"On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty."
―Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
-ooo-
DAY THREE
03:57:01 UTC
-continued-
-ooo-
The sky was falling.
It had been falling for a long time and no time at all.
He had been falling as well, into the sky or out of it, he's not sure which.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Until he finds himself standing on the bridge once more, wobbling on unsteady legs.
There again or perhaps he had never having left at all.
All he knew for certain was that he was:
Late Late Late LateAnd that he was going to be sick again.
Throat burning, he stumbled, weaving across slippery wood on uncertain feet until he smacked into something solid yet yielding, into a waiting embrace, into arms that closed around him like a trap sprung, snapping shut around him.
Bubbling laughter rang out around him, sending dread crawling up his spine like a spider made of razor blades, sharp and painful as it sliced against every knot.
"Pu-pu-pu, you feeling all right there, Hinata?" He... she... they commented, smile wide and white in the darkness; as white as what remained of his clothing, hanging off him in uneven strips and clinging patches blackened at the edges where that reddened, weeping flesh peeked through as it was pressed against his trapped hands, his bare chest. "You ain't looking so good."
Hanamura's fingertips were soft, moist and slippery slick where they pawed at his skin, his back.
Tracing the path Komaeda's fingers had laid across his bare skin as they'd swayed together in the diner.
Wrong.
He tried to jerk away, to stumble back, but was held fast, Hanamura's charred fingers digging in against his bare arms and he can feel the flesh- what's left of it- pop and gush and crumble as those hands squeezed him tight. Oil and puss and sticky black ash smeared across his flesh as he tried to jerk free, but he couldn't.
Couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't run, couldn't do anything but stand there, shuddering and trying not to scream as Hanamura stared up at him, terrible empty black space where his eyes should be.
"You ain't got nowhere left to go."
That wasn't true.
It wasn't.
"Ain't nobody waiting for you no more."
That wasn't true either.
Komaeda was there.
He'd seen him.
He was waiting there or if not waiting then trapped, stuck, and he needed...
What did he need?
Probably nothing he could give him.
But if he reached out, he was sure he'd be able to find him again, that the world would go black and hot and then he'd find himself lying on those cold tiles again with Komaeda too close and too far away all at once.
"Shut up," he whispered, turning his head to the side, away from that endless abyss that was trying so hard to see inside him.
"Pu-pu-pu-pu- why don't you just give it up already so we can get on with it? It's what you want, isn't it?"
Was it?
He didn't think so.
Someone had said that before, but he wasn't sure it was true, or if it was, it wasn't the whole truth.
He'd wanted something.
There'd been a goal, a desire, something strange and prickly and nothing like anything he'd felt before.
He could still feel the remnants of it lingering inside his chest; feel whatever remained of him lurking in the back of his head like an itch he couldn't scratch, like a splinter buried too deep.
He was there.
Waiting.
Though he didn't know what he was waiting for.
What he wanted.
Why he done whatever it was that he had done.
What he'd hoped to find.
"Can't you even look at me?" Hanamura whimpered, drawing his attention back to him once more. "Look at what you done to me."
His fault.
It was... it...
He was cold.
Had it always been so cold?
Had those hands squeezing his arms always been so hot?
His teeth clacked together, chattering like a child's toy as he tried once again to squirm away from the grip on his arms, suddenly unbearably hot. He could hear the hiss and sizzle and pop of burning skin, see wisps of smoke drifting through the air between them as he struggled and fought to free himself from his grip, kicking out with bare feet when he couldn't manage to twist free. It didn't hurt, but that did nothing to ease the riot of panic in his chest as Hanamura laughed and laughed, dodging his weak kicks with ease. The sharp, blunt of brittle bone beneath the charred remains of skin and muscle and fat dug into his bare arms hard enough to bruise, to punch through his skin like it was wet tissue paper. Blood seeped down his arms, warm beneath the fall of rain across the cool of his skin, and there was static in his head like his thoughts were a radio that had fallen out of tune.
Pu-pu-pu-pu-pu-
"L-Let go," he shuttered, though the words barely sounded like anything more than a weak, plaintive whine.
He wasn't sure what finally allowed him to break away, only that one moment those hands were still holding him tight and the next he was slamming shoulder first into one of the bridge posts hard enough that for a moment he couldn't breathe and all he could see was white as pain exploded through him.
His shoulder throbbed, a steady rhythm like the beat of drum, each new strike bringing fresh agony searing through his veins as he wheeled back from the post, trying and failing to gather his fractured thoughts.
He... he needed to go.
To run.
He needed to…
To...
Then his sight cleared and he could see him, a blur of white and red, as lightning broke across the sky behind him, casting his features into shadow. He could see him reaching, lurching towards him, finger bones glistening as they snatched at the air in front of him again and again as he stumbled back and away, crowding him ever closer to edge of the bridge.
Hanamura was so close that he could feel the heat from his smoldering skin as smooth bone brushed against his chest and his heel scrapped across the jagged edge of the boards and suddenly there is nowhere left to run.
He lunged for him again, triumphant smile wide and bright as he forced his aching body to lurch aside, letting his momentum carry him forward to sprawl across the boards, scraping his hands as he landed, the impact jarring his already injured shoulder painfully and he felt as much as saw Hanamura'a feet strike against his ankles, sending him stumbling forward.
For a long moment, Hanamura seemed to teeter on the bridge's edge, his clothes and flesh whole once more.
He frowned at him, confused, wiping rainwater from his face, "Hinata? That you?"
And then he was gone.
Hanamura was gone and he was alone once more.
In the dark.
And that was his fault too.
The rain continued to fall, the storm offering neither answer nor judgement.
Eventually he clamored to his feet once more and continued his descent towards the island below.
There was nothing left to stop him, though each step felt heavier than the last.
His arms and chest were blackened and greasy and no matter how much he rubbed at them, that was how they remained.
Tainted by that brief encounter at the apex of the bridge.
The world quivered around him, unsteady, trembling as he trembled, as a seemingly endless series chills continued to shake through his limbs.
Beneath him, the bridge was wide and slippery and he almost fell more than once.
His feet ached and the ragged, soggy bandages wrapped around them caught on nail heads and splinters again and again until he finally reached down and yanked them loose, casting the damp, useless gauze aside.
The world around him was quiet, but for the endless fall of rain.
So quiet.
Nothing to distract him.
Nothing to stop him.
But he wasn't certain that was a good thing.
The bridge sloped down, down, down towards the ink black darkness that swathed the central island.
And past that… there would be another bridge and the third island.
And then the hospital, the hospital and...
Komaeda.
His steps slowed, stopped.
And then what?
He couldn't help.
He couldn't save anyone.
Not Komaeda.
Not Hanamura.
Not even himself.
He-
"… gonna be good to you…."
He glanced up, looking out into the darkness beyond the bridge.
It was soft, but he could hear music coming from… somewhere.
Somewhere close.
"…whole lotta things…"
Where was it coming from?
The island?
Or was he-
He-
He shuffled a little closer to the crack in the door, laying his head down against one folded arm and holding his breath.
When he laid there, just inside his room with the door open just a touch, he could usually hear it.
"…when you need me…"
There.
It was quiet tonight. Much quieter than usual, but if he held very still and listened very, very hard, he could still just barely make out the melody drifting up the stairs.
"…when you're feeling lonely…"
It was like an old friend.
He'd missed this.
It made him feel... comfortable and warm.
It was nice.
He didn't know this one, but it was… it was a nice song.
Soft and gentle like the rain falling outside the window.
The night air was warm and damp and the old glossy wood beneath him was cool against his overheated skin.
Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the big clock in the foyer chiming the hour.
Bong.
Bong.
Two o'clock and all was well.
He should be sleeping. They'd told him to go to bed hours and hours ago, but it was warm and he was restless. Something was happening, but no one would tell him what. Not that he blamed them, if they didn't want him to know it was probably for a good reason, but he couldn't help wanting to know. Couldn't help that not knowing made him anxious and restless.
And he wanted to hear the music.
It had been so long since he'd heard it.
There'd been no music at school or at least not the same kind of music.
School music was all choirs and out-of-tune instruments and it made his head hurt and he was secretly a little glad when they found a mold infestation in the chorus room and they had had to cancel the music class while everything was properly cleaned.
He-
"This was meant to be a vacation. What possible good could come from bringing him along?"
His breath caught as Mama's voice cut through his wayward thoughts, sharp and so angry it made his stomach ache.
"Keep your voice down. Do you wish to wake him?" Papa's voice was harsh, mean, bordering on angry.
He bit his lip.
They were talking about him again.
They talked about him a lot.
A lot, a lot.
He pressed the knuckles of his free hand against his lips, worried his teeth against them as they continued in softer tones he could barely hear. He should probably feel bad for listening, but he… he…
Somehow it felt like he deserved to know.
Though even thinking that made him feel... bad. So bad he wanted to squirm out of his skin, but not so bad that he closed the door or went back to bed.
"…if we don't make the most of this opportunity…."
"I hardly think-"
"…. heard what they say about that school, haven't you? The people who graduate from that program are set for life. And with what he can do…."
".…exaggerating…."
"….beside themselves…."
"….walking catastrophe…."
Mama was still upset, still mad as the song ended, as he heard their steps against the stairs, the delicate tap of Mama's heels and the heavy fall of Papa's fancy shoes.
He wasn't worried about being caught, but he eased the door a bit further closed anyway.
He was sure that in the dark, they'd never even notice the door was cracked open.
He was lucky, after all.
Papa's voice was softer, but clearer as they came ever closer, up the stairs and into the hall, the light from their candle a soft warm glow shining through the crack as they passed his bedroom without pause and continued down the long hall toward their own room. "….as much of a market for bad fortune as there is for good, I'm sure. It's the perfect place for him. He'll get a fine education and they'll have ample time to recognize his gifts and prepare a place for him at the Academy."
"Assuming he doesn't accidentally burn the school down first," Mama replied, her voice sour. "What makes you think this one will be any different than the others?"
"Schools that operate under Hope's Peak's purview are special. They know how to handle unique cases like ours and if they can't handle him… well, I suppose, we'll just have to reassess our options."
"I still don't see why you can't simply make these calls after we return."
He laughed again, a unamused bark of sound, "Can you imagine? Who would even believe such a thing without being able to see it for themselves?"
Their door clicked shut with a quiet snap and the house was silent once more.
Hope's Peak….
It sounded like a nice place.
Too nice for someone like him.
He sighed, tracing patterns through the thin layer of dust that covered the floor near his door.
It was really hard to keep things clean.
He'd never realized how much work it was until the maids began refusing to clean his room after Miss Moto tripped and broke her ankle waxing his bedroom floor. Not that that was what he'd wanted to happen. It wasn't, but... it was probably lucky it had. No one should have to clean up after someone like him.
And it meant he was getting better at cleaning.
He was being... useful.
At least a little.
And he was getting better at it.
Mama had even made a point of complimenting how much he had improved.
That had been nice.
Still, as often as he cleaned, it never seemed to be enough.
The dust always settled back into place so quickly.
There'd be a lot of it if they sent him to another school.
He sighed, frowning as he traced his name in the dust and wiped it away.
Another school.
Not that he blamed his old school for not wanting him there anymore.
It was his fault for being so...
He sighed again, tracing the strokes for hope in the dust before swiping his hand across it to wipe it away and struggling slowly to his feet.
His sheets were cold when he slipped back beneath the covers and pulled the blanket up over his head.
Hope.
It was a strange name for a place that made him feel so...
Sad?
He wasn't sure.
He… didn't like the idea of leaving home again.
It was easier when he was at home.
No one cared very much if he didn't feel like doing anything.
No one bothered him to eat more.
No one gave him things or sat too close to him.
It was safer at home.
Watching the other kids smile and laugh had been really nice while it lasted though.
He hadn't expected to like the school they sent him to, but he had.
It had been fun being near other kids.
Fun to meet all those new people.
Even if it hadn't ended so well.
But maybe that was lucky too.
At the last school, a big girl had pushed him off the swing on the playground, but another girl had given him her ice cream because she felt bad.
It hadn't tasted very good, but it had been cold and he'd been grateful for the gesture.
Then the swing set had collapsed around him.
No one had been hurt, but it had been scary and he'd dropped the ice cream in the dirt.
He'd tried apologizing, but the girl had been scared about the swing set and she'd run away.
She refused to talk to him when he tried to apologize again later.
That was okay though.
His luck was….
At night, sometimes, the other boys had pulled pranks on him.
He hadn't really liked the feel of toothpaste between his toes or having to wash the sheets after they made him wet the bed, but it had been kind of nice to be included.
It had made him feel better, because most of the time they ignored him and he sometimes wondered if he was there at all.
He'd been at the school for a month when the water pipe broke in their room.
No one had been able to get the door open and no one had heard them, no one had come to let them out. The room had filled up with water until the floorboards creaked and groaned and eventually collapsed beneath them and they all fell down, down, down.
A freak accident.
The girls who were in the room beneath theirs died.
The one who had pushed him off the swing.
The one who had given him her ice cream.
Some of the boys had died too.
The ones that snickered the loudest and slept nearest him.
He had been miraculously unharmed. Had slept through most of it, only waking up just before the floorboards shattered. Only really understanding what had happened when his bed had landed in the room below and he'd stared wide-eyed at the devastation around him while people cried and screamed.
They'd called his parents to come and take home.
They'd sent a car for him.
It had been a long, quiet ride home alone in the big, empty backseat most of which he'd spent staring at his reflection in the glass window that separated him from the driver and wondering if he'd get in trouble if he tried to talk to the person on the other side.
Home had been much the same as it had been when he'd left.
Still too quiet, too cold, without Rakkii there to greet him, to sleep beside him at night.
But he thought maybe it was better like that.
Maybe he was better like that.
[ERROR_MEMORY_HARDWARE (0x30B)]
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He woke sprawled across the floor of the hospital room, muscles stiff and aching, cheek cold and pressed smooth where it lay against the cold, damp tile.
Komaeda was lying there beside him, inches away, still asking why.
A broken record, skipping across the same bad note again and again and again.
Why?
Why?
Why?
And he had no answer to give him.
Because he didn't know why and he doesn't want to know why, because once he knows….
Once he knows everything will change and nothing will ever be the same… he will never be the same and he's terrified of what he'll become.
Of what he already is.
Only none of this was about him.
It was about Komaeda.
Or at least it should have been.
But maybe he'd always been selfish like that.
It wasn't like he really thought Komaeda was waiting for him to come save him.
Hanamura had probably been right about that much at least.
He reached across the space between them and set his fingers against Komaeda's until they blurred together and it became difficult to see where his fingers ended and Komaeda's began.
"I'm going to come for you anyway," he whispered, confident in the knowledge that his words wouldn't be heard as Komaeda's question continued to echo around him in the still damp, darkness.
It seemed like they'd always been at odds.
Since that very first moment, since before they'd ever even met, if those strange, disconnected images could be counted as truth.
One coming, the other going.
Never quite wanting the same thing at the same time.
Never quite understanding each other.
Always trying and failing to fill all their lonely spaces or cover them up so they couldn't be seen.
Maybe that was how things were always meant to be.
"Why?" Komaeda asked again.
He could hear the rain pelting the windows.
The ticking of a distant clock.
But most of all, he could hear her scratching at the door.
A reminder and a threat and a promise.
"K-Komaeda? A-are you there? Can you hear me?" She asked sweetly, clearing her throat, stuttering over the words.
He flinched every time she said his name.
Komaeda.
Komaeda.
Komaeda.
Again and again and again like she was stuck in the same endless loop he was and it reminded him of Hanamura standing in the rain, flesh sizzling as he laughed and laughed.
[ERROR_BAD_CONFIGURATION (0x64A)]
….loading….
The rain was still falling.
He took a step forward.
One step.
Another.
The bridge felt sticky beneath his feet, clinging to him like tar, making every step more difficult than the last as if even the wood were trying to slow him down, hold him back.
It was…
Frustrating.
Another step, hard won.
Had the bridge always been so steep?
One moment he was exerting everything he had to pull his foot free and shuffle another step forward and the next there was no resistance at all and he had flung himself forward, overbalanced, and then he was smashing against the boards, tumbling down, down, down. Too surprised to even scream as pain exploded in his head, his shoulder, his back, his knees, hands scraping uselessly across the lacquered surface, searching for purchase and coming up empty. The world became an blur of static and pain until he finally came to an abrupt end as he slammed into the muddy ground of the Central Island.
He had definitely hit his head more than once.
Might have even broken his neck.
It was hard to tell.
Difficult to focus on anything but choking around a pain that felt bigger than his body, like he'd swallowed the sun and there was no room within him for anything else.
And then the world went dark.
[ERROR_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED (0x24F)]
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Doors.
So many doors.
Red.
Blue.
Short.
Tall.
Brown.
Red.
Red.
Red.
The world is dark and he was falling.
Wrapped in blankets.
Covered in mud.
Soaking wet.
Komaeda's arms locked tight around him, lips brushing warm against his cheek.
"It's a long way down," a voice tells him, soft and concise and familiar.
[ERROR_DATA_NOT_ACCEPTED (0x250)]
….loading….
There was a song in his head.
In the air around him, soft and broken into bits until there was barely enough of it left to really call it a song at all anymore. It was just a few words and the beginnings of a melody that buzzed in his head and in his throat, inescapable as the skin he was born in.
"… worry about a thing… don't you worry…"
The rain was loud against the window panes and the room was still far too warm and he wasn't really surprised when he opened his eyes and found himself staring into Komaeda's frozen expression.
He'd been on his mind after all.
He was a problem that needed fixing.
A goal he couldn't reach.
An apology he didn't know how to make.
The room was filled with things, stuff. A dozen copies of the same stapler, the same blood pressure monitor, the same tables and trays and curtains and cabinets stuffed with blank paper, filled to bursting with junk.
It was the sort of room where you put things to forget about them.
Or to keep them until you had need of them.
Outside the night was dark and he could see the code as it glitched out in bursts of ones and zeros, corrupted code curdling across the walls and the floors and in every half-loaded copy machine that filled out the back of the room beyond the wipe boards and cabinets and monitoring equipment.
He touched a shaking hand to the bed beside him, used it to push himself to unsteady feet.
He'd lain there once, slept there, woke with Tsumiki draped over him, unable to breathe.
He still remembered the embarrassed, nervous trill of her laughter, the way she'd stuttered and apologized and collapsed beneath the weight of her own expectations.
She had the sort of smile that seemed destined to break the heart of everyone she met.
Or maybe it had only seemed that way.
It wasn't sure he'd ever really known anything about her at all.
He certainly hadn't understood her.
And he'd definitely failed her.
He didn't know if whatever was scratching at Komaeda's door was really her or not.
He hoped it wasn't.
"Warning: Evacuation Order: Level 5, Sector T17. Quarantine imminent."
That announcement again.
He didn't let himself think about the cold, dispassionate voice that delivered the warning though hearing it sparked fresh pain in his chest.
How much time had passed since he'd heard that initial announcement?
Had that been the initial announcement?
The relentless march of time conspired against them all.
He didn't know what it meant or what would happen when the quarantine went into effect or how to stop it.
All he really know was that he was going to be too late.
Anxiety marched across the surface of his skin like ants, sending a shiver to shudder up his spine.
"You have to hide," he commented, the words escaping his lips in a rush of sound like a sigh.
That was the only way, the only solution that made any sense at all.
He wasn't going to make it to him in time and if he wasn't going to make it and Komaeda couldn't escape on his own, what other choice was there?
Escaping would have been better, but he couldn't see a way out.
The wall grate was lying open, but the opening was far too small, floor between them splattered with blood.
The windows were shut tight against the pounding rain. He gave one an experimental yank, but it didn't budge. Neither did the next.
He glanced back at Komaeda and found him staring at the door, longingly.
He could practically taste his indecision.
Feel the weight of the temptation that drew his gaze as she called to him, the way the residue of despair seemed to cling to him like cheap perfume.
"You have to hide," he repeated with a confidence he didn't feel, a little startled when Komaeda answered him immediately.
He hadn't failed to notice that his gaze hadn't yet left the door.
"Hide?" He echoed, his brow furrowing in confusion as if he were trying to puzzle out some meaning hidden beneath the surface of the word. "Why?"
He asked as if they had all the time in the world to discuss his fucking options.
As if he had any good options available to him at all.
There was no sense of urgency.
No fear.
He'd been like that at the beachhouse too and in the diner.
He'd always been like that.
Even before.
Like what happened to him didn't matter.
Like nothingmattered besides his precious hope.
He wasn't listening.
Again.
He never listened.
He never heard what he was trying to say.
Like he didn't... matter, like he never had.
He'd just left him behind.
Left him behind and disappeared into the dark.
"Fuck," he whispered, shoving the heel of his hand against his mouth to muffle the sound and turning away to lean against one of those windows that trembled with the force of the storm outside.
They didn't have time for this.
Yet even knowing that, doubts bubbled up, drifting to crowd the surface of his mind unbidden.
Was it because he wasn't special?
Would he stayed if he'd been one of them?
Why did it matter so much?
Why was what he was never good enough?
Not for Komaeda.
Not for himself.
He… he….
[LOADING_EXT_HOPES_PEAK_DAY]
...loading...
They took a dozen pictures trying to get just the right shot.
"Smile, Hajime! Aren't you happy, darling?"
"O-Of course I am," he replied, fingers tightening around the paper, trying not to crinkle it as he forced himself to stand straighter, to smile wider until his cheeks ached with the effort. "I'm going to be attending Hope's Peak Academy. It's what I've always wanted."
Perhaps it had not been always, perhaps that was simple hyperbole, but most people were prone to such exaggeration.
And there was no doubt he had wanted it for a long time.
Long enough for that want to curdle within him.
He-
[ERROR_FORMS_AUTH_REQUIRED (0xE0)]
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"Better be, for what we're paying for the privilege," his father grumbled from where he was standing off to the side…
He would have flicked the butt of his cigarette impatiently, spilling ash across the pristine surface of the sidewalk before bringing it to his mouth to drag another long breath of acrid smoke into his lungs.
He'd seen the cigarettes in early pictures of the couple, smelt the faint odor lingering in the air upstairs, a phantom that no amount of time would vanquish, seen the empty ashtrays in every room. It was clearly a habit of long-standing.
His mother would have smiled, weakly, perhaps realizing how badly their little photo session reeked of desperation. Perhaps she even regretted forcing the issue—not enough not to go through with it, of course—but enough to at least make an attempt at hurrying the thankless task along. She'd have lowered the camera and given him what she would have hoped was an encouraging smile as she tried her best to coax her son from painful parody to true enthusiasm.
From what he'd gathered, she seemed the sort who tried to make the best of things.
"Well, then you should look it, shouldn't you? You're grateful to your father for allowing you this opportunity, aren't you?"
"Yes, yes, of course," he managed, but his expression was still stiff, stuck, as if trapped under glass, frozen in this time and place, pinned between his parents' expectations and the bitter lie at his back.
"There," she replied, snapping yet another picture and sounding satisfied by the result though he couldn't imagine what was different in that last shot that marked it superior to all the others that had come before. "That's perfect."
Perfect.
The word followed him back into the storm, ringing in his head, drowning out the patter of rain, the distant discontent of thunder.
The boards were slick beneath his hands, slimy smooth as a frog's back and any moment it seemed as if they might roil and buck beneath him, pitching him into the water as they leapt away, springing toward the distant shore.
There was a picture in his mind, blurry and indistinct, of someone with pale hair and white teeth that glistened in the momentary flare of memory like ice cracking breath his weight.
There was laughter ringing in his ear, rough and rasping, like a clown on his deathbed making one final joke.
There was a taste on his tongue, bitter and cloying, the way fresh paint smelled in a locked room.
He'd been looking for someone.
Someone he hated.
Someone he longed to see.
To know.
Someone and no one.
"It's nice here, isn't it?" A voice had asked, soft and echoing across the still water of their frozen world. "Do you think we could stay here forever?"
The program was still loading and the endless sky above them was still blacker than the darkest night, not yet populated by all the imperfections that would fool them into believing it true.
There were others in the distance, but they were quiet, already caught in their new reality, waiting only for the break of day, for the world to begin turning.
The transition was easier for some than others.
The sand was warm beneath his feet.
The ocean would be cool if he chose to step into it.
The sun burst to life, burning hot across his skin as he turned to stare at the faceless blur of unresolved pixels beside him, "Would you want to?"
He wasn't certain why he asked.
He hadn't received an answer.
And even if he had, he probably wouldn't have believed anything he had said anyway.
Because he was… was….
[ERROR_VC_DISCONNECTED (0xF0)]
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He woke face down in the mud.
And for long moments, he was uncertain where he was.
It was interesting, that uncertainty, but he knew it would not last.
That it never did.
That even if it did, the uncertainty would eventually become just as mundane and boring as all the rest.
His chest ached.
His face hurt.
There was a strange, directionless tension in his chest as if someone had been tying knots inside him until the threads that held him together seemed on the verge of breaking.
It was a strange feeling, new and different, and it burned.
It was like frustration only… more. So much more than anything he'd ever felt. A feeling so vast and so wide it felt as if it might crack his chest open and spill out, deep enough to drown in.
His hands and arms were bruised and his muscles trembled when he tried to push himself up out of the muck.
That was a new sensation as well… though, unlike the tightness in his chest, it seemed more inconvenient than interesting.
His face was damp and his hair was heavy and thick where it draped over and around him; an unpleasant, but familiar weight.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows as pain seared through his abraded flesh. He moved, slowly, savoring the minute changes each new movement brought. New aches, new pains, the stretch of bumps and bruises and shattered bone as he gathered his sore limbs beneath him and eventually sat back on his heels to survey his surroundings.
There was a bridge before him.
A long arching expanse of red painted wood glistening damp as lightening flashed through the sky above, washing it out, making it both familiar and strange.
He knew that bridge.
Of course, he did.
He'd been the one to build it, after all.
[ERROR_MORE_DATA (0xEA)]
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"We'll need to put in bridges," Naegi suggested, dragging his pencil in a crooked line across the blank expanse between his poorly rendered islands. "I mean, I guess we could use boats, but they'd be kind of impractical… dangerous too."
He was not sure why Naegi felt the need to point out something so obvious.
He had already thought up and implemented a similar solution during the initial program implementation phase of the project… which Naegi would know if he had bothered to familiarize himself with it on even the most basic level rather than allow the AI program he had installed to monitor the situation for him.
He could feel that familiar echo of frustration welling up within him and his fingers instinctively curled into fists at his sides.
It was unpleasant.
That fragment of muscle memory they had been unable to eliminate.
That vague, half-felt notion of feeling that only ever served as a reminder of what he lacked.
But, in some ways, it was a relief as well.
He glanced up and frowned.
Naegi Makoto was going to touch his shoulder.
Again.
He could feel it in the way the air had changed between them, see it in the way Naegi's muscles twitched projecting his intention before he began to move, could see the decision to do so in the way his expression tightened with unnecessary sympathy.
Whether that touch would land, however, lingered on the cusp of decision, the options spread out before like a dozen shimmering paths leading ever further into the dark of possibility.
The touch was intended to be… comforting.
It always was.
He understood that… though not why Naegi thought he required comfort.
Nor why he felt the need to make a habit of it no matter how often he was reminded that he did not require such needlessly sentimental overtures.
Still… he would allow it.
Breaking Naegi's hand or evading his concern would simply further complicate and extend what was already an exceedingly tedious exchange.
"Hey," Naegi's hand touched down against his shoulder, a vaguely discomfiting weight. "Are you okay?"
The question itself was absurd.
It always was.
"Your concern is unnecessary."
Naegi snorted, rolling his eyes, "Right, sorry, I forget how uncomfortable all the squishy human emotions make you."
"No, you most certainly do not."
Naegi's answering smile was far brighter than he anticipated as if his response had been amusing in some way he couldn't fathom.
It was irritating.
He turned back to the plans spread out across the table.
"The necessity of bridging the islands has already been considered and implemented," he said before Naegi could consider offering further pointless commentary. "As have the means of making those bridges achievements to be unlocked at the will of the supervising AI."
Naegi was smiling at him… again.
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing," Naegi replied, still smiling in a way that made it clear that it was not nothing and he would almost certainly not appreciate whatever it actually was. "I just think it's sweet that you actually gave her something to do. That's…"
"It's an artificial intelligence control program, it's purpose is to maintain and facilitate the program's intended functionality. Also, I do not understand why you insist on referring to it as if it were a person. It is a program and thus inherently without an identity of its own. The code adapts to the will of the users and creates an interface that meets their subconscious expectations. It imitates life, but it is not life."
"Well, the default avatar certainly looks like a person and it certainly acts like a person."
"That image was part of the initial framework they had prepared, I merely adapted it for our purposes. It's simply a placeholder that already existed within the system. I'd have used a box if one had been available."
Naegi was still smiling, arms folded across his chest and hip resting against the table, "Oh, yeah? Is that magic bunny meant to be a default placeholder as well?"
"It is a benign construction meant to provide a familiar touchstone to guide their integration into the virtual environment and act in place of Monokuma until the virus has fully acclimated to the environment and begun infecting the system through the backdoors I've built into the framework. It is meant to be friendly and approachable."
"Friendly and approachable, huh? And you decided something like that was the way to go? You know, you're probably really not the best jud-"
"I made use of what materials were available. It is a means to an end. That is all. I do not have the time nor the inclination to waste my talents preparing a variety of alternatives to better suit your tastes."
"Yeah, okay, let's go with that then," Naegi replied, chuckling as he turned his attention back to the layers of plans before them. "Can we talk about the fun house now? Is that room really necessary? Because I do-"
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"You're Komaeda Nagito, right?"
The sudden comment startled him so badly his dominant hand shook and jerked leaving a smear of red paint across her cuticle.
He starred, dumbfounded.
What rotten luck.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, let me help."
Before he could protest, scarred fingers darted into his field of vision, snatching up the remover and a cotton swab from where he'd laid them out on the table before him. The swab traces a line, damp and shining across the skin, wiping the red away with precise, careful strokes that didn't mare the rest of his work.
"Thank you," he murmured, still a little stunned, but glad for the help. It'l was always so difficult to manage the remover on his own.
"Don't mention it."
He dabbed the brush against the inside of the little polish bottle and brought it back to apply the last few strokes.
There.
Perfect.
Even she might have been satisfied.
"I was wondering if I could talk to you for a moment," the persistent stranger commented, apropos of nothing. It wasn't quite a request or a question, just a statement as plain and unassuming as a comment on the weather.
"That seems unwise," he replied evenly, the unadorned nails of his other hand tapping against the table's surface. "You know who I am."
"I do," the stranger answered, sitting down across from him. The picnic table creaked ominously and his breath caught in his throat as the little bottle of polish tipped over, landing on its side and spilling its contains upon the table, a slow, red leak. "Sorry," the stranger commented, reaching out to right the bottle. "My fault."
There were dark lines of ink on his arms, characters both familiar and foreign, in great swooping lines. He'd seen them on television. There'd been a whole special on them on the news the other night. Speculation and interviews with people who claimed to know him- but obviously didn't- all telling conflicting tales of hows and whys.
"I…" he trailed off, uncertain what to say or if he wanted to say anything at all.
He'd known they would send someone else eventually, they always did, even when he told them not to, that it wasn't a good idea, that it wouldn't work out for them.
They were persistent.
He admired that about them, but he didn't like seeing such brilliant hope dimmed and brought low by his luck. It was better to watch that hope bloom bright from a distance. To see how it inspired people, how Despair made them look upon that brilliance and truly appreciate it in a way they wouldn't have otherwise.
"I guess they're pretty recognizable, huh?" He remarked, holding his arms, turning them like he was offering them for his perusal.
From far away, they might have looked like something else, but up close it was easy to see the characters and words buried between the thick black lines on his forearm. He would have recognized those characters anywhere.
He reached out with red-tipped fingers to trace the air over the characters near his wrist, "Why?"
"Because even bad things are worth remembering."
"Are they?"
"I think so."
"I don't think most people would agree."
"Maybe not, but then most people haven't seen the sort of things we've seen. Knowledge may be a cold comfort at times, but in forgetting we can lose that which matters most."
"Ah," he murmured. "Did they send you?"
"The Future Foundation? No. They don't know I'm here."
He glanced up and was surprised to find Naegi smiling down at him, but it was… it was the wrong kind of smile. Different from what he'd expected.
That wasn't the way heroes were supposed to look at villains.
It was… kind.
The sort of smile most often offered to children and people who were…
Like him, he supposed, if usually with considerably less blood on their hands.
Compassionate.
Kind.
He heaved a heavy sigh, a feeling of disappointment settling in his chest as he looked back down at his mismatched hands.
He'd thought about meeting their Ultimate Hope once or twice or a dozen times since her game had ended.
He'd built it up in his head as if—when it happened, as he'd known it eventually would—it would be some epic confrontation.
Good versus evil.
Hope versus despair.
After all, he'd loved and hated her more than anyone.
It had seemed only right that he'd one day meet the person who had beaten her at her own game.
It was part of the reason he'd agreed to have her made a part of him. So that when they came one day to rub out that last trace of her, he would be able to contribute in some way to seeing Hope vanquish that last bit of despair.
Everything he'd done since he'd left Tsumiki's recovery suite had just been just… trending water, passing the time, as he waited for the day of their inevitable meeting to finally arrive and now that it had… things weren't going how he'd imagined at all.
Never, in all his imaginings, had he pictured Naegi Makoto, the Ultimate Hope, smiling at him like he were… sympathetic.
"Oh," he found himself saying instead of the hundreds upon hundreds of things he'd thought he might say when the end came. Things he'd imagined might inspire hope rather than despair in his final moments.
He'd thought it would feel different.
Important.
But it didn't.
It just felt… empty.
"Haven't you come to kill me?" He asked, a last thread of tenuous hope making the words sound wistful.
It wasn't that he thought he truly deserved such an inspired end, but it would have been nice to die in service to bringing a greater hope to the world.
Naegi's fingers were cool as they settled over his own, "No. I… no. I just… I came to tell you a story. And when it's done, I'm going to need to ask for your help, if you're willing to give it."
Nothing he said made any sense.
"For the Future Foundation?"
"No, they don't even know where you are right now. Where any of you are. I made sure of that."
"Why?"
Naegi's smile was no longer kind.
It was small and it was bitter and it looked a lot like screaming sounded.
"Because I need your help."
"My help? Why? What could you possibly need from someone like me?"
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll have figured out your part in all this by the time the story's over."
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Two boxes.
Two ordinary filing boxes.
That was what he had dragged him out into the middle of the desert to show him.
The first Naegi had carried into the room and dropped unceremoniously onto the bed, sending a cloud of dust rising up around it in the warm, stale air of the hotel room before disappearing out the door to retrieve the second.
He hadn't been expecting anything much especially after the inauspicious way their arrival at the hotel had begun.
Yet looking at that unassuming box sitting in the middle of the bed caused the snarl of frustration that had been rising within him to score jagged, relentless irritation against his steadily fraying nerves.
Still, he'd managed to keep it in check.
Until Naegi had returned with a second box and kicked the door shut behind him making it clear this was the extent of it.
"Explain," he stated tersely.
Naegi huffed a sigh, switching his grip on the box in his arms, "It's proof that what I'm going to tell you is true. How much do you know about the project that created you?"
"I know what is necessary."
"Why were you created?"
"To bring hope to the world."
The response was automatic, the words slipping from his lips with an ease that came of extensive repetition.
"Do you know why was the project was deemed a failure?"
There was a pressure beginning to build in the back of his mind, a tension he can neither define nor explain.
"You sit in that diner all day, every day. You know they're watching you. You have to know they brought you there. Why do you stay?"
"Who were you? Before?"
Questions.
So many questions.
But questions were neither new nor interesting.
There had always been questions.
"He asked what?"
The old man peered at him over the top of his glasses with eyes the color of milk tea.
He was familiar, but he did not know his name.
He couldn't hear the answer the technician whispered in the old man's ear.
The world was filled with static.
He could barely see them at all.
"Put him back in."
He knew he was standing in a room in a neglected hotel in the middle of the desert, sweat trickling down his spine.
He was not in that bright room beneath Hope's Peak.
"Watch his head," Tengan Kazuo admonished them as they guided him back into the pod.
The air in the hotel room was hot and it was difficult to breathe.
Naegi stood behind him, so he could not see his face as he asked his questions.
"Why did they choose you? Out of all the possible candidates, why you?"
He was sitting in a room, back pressed against the wall.
He did not sleep.
It was unnecessary.
Boring.
The room had one door and no windows.
The bed beneath him squeaked when he moved.
It was dark.
It was always dark until the door opened and the world appeared.
But that had been later.
In the beginning, there had been the pod and the bright, hot lights of the white-walled observation room.
They had asked him questions.
"What is three times three?"
"Nine."
"What color are ripe strawberries?"
"Red."
"Given the choice to save a talented adult or a untalented child, who would you choose?"
It is an obvious question with an equally obvious answer.
"The talented adult. Talent is important."
"What is your name?"
"Kamukura Izuru."
There had been no hesitation, no doubt. Even in that first moment, he had known himself to be Kamukura Izuru. His mind had been filled with numbers and colors and facts, but they all seemed flimsy, frail beside the immutable truth that was being Kamukura Izuru.
Who else would he be, but Kamukura Izuru?
"Who am I?"
"Sensei."
"Why were you born?"
He felt his mouth as it moved, shaping the words. Each syllable felt heavy on his tongue as if the act of speaking those particular words carried more weight than if he had carved each character into his bones.
"To be the hope of the world."
Sensei smiled at him, pleased.
"Welcome, Kamakura Izuru, we're so pleased to finally meet you."
There were tests.
More tests.
Motor.
Cognition.
Memory.
Skill.
Talent.
They presented no challenge.
Nothing did.
It took some time before he realized that nothing ever would.
More time still before he realized that… bothered him.
"The project was shuttered, most of the records destroyed, why?"
She had come into the room, into his dark room, with words and promises and he had followed her from that room into the world, into ruin. He had gone where she had bid, stood witness to the chaos left in her wake… until that had become boring too.
But he did not owe Naegi Makoto answers.
Nor does Naegi Makoto seem to expect them as his questions continued to fill the stagnant air around them without pause.
"Where did you go?" A voice asked and for a moment he can not tell if that question had emerged from the past or the present or some future he could not yet see.
He woke at the table.
The ding of a bell, the murmur of the crowd, the smell of burnt coffee and old grease.
People came and went.
The waitress brought him coffee.
"Does it matter?" He answered, abruptly tired of Naegi's questions.
"Do you know why they named the project—named you—Kamukura Izuru?"
Did he?
"If the project was a failure—if you were a failure—why not just kill you? Why take you out of Japan? Why hide you away? They treat you like…."
"Property," he finished for him, frustrated by Naegi's reticence, "I am aware. In the three hours and twelve minutes that have passed since I followed you from the diner, you have told me nothing I do not already know or could not have deduced on my own."
"Then you probably also know they eras-"
"Yes."
"And that you're deteriora-"
"Yes."
"And they ar-"
"Yes," he snapped, breath catching as he lashed out, more instinct than intent, smashing a fist into the battered file box Naegi still held and sending it flying to strike the far wall. The well-worn cardboard ruptured, spilling its contents across the filthy carpet.
He hadn't meant to do that.
Despair was, as ever, occasionally surprising.
In the next moment, the heat of that frustration had cooled, the flare of emotion that had caused it slipping from him like water through his fingers.
Never anything he could keep.
He surveyed the mess of scattered files, all those fluttering, falling bits of Naegi Makoto's truth, picking out words and images, crafting stories at a glance.
Familiar names.
School records.
Medical histories.
Detailed personal histories spanning years before they'd ever set foot in Hope's Peak.
Tragedy and instability.
Tendency and desire.
Rumor and fact.
And photos.
So many photos of the students that had made up the 78th, 77th and 76th classes of Hope's Peak Academy.
All those files… were about them.
He knew of them, of course.
They had made certain that he was exceedingly well-informed about all the talents at his disposal as well as all the talented students who had passed through the halls of Hope's Peak Academy.
Talent was important, vital to the future of the world, necessary for progress.
He had been born in a white room; the answer to a question they'd been asking themselves for years.
They had studied talent, valued it above all things, and now… now they could duplicate it, transfer it, preserve it.
He was loved by talent and they valued talent above all things.
There was an answer to all the questions he had never allowed himself to ask lingering on the edge of realization and though he could not yet shape the words, he could feel them lying there, an indisputable truth as heavy and foul as rotting fruit.
He knew why he was.
He had always known.
He was….
He turned his attention to the information scattered around him.
To all those files.
To surveillance reports and behavioral analysis from their time at Hope's Peak.
And after... for those who had survived.
Enoshima Junko's disciples.
Enoshima Junko's victims.
Those that had become the world's Hope and those that were the remnants of her Despair.
One of the folders had the name Komaeda Nagito printed neatly across the tab.
There was a photo peeking out, a grainy surveillance video screenshot of two boys kneeling in a stairwell, so close there was no mistaking the intimacy of the moment.
One he assumed to be Komaeda Nagito, pale hair made almost invisible by the poor quality of the monochrome feed.
The other was a remnant from a past he could not recall.
He stared at the image, Naegi Makoto's questions fading to so much noise as he focused on that brief strange glimpse of a life that had once been his own.
What had Komaeda Nagito been to him?
What had he been to him?
He did not press his fingers against his scalp.
The ability to recapture a past long-dead was not among his many talents.
As he'd waited for Naegi to return from the parking lot that first time, he'd played out every possible outcome of their meeting based on everything he knew about himself, about Naegi, about what Naegi might be able to offer him.
There had been forty-two potential outcomes remaining once Naegi had returned with the box.
Twenty-three once he'd returned with the second box and shut the door behind him.
Nineteen in which he would walk out the door alone.
Six in which he would kill Naegi Makoto for wasting his time before he did so.
Three in which he would agree to hear him out.
And only one in which he allowed for the unexpected.
"Tell me," he murmured, almost unwilling to give voice to the demand, to open himself up to the virtual inevitability of disappointment.
To the idea that whatever truth Naegi had to impart was somehow what he had been unknowingly searching for since Enoshima Junko had coaxed him from his dark room.
Since, perhaps, the moment they had released him from the pod that had created him.
Hope.
Such a simple word for such a complex battery of conflicting urges.
Naegi's hand was heavy where it fell against his shoulder. His voice was almost apologetic though his words struck a cord within him, deep and true.
"They called you Kamukura Izuru because every new world needs a strong foundation to build upon."
-ooo-
NOTES:
Song lyrics featured in this chapter were from Al Green's Simply Beautiful and from the previously featured Stevie Wonder's Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing, for the curious.
Also, just as a reminder-as I realize it has been a very, very long time since this story began-I was never onboard with the idea that the entire DR2 cast were in the same class. It is a thing that still doesn't really make sense now (because, really, what class would that put the entire student council in). So, just as an FYI, the three classes that are references in this chapter are Naegi's class and the two classes that proceeded it which-for purposes of this story-were each populated by a smattering of DR2 cast members and student council members. ^_^