"The essential and defining characteristic of childhood is not the effortless merging of dream and reality, but only alienation. There are no words for childhood's dark turns and exhalations. A wise child recognizes it and submits to the necessary consequences. A child who counts the cost is a child no longer."
- Stephen King, 'Salem's Lot
-ooo-
DAY THREE
-continued-
He felt weird.
Distant and detached like he was more a passive observer rather than the director of the scene.
Like nothing truly belonged to him, not even his body.
Like he wasn't the least bit necessary.
As if without him this scene would play out in exactly the same way over and over and over again until the end of time.
He's certain he's never been here before.
"Oh," he whispered in a voice that was not his own, breathy and soft with awe.
He'd never been here before, but there was something terribly familiar about it just the same.
His fingers were restless, digging through drawers, groping at bottles and boxes high on the dresser top, tapping them towards the edge with eager fingers and catching them as they fell, slipping them into his pockets or cradling them against his body before carrying them back over to add to the offering pile.
This had happened a long time ago.
The edges of the scene were faded and pockmarked with water stains, bleached white, stained yellow by time and lack of care.
This was not how his story began.
This was not even his story.
He was just going through the motions.
Following a trail of breadcrumbs through the woods.
Action to consequence.
Which was...
Weird.
It was warm, almost uncomfortably so.
There was the prickle of the beginnings of sweat at his brow as if he had a fever or maybe just the beginnings of one, but his hands were cold.
The suit they'd laid out for him, the suit he'd changed into with such painstaking care, was just a little too tight for kneeling on the floor to be comfortable, but it wasn't so bad and after a few minutes of bouncing up and down and back and forth, of crawling around and ducking under and stepping over and around, he found he hardly even noticed the tightness anymore at all.
Besides this was an important experiment, it was worth a little discomfort.
He wasn't sure why exactly it was so important, that part was vague, distant, but he was absolutely certain that it was.
Very.
Important.
And so he pressed on with his task, shuffling forward across the carpet to balance another little ornamental vase atop tower seven.
He was sure it was quite fancy, but for the moment it looked mostly like what a vase might look like when reflected in a funhouse mirror.
He went about his task with a frantic urgency born of a pressing need to see it done, to see through to the conclusion of this idea, this sick feeling in his belly he couldn't quite shake. This need to know.
Know what?
He wasn't sure.
So many things seemed a little foggy, a little vague, a little off as if there were a thousand tiny details missing from the scene.
The dresser was brown and probably made of wood, but it lacked grain and texture. There were no shadows to give it life, depth, to weight it against the carpet or make it stand out against the wall. The bed was worse, a few scattered lines and some wiggly gold waves crisscrossing a mossy green blob. He guessed it was probably supposed to represent the cover, but it looked mostly like scribbles in a poorly drawn coloring book.
The carpet on which he sat meticulously stacking all those fragile, valuable things, however, was almost hyper realistic. Every shadow, every stain, every fiber seemed larger than life and twice as real. It was thick and soft, so soft that the towers seemed like they should have immediately tumbled over whenever they got more than a few levels high, but they never did.
They just grew higher and higher, wobbling dangerously over him as he worked.
His hands were small and pale and he used them to create increasingly ambitious towers and bridges around himself, built them high and higher, his movements were becoming more frenzied with each new level, his breath coming quick and almost panicked in his chest as he watched glass perfume bottles and fancy pewter jewel cases teeter and sway around him like reeds blown in a brisk breeze.
As each new tower grew higher and higher until he had to stand on tip-toes to slip new bits and bobs on top of each of the piles, so grew his surety that he was right.
His hands were unsteady, shaking with a tremor of excitement at the prospect as he ducked and crawled across the room to retrieve more things from his mother's dresser to add to the proof that he was right.
This idea that had been dancing in his head for weeks and weeks and weeks.
This idea that he couldn't shake.
He'd had it before, lots and lots of times, but he'd been reminded of it earlier when he'd slipped in the bath and in doing so narrowly missed being hit in the head by a falling ceiling tile.
Lucky.
Last week, he'd been playing out on the balcony with one of the maids and it had collapsed beneath them.
He'd fallen in the pool.
She hadn't.
That had been lucky too, hadn't it?
He'd heard them say so as they bundled him in blankets and flashed lights in his eyes.
Lucky.
He laughed, delighted, as those towers shifted and swayed around him, joy slithering around his heart like a snake, coiled tight and squeezing tighter each time it seemed as if he'd finally built them too high, chanced too much, only to find all those precariously balanced items still stood.
And each time he became a little more confidant that he maybe, just maybe...
He was.
He had to be.
Lucky.
Because if he was lucky... if he was lucky then...
Then he wasn't all bad.
If he was lucky than maybe he wasn't completely worthless.
Not if he really was lucky.
He couldn't wait to tell them.
To show them.
If he could show them that there was one good thing about him, even if it was just one, then maybe they would... maybe...
The glitter of possibility made his chest tight, caught his breath in his chest and it was impossible to focus on anything beyond the moment, beyond the shivering towers that for just that moment represented a reality in which everything could be different, in which he could be different.
Then everything was tumbling down around him, bottles crashing to the ground, saved by carpet but crushed by tumbling pewter and bronze and wood, sharp edges catching thin lines of pain across his bare feet and hands.
His cheek ached and his body felt bruised where he'd fallen into the largest most impressive set of towers. A few stragglers remained standing still, a wavering silent testimony to another way he was... no good at all, really, not even in this.
The world had snapped into vivid surety around him as he lay panting across the ruins of his broken city, eyes stinging as a hand snatched hold of his wrist and yanked him upright to stare wide-eyed into his mother's cool, narrowed gaze.
It is a world that reeks of flowery perfume and failure.
"Nagito, I am very disappointed in you. I do believe that you were told to get ready to go and yet here you are. Playing around. Making a terrible mess and destroying my things. Things I like far more than I like you right now," she commented, nudging one of the broken bottles with her stockinged toe and his stomach plummeted, a fine tremor breaking across his limbs. "Please tell me what part of 'get ready to go' was it precisely that made you think this was appropriate behavior?"
"I'm sorry," he whispered, the apology reflexive on his tongue even before his mind had begun to form the first words of argument. "I am ready, I was just..."
"I believe I also told you to brush your hair," she murmured, ignoring his words, and he winced, curling away from her reflexively even as her fingers slid into the strands, pulling the short, loose curls out for examination. "Do you want me to have Edwards shave it off for you again?"
"No, Mama," he managed to choke out past lips that had gone stupid and numb.
He hated the buzzing noise the clippers made, how weird his head looked without the fluff of his hair to soften it, how naked he felt after, how much he hated seeing his reflection in the mirror.
It made him think about the hospital.
He didn't want to think about the hospital.
"Then you must care for it properly. Go brush your filthy hair and change your clothes, you've ruined this suit."
"It isn't filthy,," he whispered before he could think better of it. "I just washed it this morning."
Her head dropped to the side, her expression as blank as paper, as the sky on a cloudless day. "Then you must not have cleaned it properly. I don't remember giving birth to a ginger-haired interloper who looks nothing like his parents. Do you even understand how many jokes are made at my expense because you look the way you do? What I have to tolerate for your sake? The least you could do is keep it tidy. Tie it back and wear your wig if you can't manage to keep it orderly."
"But Mama, it itches."
He heard the crack of her hand against his cheek well before he felt the sting of it; well before he realized what had happened or that her fingers were no longer caught in his hair.
He stared at the closet door in the far wall as tears welled up, blurring the world into a mess of color. He knew if he looked closely enough he'd be able to see his fingerprints from where he'd touched the varnish before it had fully dried.
Proof that he belonged here.
Even if sometimes he didn't deserve to.
"Why can't you just be a good boy and do as I ask? If you were a good boy, I wouldn't have to- are you crying?" She huffs a sigh as she kneels beside him, catching his chin with her hand and swinging his head back around to face her. "Sweetheart, what have I told you about that?"
"Only babies cry," he whispered as her image swam and blurred before his eyes.
"Exactly. Are you a baby, Nagito?" She asked, infinitely patient, as her fingers released his chin settling her palms against his cheeks instead, cradling his face almost gently.
"No, Mama."
"Then smile for me, sweetheart."
It hurt.
Smiling hurt and he didn't dare blink, too scared that those tears still blurring his vision would fall.
"Now, isn't that better? A good smile can make all the difference, you know. No one will ever like you at all if you can't smile properly, Nagito. Now go wash your face, tidy yourself up and, if you can't manage that, then put on your best wig. And the blue suit, I think. Wear the blue. I can't have you seen like this. If you aren't able to make yourself presentable, you will be sent to your room and you will go to bed hungry. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Mama."
"Go then. I will have Edwards clear up this," she glanced around at the scattered blocks that had once been proud towering monuments to his talent, "…mess."
"Yes, Mama," he whispered even though she was already turning away, forgetting about him in favor of contemplating her jewelry box.
His face ached, but he held the smile all the way to the bathroom just in case, stepping carefully into the room and closing the door behind him.
He climbed up on the stool in front of the counter with unsteady legs and paused, staring for a long moment at his reflection. At his wild hair, at his pale skin and flushed cheeks; at his dreary red-rimmed eyes as he finally let the smile fall away.
Mama was right.
No one would ever like him like this.
He smiled again, ignoring the ache, letting false cheer close his eyes.
Maybe if he practiced enough it wouldn't be false anymore.
Or at least no one would be able to tell it was.
Maybe one day he might even fool himself.
And why not?
He was... lucky.
He sucked in a gasp, deep and sudden, like he was surfacing from too long spent underwater and found that the world had gone hazy and uncertain around him. The boy standing by the sink smiling, bright and false, at his reflection was frozen in place, caught between one moment and the next.
Smiling, still smiling.
He knew that smile.
Would have known it anywhere even without hearing the name that went with it.
He wanted to touch that smile, force it into a frown, pinch color into those pale cheeks until he laughed or told him to stop, until his expression became something real, something that didn't leave him feeling empty and horrible inside.
But he had no hands to reach out with.
Nothing was real here.
Not even him.
This wasn't his story.
This had happened a long time ago.
And the edges of the scene were once more faded and pockmarked with water stains, bleached white, stained yellow by time and lack of care.
Just an image from another time, another place, another life.
No one could change the past.
Not really.
The hazy image of the boy was already becoming difficult to see, the mirror fogging over until white was all he could see.
Until there was nothing left and the world faded into something new and far darker and he was left choking on a sob, reaching out for the ghost of a boy he'd never known.
Or maybe for the reality of the man he'd eventually become.
It didn't matter which, not really, either way his name was a whimper on his lips and he couldn't reach him.
He couldn't touch them, either one.
Instead his fingers scraped rough and painful across damp asphalt and with it came something like reality, emerging from the dark like some great beast breaking the surface of the world and immediately kicking him in the head.
Somewhere far off there was a terrible, gargling moan that scrapped across his nerves and he woke to the merciless thump of a frantic drumbeat in his head. He blinked into wakefulness through a film of tears to find the world filled with an agony that seared through his veins like fire and stole the breath from his lungs. It seemed like his entire body was snarling, burning as he tried to draw a breath that only made him cough, made him choke on the taste of blood in his mouth. The grit of gravel ground loud and painful beneath his gnashing teeth as he shivered violently and tried not to scream.
He hacked and spit jagged stones across the wet glistening dark of asphalt as he curled his body close and small as if doing so might somehow lesson the pain or at least allow him a brief reprieve from the ache that scorched a trail up his chest and arms.
It didn't.
His head throbbed viciously and the rain fell like bullets, pounding icy cold against sensitive, overheated flesh and there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide from it, nothing to do but endure.
Time passed.
It must have, because that was what time did.
But for a long time, he couldn't think beyond the moment, beyond himself, beyond the ever present beat of rain against his skin.
Then with painstaking slowness the world around him began to reassert itself, to slither back into the field of his awareness an inch at a time. First the grumble of thunder then the buzzing static fizzle of faltering neon. Gradually the pain began to lessen as the chill in the air and the water filling in the space around him began to numb his raw skin, ease the ache in his head. Water rose against the curve of his cheek, deep enough that it splashed up against the part of his lips each time a raindrop landed too near his face. He drifted, exhaustion dragging him back towards sleep as water continued to build up around him, covering his fingertips, lapping against the curve of his stomach as it puddled around him.
That thought stirred something, some lazy realization swimming up from the depths to prod him back towards consciousness.
There'd been a puddle in the hall, hadn't there?
Deep enough to be a pond, though in the dark it had seemed like a lake, an ocean.
There'd been something there with him.
Something in the dark.
In the water.
Unseen.
The memory of sharp nails digging into his leg, phantom fingers dragging over his stomach is enough to draw an aborted scream from his lungs, enough to force him up past the dull throb of pain and the weight of exhaustion to full awareness. He flailed, startling into action and just managing to shove himself up and over onto his back before the renewed flare of agony sent him flopping back down in the puddle with a groan.
"Fuck," he breathed, wincing and turning his head to the side, away from the rain that splattered in his eyes, pelted sharp and irritating against his face.
He was awake now, for better or for worse, but nothing he saw made any sense at all.
Water covered the parking lot in a soft, greasy sheen that painted the sordid bright of neon across it's filthy, rippling surface. He flicked his gaze up from the wavering reflection to the too-bright reality of the sign, of the lights flickering bright and vivid even through the steady fall of rain.
The diner.
What the hell was he doing outside the diner?
What had he…?
He pushed himself up slowly, tentatively testing trembling arms, his bruised fingers scrapping and curling against the asphalt in search of purchase. His pants and hair were soaked through, plastered and sticking uncomfortably to his clammy skin as he wobbled into a sitting position.
The neon of the diner seemed to taunt him, flickering pink and red in the darkness, beckoning him to come back inside out of the rain.
Daring him.
"Fuck," he breathed again, running a hand over his face.
Everything was just...
No, he was just...
Crazy.
Just completely nuts.
A trill of sudden unexpected laughter shook him as he sat there and he pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth to smother it.
He was losing it.
He was really… losing it.
And who could blame him really? Who could blame any of them?
After everything that had hap-
...di...
After everything that-
...lo...g...
After every-
...ad...g...
After-
He can't think, can't complete a thought and there's a screeching noise in his head, sudden and inescapable, loud enough to eclipse even the constant fall of rain as static fills his head with sand and everything turns white.
-la…hs and the f…liar so… re…s in…o his ch…t to stop his heart.
…laughs as if he finds nothing and everything amusing, as if he's losing his grip on sanity, as if he has nothing, deserves nothing and knows it. It's desolate and terrible and teetering at the edge of an abyss called Despair.
It feels like an echo of his soul caught and complete in a singular sound and it's so achingly lonely that he couldn't have moved away even if he'd tried, even if he'd wanted to.
And he doesn't want to, not at all
He's so…
Lucky.
So….
So….
There's the strangest sense of vertigo and then he's kneeling above the boy on the stairs and he….
Komaeda Nagito stares up at him like he's a revelation.
And he can't stop laughing.
His chest feels tight, his face hot and his hand is aching where it's caught between the boy's head and the step.
Step.
Stairs… there was something… stairs…?
He'd been walking… no… running?
Yes.
He'd been dashing up those stairs for….
He'd been here before.
Why had he been here?
There had to have been a reason, right?
This was not how his story began.
But he knew this place.
He remembered this.
It was just...
There was a reason, wasn't there?
There was something, there was… what?
It was like grasping water, the tighter he tried to hold on to it, the more it seemed to slide formless and wet through his fingers leaving only traces behind. His motivations, his feelings, everything was just a gloopy, unfamiliar stew that was somehow both soothing and revolting simultaneously.
This was not how his story began.
But it was, more or less, how it continued.
He should be able to… he should…
What?
Who was he?
What had he done?
Why?
These were essential questions.
It was necessary to establish these things.
He… he hadn't been paying attention, not really, too caught up in his own thoughts, his own panic.
He'd heard the door open, heard footsteps pounding hard on the stairs, but he'd thought… he'd thought it might be security, might be… something… someone coming to bring him back and he just needed… he needed… needed… a moment.
To himself, away, just… just a moment alone, away, from there, from them.
From the way they stared at him, the way they talked over him, around him, like he wasn't even there.
Like he wasn't a person.
Like he wasn't even… he just… wanted a moment.
All he'd been thinking about was escape, about going far away, finding a quiet place to himself and then there'd been a moment, a moment of realization, far too late and he'd seen a blur of pale and then they'd collided.
Surprise.
He'd been surprised.
It had hurt, but he'd also…
He'd been…
He was…
Afraid.
He'd seen his eyes widen, heard the startled intake of breath and then they'd been falling and he'd been…
He hadn't been able to see the impact coming, had been too focused inward, too caught up in the moment, but now… now he was able to see the fallout, branching out around him, all of it so precariously balanced upon his decisions, his potential.
Spreading vast around a single point, a single name, that caused each thread to shimmer and thrum and glisten with possibility.
Komaeda Nagito.
His name was Komaeda Nagito and he was... lucky.
Lucky, but luck was a fickle talent. It came and went, turned on a dime, turned against you when you least expected it.
He could see blood seeping down the stairs, staining pale hair, once bright eyes gone glassy and vague.
He could see those same eyes staring down at him in surprise as he bled instead, the ache in his skull incredibly intense, all their delicate work put to ruin as he dashed the hopes of all against those steps with a single impulsive decision.
Each path before him was littered with broken limbs, shattered bones, blood, bruises, concussions; a hundred different injuries of varying degrees of severity.
They were both fragile, delicate, at least for this moment.
Komaeda's luck was difficult to quantify, to factor into calculations, an unknown quantity that set his nerves buzzing with uncertainty.
His own luck was a flower yet to bloom.
He couldn't depend on luck, couldn't disregard it, it was a scale teetering precariously between two extremes.
Finally he found and seized upon the optimal path, one that carried them both through the fall with minimal damage and put it to action.
His reflexes were better than they had been, much better, so it was a simple matter to make the necessary adjusts as they fell, tapping Komaeda's body into position before turning his own, shifting his arm to catch the impact of Komaeda's head against the palm of his hand. To allow his hand to be crushed between head and step and while it had been painful, had bruised and fractured, it had also been the best of all those myriad possibilities and it was an injury that would heal soon enough.
"You're…" The word, spoken softly, uncertainly, interrupts his thoughts, summons him back to the moment, draws his attention back to the boy lying beneath him.
He knows him, knows his face, has seen it from a distance a dozen times or more, but he's never seen him this close. And the way he's looking up at him…
As if he's something... someone...
Special.
It's nowhere near true, not yet, but it's still... nice.
Warm.
Would this be what it felt like?
To be talented?
To be everyone's hope?
It's a nice thought.
A hopeful thought.
He shifted slowly so he could kneel comfortably between the other boy's splayed legs, careful to keep his head cradled against his palm as he moves.
"I'm so sorry my careless actions have caused you pain," he said and he was, but somehow it had still felt like he was teasing him. The words rolling off his tongue as if they were the start of something rather than the end they were meant to be.
Pale fingers reached up to trace the skin beneath his eyes.
It had felt...
When was the last time someone had touched him like that?
Had anyone ever touched him like that?
He couldn't remember.
He couldn't remember so many things lately.
He'd known that was… a possibility, no, inevitability, but it was still… disconcerting. Every time he walked into that room, every time he stepped into that pod, he lost something else. Every time he closed his eyes another piece of his old, ordinary self would slough away to reveal the vessel of hope they were creating underneath.
It should have made him feel… good.
Better.
Best.
It was progress, wasn't it?
This was what he wanted.
This was how it was supposed to happen and yet…
And yet…
The times between... it made him just feel... small and less and….
Broken.
"We match," Komaeda's soft murmuring voice summoned his meandering thoughts back to the present yet again. To the gentle touch of cool fingers against his face, drawing his attention to the dark circles beneath the pale eyes that were still staring at him as if he were something remarkable.
He was right; they did match in that way.
They both wore the stamp of too many sleepless nights or poor health or both.
When had they gotten so close?
Had he leaned down?
What was he thinking...?
Was he thinking...?
Was this meeting chance or fate?
Lucky or unlucky?
Did it matter?
It came almost as a surprise when he touched Komaeda's cheek, as if his hand had made the decision to do so independently without bothering to consult him. They were just suddenly there, dark fingers slipping across a pale canvas.
His skin was smooth, cool, beneath his fingertips and the way Komaeda leaned into the touch, almost instinctive, like a flower turning towards the sun made his breath catch in his chest.
He was...
Everything stuttered, color fluctuating and fading around him as the world ground to a halt and he was suddenly the only player left on a frozen stage.
As if he'd been watching a film, a first person narrative of his life that had gotten stuck on this scene, on this final frame and he'd been left to play out the final moments alone.
And it left him cold, trembling with the loss of something he'd never truly had.
He didn't belong here.
He didn't belong anywhere.
"I guess we do," he heard himself reply as he allowed his hand to fall away.
It was all he could do, really.
He never should have touched him in the first place.
"Do you forgive me?" He asked quietly even though he's not exactly sure what he's asking forgiveness for anymore. It still seems… important to hear the answer even though the image of Komaeda's face is already faltering, fading, vanishing beneath the sweeping darkness of the night and the endless fall of rain.
It was always raining here.
He was…
He is…
He picked himself up gingerly off the pavement and it felt like he was on autopilot, just stumbling through the motions as he climbed to unsteady feet only to crash back down almost immediately as numb, tingling legs gave way beneath him and dumped him flat on his ass.
He's pretty sure he yelped as his teeth clicked painfully and he caught the weight of it against one hand… the same hand that he'd caught Komaeda's head with in that…
What?
Memory?
Dream?
Could you even dream when you were already dreaming?
Dreams within dreams?
He snorted, shaking his head at the thought.
How tedious.
How boring.
Boring?
The word startled another laugh out of him and he buried it against his good hand, screaming frustration at the end.
He was so tired of this.
"Then why don't you just wake up already, you freaking idiot?" He screamed into the dark of the night, into the raging storm and the rumble of thunder.
He pinched his cheeks hard twisting the aching skin back and forth for good measure even though he knew it wouldn't do any good.
If nothing else he'd experienced here had been enough to wake him up than surely that wouldn't either.
His legs tingled painfully and he shifted them, running his hands irritably over his borrowed pants, fingers catching against the bloodstained holes in the fabric.
It was so stupid.
This was all so stupid.
How long had he been lying there that his legs had fallen asleep?
What the hell was wrong with him that he was dreaming about his legs being asleep?
His head hurt, his neck ached and he felt… wrong, weird… still off in some fundamental way he couldn't quite grasp. His feet were covered in soggy gauze and when he rubbed his hands against his jeans to get rid of some of the loose gravel stuck there, he noticed that one of them was wrapped in gauze as well.
It had snagged against something sharp that was embedded in the fabric of his pants.
He stared down at it blankly, at the neat, efficient wrap that covered his hand and most of his arm almost to the elbow. Thick enough to protect from further injury, thin enough not to be a hindrance.
It was the same hand he'd caught against the step.
The same arm that had been grabbed and shredded when he'd stuck it in that stupid vent.
Someone had bandaged his arm.
He didn't….
He….
-talk too much," he replied coolly, flipping open the lid and fishing out gauze, tape and alcohol swabs. "I can fix that problem for you if you'd like."
Enoshima looked unimpressed by the threat, "You do realize that infection is really the least of your worries, right?"
"To the contrary, I'd say it's actually my largest concern at the moment," he replied, swabbing the bloody wounds on his hand and feet and wiping away the worst of the blood before slathering the wounds with disinfectant. He unrolled the gauze, wrapping his injured hand with quick, efficient motions before turning his attention to his feet.
Then suddenly there's a voice.
A voice that seemed to come from somewhere and nowhere and everywhere at once. It shudders and fluctuates with static like a radio station he can't quite manage to tune in properly.
"…violating protocol… titions… creased… ection… teen point six nine… cent… sist in the... forts… nact… rantine… safety."
Everything was frozen around him, Enoshima's hands caught in the air above her condiment structure, the jukebox gone silent and still, even the air seemed stale and motionless.
He sawed the pieces of gauze free with a butter knife, tucking and taping and securing the ends of each neatly in turn.
"Safety? What the… what the hell are you talking about? What… what is this?" He rasped, only a little surprised to find that no sound came out, that his body kept moving regardless, going through the motion of bandaging his wounds it was… it felt… like he was….
"…refuse to sev… manually… will be eject... nine… ght…"
Panic seized him and he scrambled for control, for purchase, for anything and he must have done something right because the action spun up again around him, like a record wobbling into song and it seemed like the whole world released a relieved sigh or maybe that was just him.
Either way Enoshima was talking again as if nothing had happened.
"A virus joke, that's so original, Izuru. I might just die laugh-"
Izuru.
Time grinds to a halt again and he recoils as the realization of that name hits him with the force of a punch.
His ears were still ringing when he found himself in the parking lot once more.
Or still.
He's not sure which and his head aches worse than ever.
Izuru.
She'd called him Izuru.
He was….
His breath was coming short and frantic, his heart pounding in time with the ache in his head.
His mouth tastes like pennies and he's absolutely going to throw up.
He wasn't him.
He wasn't. He was…
He was….
He crammed a hand against his mouth as if that might stop the laughter that's spilling out, like it might be able to still the panic sizzling in his veins.
Who was he?
He wasn't Hinata Hajime, not really.
He knew that.
He knew that.
He'd felt it since he'd woken up, that difference, that surety, but it hadn't… it hadn't bothered him, had it?
Not really?
It… he didn't mind not being Hinata Hajime. It had been… okay not to be him. Hadn't it?
Hadn't it?
But if not him then who?
He couldn't be Kamakura Izuru either. He wasn't… he wasn't a monster.
He wasn't.
He wasn't.
He was still himself, wasn't he?
He was still... still...
He was...
How the hell had he gotten out here?
Out where?
Where had he… what...?
For long moments there was suddenly nothing, nothing he could grasp, nothing at all that told the story, any story at all.
He was…
Dreaming.
Who was he?
His name was Hinata Hajime.
Who was Hinata Hajime?
Why was he here?
These were essential questions.
It was necessary to establish these things.
Why was he here?
Where was here?
No, that wasn't... he just needed to calm down.
To… focus.
He was… he….
He knew this.
He knew the answer to this.
He knew this story.
He did.
Once he'd woken up in a dark place and he hadn't been alone.
It seemed like something that had happened a very long time ago.
This is what he knows:
- The rain had been falling for a long time and no time at all.
- He has forgotten something.
- It was probably important.
- This was not how his story began.
- But it was, more or less, how it continued.