Chapter Text
Since Hinata realized he wouldn't get anything from forcing Komaeda to answer, the signs of life the other gave were barely noticeable. Honestly it was as if he had completely disappeared from the group of students, which wasn't so far from the truth with the way he was adamant on not showing himself to anybody. The cottage remained completely locked.
While Hinata was a bit worried about what could be done inside – leaving the white haired boy with his inner turmoil had been proved a terrible idea when the reserver found him undoubtedly trying to kill himself – he knew pushing the other further wouldn't do any good either. If Komaeda wished to be left alone, he couldn't really break into his privacy like he had done before.
It had been clear the luckster was shocked and upset by the events, Hinata could understand that he would need to stay by himself to collect his thoughts. As long as he wasn't doing harm to anybody, including himself, it wasn't so much of a problem.
It left Hinata with an oppressing anxiety looming at the top of his head, threatening to get hold of him whenever he was bonding with someone – especially Nanami, he spent a lot more time with her since the incident with Komaeda – but it was better to let the white haired boy alone than to face a situation like the one that happened barely three days ago.
He still shuddered when thinking that if he came a second later it would have been too late. Maybe. If the knife had been slightly closer to his head Hinata would have been the one to die then. But really, it wasn't a good idea to dwell on this too much.
Thankfully Nanami was helping his paranoia a lot, because he might not have understood so easily it was useless to have so many doubts and questions when there was no way to answer them. Even Komaeda wouldn't give him what he was expecting, in the eventuality where he would be in a mood akin to responsive.
"You are both alive. It's the most important." Nanami told Hinata once, when he was still asking himself what would have happened if the situation had been different. "You won't forget that, will you?"
Of course he responded he wouldn't. The gamer was constantly calming their minds, it would be difficult not to listen to someone like her. She wasn't the exact definition of inspiring but she obviously was comfortable with people and knew how to make everyone listen by speaking a lot of sense.
She was nothing but the incarnation of their values and beliefs, while encouraging to protect themselves and value their life she was linking them to each other. She seemed to truly care for everybody, it seemed she even knew how to prevent an impulsive murder. It was a pity nobody paid enough attention before.
But then a lot of the disasters that happened were because of Komaeda's perpetual schemes. It wasn't only a question of quirky desires to kill neither a necessity or something they weren't fully conscious of. It was the luckster who built this whole feeling of fear and insecurity. It was only distrust in fact, and without Nanami the reserver wasn't sure they would have been able to trust each other again.
It only confused Hinata even more, because he truly wished to listen to Nanami's words and act against the murderers to avoid any other killing, but it that case it meant turning himself away from the troublemaker of the group and that was the last thing he wanted to do.
Komaeda needed someone, and they both had grown a bit too close to suddenly start ignoring themselves. The white haired boy didn't understand it, and it probably worsened his turmoil when he realized there would be a constant feeling of longing if they tried to shatter any boundary they had so abruptly.
Hinata's growing care for the luckster wasn't helping his shocked stupor every time Komaeda confronted Nanami's principles. There was a swirling confusing on his mind that left him numb every time it happened and he didn't know how to react. He thought the same than Nanami, yet he could still understand Komaeda's ideals and way of thought – even if he wasn't empathizing it – and in the end he couldn't resolve himself to confront any of them.
Maybe that was why he felt so shameful sometimes when talking to the gamer. The reserve student would like to say it didn't matter, he didn't have to pick sides or anything. It would be easy if he believed nobody would hate him for being the closest of them to the white haired boy. Yet it felt like bonding with the luckster and being so worried for his safety was a betrayal to his own ideals.
Hinata once grew as bold as to tell Nanami about it, while knowing it was his own problem to solve. Nobody would help him on that, and even the gamer's comforting words wouldn't better the situation. The brunet was torn between leaving Komaeda alone for his own safety or because it was contrary to everything he believed him and trying (desperately) to communicate with him.
“Don't worry too much. You both need time, we all do. It's the consequences of the field trip catching up on you, now that almost every danger is gone. Be merciful on yourself, I know it isn't easy.” she said, looking certain she could comfort him.
It was always hard to ignore Nanami because she was definitely too nice and caring. It hurt not to follow the advice of someone who put so much importance to the other's life. But he couldn't just agree with her words now. He didn't have time, with this clock eternally clicking, stealing them their last moments on this island. The students didn't even know what will happen when the countdown hits zero.
The gamer was positive, apparently convinced an optimistic future was waiting for them; and while they couldn't know it, he trusted Nanami. She had hinted to him she might know more than the rest of them. He refused to make the conclusion he dreaded, to find the answer she didn't give to his unvoiced question, but he believed she was right.
Something was going to happen, something they weren't completely unaware of since it was obvious they would leave the island at least; but it was going to change their current situation. It was what frightened the brunet the most. Hinata had no idea if he will be able to keep contact with the other students, and it was terrifying to think he might be left alone after all this.
Hinata never had the feeling he was relying too much on other people despite his social side, but right now the simple idea of solitude was terrible. Simply because the others helped escaping the constant guilt gnawing at his mind, the swirling negative thoughts that couldn't do him any good.
He wasn't exactly using them, but their presence was relieving for his conscience. Maybe it was selfish of him to keep running after Komaeda as if it would give him a chance to redeem himself from not preventing the murderers but he couldn't stop himself to do so.
Every time Hinata heard someone walking around he hoped it was the luckster who eventually got out of his cottage. He had to do it after all, at least to eat or something! Every flash of green in his surroundings made him think of Komaeda's jacket, and the time where it was actually the case he ran after it at full speed.
When the brunet found himself once again in front of the door that almost showed the marks from the fists that punched against repeatedly in a desperate fashion, he could have laughed at his foolishness but he wasn't really amused.
Even after the incident, after telling himself he had to give up on Komaeda because the other just wouldn't answer, he couldn't help coming back every few hours, despite knowing the luckster wouldn't stop hiding.
The whole cottage wore a certain magnetism, probably because it seemed like the only place where Hinata might manage to communicate with the luckster. Even when he wasn't knocking furiously on the door in a desperate fashion, his attention never faltered, starved to perceive any kind of sound, word or even any sign of communication Komaeda would give him.
It almost never happened yet the only times a noise pass through the mute wall the white haired boy installed between them it seemed the reserver's stomach was flipping anxiously, in a hope he believed extinguished for long. Inadvertent sounds that weren't following any other action, and yet it was still a communication.
Sometimes, Komaeda was leaving a message. Never talking, but the blank papers covered in black handwriting, ripped from the back of his own letter were an improvement for Hinata.
Only him seemed to believe it – probably because nobody else was trying to communicate with the white haired boy, it was obvious in the way the messages weren't addressed to anyone but him – but the communication was slowly starting again, more and more frequently through curt papers that were trying to hush him away as the few days – too little time – were flying.
There had been a moment where the messages were insistent, pushing Hinata to leave the place, almost angry, though they only were frustrated now. Komaeda apparently gave up on trying to make him go away; and if the letters were showing his exasperation, they were still signs the luckster wasn't refusing to completely stop communicating with the reserve student.
This time, the usual – if he could call it this way since only two days passed – messages were nowhere to be seen. Some words were voiced to manifest of one's presence. This time, the door was hit slowly, softly, almost carefully. For once, and once only, two sentences was uttered in response.
“Please stop. You don't understand a thing.”
“Explain me then.” Hinata answered, trying not to let his hammering heart reflect in his voice. It was the first time he heard Komaeda speak since this one started hiding in his cottage and it was difficult for the brunet not to overreact.
The luckster's answer was clearly visible when the lights in the cottage were shut off in the colorful dusk, leaving the place in twilight. It didn't make Hinata's surroundings anything else than quite dark, but it was the obvious closure of their too small discussion.
Yet it struck the reserver far more than he might have thought – it wasn't surprising to have the other unresponsive – because he didn't even realize Komaeda removed at some time the black curtains that absorbed every single light.
Hinata walked away as usual, feeling remotely satisfied. This could definitely be qualified as an improvement.
He dreamed that night. There was a vague recollection of a pleasurable sensation when he woke up, even if it seemed to have faded as soon as consciousness kicked in, pushing the cheerful memory too far away in his mind.
The notion of happiness immediately stopped when a dreadful pit of despair took its place in his stomach, along with an overwhelming feeling of solitude that started crushing him as soon as it appeared. Almost as if he was the only person alive on this island, as if there was no survivors and they were all dead.
Suddenly the brunet felt as if the three last days were just a figment of his imagination and they were all dead because of Komaeda. There was no description to the sudden horror of feeling like he was the only person alive in this place, in this world...
I have to get out of this room now!
Hinata almost fell several times in his haste to leave the place, but even in the outside of his cottage the oppressing feeling was making him suffocate. He only stopped once he nearly bumped into someone.
“Ah Hinata. I’m glad I ran into you.”
He barely recognized Nanami's voice through his frightened state, but somehow she managed to calm him by her sole presence. All the survivors were still there, he wasn't alone in this.
“It's the last day isn't it?”
Of course Hinata knew it was but there a need to get confirmation, to be sure Nanami would stay right in front of him and not vanish; leaving him alone in this world.
“Yes. Also, talking about this I would need you to come to the restaurant lobby. Everybody is waiting for you.” she said with a small, reassuring smile. “Except Komaeda though, he won't leave his cottage. But it's okay for now, he'll have to follow eventually.”
When she noticed Hinata's confused and anxious gaze she continued, slower this time.
“Don't worry, I just noticed the laptop Komaeda used at the factory had another message. It has a time-based lock, so we couldn't see it before today. I wonder if it was some sort of will he set up to give us a last message. We should watch it.”
Hinata certainly didn't expect a recording from the one who refused to speak to anyone – but the brunet, he thought with a bit of pride – but it was obvious they ought to at least see it.
The reserver didn't remember walking to the restaurant with Nanami, especially not when so many people came and wandered with them, but at some point he was in front of the computer.
“Come on, let's watch it already!” Koizumi hushed them.
« If you want to free yourselves from Monokuma’s schemes, you need to go to “that place”, and its key is “that message” from the castle of mice. I concealed it until now for my plans but I don't see the point to hide it anymore. The password is 11037. »
The whole group of students stared down the computer, confused by the brevity of the record.
“Couldn't you tell us instead of leaving this message?” Nanami asked to Komaeda, who came to the room in the same fashion of every other student, seeming to appear out of nowhere.
“I could.”
The white haired boy's voice was awfully scratched and rough, as if gritting on glass, reflecting the animosity between the two Ultimates.
“How did you know we were all here?” Hinata asked in genuine curiosity, stunned to see Komaeda out of his cottage. It hadn't even been a lot of days, but his absence was particularly noticeable for the reserve student.
“Did you think I wasn't aware the traitor would bring you here for me to reveal what she won't tell? You are easily misguided Hinata.” he responded in a scathing tone, already walking away from the place. “Don't inquire where I'm going, you know exactly unless you really lack perceptiveness.”
Nobody responded as they all followed him to the ruins, Ibuki cheering them in the way. It was only when Kuzuryuu asked her to lower the sound of her voice that the luckster turned around, throwing them an odd look, as if they were speaking nonsense. He didn't say anything though, only continued walking until they were right in front of the ruins.
“The countdown is almost finished! We do not have time to dillydally! Let's type this password already!”
“You're right old man!” Owari nodded.
This time Komaeda's confusion was even more obvious when he asked who she was talking to. Hinata was the first one to react, frowning in his lack of understanding.
“Owari was talking to Nidai obviously.” he stated, trying not to sound cynical. He really couldn't get what was the luckster's problem.
The reaction was not one Hinata expected, since Komaeda erupted in a laughter that showed no sign of amusement.
“And you say I am insane?” he wheezed, his tone half incredulous half reproachful. “In case you have forgotten, Nidai is dead.”
The news fell on the group of students like another threat. There were signs of anger and hate directed towards the luckster again, who dared disrespect the deceased ones, but none of them seemed to catch up the point he was trying to make.
“He sacrificed himself to let us live! It doesn't prevent him from being with us!” Owari almost shouted, visibly upset.
Before Komaeda could answer, Nanami cut him by another question.
“You don't see them, don't you?”
The luckster shook his head instead of talking, confirming Nanami's hypothesis nobody could understand yet. Even Komaeda's inquiring if the dead ones reappeared on the island didn't ease their confusion. His discussion with the gamer was completely closed to an intervention from any other teenager.
“I see. There are glitches in the simulation then.”
Nanami's look of surprise indicated she was about to reply, but Komaeda didn't let her.
“I know more about this world than you can think.” he added in a stiff tone, clearly showing his animosity towards the gamer. The tension between the only two who had the information the other's were lacking was reflecting once again that they always opposed each other.
Not waiting for any of the students to react, Komaeda stepped forward and typed the password that was supposed to open the ruins. There was a moment, a fleeting second where Hinata thought the password might be fake and the white haired boy was going to be shot by the weapons next to the door, but the impression didn't stay when the doors parted.
Everybody was waiting for another word from Komaeda, but he said nothing, only vaguely nodding at Hinata – as if it was some sort of sign of acknowledgment, which he couldn't help but being glad of, after trying so hard to get the other to talk – before entering the ruins.
“There is a last ordeal for all of us but we can overcome it. Let's go after our bright future!”
Nanami was the second to enter through the ruins after her hopeful words and slowly everybody followed her. Hinata stayed a few seconds behind, looking at the island he was going to leave and asking the remaining students if they could really escape Monokuma. They didn't answer though.
He wondered if that was even Komaeda's aim. There was a lot of questions unanswered, but he decided he ought to inquire later. First they would be finally leaving this place. There was a sort of nostalgia, as if he was going to abandon the memories he had there but he promised he would never forget every single event on this island, by respect for the ones who died for them to survive.
And Hinata entered in the ruins.