Chapter Text
Komaeda slumped back to his dorm room a day later, wearily taking off his shoes and setting them by the door. After a day of classwork and a therapy session, he was worn out. The classes themselves hadn’t been that bad, he supposed, but the talk with his psychiatrist had been draining. Honestly, it was rare that he didn’t come out of a session feeling wiped, but today had been especially tiring.
He had relayed the events of the past few days to her, which had gone about as well as he’d expected it to. She’d tried to hide her delight at his progress behind a professional smile, but it was clear that she approved of the steps he’d taken to do something good for himself. When he mentioned the pact (though phrasing it like that made him feel like Tanaka) he’d agreed to with Hinata she’d been over the moon. Even though that should have made him feel good too, it didn’t.
Komaeda didn’t know why he felt so reluctant to talk to her about things that went well for him. Logically, it didn’t make sense- he had a problem, he sought help for it, she was providing guidance, and following that guidance was leading to better outcomes. That’s why he was doing this. So why did it feel like he was somehow losing something when he told her that it was working?
Komaeda set his school bag on the end of his bed, wandering to the fridge to peer inside. Nothing looked very appetizing, as usual, but he had to eat something, so... He grabbed a container of leftover rice and some mayo, fishing a can of tuna out of the cupboard as well. After a brief struggle with plastic wrap and some abysmal rice ball shaping, he had a dinner he hated. But a dinner he hated was better than foregoing eating entirely, and he didn’t want to order takeout again. (The cost, of course, wasn’t the issue- he lamented the fact that some poor soul had to make a trip to the academy just for his sake.)
Though it took actual effort to eat the world’s crummiest onigiri, Komaeda did it anyway. It wasn’t like he could actually cook anything decent on his own. Not for lack of trying, though. More than once, Hanamura had tried to teach him and a few other students- notably Tanaka and Souda, a volatile combination- to cook some basic dishes.
Hanamura had attempted to impart a few core cooking skills to them, (with the requisite amount of flirting one might expect,) but it had been... Unsuccessful. Souda had wildly overcooked his attempt at an omelette, and somehow Komaeda’s was simultaneously runny and crunchy. Out of the three students, Tanaka had improved the most- his dish was almost comically unsightly, but the eggs were cooked to a properly edible degree. All the same, Hanamura had refused to take a single bite of any of their attempts, and Komaeda couldn’t blame him.
Fully aware of his penchant for disaster, Komaeda had elected to never cook anything more complicated than microwave meal assembly, which often led to dinners like this. Thank god the Main Course cafeteria food was good.
Dinner endured, Komaeda’s gaze wandered over to the keyboard. He washed his hands and sat down before it, switching it on and picking up the sheet music. The little black dots and lines, highlighted with different colors, gazed up at him from the page like they always did. He scanned the pages once or twice over, making mental notes on the parts that tripped him up near the twenty-first measure. If he slowed it down a bit, he was sure he could play the sequence properly- then it was just a matter of building the familiarity up until he could play at the correct tempo.
He set the sheets back on the stand, starting the piece from the beginning.
Right at the twenty-first measure, his fingers stopped obeying him and clumsily struck the wrong keys.
Komaeda stopped, backing up a few measures to try again.
Wrong notes.
He tried again.
He made it through the first part of the melody, but then messed up on the twenty-third measure instead.
Frustrated, he snatched the sheet of music up again, saying the notes aloud as he walked his left hand through the section at a snail’s pace. He did the same for the right hand afterward. Each part wasn’t hard on its own, but playing them at the right timing against one another, and at the proper speed? Therein laid the challenge- and that was all assuming his fingers stayed nimble. This wasn’t even-
Komaeda’s phone buzzed in his pocket, pulling him out of his frustration. Was it Hinata? He set the paper down, pulling out his cell phone with the hope that he’d see that name on the screen. To his delight, he was correct.
“hey random af but what colors are you gonna be wearing to the SOIREE?”
Ah, he wouldn’t even have the chance to bother him about the usage of the party term. An amused little smile on his face, Komaeda texted him a response.
‘Black, white, and red. That’s the plan, anyway.’
Was it sort of pathetic that just a text from Hinata was enough to lift his spirits this quickly? Maybe, but who cared? Hinata texted him first! Again! (This time seemingly with an information goal in mind, but still. A text was a text.)
A few seconds passed before a follow-up question came through. “warm white or bright white?”
Komaeda had to admit, he was surprised that Hinata was making that distinction. He would have thought him to be the ‘white is white, right?’ type, especially given what he’d worn at the last formal event the school had held. ‘Bright white.’
Hinata must be trying to determine what to wear to the party, and he was taking Komaeda’s choices into account for it. It was starting to feel real, the fact that Hinata would be attending this party with him. Not just as well as him, but with him. And he was trying to figure out what might coordinate with what Komaeda would wear! It almost felt like an actual d- no, he would not get his hopes up like that. He would not.
A reply from Hinata kept his thoughts from hurtling down a dangerously optimistic path. ‘dude i dont have shit all thats gonna match that.’
Ah, now that was more like the Hinata he knew. ‘I can’t say I’m exactly surprised, if your overall style is anything like the suit you wore to prom last year.’
“dude cut me some slack ive only ever been to like two events that needed an actual suit and one was a funeral when i was like eight.”
‘So the only suit you own is that cream-colored one? Seriously?’ Uh-oh.
“yeah i havent filled out the rest of the fucking color spectrum yet. work in progress.”
Shit. Komaeda should have come to this realization sooner- most people didn’t have multiple permutations of dress clothing just on-hand, especially not high schoolers. Why on Earth hadn’t he considered that? God, he was presumptuous. He himself had pointed out what different circles they lived in! He should have realized this was going to be a stumbling point. What a stupid oversight! What was Hinata supposed to do, just run out to buy a new one? He probably didn’t even know where to get a nice suit from, much less want to spend the money on a rush job like-
Wait.
Well, that was a solution, wasn’t it? Komaeda typed up a response, sending it off and getting up from the piano bench. ‘I figured as much. Well, while you work on completing the color wheel, send me your measurements. I’ll get you something that isn’t the color of a vintage plastic keyboard.’
“dude that is so specific wtf”
‘It isn’t wrong. Send me your measurements and shoe size as soon as you can. There’s a limited window to figure this out.’ Secretly, Komaeda had a guess as to what Hinata’s measurements might be, but now wasn’t the time to test his observation skills.
“ok ill figure that out real quick and send it.” Hinata replied quickly, followed by a second text after that. “thanks, seriously. i was kind of freaking out a bit over here.”
‘I should have asked sooner, really. It was silly of me to assume you just had options on hand.’ Silly, thoughtless, out of touch, idiotic- any of those descriptions would fit. ‘It’s my mistake, so I’ll handle it.’ Judgment gap aside, it was a situation Hinata would not have faced in the first place if he hadn’t agreed to do Komaeda a favor and attend this party. Obviously it made the most sense for Komaeda to take care of it. He had the time, money, and knowledge to achieve the best outcome here. It was a no-brainer, following the completely brainless lapse it had taken to get here.
“who are you and what have you done with komaeda nagito??? lol mr. gentlemanly over here”
Though his tone was clearly humorous, Komaeda’s face still warmed a little. ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s also very self-serving- god knows I wouldn’t want to be seen with someone so utterly tasteless.’ He couldn’t resist teasing him just a bit more. Seriously, a pale yellow suit...
“ahhhhhh hes back lol ok im actually gonna get my measurements now hang on a bit.”
Shoot, it felt so nice to just be able to talk to Hinata like this. A little teasing, a little sincerity, just the normal kind of tone you might take with a friend. It almost made his chest physically ache.
Komaeda couldn’t focus on that right now, though- he had a problem he needed to fix. He grabbed his laptop and searched through his email, scrolling through a few old threads to find the contact information for the tailor he’d seen for his last outfitting. He wasn’t exactly in the habit of getting a new suit for every event, but in the last year or two he’d grown a fair bit and lost a lot of weight, so most of what he’d worn before no longer fit him well. The many joys of cancer treatment and a growth spurt.
He found the tailor’s contact information again, drafting up a quick email. He needed a full suit- jacket, pants, and vest- as quickly as possible. Completely bespoke was unnecessary, tailoring an existing garment was acceptable. A classic style in dark grey would be ideal.
He would be amenable to purchasing a shirt and tie alongside the suit. Price was not an issue. Contact him as soon as possible with any further questions and confirm whether or not the request could be completed in the stated time frame.
Komaeda was proofreading the request when he got the text with Hinata’s measurements. (Bemusedly, he noted that his estimates were fairly accurate.) He added those in as well before finishing the email, sending it off. He sent a similar message to the owner of the place he usually bought his shoes from and then sat back, satisfied. Having money to throw around sure was convenient sometimes.
He closed his laptop, meandering back to the keyboard to sit again. He idly worked through a few scale drills, mind wandering as he let his hands take charge of themselves. What color shirt should he get for Hinata? White was a clean, classic look, but red would look better with his eyes. Should he go for a coordinating color instead of something that matched? No, that would take some guesswork. Besides, he wasn’t going to be wearing a lot of red- there was just color on the sleeves. (In addition to that, pure black and white was painfully unimaginative. While standing out among the crowd wasn’t the idea, he still wanted to do a little better than that for him.) Whatever it was, it would coordinate better than the suit he’d worn to the school dance last year.
Komaeda had seen Hinata at the dance. Komaeda had shown up alone, of course- no one had asked him, nor had he asked anybody himself. He had honestly been planning on skipping the event altogether, but with enough cajoling Nanami had convinced him to attend. A date wasn’t necessary, she reminded- and watching everybody else enjoy themselves made him happy, right? The notion of watching his classmates having fun had been enough to convince him to go, whereupon he’d caught sight of Hinata across the room early on in the evening.
(Komaeda stopped the drills and let his hands choose the next piece of music he would attempt to play.)
At first, it had been a complete surprise to him- what was Hinata doing here? Had someone from the Main Course asked him along? A minute later he remembered that the event was for the entire school, not only the Main Course. It initially caused a flare of irritation within him- why did they think they could mingle among the best and brightest vessels of talent and hope for the future?- but it ebbed after a moment. Regardless of the course, they were still students of Hope’s Peak. Besides, he was beginning to thaw a little on some of the stances he’d entered the academy with. His slowly growing crush had nothing to do with it.
Initially he thought that Hinata must have been there with a date- most people were, after all, and why would he be an exception to that? He was friendly, good-looking, and managed to get along with nearly everyone. Komaeda couldn’t imagine that anyone would turn him down if he asked them to the dance. But after a little more observation, he didn’t see any one person that seemed to be sticking to Hinata’s side. It seemed like he’d come with a group of classmates, not a date. At the time, Komaeda refused to acknowledge the small twinge of relief that revelation brought him.
(His hands continued to play, muscle memory filling in the gaps his conscious mind couldn’t.)
Naturally he hadn’t spoken to him over the course of the evening, or even to many of his classmates. The dance was supposed to be a fun event, after all- inflicting his presence upon them would utterly ruin it. Komaeda mostly stayed by the sidelines, just watching his classmates have fun together. Seeing them so happy truly made it worth attending.
He did remember catching Hinata’s eye once that evening, though- the other boy had been speaking to a few friends who left for the dance floor, and during the transition from one situation to the next he’d glanced up and locked eyes with Komaeda. He froze for a second, and Komaeda had expected him to either grimace and turn away or to frown at him. He did neither. Perhaps cheered by the jovial atmosphere, Hinata had instead offered him a little smile and a nod of his head.
Caught by surprise, Komaeda had smiled back.
The moment was over as quickly as it came. Hinata broke eye contact to glance over at an approaching friend, leaving Komaeda with a pounding heart and a peculiar tightness in his chest.
If someone had told him then that in one year he would be going to a soiree with Hinata accompanying him, he would have laughed and dismissed the thought as impossible. But here he was today, doing just that.
(He played the final measure, finishing the song.)
Not as impossible as he thought, was it?