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He wasn’t sure when it started happening. It was almost like there was a skip in his memory, like one minute he and Komaeda were just friends and the next the guy was clutching onto the sheets and screaming his name like it was the only one that mattered.
And it wasn’t like Hinata didn’t like it, but in some way, it was detached. It was strange. It was Komaeda saying confusing things like he always did, and then Hinata would furrow his brows and frown, and then Komaeda would smile knowingly at him and some unseen force in him jolted him forward to crash their lips together.
Sometimes Komaeda would cry during the act itself, and Hinata didn’t mind that, really. It wasn’t that he liked it, but he knew that with a guy as messed up as that, there’d be tears flowing as he healed. In a way, that was how he saw it—Komaeda was weird: he cried when he felt good and smiled when he felt bad. Like he was always living his life one step ahead, always anticipating the next wave of good or bad luck.
“H-Hinata-kun... H-Hinata-k-kun...!” A shaky wailing voice, punctuated by a sob. “Y-You f-feel so good, Hinata-kun...” He thrusted a little harder, a little deeper. “Too good for scum like me...”
And as usual, Hinata slowed down to a near stop and Komaeda shuddered and gasped out apologies, begs, pleas. The reserve student traced comforting strokes down his shoulder blades until the white-haired boy caught on. At first, he’d had to spell it out. “You’re not scum,” he’d said, “and I won’t continue until you admit it.” Now, Komaeda caught on instantly. Hinata knew in one of the far reaches of his mind that the luckster saw it all as a lie, a means to an end. But as long as he was saying it out loud, Hinata didn’t mind if he didn’t believe it yet. He would someday.
Was that what people called love? The thought barely ever crossed his mind. After all, they weren’t anything to each other. Every now and again, they’d pass each other and Komaeda would pull his bottom lip between his teeth and then they’d be pressed against one of the library’s bookshelves, lips and teeth and tongues and the soft high-pitched breaths that escaped that guy, as if somehow Hinata was his saving grace.
Komaeda was too smart not to catch on to what Hinata was doing. One day, he caught the brown-haired boy with an appraising stare, a half-smile on his lips. As if he’d learned something. “What?” Hinata had said, and Komaeda’s smile grew wider, as if he was feeling worse now. “Don’t worry, Hinata-kun. It’s nothing.”
That made him worry. These days, Hinata worried about little other than Komaeda. He worried about his sickness, worried about his actions, worried about his feelings. Worried and worried and worried, mind caught in a loop of worry until he could touch him and remind himself that he was real. And not dead. Not dead.
Very few moments were crystal-clear to Hinata, but the moment he realized that he and Komaeda weren’t friends anymore was one of them. Somewhere in the mess of sleeping together, using it as a means to condition him into being nicer to himself... something else had happened. Like their friendship had burned to a crisp and there was... something else in its place. Komaeda was asleep next to him, looking strangely peaceful. His mechanical hand tucked between the pillow and his cheek. His chest rising and falling rhythmically. The sheets framing his body in a white silhouette. And Hinata looked at him and, as easy as breathing, he played with the other’s hair, pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek.
When Komaeda smiled in his sleep, the reserve course student felt it. Something so forceful, so real, that it woke him from his constantly fading consciousness. He lived his life half-asleep, unsure of the passage of time, being taken along by the waves of the endless ocean. In one rush of clarity, Komaeda became everything.
And yet, nothing changed. There was an agonizing feeling around the luckster, a pang in his heart when he saw him smile. A reluctance to punish him even when he said hurtful things. But Hinata carried on like that for weeks, afraid of breaking the delicate balance of what they had.
Komaeda had found him on the beach of the first island, where they’d first met each other formally. Hinata hadn’t realized it until the moment he saw the all-too-familiar smile, but Komaeda had grown. He seemed happier now. Had he seen the hope he wanted? Or was it something else?
“I’m so lucky to have met you, Hinata-kun,” began the luckster. “I think all the bad luck in my life has led me to meeting you.”
Hinata stayed silent, waiting. If he knew anything about his friend (lover?), it was that pleasant-sounding things like this inevitably led to some horrible train of thought. Instinctively, he moved his hand to cover Komaeda’s pale one.
The reaction was like an electric shock; Komaeda’s light eyes jerked downwards, red filtering his paper-white face. They’d done lots of things that friends didn’t do, but they’d never done something as simple as this. He responded surprisingly well to it, judging by the way he looked away. He looked away from what he wanted to see and ran towards what he didn’t. A walking contradiction. Or a masochist. Hinata just got the sense that Komaeda was afraid of letting himself enjoy a moment because he didn’t know when it would be over. Because he didn’t want to let go. Because he’d lost too much to get attached now.
All at once, Hinata realized Komaeda hadn’t said anything bad.
“Komaeda,” he said, and the student in question looked away, mechanical hand tracing lines into the sand.
“Hinata-kun, I...”
“Komaeda.”
Wide, watery eyes met his. It pulled something in Hinata, something he’d known for a long time but never wanted to admit. Something that made his heart clench in his chest when Komaeda cried like this. Maybe that was why he’d always let Komaeda hide his face in the pillow, because he didn’t want to see it, didn’t want to confront the way it made him feel.
“I’m glad I met you too.” The words were simple, but they carried a weight to them. An electric charge in the leaden air. It was time. Life couldn’t move past this point unless he did something. Something. He turned his head and pressed their lips together. Soft. Caring. Tender. Things their kisses hadn’t been before.
A choked sob, Komaeda’s hand tightening around his own as he pulled away. “I can’t.” And it meant so many things, like a million fragments of hope and despair reflecting the island sun. Hinata didn’t know whether to say, “You can,” or, “Me neither.”
“I want you to,” he decided, threading a hand through tangled hair, probably weaving some sand into it as he went. “You should have the things you want.”
“Hinata-kun, I don’t deserve it.” The words came so easily, easier than the reserve student would have wanted. But this was Komaeda’s nature. It would take more than this to change that. One day, he would be able to look at himself and see himself in the same light as others did. As Hinata did. Every day was a step closer to that.
The frown still pulled at his features and the white-haired boy flinched instinctively. He was anticipating the punishment. Hinata kissed him instead. Komaeda lay back against the sand and he followed, but sex was the last thing on his mind right now. It was time. It kept repeating like a mantra in his mind. It was time, it was time, it was time.
Hinata broke the kiss for air and looked. Looked at Komaeda, the way his eyes were lidded in adoration, the way his lips were swollen from kissing, the way his hair looked splayed out over the sand. “Komaeda, I really like you.” Simple words, but they were hard to say. Hard to admit. But Komaeda didn’t seem to understand. He watched the reserve course student as if he were waiting for the next bite of bad luck.
“I mean it,” Hinata tried, speaking slowly so as not to trip over his words and say something stupid. Absently, he wondered if Komaeda thought he was cool. “I... want to be... something more than this.”
The way the luckster laughed and shook his head very nearly broke him. “You were teaching me a lesson, Hinata-kun. You don’t need to get attached to trash like me. Ah... I said it again. I never learn, do I...?”
Tightness, something in his forehead, his eyes, his chest. Constricting him, making him feel trapped in endless despair. “I want to. I already am, anyway. But if you don’t want to... date, or something... I’m not going to force you.”
Komaeda watched him with a little smile. He was hurt then... right? Contradictory. Always waiting for his luck to turn around. Was that... what talent looked like? “Hinata-kun... my luck doesn’t afford me good things.” The slightest shake in his voice, as if he’d finally realized what his friend wanted.
“So... I’m a good thing?”
That made him wince, barely perceptible before he smiled again. “You’ve always been a good thing, Hinata-kun. My luck is truly amazing to have brought me this close to you. It makes me shudder... thinking what bad luck awaits me.”
Maybe if Hinata kept staring at him, really focused, he could piece together what Komaeda was saying. Were they dating? Just friends? Testing the waters? “I don’t want to... keep doing all of this if it’s not going anywhere.”
“Not going anywhere...” he echoed. “So you’re thinking of getting married?”
Hinata blinked. He made less and less sense the more he talked, but that feeling still persisted, that desire to know, to understand, to make his classmate feel worthy, accepted. A desire he didn’t feel for anyone else. A desire that tethered him to the present. “...Maybe one day, I guess.”
Komaeda pondered this, hair fanned out on the sand. “If that’s what you want, I don’t really mind that.”
...The two of them really were similar, weren’t they? The luckster had said something like that before, but Hinata had never believed him. But it was true—the two of them were similar. Both of them were passive, preferring to go along with whatever their partner wanted rather than make decisions themselves. “I don’t care what I want. I want what you want.”
“You don’t need t—” Komaeda cut himself off with a peculiar look, the ghost of a smile. “Ah... I see.” What he saw, Hinata didn’t know. He would never be able to follow the other, most likely, but at least they could communicate. At least Komaeda had someone to communicate with.
“So... is that a yes?”
Komaeda held his breath, seeming to evaluate the look in Hinata’s eyes. Searching for something. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter to the brown-haired boy. As long as he was making his own decision, Hinata was happy.
Slowly, the luckster nodded.
There was a weight on Hinata that he didn’t know he was carrying until it was lifted. The world seemed less like a grey haze and more like blue skies and perfect beaches. He said yes. He... He really wanted this? It was like the entire world had suddenly grown. Outside of Hinata’s little box. Outside of Hinata’s tiny worldview. Together, he and Komaeda could... they could do anything.
The look on his face must have been revealing, because his boyfriend—his boyfriend!—looked away, a light flush colouring his cheeks. “Don’t look so happy about that... Hinata-kun,” he tried, but it was obvious he was happy too.
Hinata’s only response was to smile brightly and kiss him again. There was a white-hot rush of euphoria, the gentle tug of lips, a soft sound that set his veins on fire. Komaeda’s sound. Komaeda’s voice. And it was all his...
They rolled over in the sand. Even the luckster wasn’t immune to the contagious delight in the brown-haired boy’s eyes; soon enough, they were laughing, pausing for breaths, for kisses, for more laughter.
“Hey,” Hinata finally said, eyes alight, watching the way the sun caught on the luckster above him. “I love you.” Komaeda’s face crumpled, as if he were about to cry. “I—I love you too, Hinata-kun. I have... f-for so long, but I didn’t want to say anything.” It was said quickly, all in a rush, before he buried his nose into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck, staying nestled there. His breaths were short and quick but they relaxed over time, getting longer and deeper. The former reserve student simply held him, threading his fingers through the tangled hair.
Whatever would happen, he thought, they would face it together. He didn’t know if they would ever be able to leave the island, or if Komaeda would ever be able to care for himself properly, or even just... how much time they had left together. But one thing was for sure: Hinata would spend every day trying to understand his boyfriend, trying to support him, trying to love him in a way that would teach him to love himself. Maybe the sex was alienating, a bad way to do it. But he’d learn. One day... one day, he would get it right. He would be able to really help his lover.
As he looked into those eyes, he realized that for the first time in a long time... he didn’t feel detached. He was finally plugged into the world and to the million fragments of hope and despair that reflected in the other’s eyes. Even though the world was still saturated in despair... Hinata felt for the first time that he was truly on an island paradise.