Chapter Text
“Let's play twenty questions.” Asking this question was, undeniably, Hinata’s First Fuck Up.
Though in his defense, it was just another Monday afternoon, after all. Not that the day mattered or anything. The date rarely mattered anymore. Between reconstructing the world and their island, hours and days and weeks would meld into one formless, unidentifiable mass of work. Of things to do; issues to tend to.
A few hours of silence should be considered a rare gift, and any form of communal entertainment was a logical request. Right?
Hinata tapped his fingers against the long tables, unable to quite ease the tension in his chest as he awaited Komaeda’s response. Being around him still felt like testing new waters; not uncomfortable, exactly. Rather.. unpredictable. Curious, in a way that a pattern of coral dotting a shallow patch of seawater near the shore might be. The response came after a moment of silence:
“Hm?”
Pale fingers slid around the cover of the book and closed it shut with a delicate push. Komaeda looked up at him, grey-green eyes peering at Hinata with much intensity; far more than a mere suggestion should ever warrant.
The library’s air was thick and heavy with the scent of old parchment and paper. It was a rather large place to behold, even outside of the program. And it was especially ominous and suffocating when one was alone.
It wasn't that Hinata disliked libraries or spending time in them, but today he felt restless. The library gave the impression of being unbearably full with all its books and documents and winding shelves and rows, while at the same time feeling incredibly hollow and devoid of life. Perhaps it was that he and the rest had spent so long agonizing over the gradual reconstruction of their world that to sit still and just be became a foreign, uncomfortable past time that, once not uncommon for him to indulge in, was now simply a concept he had to learn to familiarize himself with again.
Or maybe it was just that his head was now full of enough thoughts to accommodate the world's proclaimed Ultimate Hope. Maybe silence was too much, free time was too much, and so was that curious look in the luckster’s eyes, flecked with spots of light that danced across the greens of his irises when he raises his head towards the light. Lights that waltzed gently through the high paned windows and illuminated his form, making him seem like the physical representation of a dark cloud framed by silver light.
Contrary to Hinata, he didn't seem to have any complaints about being there at all. For the past few minutes, he'd been getting comfortable, tension gradually easing from his shoulders- his breathing seemed to flow better and his eyes grew half lidded, eyebrows raised to signify that he was at least somewhat entertained by the content he was reading. When he hunched over like that, curls of his snowy hair fell near his eyes and disrupted him. He’d push them back with his mechanical hand every now and then, give a quiet sigh and tilt his head. Readjust his position; bite his lower lip and chew at it for a moment – a regular habit? An unconscious action to signify irritation? Hinata couldn't tell, but Komaeda’s hair was as stubborn as the man himself, and it drew many an exasperated sigh from Komaeda.
But undeniably- he was soft. His entire demeanour exuded softness. His body seemed to simply unwind like a spring that had been coiled for far too long and then forgotten; granted, he was notably less tense after the Neo World Program ordeal was sealed once and for all.
There were still relapses and talks of hope that spiralled into unhealthy tangents of self loathing criticism, ingenuine laughter and vacant gestures and continued survival devoid of actual life, fingers that dug into pale arms and clung firmly until half crescent marks were lodged with mercilessly brutality into the luckster’s skin. Fear of change, fear of the future, fear of failed atonement.
He wasn’t alone, either- all of them, including Hinata himself, had spent their fair share of time stumbling around, lost to themselves and the rest of the world. But there had been a counter for times like these.
Nights spend at cottages together, stargazing with fingers laced in dew-dotted grass. The feeling of currents overlapping feet that trudged the border between land and sea. Hinata , too, had found places where he belonged – and Komaeda... Komaeda had instances where he felt real; approachable, attainable, there.
And here... Komaeda fit into the library quite snuggly, like there was a home for him between its towering shelves and yellowing pages.
Hinata didn't quite know what it meant for him to be picking up on all this- only a portion of it could be blamed on his heightened analysis from the part of himself that was Izuru. But he did know that he daren’t take Komaeda away from a place like that. A place that put a light to often vacant eyes.
And maybe, he thought to himself, it was a decision as selfish as it was considerate on his part.
With his enhanced self awareness, denying that he liked to stare was off the table.
“Twenty questions. I think I understand you better now, but you're still as unpredictable as ever.” Hinata leant back. He mulled over how Komaeda had closed his book the instant he’d spoken, solely focusing his attention on Hinata. He noticed the way the light from the windows also caught his hair, flecks of gold dancing upon white locks merrily.
Komaeda blinked once, slowly.
“Forgive my ignorance, Hinata-kun, but I don't think I'm familiar with that.”
“It's a game. A game friends or tediously bored people engage in.”
Komaeda was smiling now. Hinata shifted, uncomfortable. He could see it coming; Komaeda was about to retort someway he wouldn't be able to respond to appropriately, a feat that only Komaeda Nagito has managed to accomplish so far. He braced himself, ready for impact. It was his fault, really, for phrasing the sentence that way.
“I always wonder which of the two you are when we're together like this, Hinata-kun.”
Aaaaand there it was.
“Um,” Hinata began, though his response was quickly interrupted by a rather cheerful “Ah, I’m only kidding, of course!” (was he, really?), so he opted to move ahead to explaining the rules. The tapping of his fingers against the table punctuated his sentences.
Once Hinata was done, he could sense Komaeda’s smirk before he saw it. Nevermind. This was a bad idea, an idea he never should have brought up.
“Ah. So you want to test your understanding of me. Put yourself to the challenge of picking apart my brain- perhaps you want to collect data for a study, though I'm sure that's not it- why would you want to waste time analysing someone like me?” He nodded his head, like it all made sense now- his white curls bounced as he did, and it was getting exceedingly unfair how cute he was, even when he was being unsettling like this.
Hinata puffed his cheeks, frustrated. He can't let him win this.
“It's a lot of guesswork. I just want to see if I can tell what's on your mind. It’s just for fun, you know,” Hinata insisted, trying (and probably failing) to make the proposition sound less creepy and more casual.
He refused to let Komaeda win this round. This was, perhaps, what one may call his Second Fuck Up.. God- why did Komaeda always have to say things like that? While the light in his eyes gave away the fact that he was most likely teasing (was he?), Hinata could never be sure with him. Maybe he really did want to study him and pick apart his thoughts- peer into his mind and understand him completely for once, see the mechanics of what made Komaeda, Komaeda. Learn to trace every smile until he could never forget what a genuine one looked like; learn to read every gesture and every soft spoken word until he understood, understood, understood.
Damnit. Now he was really beginning to subscribe to the idea of studying Komaeda. Fuck.
“Oh! So you want to pick apart my traits for your own amusement; how cruel of you, Hinata-kun.” Komaeda said, sounding exaggeratedly disappointed. “Though if that's what you wish...”
“No, nevermind. Forget that suggestion. In fact, forget I said anything at all. I'm not here.” Hinata interrupted, sitting back far enough until he could no longer see those dancing specks of light in Komaeda’s hair and eyes as clearly. If salt qualified as a genuine human emotion, he was definitely feeling it on the low key right about now.
For once, Komaeda didn't protest or respond with a woefully self depreciating comment. He contented himself with just a quiet nod and a mumble of “Hinata-kun is really bold, saying things like that. I guess you truly can say and get away with just about anything when you’re the Ultimate Hope,” and reached for his book, but he was smiling. He was still smiling. (It was a stupid smile that did things to Hinata’s stomach- made wings materialise from the void and flutter until they made him feel a whirlwind of emotions he couldn't extinguish. What a stupid smile.)
....
Hinata couldn't stand the silence for too long. It felt as if there were no closure to this moment. This silly, strange moment of snappy retorts and playful communication? miscommunication and strange feelings in his chest.
So he asked, “What are you reading?” And that was his Hinata Hajime’s Third Fuck Up.
And naturally, because Komaeda Nagito was himself, the physical manifestation of everything infuriating from raisins in perfectly good rice to fucking double zipper shoes of all things, and the main source of all of Hinata’s biggest fuck ups, including but not limited to making his poor heart at the mercy of the world’s most exhausting, endearing, unfairly beautiful person, responded, “So we are playing after all?”
A sputter. Two green eyes widening, two tints of red staining tan cheeks.
“What- of course we’re not playing? You’ll make me feel like I’m conducting a research on you, as if you’re a... a test subject?! Fuck that.”
“But I never called myself a test subject.” Komaeda retorted innocently. Hinata could clearly imagine him with a pair of devil horns sprouting from the false illusion of a halo on his head, cackling “It seems you’ve come to that conclusion on your own, Hinata-kun.”
“That- I- why are you like this?” Hinata said, visibly growing redder in the face.
“Ah! Another question. The game has been set in motion. It is too late for me now- I have to prepare my mind and body for your unforgiving scrutiny,”
Hinata buried his face in his arms, visibly frustrated. The pounding of his heart wouldn't leave him alone, either.
“That doesn't even make sense! Don’t involve me in your strange, science-y roleplay fantasy. Neither of those questions was even a yes or no question.”
Infuriating. Devastatingly bothersome- too much trouble, that Nagito Komaeda, but Hinata was sorely grateful that the other couldn't see the smile he hid behind his hands.