over for a couple days so we don't gotta leave unless we want to."

"Ah, smart," he replied, scratching at his heavy itchy hair, shuddering and forcing himself to pull his hand back and just ignore it for now. "That was a good idea."

"It was Akane's idea," Sonia commented, her smile bright and tired, he held out his hands and she let him take one of the sleeping bags she was carrying. He took the extra ones Fuyuhiko and Akane had too, holding them bundled together in his arms as they trudged back to the administrative building.

Akane snorted, "I just know a thing or two about what you've gotta do to make do, that's all. Don't make a big deal about it."

"How is Kazuichi coming along with the remodel of the pods?" Sonia asked and he wondered when Sonia had started calling him Kuzuichi, but figured that probably wasn't any of his business unless she decided to make it his business.

"Almost there. We just need to figure out the logistics of actually getting them all over to the hospital and what order we're going to do it in."

-ooo-

The plan, after some discussion between the five of them and then with Naegi and Togami when they showed back up, was to take them over on the ferry two at a time as they'd only actually managed to scrounge up a couple of batteries to run the machines during transport. "I checked and these car batteries have more than enough charge to keep the pods running while we move them to the third island, but I can't monitor more than two at a time and if one of the batteries fails, we're gonna have to switch it out in a hurry because I don't know if they can make it if the power goes out on them. I'm a mechanic, not a doctor, you know?"

"Will you show me how to change out the battery? It would be best if several of us knew how to make the change, yes?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's a really great idea, Miss Sonia." Souda replied, smiling warmly. "I can show you guys how to handle some of the other modifications I made too, just in case something gets knocked lose while we're moving them."

Akane frowned, "Yeah, I'm not great with this kind of stuff, but maybe if you show me where the really sensitive areas are I can avoid messing things up when I'm lifting them."

Souda frowned, shaking his head, "I think you could probably do the hook-ups and stuff too. You shouldn't get down on yourself like that, right? You're way smarter than you give yourself credit for."

Akane looked taken aback for a moment before she suddenly burst out laughing, "I don't believe you're giving me a pep talk. Nekomaru would be so proud of you that he'd start bawling like a baby."

Souda's smile was sheepish, his face bright red, "Ya think so? I've never really been good with people, just machines."

"Souda Kazuichi! What were you just saying about… getting down on yourself, was it? I believe you might need to heed your own advice." Sonia smiled gently as she reached out to take Souda's oil-stained hand in her own. "Though I will say that it is very fortunate for all of us that you're also a genius with machines as without you we would never be able to do all this."

"Come on, let's get on with it. If you embarrass him any more, his fucking head is going to explode." Fuyuhiko commented, gripping Souda's shoulder firmly and steering him back over to the closest pod. "Start showing us what we need to know. Also, who are we gonna move first and how are we gonna do this?"

"I think we should move Mikan and Komaeda first." Hajime volunteered, his fingers tracing lightly over Mikan's name where it was written across the top of the pod. It seemed strangely unnecessary to label the pods, but maybe there was a reason in all that paperwork somewhere. He could see her dark silhouette under the plastic surface, the ebb and flow of the heavy liquid within as it flowed around her, over her. He couldn't quite bring himself to look in Komaeda's pod. Not with those dreams still so fresh in his mind. "Of everyone, I think they'd be most at risk if Enoshima was able to access the pods. Mikan remembered everything before she… you know. And Komaeda was… he was pretty unstable to begin with."

"Truer fucking words have never been spoken," Fuyuhiko grumbled. "Fine. You wanna move them first, we'll move them first. At least if something goes wrong all we're losing is some extra fucking crazy. You all fine with that?"

Everyone nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm, though Souda shot Hajime a mildly concerned look. Hajime smiled and shrugged, it wasn't like he disagreed with the assessment even if Komaeda meant more to him than that. It was his idea to move him first, after all. He was willing to take the risk if it meant getting Komaeda out of this room even just a few minutes sooner.

DAY TWO
-ooo-

Fortunately it had turned out that the hospital on the third island was, in reality, much more of a proper hospital rather than just the clinic with delusions of grandeur it had been in the game. So it was a lot bigger and more readily functional and that made things a lot easier than they probably would have been otherwise. As it was, most of the pods still had to be installed two to a room and a number of the hospital beds needed to be dismantled and removed to make room for them. After a surprisingly short discussion it had been decided that Mikan, Komaeda, Peko, Tanaka and Nekomaru would each be put in the larger hospital rooms that had room enough to accommodate both a hospital bed and a pod as they were the ones unanimously voted to be the most violent or unpredictable if… no… when they woke up. It was better if someone could stay with each of them overnight to monitor them more easily and it was probably safest to keep them isolated from the others… just in case.

And if there were other reasons why some of them wanted to be able to stay with those particular people, no one was cruel enough to point that out.

Even if Togami did roll his eyes and mutter something about having watched the feed and thus being perfectly aware of the social dynamics in play as he passed them on his way back out to the ferry.

Naegi had said something back to him that Hajime hadn't quite been able to make out, his hip bumping gently against Togami's as they stepped onto the boat and the look Togami had given him was cold enough to freeze a fire.

"Liken me to these people one more time and I will throw you off this boat and you will swim back to the main island."

Naegi continued to smile, peaceful and undisturbed as if he received these sort of threats daily which, to be fair, he probably did. "Or I could just wait here until you came back."

"I would never come back. I would leave you here to starve and I wouldn't miss you at all," Togami replied stiffly, snapping at the rest of them to hurry up and get the hell on the boat as he cranked the engine and shifted the boat into drive without bothering to look and see if they'd all actually made it.

He didn't hear anything else they said to each other over the roar of the engine, but eventually he did see Togami's hand settle against Naegi's hip, rucking his shirt up just a bit to play over the black lines of whatever tattoo was branded there. The way Naegi closed his eyes and swayed forward as if that touch were far more intimate than it appeared, before he purposefully looked away out across the ocean, uncomfortable.

He tried and failed not to think about Komaeda and the way he had always seemed to sway towards him when they were together… right up until the day he had learned the truth of what Hajime was, or at least some of the truth at any rate. Komaeda hadn't seemed so interested after that. Or maybe he'd just been lost inside his own despair after finding out what they all were and it hadn't had anything to do with him at all. He might never know for sure. It wasn't as if even if -when- Komaeda woke up he'd ever be able to believe any answer he got even if he did summon up the courage to ask him about it. To be that vulnerable in front of someone who would probably use that display of weakness to cut him to pieces. He wasn't even really sure why it even mattered so much to him what Komaeda thought.

At the end of the day, there was no denying that after he'd found out that Hinata Hajime was just plain ordinary he'd been casually cruel in a way he'd never been before, as if he'd only ever been interested in the idea of his mysterious talent and with the promise of that gone he hadn't cared even the smallest bit about what was left behind. As if what was left wasn't worth even the smallest iota of time or consideration. He'd tried really hard to pretend- even to himself- that as Komaeda blew things up and acted like a total ass on that last day that it was only his actions that hurt, that made him angry, but… that hadn't been all there was to it.

He looked out over the dark water and he remembered how bright Komaeda's smile had seemed on that first day and he wondered if he'd known him at all.

-ooo-

It was the early hours of the morning by the time everyone had been moved into the dusty white patient rooms at the hospital. Everything had been hooked up and had been checked and double-checked for integrity and Souda seemed pretty happy with it. Naegi, Togami and Kirigiri and vanished at some point during the second round of checks indicating that they'd be back in the morning and everyone should try to get some rest. It seemed weird that they should just leave them alone like that, but he supposed they hadn't really been monitoring them from the start. Maybe he was still expecting the cameras and restrictions of the simulation. It was tough to shake off the feeling of being watched.

Fuyuhiko flopped down on the bed in Peko's room after the last checks had been done on her pod. "I'm fucking exhausted," he yawned and stretched, waving half-heartedly to them as they left. "See you fuckers in the morning. Try not to pass out in the halls or anything."

It wasn't a totally unfounded concern as they had all been up for almost a day working on getting everything installed and were all beginning to resemble the shambling dead that populated zombie movies. Deciding there was safety in numbers, or at least a lower likelihood of actually falling asleep, they escorted Sonia to Tanaka's room. She had offered them a wane smile before pressing a gentle kiss to all their cheeks before they left. Akane had been flustered by the show of affection and Souda had turned bright red, but he'd managed to stutter out a brief good night before ducking out of the room.

Hajime lingered a moment longer than the others, "You're gonna be okay?"

"Yes, I am quite all right, Hajime. Though I should hope you won't think less of me if you hear me crying during the night."

Hajime chuckled, running a hand over the heavy weight of his matted hair. "I don't think the walls are quite that thin, but I'd be surprised if all of us didn't do more than our fair share of crying tonight. If you want company, feel free to stop by my room anytime."

"I shall," Sonia replied, her lips warm against his cheek once more before she turned away to face the hospital bed. "Thank you for being my friend, Hinata Hajime."

"And thank you for being mine, Sonia Nevermind."

He slipped out into the hallway to find Souda leaning against the wall beside the room, frowning slightly. "Hey, you okay?" He asked, looking around to find that Akane appeared to have wandered off by herself.

Souda shrugged listlessly, "Yeah, I mean, it's kind of been a pretty good day, all things considered. I just got kissed by a princess and I somehow managed to fix it so we got everyone moved over here and away from that damn room without killing anyone. Almost good enough to balance out the fact that we just found out we all spent some quality time as crazy murder fiends, you know?"

Hajime sighed, slinging an arm across Souda's shoulders and steering him down the hallway towards the rooms they hadn't yet done a final check on. "Yeah, it's hard to balance that out. Did you know that someone thought it was a really good idea to operate on my brain and turn me into some kind of psychotic super genius?"

"You don't say."

"True story. I'm going to have nightmares about it forever, all of it. Yesterday was really just the worst."

"Right?"

"Except yesterday was also the day I realized I had friends. That I have people now who would miss me if I was gone, who would find me if I got lost, who will keep the despair over the things I've done and the things that were done to me from eating me alive. So, you know, it wasn't all bad."

"Did you mean what you said to Sonia about the crying?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure the only reason I haven't really freaked out yet is we've been too busy. I cried earlier in front of Togami, which was awful, and I'm probably going to start crying again the second I'm alone. I'm really not actually holding it together very well. Also, if you want to stop by, you're welcome to as well. You're my friend, you're always welcome."

"You're such a sap," Souda commented, but the soft smile curving his lips eased any sting the words might have had.

"Yeah, I guess I am. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna make the same offer to Akane and she's going to take it all wrong or beat me up. Maybe even both."

"Yeah, that seems pretty likely. Though Kazuryuu will just kill you."

"Nope, I get a pass with him. He knows that he's always welcome without my having to say it."

"Seriously? When the hell did you and Kazuryuu get so close?"

"We spent a lot of time together after he got out of the hospital. He's a really great guy, you both are. I wish we'd all been able to get to know each other before things went to hell. Become friends before Enoshima had a chance to turn us all inside out. Things probably would have been a lot different."

"Yeah, probably. Hey, I'm gonna call you Hajime from now on, okay? I mean… we've been through a lot so I thought maybe…"

Hajime smiled, bumping Souda… no… Kazuichi's shoulder with his own, "Okay, Kazuichi, that'd be good."

Kazuichi smiled brightly, "Yeah. It'd definitely have been different if we had friends to depend on. Though maybe not so much for Komaeda. He was pretty crazy to begin with. I mean, obviously, he didn't even need much motivation to start killing people when he didn't remember anything."

"I don't know. He was… he was really nice at first and even later… I don't think we all would have made it through without him even if he did do a lot of really messed up things. I just never really understood him. He isn't an easy person to know."

"Do you really think we'll actually be able to help him or Mikan? I mean, they're both so…."

"I hope so. I don't think they're bad people, not really. I don't think she would have bothered with us the way she did if any of us were bad people deep down. I just think they were lonely and life was particularly rough on them. We won't know until we try, but I really hope we'll be able to help them and everyone."

"Yeah, I guess I do too." Kazuichi replied, "That doesn't mean I'm looking forward to sleeping in a room with them. You really don't mind taking Komaeda's room? I mean, I know you're… you know."

Hajime smiled and it felt strained and brittle, "Yeah, but I think I'd be dreaming about him no matter how close or far away from him I was. It's fine. I don't really mind."

"Cool. Let's get the rest of these pods checked so we can get to the crying ourselves to sleep thing."

"You bet."

-ooo-

After he left Souda at Mikan's room, but before he retired to Komaeda's room for the night, he made a point of digging through the supply room until he came up with a pair of scissors he could use to chop off some of the hair. He was absolutely certain that there was no way in hell he'd manage to sleep with all that hair surrounding him, pressing against him, reminding him of everything he had been and might be again.

Which was how he ended up standing in front of a small mirror in the washroom, hacking away at the thick tangles and cursing softly when he pulled the hair too hard or accidentally grazed his weirdly over-sensitive skin with the scissors.

There was a bang on the door and Akane's voice rang out from the other side, "Hey, Hajime… you doing okay in there? You need me to get you a laxative or something?"

"No, but if you want to come give me a hand with these scissors, I'd be grateful."

"What the hell are you doing with scissors?" Akane replied, shoving the door open and snickering a little when she saw him. "Right, I keep forgetting you have all that crazy gross hair. It's like every time I'm not looking right at you I keep picturing you how you were, you know? It's hard to get used to the changes."

"Yeah," Hajime replied, all too aware of the way her clothes hung so loose on a frame so obviously malnourished. "You mind giving me a hand?"

"Yeah, sure, I used to cut my brothers' hair all the time." She was smiling as she took the scissors from him and turned him back around to face the mirror. "It's crazy how thick it is. We all really need to shower tomorrow. We stink."

"Yeah, we really do. I mean, when you think about it we haven't showered for a couple of weeks. Even if that gunk in the pods was self-cleaning, I still feel filthy."

"Right? And then you've got all this hair and it's super gross. I mean, not like mine or Sonia's is that much better at this point. I'm probably just gonna chop mine off too. How short do you want it?"

"Just get it above my shoulders and I'm good. I can worry about style and how short I actually want it once I've washed it a few hundred times."

"Sounds good. Keep still, I'll be done in a second."

"Sure. You're gonna sleep in Nekomaru's room, right?"

"Yeah, I'm really the only one who would stand a chance of stopping him if he decided to go all-out on the hospital when he woke up. You gonna sleep in with Komaeda?"

"Yeah."

"I figured. You guys were pretty tight before he started blowing stuff up, I thought you'd probably want to stay close to him."

"I don't know about that, but I think he'll probably at least hesitate before he tries to kill me again. Probably."

"Nah, I don't think you've got anything to worry about. He was kind of a weasel, but the only person he ever really killed was himself. There. How's that?"

"It's good, Thanks, Akane, I really appreciate the help." Hajime threaded his fingers into his freshly shortened hair. It still felt disgusting, but it was nice to have the most of the weight of it gone at least. The long tendrils scattered between them across the bathroom floor. It looked like they'd murdered a dirty mop.

"No problem. I'm glad I could help you out. Wanna come help me find a vending machine? There was no junk food at the store and I'm starving. Literally. I'm pretty sure the jackass that I was never actually ate anything while she was part of Ultimate Despair. Seriously, what the hell was I even thinking that I forgot how important food was?"

"I have a feeling we're all gonna spend years asking ourselves pretty much that same question." Hajime sighed, stretching before following Akane out of the bathroom. "I think I remember seeing one on the first floor."

"Awesome. Let's go check it out."

"Do you have any change?"

"Hell no, I'm just gonna bust it open."

"…yeah, that'll probably work."