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Sometimes, Komaeda thought to himself, his classmates, though they had good intentions, asked too many of the wrong questions.
The first time he’d been cornered about this particular topic, it had been during lunch break on a Tuesday, only a few days ago. He wasn’t sure where exactly this strain of curiosity had come from - his classmates usually wanted nothing to do with him. But for this, they came to him.
For the three times it took for him to realise this was more than coincidence, and was the result of some scheming on the parts of his fellow students, he had answered openly and honestly. Now, as he watched Mioda make her way over to him, he had already loaded his response of choice, cocked the gun, and was simply waiting to fire.
“Komaeda!” Ah, here she came, “Yahoo, Ko-ma-e-da~! Ibuki has a question for you!”
He forced out a light laugh, acting as though he hadn’t seen this coming at all, and smiled at her, “For me? What could I have that would be interesting to you?” The words sounded sarcastic even to his own ears.
Mioda herself seemed not to have noticed, though a quick glance at some of the students in the group she had come from showed they had caught on to his little game, knew that he had already prepared for this, and they looked almost guilty. Bitterly, Komaeda thought they probably should be. They were, after all, attempting to meddle in things that didn’t concern them. Even for talented Ultimates, they sometimes chose to occupy themselves with things that they needn’t bother with.
To be honest, he found it almost touching that they cared about something like this.
“We~ell, you’ve been sneaking off lately, and as Ibuki watched you leave class early yesterday, it hit her! Ibuki thought and thought, but there’s only one answer!”
“And what might that be?”
“Komaeda’s acting just like a maiden in love!”
Komaeda’s eyebrows shot up, and even the students behind Mioda herself seemed surprised. This was new. It seemed Mioda wasn’t quite finished though, but her words faded into the back of Komaeda’s mind as he stared at some far-off corner of the classroom. Love, huh.
Of course, he couldn’t let anyone know he was thinking seriously about what Mioda had said, and so he laughed once more, “Love? Me? Not at all, I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that no one in the world would be able to love someone like me! That would just be unlucky for us both.”
He chose to ignore the way his classmates’ expressions shifted from surprised to slightly worried. It wasn’t a matter to be concerned about; this was the truth he had accepted a long time ago. People he loved were doomed - his parents were enough proof of that. It was just the cycle of his luck in action, as it always was. He would experience the good fortune of finding someone dear to him, and in exchange the cycle of good and bad luck would inevitably do something to tear them from him.
But still…’love’? Him? It seemed almost laughable. There was no possible way he could be in love. His was an interest birthed from curiosity and cultivated through his beliefs, and that was all. That person wasn’t someone he could afford to love, nor who could afford to love him.
Anyone would be able to tell simply by looking at him, at either of them. Such a mismatched pair, there couldn’t be any hope in this or any universe (Komaeda found himself thinking this more than a few times, never truly convincing himself) for someone like him to love someone like Komaeda . At best, his newest companion tolerated him. He was willing to listen as Komaeda rambled, his words spilling from his lips uncontrollably as he ranted and raved about anything and everything he could think of, just to prolong the time until the other boy grew bored and decided to return to wherever it was he came from.
Komaeda frowned as he turned to look out the window even as Mioda continued to talk. Vaguely he registered her long and elaborately dramatic retelling of yesterday evening, where he left early to go meet with what Mioda described as a “forbidden lover”. The first of those two words would certainly be true, something in the back of his mind teased.
Love… It wasn’t a concept Komaeda was entirely unfamiliar with, but it definitely wouldn’t be true to say he had much of an idea about its intricacies. Surely he couldn’t be bold enough to say he was in love with that person; if nothing else it would be far above his station to do so.
Honestly, Komaeda couldn’t really be sure either of them knew what love was. They’d found a companionship in each other based on the feeling of isolation, of being different, that they shared. After all, they’d met by chance, and quickly Komaeda found his mind tended to drift towards this new entry into his life whenever he allowed his thoughts to wander. He left early some days to try and catch him again, and for a few days his luck failed him. As with everything though, he got his wish in the end, and the second encounter was the one in which they established a schedule.
Komaeda would be at the rooftop of the main building and, come sunset, Kamukura would have managed to sneak out of the facility and come meet with him. During these times, they shared few words, though Komaeda one-sidedly tended to talk about the day, his classmates, and anything else that came into his mind. He didn’t need verbal responses; he knew Kamukura was listening from the way his eyes would slide to the side to appraise Komaeda every now and then; knew from the slightly tilt of his head when Komaeda said something particularly intriguing. He’d grown accustomed to Kamukura’s subtleties, and understood the meaning of those minute motions, which he knew would be hardly even visible to anyone else.
But still… Kamukura wasn’t someone with whom he would dare to associate with the word ‘love’, and would definitely not begin to try to breach the topic with him. However…sometimes Komaeda did find himself observing the other boy’s profile as he spoke. Kamukura would rarely return his gaze for long periods of time, preferring instead to watch the people passing by all those floors below them, as though studying them like rats in glass cages. Komaeda supposed that, to Kamukura, those Ultimate students seemed as boring as ordinary people, millions of miles from the world Kamukura lived in. Honestly, Komaeda was simply grateful to whatever good fortune had smiled upon him that Kamukura found him interesting enough to keep around.
If he could be said to be in love, or feeling something close to that, for anyone in his life, he supposed Mioda wasn’t too far off the mark with the assumption that it would be with this new, interesting, attractive stranger in his life. They were barely friends, but Komaeda had always been the type of boy to focus on something, or someone, so completely that he felt his heart could soar out of his chest with so much as a passing look.
Mioda, attempting to wave him back to the conversation, and failing to draw his attention to her again, was easily distracted by his fellow students, and much of the rest of Komaeda’s school day went as smoothly as possible with a class of Ultimate Students. As soon as the bell rings to signal the end of another school day, Komaeda stands, rushes to grab his things and hurry out the classroom door, leaving his classmates behind him to puzzle over what he could possibly be in such a rush for.
Had he stayed only a moment longer, or not hurried down the hallway with such speed, he might have heard Mioda sneak a remark about him going to meet his one true love; might have heard Mikan sigh dreamily in response, clearly also thinking about someone dear to her.
As it stood, though, he heard none of these things, and rushed down the hallway, grabbing his things from his locker, though leaving his indoor shoes on, and turned sharp corners until he reached the stairwell. Scaling it two or three steps at a time, any onlooker might have assumed it was ‘just Komaeda doing his thing, eccentric and unhinged as ever’, and to be frank Komaeda himself could not deny that the spring in his step was largely unintentional.
For once, when he got to the roof, Kamukura was already there. He sat on the edge of the building before him, his legs dangling from the side, and were he anyone else Komaeda might begin to be concerned about their safety. But this was Kamukura, and Komaeda knew that everything that was happening was completely and entirely within the other boy’s control.
(When he thought of it like that it almost made him shiver.)
Kamukura turned his head, only slightly, to look at Komaeda from the corner of his eye, and the vaguest twitch of his lips was as much of a smile as he ever gave. Komaeda would later swear he could have died happy in that moment. As it was though there was only the soft tap of his heels as he walked over to Kamukura and sat next to him in silence.
Neither spoke; for once Komaeda did not feel the need to fill a silence that was comfortable enough left by itself. As they sat, watching the sunset side by side, Komaeda inched his pinky finger slowly, subtly, over to where Kamukura’s right hand, resting on the rooftop surface, supported his weight. He thought at the time that he was being incredibly smooth and forward, but had he looked even for a second over to Kamukura, he would have seen the faintest hints of an amused smirk tugging at the corners of the other boy’s mouth.
Slowly, carefully, Kamukura turned his hand over, and interlaced his fingers with Komaeda’s. And, when Komaeda turned to look over at him, finding those red eyes looking back at him, well...
If he could have died happy simply by being in the other boy’s presence, Komaeda supposed this must already be heaven.