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Sometimes, every now and then, it was almost easy for Chiaki to forget.
When she would lose herself in the gaming machines in the resort lobby; when she would drift off into a sudden nap, peaceful and deep; during lively mealtimes surrounded by her classmates; mourning alongside them as the trial ground podiums became vacant one by one… it was easy not to think so much about it. Maybe she wasn’t all that different from her friends, after all, their bodies –made up of things more tangible than zeros and ones- all left behind in a place that Nanami Chiaki could never truly reach.
There were still, of course, other times in which the reality of her situation became terribly apparent- a Mimic hidden among treasure chests.
Dreams never seemed to find Chiaki as she slept. As her classmates passed on one by one, she knew the truth of their bodies, lying undamaged under plexiglass, even as their minds suffered in pain.
Chiaki would eat with the others, breakfast mostly, whatever was put in front of her, but it wasn’t as if she truly needed the food. An electrical socket, somewhere that wasn’t here, provided all that she needed.
This was, of course, not true of the other students.
Komaeda Nagito stood among the sea of pink, arms crossed, eyes fixed absently on the small playground tucked behind the flowerbeds.
While Chiaki generally enjoyed the color pink- it reminded her of a certain round and squishy Nantendo character she had always had a fondness for- even she had to agree that being surrounded by it day in and out was becoming disconcerting at best.
“Komaeda-kun?”
“Ah, Nanami-san,” Komaeda greeted, turning around to blink at her. Whatever thoughts he had been lost in seemed to have drowned out the sound of Chiaki’s footsteps approaching, not that her flats ever made much noise. Still, Komaeda generally seemed more attuned to his surroundings than this, Chiaki thought, likely a side-effect of his frequent bouts of bad luck forcing him to keep vigilant.
If she thought about it, Chiaki was fairly certain that she’d have a hard time dealing with such precarious luck herself. The thought of an endless stream of worthless randomized items drops made her nose itch, even if it may have balanced out by generating fewer random encounters… or something like that.
“You’re probably going to think that this is pretty silly of me,” Komaeda continued with a little chuckle in that odd way of his, “But I was thinking about taking a ride on the swings…”
“Why don’t you, then?” Chiaki asked, tilting her head, eyes shifting between the boy and the playground equipment. It was a ‘fun’ house, after all, even if Chiaki severely doubted that a slide could ever be more fun than Gala Omega, even if she had never played on one before.
“Besides making a fool of myself if anyone else were to walk by?” Komaeda smiled, cheerful for a person facing starvation, or so Chiaki thought. There was an odd light in his eyes as they spoke, one that she couldn’t quite place.
“Never stopped you before,” Chiaki said with a shrug. Not pressing the matter further, she made for the swing set, settling herself down on the flexible plastic seat, hands folded in her lap.
“I’ve only played on one of these before, to be honest,” Komaeda admitted wistfully, moving nearer to place his hand on the chain of Chiaki’s swing. “The chains were old and rusted; they broke apart and I fell flat on my back.”
“Did it hurt much?” Chiaki asked, kicking her feet on the pink astro-turf experimentally, causing Komaeda to let go.
He settled down onto the seat beside her, coat flapping down over the back of it like the tail of some strange exotic bird. He laughed again, although Chiaki didn’t quite see what was funny. Still, she found herself with a bemused smile on the edge of her lips, mirroring his own. “I was too busy wishing on the shooting star that passed by just then…”
“What did you wish for?” Chiaki kicked again, although she seemed to not be making much headway as far as liftoff was concerned.
He was doing it again, she realized, staring off into space like that. It wasn’t as if she didn’t do the same now and again, although she suspected for a reason somewhat different. All things considered, he was holding up remarkably well compared to some of the others, like Akane or Souda. How many days had it been already? She was unable to check her diary, stashed away back in Monomi’s house as it was.
Did the others even truly need to eat? Chiaki wondered. They were plugged into IVs back on the other island, the true island. That much she did know.
“Like this,” Komaeda instructed instead, pumping his arms in concert with lanky legs in order to urge his swing up into the air. “I’d give you a push, but it probably wouldn’t end well.” He smiled wryly.
A thought occurred to Chiaki then.
“You’re a little bit like Clyde, I think,” she stated abruptly, wrapping her fingers around the chains, getting a feel for the cool metal beneath them.
“I’ll take it he’s from a game?” Komaeda asked, slowing his pace to match her own, allowing his heels to drag.
“He’s the orange one. The orange ghost, I mean… in Pac-man,” Chiaki explained concisely.
“Oh, I see…” Komaeda smiled knowingly, as if all the secrets of the island had suddenly been bestowed upon him.
“When you play the game, Clyde… he appears to move randomly. He’s different than the other ghosts, even his name doesn’t match, you know?” Chiaki stilled her swing in order to count down on the tips of her fingers. “Inky, Blinky-“
“And Pinky, right?” Komaeda interjected, earning an impressed nod from the gamer. “I’d say it was a lucky guess, but it really wasn’t that hard to figure out.”
“Yeah,” Chiaki continued, the smile that had wandered onto her lips beginning to settle in, “Well, you see, his movements aren’t really random at all. There’s thought put into it, even if the player can’t really see it themselves. Sometimes, you see, Clyde, he’ll chase after Pac-man whenever he feels that Pac-man is far away from him. Other times, though, when Pac-man is near, he’ll panic and aim for the left corner, not able to get too close.”
“I don’t really know all that much about gaming -or anything, really- so I’ll have to take your word for it.” Komaeda dug his toes thoughtfully into the ground, pushing off despite any hunger-induced tremors in his legs, launching his swing into the air, so much so that Chiaki wondered what would happen if he continued up and over the top.
“It’s an unwinnable game,” Chiaki said after a pause, banishing the amusing image. He wouldn’t have known if he wasn’t much of a gamer, most people didn’t.
Komaeda allowed himself to slow again, mulling this over. “Really?”
“Once the player hits level 256, the game glitches out, due to integer overflow.” Chiaki took her hand off the chain, in order to mime a chomping motion in the air in front of her. “Pac-man can eat, and eat, but he’ll never be able to eat up all of the dots. The game is over, yet the player hasn’t really won.”
Not that Chiaki doubted the fact that Komaeda could somehow accomplish the impossible if he tried…or possibly even if he didn’t.
Maybe talking about eating wasn’t the best of ideas right now, anyway, she thought, stealing a glance at the other swing.
“What’s the point of playing at all, then?” Komaeda asked finally, coming to a stop and looking Chiaki in the eye.
“I think...You already know the answer.”
“...Hope?”
Chiaki nodded. “They keep playing in the hope that they’ll eventually win, that maybe, just this once, they might make it out of that final level with their last life intact.”