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He wakes up.
Is that good, or bad? A blessing, or a curse? He can’t tell anymore. He can’t tell anything. He can’t see from his own eyes.
He was called a miracle, when he was born a second time. Reborn from pits of uselessness. They said he was a gift. They said he was perfect. His life was a miracle, and yet it had destroyed everyone who had ever existed in it, everyone who had taken a chance and had given him one as well, leading them like a siren’s call into the ocean, leaving them to drown in their own doom. He was a curse then, a myth, a monster, a whisper in children's stories, of a man with too much. A maelstrom. Was he even human? He was more machine, a vessel of power that was never supposed to exist. So, is he a blessing, or a curse? Human, or an unfeeling vessel of talent, created solely to be a weapon?
Perhaps he was both, or maybe he was neither.
The senses in his body aren’t working right. Did they ever in the first place? What is he feeling? The walls are bare, yet they're too bright for his eyes. His mind isn’t working properly, but he can’t blame it. It isn’t his. It was never his to own. He can’t make out what he’s feeling, can’t break open and analyze his own senses. It’s soft, the blanket he’s lying on is soft. Was he burning? There was a fire, yes, there was a fire and he was burning, it was in his lungs and it was traveling through his body and up his esophagus and burning everything it touched and he was dying, he had to be, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to move. He couldn’t move. Perhaps after all the picking and dissecting they had done to his body had finally fried his nerves, and that's why he couldn’t move his body. His brain, the brain that didn’t belong to him wasn’t responding. He can’t bring himself to care.
Why should he? He doesn’t care if he dies. He doesn’t care about anything. He didn’t care, so why was he still here?
Ah. Yes. Someone did care. It just wasn’t him.
Someone had cared enough to find him, and against all logical thought, help him, had taken him to a place where he didn’t have to be a curse or a blessing, free to exist without pressures or whispers or needles in his arms. He had cared so, so much, far too much, to the point where it felt unnatural. He had kept caring even when he had spit in his face and betrayed the angel who stepped up and gave him chance after chance that he didn’t deserve, and had stayed. Stayed with a disgusting, worthless, curse of a monster like him, even after all he had done, all of the pain and misery and death he had caused. The pure, inherintent, goodness in him was something that he couldn’t even begin to analyze, let alone understand. It wasn’t right. Someone with such purity shouldn't be allowed around someone as vile, repulsing, and terrible as he. Surely that wasn’t allowed. It felt wrong, like he was breaking some sacred rule created to keep everything in place.
Even after all of it, all of the genuine kindness that should never be given to him, even after those caring and loving eyes had been directed at his own when they could have so much more use elsewhere, he couldn’t begin to accept. The process frightened him, something he didn’t even know he could feel. He was waiting, waiting to feel the numbing pain of rejection that lay deep in his heart even after his rebirth, and when that never came, the pain of being left behind, used and spat on because it was what a talentless being like him deserved. Fear, loss. Loss. Loss. Loss. Her. Nanami-
But it never came, and slowly that fear of rejection from someone who shone brighter than the sun left him, and apathy was what replaced it, as always.
But The One Who Embodied Hope In Ways Even He Could Not did not let it stay for long. He had felt loss too, but he was far stronger than they were. He faced fear head on, took loss, grieved and felt, and barreled forward with more strength then a thousand Ultimates. He burned too, but The One He Didn’t Understand did not let the burn marks of his past pain control him, like he had. He did not cower and walk away, he did not fall into apathy to avoid that scar ever existing. He accepted that that scar would always exist, that it would leave a mark on him for the rest of his life, and then he honoured it, for him it was a sign of what he had achieved, not a reminder of all he had lost, but rather a symbol that he had survived past all odds. He wore that burn mark like a crown, and made something terrible into something beautiful. He is not like them, for The One Who Shines Brighter Than The Stars belongs with the Ultimates, had earned his place when the academy that promised them hope and gave him lies had neglected to give him a place, had refused to see the talent that truly shone in The Overthrower Of Despair’ s eyes.
He does not belong here. He belongs nowhere. He has no place. Is he Ultimate, or is he talentless?
Hearing the cries of his
Nanami’s
classmates makes him uncomfortable. They’re celebrating. What they are celebrating, they do not care to know. It’s a hollow celebration at best. They have gained nothing, they have done nothing to fix their mistakes, simply riding off The One Who Care’s kindness, but then again so had he. He cannot laugh with them, cannot feel their joy. He is not who they met in the simulation. He is different. He was a child who had been told time and time again and again that he didn’t belong, and had cried when he had tried to make himself a place with all the other ultimates and it hadn't worked. He had grown into a pathetic boy begging for just a piece of affection and he would do anything,
anything to get that affection to get that respect even if he had to destroy everything and everyone because why were they allowed to be happy, they should burn burn burn all alone like him while he watched cause he was better, he was better then them he had talent now he had all the talent now-
Empty.
He thinks he was always a slave. A slave to Hope’s Peak, a slave to the ruthless system that shoved him away, a slave to the Kamukura project, a slave to talent, a slave to boredom. He has never made a decision for himself. He has never cared too.
The One That Doesn’t Make Sense isn’t beside him. He isn’t lying next to him on the bed that they don’t have to share but do anyway, and his hand isn’t linked with his. They shift the body that doesn’t belong to them and finally, finally they are able to move, his head clearing and allowing him to search for a presence of hope and sacredness.
The Talents that were never his to own and gifted c
ursed
to him without him ever having to work for them tune in the moment he calls for them, wrapping around his mind as easy as a second skin. He uses them and reaches out, instantly hearing the light taps of a foot, sensing Makoto instantly and easily.
It’s calm, his presence happy and light and all things good. He is hope. He keeps them grounded.
And then he feels the anger.
It takes a moment, mostly because when they sense The One With Hope they do not search for emotions as dark as anger, fear and pain. They focus on the inherent light that glows off of him, calming them down in an instint. The one Who cares rarely ever feels anger. It feels wrong. Their breathing grows harsh, confusion hitting him like a truck. He feels different emotions now, anger, pain, loss, fear, hatred, resentment, outrage, unfair, unfair.
They collapse onto the bed he shares with The One That Is Far Too Good For Him.
Why is he angry? What has happened. What went wrong?
His friends, perhaps? Togami, Kirigiri, the others? No, no that can’t be it. As much as they grate his own nerves, Makoto adores them all, and they adore him right back. Perhaps it’s Nanami's classmates? He knows how they can get, maybe Souda did something dumb which would have them both doubling over in laughter as he wheezed out a gruff ‘Hinata-’
No. No. Stop it. Stop it.
The Future Foundation, then. They weren’t great to him. Maybe they had told him off? No, No that was impossible. As much as many of the foundation's members disliked him, they wouldn’t have gotten him this angry. They knew better. He couldn’t even understand how anyone could possibly hate Him , it didn’t even process in his mind, but the Future Foundation was smart. He was the Ultimate Hope after all, a symbol. They wouldn't get him too angry, he could do a lot of damage to the world if he put his mind to it. Or he could just ask them. They would do it in a heartbeat if The One They Loved asked him to, That’s where he belonged, in destruction and flames and that's the only way Makoto could possibly love them.
If it wasn’t his friends, or the (former) remnants, and it wasn’t the Foundation, then who could get Naegi this mad? Who had destroyed and killed and helped cause a killing game and had helped destroy the world who had betrayed and murdered everybody makoto held dear who-
Ah. Makoto was mad at him.
That...made sense. He had been waiting for it after all. Nobody was that ever lasting and filled to the brim with kindness forever. Eventually they hardened, and they fell. Like him.
(But Makoto wasn’t like him he wasn’t like him why why why he’s supposed to be good he’s supposed to be happy he shouldn’t hate he shouldn’t be angry Makoto is Makoto he didn’t think it was possible makoto is supposed to be different-)
He had gotten his 15 minutes of love, and now Makoto hated him. It was to be expected, but it still...hurt? Does it hurt?
Yes. Yes he thinks it does.
He doesn’t even notice when Makoto walks into the room until he’s dashing towards him, bending onto his knees so that he can see him eye to eye.
“Hinata-kun?,” Makoto’s voice cuts through all of the ways his mind is trying to reject what he knows is true. He stills.
Is he Hinata, or Kamukura? Is there a difference? Who is he-
“It’s alright, Hinata-kun, I'm here.” Makoto whispers, his voice calming all the screams that are stuck inside of his head, soothing his burning body and aching throat. It’s enough for them to start analyzing again, coping in the only way he knows how. His eyes drift towards Makoto’s hands, where a yoga mat lays on the ground, discarded when Makoto dropped it.
They wet their lips, and whispered “You were angry. I thought, I thought you were mad at me.”
Makoto blinks for a few minutes, before suddenly he’s smiling, giggling.
Whats- what's so funny? What is he missing? Why won’t his brain work with him-
“Hajime- Yes, I was angry, but not at you” Makoto assures, slowly getting up to sit beside him on the bed. “I was thinking about Enoshima, and apparently it’s a very good way to relieve anger by meditating. That’s all, honest.”
Oh.
Oh.
Makoto...wasn’t mad at him? He was mad at Junko?
Makoto leaves him, not literally, just laying down and instantly falling asleep, but his hand stays clenched in thiers, and for a moment, just a moment, they feel peace. Laying down, Hajime slowly moved to spoon the smaller, bringing up another hand to pet his hair.
‘
Makoto curled up closer to him, leaning into Izuru’s chest, and they know that this peace will be interrupted by something or the other, but here, at this very moment, he feels happy.