Chapter Text
For some godforsaken reason, Hajime asked Nagito, “How… are you feeling?” Was it out of actual genuine concern or some sort of adequate fear, who knew.
Nagito might have thought it was the former judging from the way he gave a small smile as he said, “Aw, is Hinata-kun worried about me?”
“No,” Hajime immediately scoffed, though he wasn’t fully sure if that was the honest answer. “Just… if you got sick, who knows what type of disease you could get. I don’t want you to cause trouble for everybody again. That’s all.”
Because if this so-called Despair Disease could reduce the usually headstrong Akane into a sobbing mess and the usually self-assured Ibuki into a gullible follower, then who knows what the hell it would do to Nagito. Would it amplify a weak trait within him too, and turn him into a completely different person? Would that be for the better or worse?
Worse, for sure. Hajime didn’t want to know any other possible hidden depths that Nagito could be hiding. The person standing before him was already bad enough. It felt like the boy who waited for him to wake up on the beach and helped introduce him to everybody came from a past life.
“Oh, I see.” Nagito glanced away. That could’ve meant anything. There was something about his eyes – gray, translucent yet clouded – that Hajime could never quite figure out. Like there was a constant shield around him at all times. He wrapped his arms around himself once his eyes slid back in Hajime’s direction, looking in his general vicinity but not quite at him at the same time. “Well, Hinata-kun doesn’t need to concern himself with a worthless lowlife like me. His well-being is far more important than mine.”
“Whatever,” Hajime muttered, already fighting the urge to walk away, because he expected such an (annoying) answer. “If you feel bad, be sure to tell Tsumiki, alright?”
Nagito paused before he nodded. That could’ve meant anything, too. Their eyes locked for a moment, long enough for Hajime to feel an uncertain heat settle beneath his fingertips. Why did it sometimes feel like Nagito could see right through Hajime, like he was shard of glass? For a guy who couldn’t ever read the room, that should be an impossible task. God, Nagito was frustrating in every and any way possible.
Hajime sighed once the silence between them extended into uncomfortable territory. “What?”
Nagito seemed to squeeze his arms tighter around himself, but his expression never changed the entire time. He held the same unfeeling smile, the same disquieting gaze. That was the only trait of the lost boy on the beach he still carried about him: his unwavering calmness. But now it no longer had a mutual effect on Hajime, only an unsettling one. Why did nothing reach Nagito’s mind?
“Nothing,” Nagito finally said, his slight smile barely growing. Hajime wasn’t buying it. Because it was never truly “nothing” with this guy. “How are you feeling?”
“Why would you care?” Hajime countered, though there was no heat to his words. He just felt… prickly, for a lack of a better word. (Calling himself that was fine. The way Nagito said it was beyond irritating.)
“Why wouldn’t I?” Of course, Nagito would actually answer a rhetorical question. Whether because he took it seriously or because he wanted to be a pain in the ass was up for interpretation. “I believe I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say that we especially wouldn’t want you to get sick. That would be detrimental to our greater good. How would we ever survive the class trials without you?”
“Whatever,” Hajime said again. He didn’t feel like going back and forth. It was too early, there was too much going on, and he still felt a misplaced tingle under his skin.
But he took a moment to really consider the question because it was unfortunately important. How was Hajime feeling?
He hadn’t had the time to think about himself since the whole fiasco that was breakfast less than an hour ago – with Akane bawling and Ibuki incoherent, and Monokuma explaining the new “Despair Disease” motive, and Mikan and Fuyuhiko whisking the infected away to the hospital on the third island. Hajime and Nagito found themselves as the only ones remaining in the restaurant after all of the commotion, with everyone else either making their way to the hospital or running away to their cottages. (As if they could lock themselves away from an endemic, possibly airborne disease.)
Akane and Ibuki hadn’t been acting like themselves at all. It was like they adopted completely different personalities. Hajime definitely didn’t feel any different. He still felt like Hajime. Did he feel sick in any way? No, he basically felt the same as he always did. He felt a general sense of unease, but he’s felt that way ever since he woke up on that damned beach for their “Heart-Throbbing School Trip” – especially so once it turned into the “Killing School Trip.”
Otherwise, he didn’t feel hot or anything. Mikan had remarked that Akane and Ibuki had fevers and were burning to the touch. He didn’t feel, like, sick in any way. He didn’t know the exact internal symptoms of the Despair Disease, but he imagined that it involved feeling… sick, right? Anyways, he didn’t feel sick. He didn’t feel anything. And he was sure that the quiet itch he felt didn’t mean anything, either. He always kind of felt that way while talking to Nagito, anyway.
“I’m fine,” Hajime concluded. “Don’t worry about me, either.” Only Akane and Ibuki deserved their concern at the moment.
Nagito blinked, not responding. Right. That was Hajime’s self-cue to get the hell out of there.
“I’m… going back to my room.” He didn’t spare Nagito a proper goodbye. He grabbed his uneaten, surely-cold plate of breakfast and made a not-so-swift exit from the restaurant.
+
Hajime froze in his bed once there was a knock on his door. His felt his lungs seize, already threatening a flight-or-fright response. Why the hell did Ibuki have to break the lock to his door? He hated how it made him distrust everyone, made him think that a potential killer could just waltz into his cottage at any moment.
The near-suffocating tightness beneath his breastbone unclenched once he heard a soft, muffled, “Hey, Hinata-kun? It’s me, Chiaki,” from behind the door.
“H-Hey, Nanami!” Hajime quickly called out. He scrambled to his feet to open the door. He trusted Chiaki a great deal above everyone else (whether that was a good thing to admit or not), but he still had to keep up the semblance of having a working lock on his door. He pretended to unlock it before he opened it. “What’s… all this about?”
Chiaki was holding a clipboard that had a few small, white boxes stacked on top of it. She gave a slow blink at her hands, as if she was only noticing what she was holding too. “Oh. I offered Tsumiki-san to check on everyone while she’s busy taking care of Owari-san and Mioda-san.”
“Oh, that’s nice of you. But isn’t that…” Hajime scratched the back of his head. “Kinda dangerous, too?”
Chiaki shrugged. “It’s okay. No one else except Kuzuryu-kun is helping her, so.” She shrugged again.
“Yeah, that’s really nice of him too.” Hajime gave a breathy laugh that he was sure was ineffective. “He’s really changed a lot, huh? I can’t picture the guy we met at first just volunteering to help everyone like that. Maybe he got the Nice Disease or something.”
“Hm…” Chiaki lightly drummed her fingers across the back of the clipboard. She hardly made a sound. “I guess so.” Maybe she agreed, maybe she disagreed. Maybe even both. It didn’t seem to matter since she moved on, “Are you ready for your check-up now? I have to take your temperature and ask a few questions.”
“Uh, sure.” Hajime stepped aside so that Chiaki could come in, but she shook her head. Looked like they were doing this in the doorway, then.
It felt a little awkward once Chiaki fiddled with taking a disposable, digital thermometer out of a box and instructed Hajime to slide it beneath his tongue. Once it beeped and he returned it to her, he caught the way that her eyebrows furrowed for a split second as she looked at it.
“Is… there something wrong?” he asked, frowning too. He should’ve taken a peek at the temperature instead of just handing it over like an idiot.
Chiaki didn’t answer, which didn’t help Hajime’s general sense of unease becoming an increasingly specific one. She carefully discarded the thermometer within its box. It would’ve been funny, how she was handling a thermometer like she was disposing a nuclear weapon, if they weren’t in a life-or-death situation and Hajime’s well-being wasn’t on the line.
She pulled out a pen from clipboard’s clip and clicked it. She had her usually lethargic yet steady look on her face, but now it felt more… controlled, forced. One thing Hajime really liked about Chiaki, and why he gravitated so much toward her, was how natural she felt. She didn’t feel like a jigsaw puzzle to solve like the rest of their classmates, or like she was putting on a front to compensate for something else. And Hajime didn’t have to use all of his brainpower to understand her. (Sometimes even only half.) He could be natural around her too.
But the way that Chiaki’s lips were moving now felt faraway, as if they were two strangers speaking to one another. “Do you feel hot?” was her first question. She kept her eyes focused on the clipboard.
Can she not stand the sight of me already? Does she hate me? The sudden thought, though hardly a whisper, sent a tremble down Hajime’s spine. Why would he even think that? He didn’t feel that way at all.
“Um, no,” Hajime remembered to answer. He swallowed down the knot already forming in his throat. Getting nauseous wouldn’t pay him any favors.
“Do you have a headache?”
“No.” Hajime stupidly touched at his own forehead. It wasn’t warm nor aching. What the hell was his temperature? He should’ve checked for himself! “Is… everything okay, Nanami?”
“Mhm. Probably.” Well, that didn’t sound reassuring at all. And she was still laser focused on the clipboard. “Do you feel any shortness of breath?”
“No.”
“Do you feel any nausea?”
Hajime swallowed down another lump building in his throat. “No.”
“Are you having any difficulty thinking?”
No. “No?”
“Are you having difficulty controlling your thoughts, emotions, and actions—?”
“Whoa, Nanami.” Hajime let out another forced laugh, but humor was a thing of the distant past. He was fooling no one. “I’m fine, I swear! I don’t want you to waste your time asking me all of these questions when you could be checking up on everybody else.”
Chiaki looked up at him then. He could feel an electric shock rush between their bodies, making the air nearly squeeze out of his lungs. She twisted her lips – soft, delicate lips that Hajime tried to not allow his eyes to linger after; lest he be labeled a weirdo – as she gave Hajime a long look. “Are… you sure that you’re feeling alright, Hinata-kun?”
“Well, when you put it like that, I don’t know.” The joke fell completely flat, as Chiaki was still giving him the same look. His eyes flickered over her skinny, shapely eyebrows, her long, curved eyelashes, her soft-tipped nose, her pleasantly plump cheeks, her languid, endearing eyes – and he felt the burn return beneath his fingertips. He wasn’t sure why. “I’m fine,” he said again. “I promise.”
Still, she puffed her cheeks as she looked down at her clipboard, clearly conflicted about something. “Alright,” she mumbled, scribbling something down. Hajime ached to see what she wrote. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“Wasn’t planning on it.”
Chiaki gave him a small nod before she left. Hajime watched after her – watched the way her legs steadily moved, watched the way the bare, smooth skin of her thighs was delineated by the loose hem of her skirt and the tight hem of her socks, watched how the surely soft skin of her thighs slid and pressed together as she walked. He felt kinda weird about it, felt spit gathering in his throat, felt a sharp pang in his heart, then stopped watching.
It looked like she was heading to Nagito’s cottage. Whew. Good luck with that. He already felt bad for her. He closed his door before he could catch a wisp of white enter his peripheral vision.
+
Less than ten minutes later, there was another knock on Hajime’s door. This time it was Fuyuhiko, who escorted him to the hospital because Mikan wanted to talk to him. It wasn’t optional, either.
“I’m not sick, seriously. I feel fine!” Hajime kept insisting on the way there, but Fuyuhiko shook his head.
He murmured a variation of, “Just following the doc’s orders,” each time, and eventually started ignoring Hajime’s protests. Once they were inside of the hospital, he directed him to the on-call room. “She’s in there.” He slouched his shoulders as he slumped against the wall near the door.
Hajime put a timid hand on the doorframe. “Do I seem sick to you, Kuzuryu?” he sighed.
Fuyuhiko spared him a quick glance. His one eye didn’t even bother with the effort of properly scrutinizing him. He simply shrugged. “Who knows.” And turned his head away.
Mikan looked as frazzled as she did this morning upon the reveal of the Despair Disease. Her already unruly hair was tangled and full of fly-aways. The bandages wrapped around her left hand had unraveled, revealing rubbed-ruddy knuckles, bitten-away cuticles, scabbed-over skin across the fingers, calluses across the palms, maybe even a burn mark or two.
While Hajime preferred Chiaki’s smooth, flawless skin – creamy, hairless, unmarred; the definition of perfection – there was something admirable about the permanent mark of the past left on Mikan’s skin, silently showcasing how much she’s been through and how hard she’s worked.
Yet when her hand shakily pressed against his forehead, manually rechecking his temperature, Hajime felt a sudden jolt of bile rush up his throat. Don’t fucking touch me, his mind hissed, though he could barely hear the words. He nearly choked as he swallowed it down.
What the fuck? Maybe… Maybe he actually was a little nauseous after all. But that didn’t have to mean anything, right? And maybe he just didn’t like the way Mikan’s cold, clammy palm felt against his forehead. Nobody liked that feeling. That made sense, too. Right?
He shook the thoughts from his head. He tried to refocus on Mikan’s voice instead of her skin. Her hands were tightly grasped together beneath her chin as she squeaked out, “Y-You have a low-grade fever, Hinata-san! P-Please—Please l-let me take care of you! Y-Y-You’re sick!”
“I… What?” Hajime blinked. Huh? “I’m sick?”
Mikan furiously nodded. Vigorous enough to surely get dizzy from the action. She even stumbled slightly as she tried to gather the words, “Y-Your temperature is 38.3°! A-A-And you’re, um—Y-Your face is flushed and your eyes were unfocused while I was talking!”
“Wait, what? My eyes are what?”
Mikan flinched away with a distressed squeal, throwing her hands up in surrender. “S-S-Sorry! I-I didn’t mean to, um, insult your appearance! I’m so sorry! Please forgive me!”
“I didn’t mean… Ugh. It’s fine.” Add another tally to the scorebook of him accidentally scaring Mikan. He could (attempt to) resolve it later. There was a more important matter at hand.
Hajime quickly glanced around the room. There weren’t any mirrors, but there were plenty of windows. He walked up to one and angled his face so that his reflection could be seen through the bright, afternoon sun. Through the yellow-red tinted glass, it was kind of hard to tell if there was any alleged flushness to his cheeks or glassiness to his eyes. Only a warm-colored-stained reflection peered back at him, with eyes wide in confusion and a mouth drawn tight in disbelief.
38.3°C was admittedly a higher temperature than he would’ve expected. And Mikan, despite her overwhelming timidness, took her talent pretty damn seriously. She wouldn’t make up him looking “flushed” and “unfocused” or whatever.
But then again, it was a – what’d she say? – “low-grade fever.” That couldn’t be too serious, right? That didn’t necessarily mean that he was sick. He was just… running hot. Maybe Hajime was dehydrated or something. They were on a hot-ass island, for fuck’s sake.
He said as much aloud. But as the words spilled from his lips, and Mikan gave her version of a gingerly incredulous look, he felt himself become less and less convinced of his so-called logical reasoning. Just felt like empty excuses. He slowly shut his mouth.
“U-Um…” Mikan wrung her hands together. Hajime tried not to focus on the snagged skin around the nailbed of her right index finger. Tried not to focus on how her nails were practically the same color as her skin. Tried not to focus on how she didn’t make any effort to stand out at all. “I, um, understand if you have doubts. Yes, y-your fever may not be very high. Owari-san and, um, Mioda-san have about 40° fevers—” It was Hajime’s turn to wince. Because holy shit. It was that bad? “—and y-you don’t, um, you don’t seem to be acting any differently. But still, please!” She sharply bowed her head down, nearly making Hajime jump back in surprise. “P-Please, Hinata-san! Even if you only have a cold, we can’t risk it! P-Please let me take care you!” She bowed her head again, her arms even going properly rigid at her sides. “P-Please! Please! Please—!”
“Okay, okay!” Hajime tried to wave it away. If he was flushed now, it was definitely because of Mikan’s unnecessary begging display. “If I let you take care of me, will you calm down?”
Mikan did the opposite of calming down. He should’ve known better. She clasped her hands together again, even tighter – making the skin across her knuckles turn grayish white, and she began babbling. “T-Thank you, Hinata-san! Thank you! I’ll take good care of you, s-since you’re my responsibility now!”
“Uh. That sounds like… a lot.” Hajime scratched the back of his head. He really, really, really wanted to go back to his room. He could already feel an exhausting future ahead of him, common cold or Despair Disease or elsewise. “You should just focus on taking care of Owari and Mioda. Don’t worry too much about me. I really do feel fine, honestly.”
“B-But—”
Hajime shook his head. “You already have a lot on your hands dealing with two actually sick people by yourself. I know Kuzuryu is keeping watch and Nanami helped with checking in on everyone, but you’re still on your own. You don’t need to worry too much about me just because I might be sick. You’ll make yourself sick from exhaustion.” He mustered up a reassuring smile that he willed not to waver. “You can’t forget to take care of yourself too, Tsumiki. If we lost you, it’d be devastating.”
Mikan’s eyes watered. Tearful pale eyes were always a pretty sight. They naturally reflected one’s tears the best. And the grayness of the eyes was translucent yet clouded. Like overcast skies.
But the way her tears didn’t naturally fall and trail down her cheeks, but burst and spattered from her eyes and dribbled down her cheeks – like a popped water balloon – it wasn’t the most alluring sight. Usually, it would strike panic within Hajime (with Nagito’s nagging voice in the back of his mind chastising him for making a girl cry again) and he would be flustered, trying and failing to make Mikan stop crying. But for now, Hajime found himself at a standstill, not even feeling the slightest urge to reach out to her.
“T-T-Thank you, Hinata-san!” Mikan cried, fruitlessly rubbing at her eyes. “T-Thank you! N-No one’s ever been so nice to me before! I-I don’t deserve it!”
Maybe not. Something foreboding nestled its way into the corner of Hajime’s chest, behind his breastbone.
+
And that’s how Hajime ended up as a patient quarantined in the third island’s hospital, while the rest of his classmates stayed at the nearby motel on standby. The very same hospital that he lamented as having the ambience of a horror film setting housed him within the four walls of its second patient room.
Which Hajime was now in, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed, head in hands, elbows on knees, in a hospital gown – conflicted.
So, he started thinking. Because what else was there to do? Not like he didn’t think already. Shit, he thought too much. Been trapped in his head for too long. More like, he welcomed the rushing, scattering thoughts flooding into his mind rather than try to sort and categorize them.
He thought about Akane and Ibuki, if they were getting better or worse. Even though their rooms were close together and his was sandwiched in between theirs, he couldn’t hear anything from their rooms. He wondered if he would be able to hear Akane sobbing and Ibuki rambling if he pressed his ear against the wall and listened closely. He wondered if they were doomed to get worse and worse until Monokuma’s motive succeeded, as always. He wondered if this was where hope died.
He thought about his classmates in the motel, what they could’ve been doing. If the motel was more or less comfortable than their cottages. (Definitely less.) If their efforts were futile and they all had been infected anyway. If they were like him, and were possibly infected but largely asymptomatic for now. If they were all doomed until the next killing, as always. If despair would win in the end no matter what they did.
Were his classmates thinking about him like he was thinking about them? Do they even care about me? Hajime’s frown deepened. He didn’t mean to think that. Uh, anyways. Did they know anything about his condition? Did they think he was sicker than he actually was? Did they think he was acting completely differently like Akane and Ibuki? Are they scared of me? Hajime shook his head. Great, being an inpatient was getting to him already.
A knock. Hajime flinched back. The door opened without him telling the person to come in.
Wouldn’t that be something if a potential killer decided to target the sick and helpless? Would someone stoop so low as to kill a victim who couldn’t fight back? A hypothetical killer could even easily best Akane, who was arguably the strongest among them after Nekomaru, now that she was a weak, scared, emotional mess. A hypothetical killer could coerce Ibuki to literally walk headfirst to her own death, or kill herself, or kill someone else, or—
“Hinata.”
Hajime whipped his head up. Fuyuhiko was looking at him with a raised eyebrow. “Kuzuryu.” He immediately straightened up. “Uh, what’s up?” He sounded casual, right?
Fuyuhiko huffed, obviously not buying it. “Dinnertime. C’mon.”
“Huh?” Hajime stood up anyway. “I thought we can’t eat in here.” That was a rule Hajime only noticed once he was admitted into the hospital. Boredom was quick to set in within the first couple hours of his stay, and Mikan had permitted him to roam around since he still didn’t feel sick and his “fever” hadn’t worsened (or improved). He must’ve read over the bulletin board in the lobby a thousand times over by now to preoccupy his eyes.
“Yeah.” Fuyuhiko crossed his arms. “We just took Owari and Mioda outside to eat. Now it’s your turn.” He was already walking away.
Hajime scrambled after him. “Oh yeah? Where’d you take them?”
“Just outside the hospital.”
They made it down the hallway fairly quickly. Hajime’s neck craned on its own as they passed Akane and Ibuki’s rooms. He wondered how they were doing. “Did… they eat?” he pondered aloud.
Fuyuhiko’s shoulders hunched up. “Not really,” he muttered. He left it at that and held open the door leading out to the lobby for Hajime.
Wow, what a gentleman, Hajime’s mind whispered as he walked through. Whatever the hell that meant. Was he so bored that even his own brain was making fun of him now to spark some semblance of simulation?
Once they were in the lobby, Hajime found himself stopping.
“What’s the hold up?” Fuyuhiko said from behind him. The bitten-back concern in his voice was yet another sign of how much he’d changed already. Hajime wondered how much he would change too once this was all over. In an odd way, he hoped so.
“I was thinking…” Hajime turned around, though he kept his eyes down. He wasn’t sure why. Probably because he was already bracing himself for rejection. “I don’t feel sick. I mean, c’mon, do I really seem sick to you?”
Fuyuhiko snorted. “Doesn’t matter what I think. If Tsumiki thinks you belong here, I’m gonna make sure your ass stays in here—by any means necessary.”
Hajime held his hands up, because he knew a threat when he heard one. “I’m not planning on leaving or anything. Just…” Geez, it almost felt like he was under false imprisonment at this point. And Hajime was already imprisoned by Monokuma as is! “Seriously, can you answer the question? Do I seem sick to you? Or… different? Like how Owari and Mioda are different?”
“No,” Fuyuhiko answered without hesitation. He tucked his hands in his pockets. “You seem the same to me. Except you kinda keep zoning out, though.”
“I-I do?”
Fuyuhiko shrugged. “What the fuck do you want? Spit it out.” At least he cut to the chase.
“I wanted to ask if I could eat at the hotel or the diner or something?” Hajime tried his best to look somewhat convincing. He was sure he only looked pitiful, though. “I just want to go outside for a little while. I think I’m gonna go crazy if I stay in here any longer, you know?” God, he felt like a dog begging its owner for permission to piss.
A beat. Hajime felt like he was boiling beneath Fuyuhiko’s heavy gaze. But somehow, he won the stare-off, because Fuyuhiko let out a long sigh as he shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “Fine. Everybody’s eating at the motel, anyway. Should be okay.”
The relief that coursed through Hajime’s body was nearly overwhelming. He was sure it showed in the dumb-ass smile that he couldn’t fight off his face. “Thanks, Kuzuryu.” He really meant it.
Fuyuhiko rolled his eye and waved him off, though he couldn’t hide the way his already-rosy cheeks pinkened even further.
He handed him his shoes that had been tucked away in the lobby and held the door open for him again, which made a small corner of Hajime’s mind quietly hum for some reason. He tried to ignore it, couldn’t, thought it might be because he was still adjusting to this new Fuyuhiko, and stepped out into the dusk.
+
Hajime promised Fuyuhiko that he would return to the hospital by the nighttime announcement. Otherwise, he was pretty much free to do as he pleased (within reason; obviously, he couldn’t go to the motel or overexert himself). Fuyuhiko also said that Mikan had been resting in the on-call room after attempting to feed Akane and Ibuki, and after he reassured her that he’d make sure Hajime ate, so she wouldn’t know about Hajime’s little outing for now.
It was ridiculous to be walking around outside in a hospital gown, but Hajime would take it over nothing. He welcomed the cooling evening air that brushed against his sleeves, and the sharp scent of sea salt that caressed his tongue, and the fading orange-turned-violet sunset that warmed his eyelids.
There was an increased eeriness to the island now. Even though Hajime could never brush off the feeling of being watched, at least there was the promise of his classmates lingering on whatever beach, in whatever building. There was no one now. Isolation had a tight grip on the air. Hajime had escaped one lonely bubble just to enter another.
Before he knew it, he ended up at the hotel. It was weird to be the only one in the restaurant for dinnertime. He absently wondered if this was what it would feel like to be the last man standing of the killing game. He would usually shake such a thought away from his mind, but it at least felt like his own, so he allowed it to stay for a moment before he let it go.
There was a plethora of food strewn across each table, all left untouched. He could imagine Akane on her fourth plate while everyone else was still on their first, Sonia halfheartedly complaining about the “plebeian palate” she had been forced to acquire, Gundham sneaking bites to his Four Dark Devas of Destruction, Chiaki fighting (and losing against) sleep once she finished her food, Nagito stealing glances of him whether they sat at the same table or across the room from one another. He couldn’t believe he missed their mealtimes already.
Hajime took a seat at the table closest to the door. Even with the abundance of food in front of him, he didn’t feel hungry. He idly picked up a pair of wooden chopsticks, split them apart, and poked at the likely cold shrimp concoction that had been laid out for dinner. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he didn’t feel the urge to even taste the food. Weird.
“…Hinata-kun?”
Hajime sharply gasped as he turned around. Walking into the restaurant was Nagito. Who had that omnipresent eased smile on his face. He remained in the doorway; half of his face shielded in shadow. Not being able to see Nagito’s eyes admittedly made Hajime feel uneasy. It wasn’t as if Nagito’s eyes ever revealed much, anyway – only different degrees of desperation. But at least it was better than nothing.
“Ah, it really is you.” If Hajime was a fool, he would think that Nagito was genuinely happy to see him. “I must be really lucky to suddenly find you here—” Oh, hell no.
“How did you know I’d be here?”
“Hm? I didn’t.” Nagito took a step closer. Even though he moved from the shadow of the doorway, the darkness of the restaurant, with only the violet-turned-blue sunset spreading through the windows, didn’t provide much light or relief on his figure. It only highlighted the sickly blue-green undertones of his pallor skin, how the distant degree in his eyes was at an unknown angle. “Consider this a happy, little coincidence.”
“I can’t.” Excuse Hajime if he had trouble wrapping his head around “coincidences” when it came to Nagito. Sure, he was starting to understand the gravitas of the Ultimate Lucky Student’s talent after his conversations with Nagito fueled by morbid curiosity, but some things were still too good to be true. “You must’ve seen me leave the hospital or something and followed me.” That was much more believable. “I can’t believe that you’re here, right now… just because.”
Of course, Nagito laughed off stalker accusations as if Hajime told a joke. “I know it may not sound reassuring coming from an unreliable guy like me, but I promise I didn’t see you leave the hospital. I swear it on my dog’s life, if that means anything to you.”
Hajime felt his frown deepen. And an unwelcomed heat settle behind his ears. “I… still find it hard to believe. Why are you here?”
“Well…” Nagito took another step closer, until he was standing nearly directly in front of Hajime. The heat behind his ears grew. While they were around the same heights standing, Nagito towered over him while Hajime was sitting. He didn’t look threatening or imposing or anything like that, but Hajime was resisting the urge to squirm in his seat nonetheless. Craning his neck to look up at Nagito, rather than being eye to eye or looking down on him, felt – weird. Made his brain put the world on mute and made him only catch the tail end of Nagito’s explanation: “—Soda-kun offered to fix the air conditioning unit and sink in my room after he saw me sitting outside. I decided to take a walk while I waited and I happened to find you here. That’s all.”
Hajime blinked. As always, for some godforsaken reason, he asked Nagito for a further explanation. “Huh? What’d you say? What’s wrong with your AC and sink?”
“Ah, is Hinata-kun already bored of listening to me? That’s too bad, but I understand. I don’t mind repeating myself as long as you ask, though.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “I was saying that the air conditioning in my room wasn’t working. It was only blowing hot air. My room got up to 38.3° before I couldn’t withstand it anymore!” For some reason, he breezily laughed at that. Hajime bit the inside of his cheek. Nagito’s room temperature being exactly his body temperature should’ve meant nothing, but it brought them here together, so. It unfortunately meant something. “And then when I walked out the door, the pipe burst in my sink. I wouldn’t have noticed if the faucet didn’t hit me in the back of the head!” He laughed again. “At first I thought, how unlucky am I? But I guess all of that led me to finding you where I least expected it, so I guess I am lucky after all.”
That… was unfortunately a believable explanation by Komaeda Nagito standards. Hajime allowed his shoulders to fall as he let out a messy breath through his nose.
He pointedly looked away, because he didn’t like looking up at Nagito, didn’t like the way it felt. But he also didn’t like how he could feel Nagito’s eyes remain on him with his head turned, so he looked back at him again. Nagito’s eyes looked clearer and the smile had parted enough to show teeth. Hajime’s ears completely burned now. He prayed it didn’t show through the skin.
Defeat pricked at his fingertips. “Are… you hungry or something?” Hajime shoved the shrimp dish he had been picking at toward Nagito. “Eat.”
Nagito’s smile widened. He tightened his arms around himself. “Hinata-kun’s tsun tsun personality strikes again, straight to the heart.” He chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not foolish enough to think that you actually care about a lowly bug like me. The only reason why you offered me something to eat is because you’ve grown disgusted with looking at my pitiful, emaciated body, huh?”
“…How did we even get from point A to point B?” Hajime muttered to himself. “First of all, you’re not ‘emaciated’ or whatever. You look fine.” Sure, Nagito was on the thinner side, but that wasn’t a good reason to be disgusted with him. His actions during their first class trial were enough. “Second of all, why else would you come to the restaurant unless you’re hungry? That’s why I offered you food.” How could one guy be so annoying? Really. Nagito was truly the Ultimate Pain in the Ass. Hajime scratched at his ear.
“Hm…” Nagito looked down at the food like it was a foreign object. Hajime couldn’t really blame him. The plate in between them boasted sautéed shrimp instead of a more typical fried shrimp. It looked pink and slimy, and very unappetizing.
“Yeah,” Hajime agreed. No words needed to be spoken. They were on the same wavelength for once, at least. “Have you eaten anything today?” Nagito gave him a silent look, his smile slightly shrinking. That meant no. “We can go to the supermarket?” Hajime bit his tongue before he finished the suggestion. Why the hell did he say that?
Because he knew what was coming next. Nagito immediately brightened up. His fingers dug into his elbows. “I’m so blessed to hear you say that to me…” He laughed under his breath. “I would be more than honored to go anywhere with you, Hinata-kun.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Hajime pushed his chair back. His ears felt itchy again. “Let’s go before I change my mind.” He had a curfew to uphold. The time was ticking to the nighttime announcement.
+
The inside of the supermarket was the same no matter night or day. But there was something about the cold white LED lights that felt blinding. Hajime’s eyes were taking too long to adjust from the dark. But it didn’t feel as lonely as it could’ve been because of Nagito, at least – for better or worse.
Nagito wandered off to an aisle that Hajime didn’t bother paying attention to. He was too busy looking at the food aisles, trying not to get too wrapped up in how bizarre his present circumstances were: having a late-night meal with Komaeda Nagito in the supermarket while he was a hospital patient and they were both trapped in a killing game on an island in the middle of nowhere. His current greatest worries were not dying and what he wanted to eat. How did his life end up this way?
“How does ramen sound?” Hajime called out. Simple, instant, and there was a cooking station in the corner of the market. Sounded like the best option.
“Whatever Hinata-kun wants—” Just Nagito’s long-winded version of saying “yeah, whatever’s fine.”
“Okay.” Hajime went over to the ramen cooking station. He heard Nagito walk up behind him. The hairs on his neck stood on end. “I’m just making one that we can share. I’m not that hungry,” he murmured. “We have to use separate utensils, though,” he quickly added, because he could easily see where this conversational thread would go if he allowed Nagito to pull at it. “I’m supposed to be sick.”
“Of course.”
Nagito was quiet enough as Hajime unpackaged the ramen and added the noodles and seasoning to a bowl. He didn’t feel like adding meat, vegetables, or anything too fancy. He really wasn’t hungry for some reason. It didn’t seem like Nagito was, either. He was never a big eater in the first place.
As boiling water poured into the bowl, Hajime leaned against the counter, arms crossed. He spared Nagito a glance. He was already looking at him. Well, not at his face. It took a belated second for Hajime to realize that he was looking lower, at his chest.
Hajime’s usual shirt’s collar was pretty high up on his neck, as he kept it buttoned to the top. But the neck of his hospital gown was lower, crossing beneath his collarbones and stopping at the swell of his chest, and left a lot more on display than what he usually showed.
Worst of all, there was no shame on Nagito’s face after he was caught red-handed. He only slowly rolled his eyes up until they connected with Hajime’s, with his usually serene, unreachable expression. And somehow, Hajime didn’t feel as offended as he thought he would be. He felt more so flustered if anything. His ears burned all over again. “My eyes are up here,” he muttered.
“My apologies,” Nagito murmured, totally not meaning it. “This is just a side of Hinata-kun that I haven’t seen before. It’s… interesting.” He had the audacity to give the facsimile of a sheepish smile, but Hajime knew better. “But I’m sure you don’t appreciate the feeling of—”
“Your pervy eyes feeling me up? Not really.” Hajime didn’t move to tighten the front of his gown, though. In fact, he leaned further against the counter, allowed his gown to slightly open up further, until he could feel the cleft of his chest threatening to expose itself. He dared Nagito to look down again.
He didn’t. Their eyes remained connected. The space between them was occupied by something that Hajime couldn’t quite name. There was no rush, no electricity, no heat. But there was – something. Something that was making Hajime’s palms sweat yet his fingers stiffen. And Nagito’s unwavering gaze – clear, clouded; open, closed; knowing, unknowing – only made it worse. Hajime’s mind was frozen but ran in four different directions at the same time. He didn’t know where to go.
Beep. The spell was broken. Their ramen was done.
Breaking their gaze felt like splitting a limb in half. Specifically, the little finger – in three parts at the ligaments and tendons, into clean, separate pieces to be compartmentalized for later. Hajime tried to wave the thoughts away, straighten out the collar of his gown. What the hell was wrong with him? Messing around with and getting tongue-tied over a guy like Nagito… He must really be sick. Sick in the head.
He stirred the noodles with a little more vigor than he should’ve. Broth spilled over onto the counter. Hajime could hear Nagito make some sort of soft sound under his breath, but he didn’t feel like deciphering it. Because then he would have to decipher his own sound he made as he pulled out a separate pair of chopsticks for Nagito, and he really didn’t want to get into that. Not now, not ever.
Hajime pushed the bowl to Nagito. “You eat first, so I don’t get you sick.” Nagito solemnly nodded as he broke apart his chopsticks, as if Hajime was giving him a sip from the holy grail.
Nagito took a few slow, considerate bites of his noodles. Even the way he slurped them was irritatingly quiet and polite. It was instant ramen with no accompaniments and a simple soy sauce flavoring, but Nagito ate it like it was a cooked in a Michelin three-star restaurant.
He licked away a drop of dark broth from his bottom lip and Hajime’s eyes automatically tracked the movement – at the sight of the pink tip of Nagito’s tongue, at his briefly wettened bottom lip, at the hint of his perfectly-straight front teeth; at the promise of the dark, warm cavern of the rest of his mouth; at the thought of how the food Hajime made that Nagito clearly enjoyed far more than he should was traveling down his throat, his esophagus, moving and digesting through his body and being broken down by enzymes, its nutrients absorbed within in his organs and forever keeping a part of Hajime inside of Nagito deep down where no one else could reach.
Though he hadn’t said a word, Hajime cleared his throat before he asked, “What do you think?” in a low and earnest voice, driven by the still-lingering burning beneath his fingertips.
“I like it,” Nagito answered, actually earnest. “I’m grateful that Hinata-kun would spend his precious time on someone like me, especially when he’s sick and should be resting instead. It makes me feel…” He trailed off, his lips twisting as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
Hajime rolled his eyes, bit back his own smile. Anyways, speaking of being sick, “What do you think… about me?” Hajime already asked one brutally honest guy about his condition. It didn’t hurt to get a second opinion from another.
“Hm?” Nagito took one last small bite before he set aside his chopsticks on the counter. His eyes looked cloudier than usual. It took a moment for Hajime to realize that his question was too vague and he should clarify, once he untangled himself from the contrails of Nagito’s irises.
“Do you think I have the Despair Disease? Or, uh…” Hajime gave into the urge to finally scratch behind his ears. He felt no relief. “That I’m acting differently, like Owari and Mioda?”
Hajime was expecting Nagito to give him the look. You know, the look that Komaeda Nagito always gives whenever he’s scrutinizing someone or something, traveling deep within his mind that Hajime was quick to learn was scary smart but also scary in general. That look wasn’t here now. Because that look possessed a certain kind of shielded clarity. The look on his face now was still blurred. Or maybe Hajime’s eyes were blurred over. What was going on?
“I know my opinion doesn’t mean much, but…” Nagito blinked. Hajime blinked too. Their vision blurred. “You still give me the same feeling of calmness that I’ve always felt ever since we first met. And you’re still willing to spend time with someone like me despite everything. So as far as I am concerned, you’re still the same Hinata-kun.”
Without warning, something fluttered in the bottommost part of Hajime’s chest. He clipped its wings.
At one point, Nagito gestured toward Hajime’s untouched chopsticks and offered to feed him. Why? Hajime asked. Because you fed me before, Nagito answered. That didn’t happen, Hajime pointed out, glancing away. You still showed up to feed me, nonetheless; let me return the favor, Nagito insisted. Hajime allowed Nagito to feed him two bites while his mind overflooded with not-his-own thoughts about Nagito’s fingers beside, near, in his mouth – and he shoved him away by the arm before he could gag. I wasn’t hungry anyway, Hajime muttered. Nagito didn’t say anything. He tucked Hajime’s chopsticks in his pocket.
As Nagito cleaned up, Hajime wandered around the supermarket. He found a few Monocoins underneath the survival goods table. He took them to the vending machine and thoughtlessly punched in the code for a Blue Ram. It – He knew – Nagito liked – it.
Nagito’s smile was at its widest yet. “You’re giving me food and a drink? I don’t know what to do with myself. Are you trying to make me like you even more?”
“C-Calm down. It’s just a drink from the vending machine.” Hajime walked away without saying goodbye after that. He could feel the nighttime announcement incoming and could picture Fuyuhiko at his heels.
He refused to look back as he walked into the blue-turned-black sunset, even though he could feel Nagito’s eyes boring a hole in his back.
Hm… He’s weird. For once, Hajime agreed with his not-his thoughts.