"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."
- Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
-ooo-
DAY THREE
03:53:44 UTC
-continued-
-ooo-
There was a voice.
Familiar and flat and so soft it was almost lost beneath the crash of thunder and the steady beat of water against wood.
You're going to be late.
Late?
For what?
Was there somewhere to be?
Where?
Someone to be?
Who?
These were important questions.
They defined… something.
Someone.
Who was it?
Who was he?
There was a name on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't yet give it voice.
He was….
He was certain his eyes were open, but the darkness was still all he could see.
It was a familiar scenario and he finds himself grasping, reaching through the dark for something.
Someone who should have been there… but wasn't.
Who?
Who was he looking for?
Did it even matter when he didn't even know his own….
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There was a name scrawled messily across the top of a torn page.
It was a name that was both familiar and strange.
His name.
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Hinata Hajime.
He opened his eyes slowly, reluctantly, they felt swollen beneath the weight of the water that immediately washed over them, obscuring vision and stinging cold. They felt foreign, strange, as if they belonged to someone else.
It had been raining for a long time, he realized as he lay blinking frantically to clear the water from his sight, lifting a heavy hand to shield them as he turned his head to peer blearily into the darkness of the night beyond. A night that was dark and thick with driving rain that look like static where the falling drops caught the brief and brilliant light of distant lightning breaking across the sky.
It seemed as if the night might hold the answer to questions he hasn't yet remembered to ask. Had store witness to things he couldn't begin to understand.
His mind was a comfortable void, the hum of a blank screen waiting for a game to load.
His body was heavy and as he sat up he had to shift in order to pull free the long fall of midnight dark hair beneath him.
His hair.
It was so long.
So heavy in his hands, saturated as it was by rainwater.
It would be difficult to manage like that so he pulled the weight of it into his lap and began the slow process of dividing it into parts and braiding it together with fingers that ached and protested every movement.
He watched the water roll down the sloping boards of the bridge as he worked. Watched as it fell down, down, down to vanish into the darkness.
It had been raining for a long time.
A long time and no time at all.
He wasn't why he knew that, just that he did.
He finished the braid by knotting it at the bottom. It wouldn't hold for long, but it was better than nothing and he didn't have the time to think of a better solution.
There was somewhere he was supposed to be, after all.
And if he didn't hurry, he was going to be late.
He was…
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The cool water rolls over his toes as he looks out over the broad expanse of ocean before them as the sun's light vanished slowly before the oncoming night.
Her steps are quiet, almost lost beneath the series of electric bleeps and blips and the familiar click of buttons being pressed with almost inhuman precision.
"If you want to swim," she commented, coming to a stop beside him, her features obscured by the hood she'd pulled up to stave off the chill of evening. It was weird how cold it would get at night sometimes. "You should use the pool, the ocean seems like it might be a dangerous place to swim at night when you're alone."
He knows she's right, but he can't quite bring himself to turn away.
"At least it wouldn't be boring," he replied absently, purposefully shuffling forward so the next wave spilled up over his feet and rushed around his ankles to soak the hem of the pants he hadn't bothered to roll up.
The last thing he wanted was to go to the damn pool.
Every time he so much as looked at it he couldn't help thinking about Komaeda and every time he thought about Komaeda it felt like he'd swallowed a bucket of nails.
"Suit yourself," she sighed, voice soft and flat. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," he answered shortly, digging his toes into the hard packed sand as the wave rushed back out leaving his wet feet vulnerable to the chill night air. "What are you playing?"
She tilted her head towards him briefly, though she never turned her attention from the game screen, "I don't think you'll know this one. It's one-of-a-kind."
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The desert air was dry and so hot that even breathing was vaguely uncomfortable.
His hair was a warm, uncomfortable weight against the layer of sweat already dripping down the back of his neck and back, dampening his shirt and the dark fabric of his jacket,
His was an outfit that had been better suited to air conditioned diners and cars than to the boiling heat of the midday desert sun.
The discomfort was new, unpleasant, and- for the moment- it was interesting though he knows that that interest won't last.
It never does.
"This way," Naegi called, beckoning him forward as he picks his way gingerly past the debris scattered down the length of the open hallway before them.
He followed his steps sure where Naegi's were hesitant and flinching.
A layer of sand lay thick across the floor of the hall, mounded in smooth wavering patterns where it had been pushed into place by the wind and lain undisturbed until they had arrived to tread across its surface; the chaos of humanity arriving to break nature's peaceful symmetry once more.
Naegi's steps were loud, echoing, clumsy.
His own were soft, measured, efficient.
Boring.
Blood stained the doors they passed, smeared across the walls, the floor; dried droplets sprayed across doorknobs and room numbers, a smattering of jagged red fingerprints pressed over chipped paint and unfinished wood.
Each print was distinct… each told a story he couldn't be bothered to read.
What happened there was unimportant.
Boring.
It was just a convenient place to stop.
A place where they would remain undisturbed long enough to discuss… whatever it was Naegi had sought him out to discuss.
Two doors had hung wide open, wavering on broken, creaking hinges as the hot wind gusts through into the rooms beyond to disturb the stench of decay that lay within.
There were a pair of bloodied, torn sneakers and half dozen broken toys scattered across their path.
A stuffed doll lay discarded in the dirt, fabric bleached pale by the sun, ruptured stitches leaking fluff through broken seams.
He watched as Naegi stepped carefully, almost reverently over and around them all.
He felt something like interest flare at the idea that someone who had seen so much death could still be so leery of the echoes of it, but that interest fades to frustration almost immediately as Naegi's faltering, apologetic side-stepping continues to slow their progress.
By the time they reached their destination they would be a full ten seconds behind schedule.
Ten seconds less to go through whatever information Naegi has procured, less time to speak, to plan, to take action before their location is compromised, before the Future Foundation would inevitably arrive in force to thwart whatever scheme had driven Naegi to seek him out.
It was frustrating.
His stubborn refusal to speak in the car, to tell him anything, to explain what he'd meant until they'd gotten somewhere safe.
Nothing he had seen thus far made it clear why this rundown hotel in the middle of the desert was that place unless it was simply an area that the Future Foundation had designated unimportant enough not to be surveilled.
A possibility.
Or an excuse.
A flicker of motion caught his eye as a curtain fell shut in the window of Room 13.
A white lace and silk brazier hangs on the doorknob, it was worn and greying with age, the elastic fraying in places, broken white threads shivering in the wind.
A warning or an invitation.
He could see the beginnings of a story unfinished in the fading bloody boot prints that lead from that closed door out across the cracked, weed-infested parking lot.
Boring.
He was not here to read the stories of the dead, he was here to begin writing his own.
And every moment of further delay was frustrating.
"Wait here," Naegi called suddenly.
Wait.
He was getting tired of hearing that word.
Naegi ducked under a broken door panel into a room that had once been labeled OFFICE in crooked, faded black lettering.
The C and the E were missing, but he could still see their imprint in the void left between the grime of years.
There was an unlit sign in the window, barely visible behind the thick coating of dust: NO VACANCY
He waited.
It was boring.
He was beginning to believe he would have been better off turning down Naegi's offer. It wasn't as if he had any proof that anything Naegi had to show him would truly change anything for him. In retrospect, he wasn't certain why he'd been willing to follow him in the first place other than it had been a deviation from routine, a diversion to stave off the ever encroaching menace of boredom.
There was a desiccated corpse lying in the shadows of the hall near the ice machine, tattered clothing fluttering as the wind picked up, a hot gust that rushed down the corridor.
The finger bones of the corpse had been picked clean where they lay curled in the accumulated dirt and debris of the months that had passed since their owner had met his end. There were several tumbleweeds caught against the heap of fabric and bone, huddled close and trembling in the breeze, like children seeking comfort from the terrors of the night.
The floorboards creaked protest beneath the weight of his scuffed dress shoes as Naegi emerged from the office once more, sleeve held over his mouth, his nose, a key held up triumphantly in his free hand.
"Here," Naegi called unnecessarily, voice muffled as he tossed the key his way carelessly.
He caught it with ease.
It had a large, cracked brown plastic square attached on which was printed a fading number 9.
It had been manufactured in Vasai, India in the year 1983.
Based on the buildup of grit around the edges it had not been cleaned properly in approximately fifteen years, three months and twelve days.
"Can you go make sure the room isn't full of dead people while I get the files from the car?" Naegi asked, over his shoulder, not bothering to wait for him to agree before setting off across the sunlit lot towards where they had parked the public health hazard Naegi insisted on calling a getaway vehicle.
Which was a ridiculous misnomer.
As if they were capable of getting away from anything or anyone in something that was clearly held together by luck courtesy of Naegi's inexplicable fondness for it.
Naegi's tendency to romanticize things was already growing tedious.
As was his insistence on trusting him.
The way he turned his back on him again and again did not speak well of Naegi's survival instincts.
His talent must truly be extraordinary.
It was the only viable explanation for how he'd survived all that he had.
A dozen possible outcomes glittered on the horizon of his thoughts, but they were all boring save one.
It was almost a certainty that nothing Naegi had to say would be worth tolerating the way his nerves were beginning to chafe at the idea of having to endure his company for another day, another hour, another minute.
Boring.
He was boring.
But then so was everything else. The diner had been a diversion, just like watching the chaos wrought by despair, but it was transient, temporary, becoming ever less interesting beneath the weight of repetition and understanding.
Only the unexpected was truly interesting and those things which he could not anticipate dwindled by the day.
People were boring.
Animals were boring.
Breathing was boring.
Existing was boring.
Yet still he endured.
For he was loved by talent.
And he had been taught to value his own talent above all things.
So, his talent, was too important to be surrendered to death.
And even if he were tempted, there existed the possibility, however slim, that death would be boring as well.
Boring, tedious and- most importantly- inescapable.
He turned his gaze toward room 9.
He was uncertain whether it is hope or despair that lead him to take a step toward whatever answers he might find there.
And that uncertainty… was interesting.
For the moment.
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"Ain't ya tired yet?" A voice inquired, accent thick as mud.
It seemed at once very close and very far away.
He was on the bridge again, cheek pressed against the boards, again.
Still.
He'd been lying there a long time.
Too long.
There was somewhere he was meant to be.
His face was wet and the rain was still falling.
There was someone calling him.
"Hinata? Can't you hear me?"
The voice was distracting, weird and wavering, and it seemed to echo around him. It called his name, but it seemed… distant, unimportant.
It wasn't the voice he wanted to hear.
"Hinata?"
It was weak, plaintive.
"Not now," he grumbled, voice rough and thick.
He didn't have time for this.
He had to go.
He pulled his knees beneath him, slapped his aching palms down against the damp, spongy boards.
Up.
He needed to get up.
There was something else he was meant to be doing.
Someone else he was meant to be….
"Don't you even care?"
He didn't.
Maybe he should, but he didn't.
He couldn't think about that right now.
His head was already too full.
Whatever that voice was, whoever it belonged to… it wasn't what he was looking for. It was just more… noise, static. It wasn't… important, it wasn't necessary, it was just a distraction.
Like the rain and the night and all those memories and images and feelings that weren't where they were supposed to be, that weren't where he left them. Not that he knew where that was, because he didn't.
They were just wandering about in his head like lost, stupid children, running into things and bumping up against his reality, overwriting and interfering with it again and again.
It was just another distraction to keep him spinning his wheels until time ran out.
Time...
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"Aw, you're not leaving already are you? I miss our little talks," she pouted, frowning as he closed the medical kit and slid off the barstool, the pain in his feet was distant, virtually nonexistent now that they were tightly wrapped in layers and layers of soft gauze.
"You've stolen something that belongs to me and given is to that clumsy girl. Did you imagine that I'd thank you for it?"
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The rain was warm.
Too warm.
"Hinata?"
Scalding hot and uncomfortable against his too cold skin.
His stomach churned and his head ached and the world wobbling around him like the last spin of a top before it falls.
But he knew what he needed to do.
"Well, ain't ya?"
He needed to go.
He needed to...
"Tired?"
The hospital.
He had to get to the hospital.
"Hinata?"
He couldn't think.
Not with all that noise.
"Shut up!" He snarled, shoving himself to his feet as frustration flashed through him like lightning striking, sudden and bright and gone in an instant leaving only hollow, burning devastation in its wake. He stumbled, unsteady, as every muscle in his body protested the sudden movement, but he was up. "Just shut up and leave me al-"
The word died on his tongue as he turned and found himself staring into the face of a nightmare.
"Thought for sure you be tired by now," the voice continued, conversationally, almost cheerful even through the warbling distortion that made it difficult to hear, like there were loose guitar strings being plucked between every word.
Red, torn flesh, infected sores weeping, edges blackened, nose sheared away, lips blistered and cracked, once white clothes just tattered rags fluttering in the breeze.
Thunder rumbled, a seething murmur of discontent as lightning flashed bright in the darkness, casting everything in the brilliant, sickly green swimming light of a server room.
The swaying blur of flickering, water-distorted light swamped them both before slowly fading away leaving them to the night and the ever-present patter of rain.
The storm had passed and with it the stomach-clenching horror of the moment.
"Hanamura," he mumbled, scrubbing a hand over his face.
Hanamura smiled at him, his chef's whites neat and pristine, his features shadowed by the night, a chef's hat towering impossibly high atop his head. The whole ensemble seemed to glow against the darkness of the night, impossible to mistake even with his head pounding and his vision blurred by the rain or exhaustion or both.
"Hinata?" He asked, voice still muffled, features impossible to make out clearly, but he could tell he was smiling, could see that his teeth were white, his eyes dark and fathomless. He's reaching out for him, still smiling,"You feeling okay? You ain't looking so good."
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He knew the touch was coming just before it landed, felt the change in the air current and the ambient temperature. It would be a simple matter to step aside and evade his reaching hand, but instead he remains still and allows him to make contact.
Why?
He already knows how this will end.
There's no point to it, but he lets it happen anyway.
The brush of fingertips across the base of his spine sends an involuntary shudder through him and he balls his hands into fists, ruining the material of the shirt he has yet to set aside.
The pad of his thumb passes over the mark there, brushing over it gently before settling against it once more like a bird landing on a branch, exerting pressure for just the briefest of moments, as if attempting to match his own print against the dark of the mark.
"Proprietary mark," he replied flatly in answer to the unvoiced question in that touch.
"Ah," Komaeda murmured, thumb pressing in more firmly against the mark as he leaned forward, skin damp with sweat when he hooked his chin over his shoulder. "Who do you belong to?"
He doesn't answer.
"Sorry," Komaeda sighed a moment later, "Was it rude to ask?"
The question lingers unanswered between them long enough that he can see a dozen deviating paths that before him, a fractured roadmap featuring hundreds of potential destinations.
He sees blows exchanged, he sees flailing limbs and groping hands and smashed keys and dusty floors and missed deadlines, he sees apologies and mad eyes and pale cheeks flushed with exertion.
They're all just fragments of possibility, glittering beneath the flickering light of the room.
So many variables, so many ends, and no obvious optimal option among them.
And then it was over and the world was in motion once more and the choice was stolen from him as Komaeda stumbled, staggering and falling, and he found himself turning and reaching out to catch his wrist and steady him once more.
It's instinctive, thoughtless.
As if compensating for Komaeda Nagito's failings has already become habit.
"Nice catch," Komaeda laughed, breathless and flushed.
They linger like flies trapped in the webbing of the moment and then Komaeda was wheeling back, away, smiling brightly at him as he slipped from his grasp like water and weaved away to drop down to pick up his shirt from where it lay discarded and forgotten upon the dusty floor. "I'll wash this for you," he commented, frowning at the dusty material. "I might not look it, but I'm pretty good at cleaning."
"I hate to be a nag, but if you two are done we should probably get this party started before someone comes along to crash it," Naegi offered dryly, spinning about in his chair, his eyebrows arched in a way that sets his already fraying nerves on edge.
As if he needed to be reminded of their situation.
He angles a glare towards where Naegi sits surveying them with an amused expression and he isn't the least bit surprised that Naegi just laughs and turns back to the keyboard without another word, punching in the sequence of commands that will open two of the four remaining pods.
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His ears popped, sharp and painful, and he stumbled backward, away from Hanamura's reaching hand, "What're you…" he began, voice rough.
He laughs and his voice is clearer than it was, more distinct, familiar, "What's the matter?"
"You're not who I'm looking for."
"Oh? And who you looking for then?"
Who?
He knew this, didn't he?
Why was it so hard to remember?
"We been watching you, you know," Hanamura sighed, a sly smile curling his lips. "Watching you chase after him like a dog looking for a bone."
He thrusts his hips forward to punctuate the word, to drive the point home, as if worried he was being too subtle.
Him.
Him who?
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His fingers trembled against the edge of the thick brocade tablecloth.
The moment he lifted it, he knew everything was going to change.
That nothing would ever be the same.
No, that wasn't quite right.
He glanced back at Komaeda, standing nearby, his expression held carefully blank as if he didn't feel anything at all.
It wasn't exactly encouraging.
He looked back to the white cloth.
There was nothing to be afraid of.
Everything had already changed.
Had changed the moment the lights went out.
Yet, even knowing that, the fabric still seemed so heavy.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, bracing himself for a truth he might never be ready to face.
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He opened his eyes and the name slips from his mouth like a confession, "Komaeda?"
His throat felt as raw and rough as if he'd swallowed a cupful of gravel and spat it back out again.
It hurt.
Looking into Hanamura's smiling face hurts, seeing the way he that smile turns sad at the edges, hurts.
"Good job! I knew you'd get there eventually. They say you never forget your first, but I guess that ain't always true. Must not have been real memorable," He snorted, turning away, his features falling into shadow as he laughed to himself, his hat jiggling as if it were made out of gelatin in time with every chuckle. "Guess it ain't so surprising. Ain't you ever gave a damn about any of us anyhow."
Hanamura's words flowed over him, through him, accusations falling like dominos, burying him beneath a slow, oozing dread; the inescapable feeling that he had failed some test he hadn't even known he was taking.
"I… of course, I'll... I want us all to go home together," he replied stupidly, stumbling back and away on deadened limbs that tingled and protested every movement.
It wasn't like he just wanted to save Komaeda.
No, no, he... he wanted...
Hanamura turned to look at him again as another flash of lightning lit the sky.
Or at least it seemed as if he did.
His head definitely twisted around towards him, but he couldn't see his face.
Like his features had been scribbled out by the darkness and the rain between them, leaving just blotches of uneven color where his face should have been.
He doesn't scream, but it's a close thing.
Hanamura's voice was crackling with static and the beginnings of anger, words coming quicker now, accent growing thicker. "You want to save us? How you saving us while you chasing after him? Save us all? Don't make me laugh. You ain't looking for nobody but him. You don't care about nobody but him. You ain't looking to save no skin but your own."
That wasn't true, he...
He...
"What?" He asked, stupidly.
Hanamura laughed, a strange squealing sound, more animal than man, "Dammit, what wrong with you? You already broken? That ain't no fun. Some Ultimate Hope you turned out to be."
It's hard to think, to breath, past the panic tightening in his neck like a vise.
He-
Years.
It would have to be years, wouldn't it?
Years.
So much time lost.
Time he didn't have.
He'd felt… strange, off, since he'd woken up on that beach, but he'd thought it was just… this place, but if it had been years….
Maybe not.
Not that it mattered.
It wasn't… he wasn't….
"Komaeda?"
Years.
Was he...?
Was he already...?
Someone had said his name, hadn't they?
Someone… oh.
Not just someone.
Hinata.
He liked the way Hinata said his name.
He liked Hinata.
It took him a long moment to realize they were alone.
Everyone else had left already.
Oh.
So, why was he...?
"Oh, Hinata, you're still here…" He trailed off, unsure how to ask why he was still there.
It seemed too presumptuous to assume Hinata had stayed for him, but everyone else was… gone and it was just the two of them and he was standing in front of him, calling his name.
"Everyone else has gone," he finished and the words felt… wrong and awkward, like he'd meant to say something else entirely, but he wasn't sure what.
"Yeah," Hinata confirmed, his voice so quiet that he probably could have gotten away with leaning into him, closing the distance. Could have lied and said he was only doing it so he could hear him better and not because he wanted….
Years.
Last night, they'd sat by the pool together, dangled their feet in the water.
He'd never done that before.
Just sat and talked with someone like that.
It had been… nice.
Hinata was… nice.
Nice enough that he might not even say anything about it, if he were to lean into his space, sidle in close or put a hand on his arm or….
But he wouldn't.
He had already been so lucky.
Lucky to live long enough to meet him.
To meet all of them.
All those wonderful, talented people.
Asking for anything more would be….
Something terrible would probably happen.
Years.
He felt sick.
Hinata's brow wrinkled, "Are you okay?"
He wanted to smooth that wrinkle away with his fingertips.
Instead, he just nodded quickly, emphatically. The last thing he wanted was for Hinata to worry about him, not that he thought Hinata would worry about trash like him.
He….
There was a slash of red across his cheek.
It hadn't been there before.
"Your face," he murmured, lifting a hand to touch fingers to the trickle of blood running down his cheek, holding up his reddened fingertips up for Hinata to see.
"Ah," Hinata grimaced, raising his own fingers to touch the abrasion there and wincing. "One of the bullets…"
He trailed off, but that was okay, it wasn't as if he needed him to finish. He remembered the gunfire though he hadn't thought much of it at the time.
Too caught up in his own swirling thoughts, in the pit of dread that had opened up inside of him.
A shiver ran through him and he released a shaky breath, wrapping his arms around himself.
They could all die there.
All the hope they might bring to the world extinguished in a matter of moments.
That… that would be… the very worst case scenario.
"It's… getting late," Hinata commented and it seemed like a prompt, an invitation and he nodded, choking back the taste of bile.
His head ached.
Did it really ache?
Or was he just… imagining things?
Was he….
He nodded, fingers clenching into fists, nails digging in against his palms.
Everything felt… wrong.
He felt wrong.
He didn't belong here.
He didn't belong anywhere.
He never had.
"It is, isn't it?" He heard himself say in a voice that barely sounded like his own.
Too late.
"We should probably head back. Walk with me?"
The question is sudden, startling him from the spiral of despair whirling around in his head.
It's so… it drew his gaze to Hinata's lips, to the quiver there, the fine tremble in his arms, his hands.
Oh.
Hinata was afraid.
Hinata was afraid and he… he can't breathe past the sudden emotion clogging his throat.
He could feel himself gaping at him, his mouth opening and shutting around a dozen unvoiced responses.
No one had ever….
No one has ever looked to him for comfort before.
For anything, really, but most definitely not for comfort.
"O-okay," he managed finally and it was a poor response, he knew it was, but it was the best he could do.
The urge to reach for him, to touch him, to remind himself that he was real, that he was here, that they were… it was almost unbearable.
But he'd… he'd… he'd had his chance already.
Last night, but instead of taking it, he'd rushed back to his room, his heart pounding in his chest, his feet still wet and pruney from all that time they'd spent sitting side by side, their feet dangling in the pool water.
And everything was different now.
If what he'd said was true... if they'd lost their memories… had they…?
Had he….?
Were they…?
No, he couldn't even imagine it.
Someone like him.
No.
He didn't deserve to be….
They left the park together in silence, their feet dragging loud as they walked the path back to the hotel, scuffing reluctance against the sand as they made their slow trudge to the bridge.
There was no sign of the others, not even the lingering impression of footprints or the echoing sound of distant steps. There was only the two of them and the crash of the ocean waves against the shore, like they were the only two people left in the world.
He glanced at Hinata walking beside him, lost in thought, his gaze distant and distracted, brow furrowed like he was thinking too hard about too many things. Like his mind was a thousand miles away.
Maybe he would wake up tomorrow and find that this had all been an elaborate joke, a strange dream.
That he was in a hospital living out what little time yet remained to him.
That he'd simply forgotten.
And if it were all just a dream, there was no reason he couldn't reach out and touch him, just to prove he was there, real.
Hinata might not even mind.
He was lucky, after all, wasn't he?
But…
It wouldn't be right.
Trash like him… it wouldn't be right.
Not even in dreams.
When they reached the apex of the bridge, he hesitated, his fingers falling against one of the posts. He could see shadows moving in the distance, the starlight above just enough to make out the shape of their slow progress towards the hotel in the distance.
"Hinata?" He asked, slowly, cautiously. "Am I dreaming?"
"I wish you were," Hinata murmured in reply. He could feel the weight of his gaze, but he couldn't quite bring himself to meet it. "I wish we both were."
"Yeah," he murmured, nodding, as they began their descent, shoulders bumping, arms brushing together as they walked slowly, silently, back to their rooms at the hotel.
Hinata was a good person.
Whatever his talent was, he was sure it was something really extraordinary, because he was really….
Special.
When he closed his eyes, he could hear him breathing, hear his shoes scuffing over the sandy boards of the bridge, feel their hands brushing together when he veered too close.
It really was lucky that he'd managed to live this long.
Long enough to attend Hope's Peak, long enough to meet so many people overflowing with talent.
Longer than trash like him deserved.
But it would be awful to die without being of use to someone, anyone, and if he did… Monokuma would probably use his death to trap them somehow.
He didn't want to die a burden.
It was more than he deserved, but he wanted to die in a manner that would inspire hope.
In his murderer and then in their triumph when they were able to uncover that murderer's identity and use it as a stepping stone towards inspiring an even greater hope.
The hope they would need to make it through the next murder and the next and the next until they were able to escape from this place to inspire a new and brilliant hope in the world.
To even play the smallest, most insignificant role in that would be… so much better than anything else could ever aspire towards. It was-
His foot slipped and he slid forward, balance precarious over the sandy slanting boards of the bridge, his eyes startling open at the sudden motion even as Hinata's hand caught his arm, grip tight enough to bruise, as he steadied him.
Lucky.
"Careful, Hinata," he murmured, looking up into wide eyes that looked almost red in the twilight. "Or you might fall too."
The world spun around him and he startled back, away from the barely recognizable stranger before him, quick reflexes enabling him to just manage to grab hold of the post in time to keep from tumbling over the side of the bridge into the thick dark of the ocean below.
The world wavers around him, half-formed and uncertain, a blur of color and sight and sound that has not yet fully reinstated its grasp on him.
There is no post, not really, just some invisible barrier that presses against his fingers like solidified air.
No bridge beneath his feet.
And the memory, if that's what it was, is still there, layered over the loading reality of the night, a ghost-pale afterimage left to linger like an invitation. It's a path, a trail he could follow through the darkness.
That would lead him to….
Pale hair and mad eyes and fingers tracing lines down his cheeks.
Smiling as they knelt together in the darkness.
"Komaeda."
The moment his name slipped from his lips the bridge vanished from beneath him, scattered like dust into the black, sending his heart into his throat as he fell through the world to land with a resounding thump on the cool, damp tiles of a hospital room.
The air was hot and moist and Komaeda is asking 'why', the word echoing around them again and again like a song skipping, but he can't remember what they were talking about, can't remember anything and it feels like he's about to shake apart.
"This isn't right, this isn't…" He mumbled, raking trembling fingers across his face.
Too much.
It's too much.
He stumbled to his feet, careening sideways on clumsy legs through a stack of papers and some machine on a cart as if they're not even there. He slammed into the wall, head bouncing against the cold glass of the window, head ringing with the impact.
Then he was on the bridge again, head aching, on his feet once more, the downpour a wavering reality around him that fell in starts and stops.
There was something that looked a little like Hanamura beside him, too close, and it was laughing, still laughing that horrible squealing laugh.
It wasn't him.
It couldn't be him.
And he needed to go.
To run.
He stumbled back and away, tripping over his own feet.
The laughter stopped abruptly and it's advancing toward him, reaching out with crispy, blackened fingers punctuated by dull white of bone, "What's the matter, Hinata? Ain't I pretty enough for ya?"
He slipped, almost falling as he dodged back away from the ruined hand reaching for him through the darkness.
It was just a dream.
Everything.
Just a terrible nightmare.
It was…
No.
No, it wasn't.
It was… he knew what it was.
He could see it in the green-tinted sky, feel it in the unchanging air, smell it in the bitter hint of ozone beneath the too pungent scent of earth and rain and sea.
He knew.
Even if he didn't want to.
He knew, but knowing didn't help. Knowing didn't make it stop or make it better. If anything, knowing just made it worse.
Because it wasn't a dream, but it wasn't real either.
Close, yes, close, but never quite right.
It never had been, but he'd been, they'd all been, too blind to see it then.
It gave them what they expected, just as it always had.
It was still giving them what they expected.
"He isn't…" He began, but he wasn't sure how to finish that sentence or even if he wanted to.
He doesn't have time for this.
He needs to go.
It took another wobbling step towards him, smiling that big white smile and he instinctively stumbled back a step on legs that still felt clumsy and wooden beneath him.
It was only one hesitant step, but the boards were slick and he slipped, barely managing to throw his weight forward in time to keep from tumbling all the way down to the Central Island.
"Still hoping you can make it in time?" Hanamura spat the words at him, breath warm and rancid against his face, words filled with static like the buzzing of flies.
He was close, too close.
He didn't scream when he looked up to find it- him- inches away, towering over him.
He wanted to move, but he couldn't, fear sticking his feet to the boards as surely as if someone had come along and driven nails through his feet.
His face wasn't a blur anymore.
It was real and it was awful and he could smell his flesh cooking.
Hear the fat sizzle and pop.
Hanamura reeled back, laughing, but this time it was Monokuma's… no, her laugh.
"Pu-pu-pu, has your hope ever saved anyone?"
His whites were in tatters, his chest seared red and black and pink, the flesh and muscle and organs beneath scorched and still cooking, little tendrils of smoke somehow horrifyingly visible even through the rain, wisps of white and grey rising against the dark of the night. The stench of charred, burning fat is enough to make him gag, bile sharp and bitter, burning against the back of his throat.
He should feel… terrible.
Sick.
This was his fault, wasn't it? All of it? He was the one who did this to them, who put them through all this, wasn't he? The one who introduced the virus into the system, the one who… who….
Who...
[ERROR_MEMORY_HARDWARE (0x30B)]
….loading….
He flipped through the file, cataloging the pertinent facts and filing them away for later. His talent for remembering, like his talents, was perfect, but remembering everything was a waste of time and resource.
This was what was necessary:
He had claimed to remember nothing save his name.
That had almost certainly a lie.
No one had come to claim him.
No missing person report was ever filed for anyone matching his description.
It was as if he'd been birthed by the storm, the intake nurse was quoted as saying in the report. As if he'd just spontaneously come into being.
His existance was a beginning without definition or source.
This was what was necessary:
He said the puppy hadn't been his, but the hospital personnel who had spoken with him had been certain this was just further evidence of the trauma which had stolen his memory.
When he'd recovered well enough to be discharged, there had been no one to release him to.
He'd been transferred to a child care facility in Shibuya as the nearest ones had been full and unable to take on new admissions.
It was clean, tidy facility with a decent, but hardly exemplary record.
His time there had been brief.
The file that had been retrieved from the facility had been thick and the list of infractions, lengthy.
This was what he gleaned from it:
He had been there for approximately five weeks and three days.
He had been a bright boy, but prone to bad behavior.
The punishment for disobedience had been picking up rocks in the yard.
He'd spent a lot of time picking up rocks, his file filled with minor infractions his adoptive parents had likely never been informed of.
He was not well-liked by the other children.
He'd gotten in his first physical altercation two weeks after his arrival and been admitted to the infirmary with a black eye and a broken finger.
Photos were taken for insurance purposes.
The bruises had faded to a yellowish brown by the time he was adopted by the Hinata family as indicated by the photo in the file.
He stood between them with his hands shoved in his pockets, small and slight, in ill-fitting clothing two sizes too large.
March 1.
The date was marked on the back along with his new name.
Hinata Hajime.
He shivered, snapping back to the bridge, stiff and brittle like a rubber band on the verge of breaking.
He could still feel the folder in his hand, the ruffle of paper against his fingers as he devoured information about that life.
That boring, ordinary, miserable, talentless existence.
Why had it seemed so vital?
So important?
Why had it mattered at all?
It was still raining.
It had been raining for a long time and no time at all.
And he... it... was still talking.
Talking and talking and talking.
There's a boy standing before him.
He's… sad and… bitter… and he blamed everyone but himself for his situation.
He was trapped in a hell of his own making.
It was… boring.
Looking for that which will complete them, make them whole, make them happy, make them well, make them sane, different, special, whole, important, forgiven. That will make them… matter. To themselves, to others, the the world or to that one particular person who makes them feel….
"Why ain't you trying to save us?" He asked, his voice soft and plaintive and annoying. "Why ain't you looking for me? For us? Why just him? Don't you remember what he did? This all his fault, ain't it?"
"Shut up," he tried to say, but there's no sound, just the feel of his lips shaping the words.
"What makes you think you ain't just chasing a ghost?" He continued, rushed, as if he was building momentum, running downhill with the wind at his back, as if the argument is all but won. "He wanted this, didn't he? He ain't like the rest of us. We all want to live. He wanted to die. Wanted me to kill him. Why you chasing him? Why can't you just let him go already?"
Let him go?
Let him go?
"Why should I?" he whispered and the words sounded spoiled and childish and he couldn't seem to find the will to care.
"What?"
"You're right. I am selfish," he spat, glaring up into the blackened flesh and pulpy muscle. "If he wants to stay dead, he can damn well look me in the face and say so. I'm tired of being left behind with nothing but questions for company."
"You think he cares about you? About what you want?"
"Probably not. Does it really matter?"
"What?"
"I want to see him. Does it really matter why?" He murmured, laughing into his hands, pressing the heels of his hands hard enough against his eyes that he sees spots after, patterned across the darkness.
He looked confused, so confused, "But... you just said... don't you care?"
He doesn't know how to answer that.
He-
[ERROR_BAD_CONFIGURATION (0x64A)]
….loading….
He's in a classroom.
Surrounded by people whose faces he can not see, whose names he does not know.
Distantly, he's certain that should make him feel... something, but all he feels is... frustration.
Their voices are like the screech of fingernails across a chalkboard, their words nothing he can make sense of, like a bad radio signal lost in static, but they're irritating all the same.
Everything is wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
Wrong.
He's wrong.
Something is...
[ERROR_INSTALL_FAILURE (0x643)]
….loading….
He woke with a start to a darkened room he didn't recognize.
It was...
[ERROR_CONTROL_ID_NOT_FOUND (0x58D)]
...loading...
No, he knew this place.
He-
[LOADING_HH_BEDROOM_NIGHT]
...loading...
He… this… it was his bedroom.
At his parents' house.
Wasn't it?
It was difficult to remember, all the details fuzzy and nonspecific, just vague impressions in the dark.
There was nothing special about the room.
It was just a room, after all.
A place where he slept and studied and spent his time.
There was a bed beneath him and a desk across the room piled high with books and everything was far too warm and it had seemed, for just a moment, as if there was someone there beside him, a hand cupped around his ear, lips brushing damp against the shell as they whispered words he couldn't understand.
But then the moment- if it ever really happened at all- was over fading like the lingering vestiges of a strange dream.
He was alone.
He had always been alone.
His skin was damp with sweat, the sheet and pillow beneath him made uncomfortable, almost slimy with it, the blankets tangled around his feet.
The walls were bare and white behind the shadowy suggestions of furniture and they seemed to glow in the moonlit darkness making everything else within the room seem darker, the shadows deeper than they could have ever really been.
He could just make out the distant form of suitcases already packed and settled neatly beside the door.
Right.
Hope's Peak.
He was meant to go there in the morning.
Wasn't he?
He was sure this was that day.
Hope's Peak was waiting for him and he for it and anxiety had been chewing a hole in his gut even though he's studied all the materials he should need and checked everything three times to be sure he had everything on the list.
He was eager to go.
Of course he was.
But he was nervous too.
Hinata Hajime did not believe he belonged there.
Did not believe he deserved to be there no matter how badly he wanted it.
He knew he was not special, not talented.
He had no gifts.
He was not extraordinary by any measure.
Was uncomfortably aware of his place, of the money that had been payed to assure it.
He had written a dozen different admission essays, his laptop had been filled with the memories of a hundred discarded drafts.
It has always been my dream….
Since I was young, all I've ever wanted was….
So many half-finished thoughts; eager and incomplete sentiments.
His insecurity.
His eagerness to be a part of something.
To be something.
Someone.
There was never any doubt why he had been chosen.
The night before he left his home for the last time, he would have had trouble sleeping.
Nightmares.
Nerves made for poor bedfellows.
Or at least that's what he'd been told.
He doesn't know how that feels.
Has never known.
He'd looked like he was on edge in all those pictures.
It would have just gotten worse with time as his start date crept ever closer.
All that waiting, so uncertain of what life would greet him.
The pressure to succeed, to excel, bearing down on him like the weight of a boulder bowing trembling shoulders that had never been strong enough to hold it.
He would have been...
[ERROR_BAD_CONFIGURATION (0x64A)]
….loading….
Or maybe it wasn't that night at all.
He was damp with sweat, filthy with the night's accumulated dirt and grime and he'd just woken from a dream that had left him feeling at once too big and too small.
Too old and too young.
Was this the night he came from the group home to live in the Hinata household?
Or some night between the two?
They'd moved around a lot, hadn't they?
Never the same place, the same house.
So many different doors.
So many forced smiles.
It was becoming more difficult to keep the progression straight in his head.
It shouldn't be.
Files out of sequence.
Words out of order.
He typed them up carefully to avoid mistakes.
Not that he ever made mistakes, but it was difficult for the interface to keep up with the speed of his movements, of his thoughts, to process the information quickly enough.
Loading….
Loading….
Loading, again.
It was always loading something.
Useless.
Sometimes it glitched and jumped ahead.
It was frustrating to have to repeat himself again and again even though he knew it was inevitable.
He-
There was an alarm clock on his nightstand, the glowing numbers across its darkened surface were blue and unassuming.
351
There was something important he was supposed to be doing.
153
Something he was...
He touched the back of his hand to his sweaty, mud-caked brow.
The rain fell loud against the roof above.
It'd been falling for a long time.
And no time at all.
Wind rattled the glass in its frame.
So loud.
Was it always so loud?
He was sinking.
Sinking.
Down through the mattress, blankets piling in after him, around him, covering him, weighing him down, clouding his sight, making it difficult to breathe.
They were heavy, sodden, too much to fight against even if he could remember how.
But he couldn't.
Couldn't remember and couldn't fight and wasn't even sure why he should.
Instead he fell down.
Down.
Down.
Down.