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Hinata considers taping up his mirrors again, today.
It’s been a while since he’s done it- been a while since they first came out of the simulation.
The image of his face staring back at him had startled him so badly that he’d fled his cabin, steps inhumanly fast as he stumbled into the market and scooped up the first thing he saw he felt he could make use of.
Long tubes of paper in his arms, the kind meant to wrap gifts with, and rolls of duct tape in his hands, he’d taped up the mirrors, sealing his reflection away underneath the gaudy pattern of the paper, left only to stare at the multicolor stripes.
It had been fine. Content to live like that. Content to take a shower or brush his teeth and not have his heart suddenly seize into his throat, when it’s Kamukura he sees, and not himself.
Not that he looks much like himself.
Not that he even knows who he is.
Who is Hajime Hinata, anyway?
Some sick amalgamation of a boy who wanted nothing more than to be talented, to be important, and a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Or. Right.
But the days had gone by, easy enough to live with until one morning, Komaeda had risen early- the first time of many he’d spent the night- wandered into the bathroom and asked-
“Ah, Hinata-kun… what’s with the mirror?”
And when the paper had come down, torn away in embarrassment and stuffed in the trash can, and Hinata had realized that looking into his own eyes wasn’t so jarring anymore- it was fine.
It’s fine.
But Hinata considers taping up his mirrors again, today.
Hasn’t been this bad in a while. A burning anxiety in the back of his mind, sitting right below the base of his brain, at the brain stem, scalding a hole right through his skull and vertebrae and sinking low into the pit of his stomach, stretching out into his fingertips, of hands that he just can’t seem to keep still.
It would be fine, if he had something to work on, something to put his mind to. But today’s chores have already been done. And tomorrow’s, and the day after next.
He’s meant to repair the walls of the barn, soon, but the new shipment of wood doesn’t come in until tomorrow afternoon, so he runs over the plan in his head.
Offload the wood, carry it to the barn, hammer, nails, pry away the rotting jagged edges and replace it with something new, sweep away the wood chips, the dust, the debris, sand, paint- he expects someone will come and bother him while he works.
They’ve started to do it less and less, catching onto the fact that it’s easy to irritate him like that, when he’s so focused, any interruption is a nuisance at best and their attempts at offering help are a distraction at worst- but if someone is particularly adamant about pushing his buttons- Tanaka, who occupies the barn for a good portion of the day anyway, Souda, who seems to want to bond over their shared building skills, Komaeda, who sits and asks him to explain the process, not because he’s interested but because he likes to keep Hinata on his toes, keep testing the limits of his talent-
And despite himself he would explain.
Hammer, nails, pry away the rotting jagged edges and well, he’d have to offload the wood first, carry it to the barn, then hammer, nails, pry away the rotting jagged edges and replace it with something new, sweep away the wood chips, the dust, the debris, sand, paint, duct tape, duct tape the paper to his mirrors.
“Ah, Hinata-kun… what’s with the mirror?”
“Nothing,” Hinata insists, tearing the paper down in embarrassment, making sure not to catch his own eye in the reflection as he does so, stuffing it into the trash can.
“Hahaha,” Komaeda’s laugh is dry. “It sure doesn’t seem like nothing. But of course, if that’s what Hinata-kun says…”
“It is.”
“Right,” Komaeda nods. “Of course. How silly of me to think that an ultimate could be bothered by something like their own reflection.”
“I- it’s not-“
“Do you see him?” Komaeda asks. “Is that what you’re so afraid of?”
“ No ,” Hinata’s tone is harsh. The sharp edges around the single syllable are to make up for the fact that it’s all he can say, because how can he explain to Komaeda that it’s far greater than that, and exactly that, all in the same? That he can get sucked in for hours, staring, searching the depths of his own eyes for a person he doesn’t recognize, and isn’t sure he ever will. How, from the moment he’d woken up, he felt like a stranger in his own body, and not having to see that face is a security blanket, a safety from remembering he’s stuck inside someone who isn’t him, a safety that is so fragile it comes crumbling down when he’s sitting in the shower, hot water pelting against his back, hair he’s shed collecting at the drain, plastered against the wet tile and one of them looks slightly darker and slightly longer than it should and suddenly he isn’t sure who he is anymore.
Who is Hajime Hinata, anyway?
Some sick amalgamation of a boy who wanted nothing more than to be talented, to be important, and a science experiment gone horribly wrong. Or. Right.
Depends on how they define right.
If the end goal is talent, and nothing more, despite the side effects and consequences, sure. Then they’ve succeeded. They made something practically super human, no contest. Something that embodies talent itself, that talent loves nothing more. Something that surely breaks all codes of moral conduct, human experimentation in the conquest for power that no single person was ever meant to hold. Then sure, he came out right.
But Hinata’s not so sure he feels right, when he gets chased out of his own bathroom, by a red eye glaring back at him.
And so Hinata considers taping up his mirrors again, today.