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Hajime was pulled out of sleep at the sound of two soft knocks. He lay there for a few moments, trying to decide if he had imagined the sound or not, but then sure enough it repeated: another two soft taps at his cottage door.
With a groan, he flicked on the lamp and sat up. He looked at the clock. 4am. Couldn’t these people have problems at normal hours? “Coming,” he grumbled in the direction of the door as he hauled himself regretfully out of the soft warmth of his bed. If it was Kazuichi here to tell him about another prophetic dream about getting together with Sonia, he was going to do… something drastic.
God, why 4am?
When he opened the door to his cottage, he was not greeted by the sight of Kazuichi.
“Ah, Hajime,” Nagito said, his eyes wide as if surprised to see him. “Did I wake you up? I’m so sorry, I tried to knock as quietly as I could. I know someone as worthless as me has no place waking up someone like y-”
“Nagito. Please. What do you want?” Hajime interrupted, rubbing his eyes both to clear the sleep from them and to stave off the impending headache.
But of course it was never that easy. “Wow, treating me with kindness after I woke you up at such an early hour for such a selfish reason, you really are something special Hajime, did you know?” Nagito’s eyes were sparkling with their usual uncomfortable devotion, but Hajime couldn’t help but notice something was… off. He seemed almost tense, like he was ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.
‘Selfish reason,’ he thought, flipping through his mental Komaeda-to-English dictionary. ‘I guess he needs something? Something for himself?’ With a sigh, he stepped to the side and beckoned Nagito in. His hopes for a quick return to sleep were looking slim, so they might as well get out of the cold. As soon as he crossed the threshold, some of the tension left the other boy’s frame.
“Did something happen?” Hajime asked once the door was closed.
Uncharacteristically, Nagito hesitated. “Nothing worth you troubling yourself over,” he hedged eventually.
Except whatever it was had prompted him to wake Hajime in the middle of the night. Hajime let his eyes trail over the other’s form, assessing for anything obviously wrong. Nagito had shadows like bruises under his eyes, but were they any darker than usual? It was hard to tell by lamplight. His white hair was mussed, but that was likewise difficult to distinguish from the normal state of things. What was different, was his clothes. Komaeda’s signature jacket was rumpled as if he had shrugged it on without thinking, and his shirt was wrinkled like it had been plucked out of a laundry basket rather than the closet. Hajime frowned. For all that Komaeda talked about being worthless, it was clear he cared about how he dressed. He must have put his clothes on in a hurry.
Needing something… in a hurry...
Something that had brought him to Hajime’s door in the middle of the night, but that he was refusing to tell him about…
With a feeling like ice going down his spine, Hajime asked, “Nagito, did someone… hurt you?”
“No!” he denied immediately, almost lunging forward as if to physically negate the idea. “No, nothing like that, although I admit it wouldn’t be surprised if something shameful like that happened to trash like me. I certainly would deserve-”
“Stop that!” Hajime snapped. This was too much, even by normal Komaeda standards.
Nagito’s mouth closed with a click.
“Nobody, including you, deserves to be hurt like that, and it certainly wouldn’t be shameful if it was! Now tell me what happened, because I’m seriously starting to get worried here!” By the end, Hajime was glaring at the other from far closer than he remembered being. A part of him immediately became flustered at the proximity, but the bigger part was concerned only with wringing some answers out of Komaeda.
The boy in question was staring at him with wide eyes, his mouth slightly agape. Oddly enough, it seemed Nagito was the one flustered. “I, um,” he stuttered, “I woke up. From a…” He trailed off without finishing.
‘A nightmare,’ Hajime finished for him, the pieces finally clicking into place: the time, the tense way he held himself, the rush to get out of his cottage and go anywhere else, even the hesitation to admit what the problem was. He nodded his understanding.
A grateful looked flashed across his face when he saw that he wouldn’t have to say it out loud. Instead, he said, “Hajime, I- well obviously I have no right to ask this of you after being such a burden already, but could you… tell me to sleep on your floor?”
Come again? Tell him to... He opened his mouth to ask, “Wh-”
“It’s not anything weird,” Nagito rushed to reassure him, “and you don’t have to, of course, but I just thought. I might be able to go back to sleep, if you told me to do it. And my room, I don’t…”
And the weirdest thing was, Hajime kind of understood. It was hard to always be the one in charge, even if all you were in charge of was yourself. Especially after a nightmare as bad as Nagito’s must have been, being able to give up the reins and trust someone else to be in charge for a while must be very appealing. He must have trusted Hajime a great deal, first to come to his cottage and then to ask him for something like this.
He must have hesitated for too long because Nagito started backtracking. “Ah, of course, I’ve overstepped. I’ll leave you to sleep, I-”
“Alright.”
That caught him off guard. “Alright?”
Hajime nodded decisively, then moved over to his closet and started rummaging around in it. “Yeah, I can do that. I’ll be in charge. If you want things to stop, the code word is ‘bunny rabbit,’ okay?”
Nagito stood in the middle of the room, dumbstruck, like he hadn't in his wildest imagination considered that Hajime would actually say yes.
“Verbal agreement,” Hajime prompted from where he was digging through some clothes.
“You-?” he began but had to pause and clear his throat. “Yes. The word is bunny rabbit. Okay.”
“Good.” Finally, he found what he was looking for. “Here, you can borrow these,” he said, holding out a pair of pajamas. “They’ll be a little big on you, sorry about that.”
Nagito’s eyes were wide in shock. He looked like he was about to protest, but one look at Hajime’s expectantly amused expression made him swallow the words. Hajime was poking at him to see if he'd actually let him take control. With a huff but no further protest, Nagito accepted the clothes and went to the bathroom to change.
Hajime smiled thinking about Nagito’s pouting expression, pulling out a spare blanket while he waited. If he knew this was all it took to get Nagito to listen once in a while, he would have suggested it ages ago. He was a little surprised at how easy it was to slip into this role, but he supposed his experiences on the island had taught him how to take charge a bit more. Now, for the hard part.
When Nagito came back and saw two blankets on the bed rather than one on the floor, his head whipped towards the person responsible. “No, there’s no way I could be so presumptuous as to make you share a bed with someone like me,” he protested.
But Hajime held firm. “Then it’s a good thing I’m in charge, and I’m not going to let you sleep on the floor. You’re not presuming anything, I’m telling you to sleep in the bed.”
They stood at an impasse for several moments. Nagito glared while Hajime gazed back coolly.
“I’ll sleep in my own bed,” he tried to barter.
“No. My bed, or safeword.” If Nagito was genuinely uncomfortable with the idea, they would work something else out. But damn if Hajime was going to make him sleep on the floor just to appease the other’s twisted sense of self-worth. Nor would he allow Nagito to go back to his own cottage after he had admitted he didn’t want to go.
Nagito had begun to look unsure, but no words came out of his mouth. He kept glancing back at the bed before jerking his eyes away. Hajime went in for the kill.
Gentling his voice, he held out a hand for the other to take. “Come on, Nagito, let’s go to sleep.”
With an exhalation of breath, Nagito grasped his hand. He held on tightly, like he was afraid Hajime would disappear if he didn’t. Hajime squeezed his hand back, then pulled the other along as he walked back to the bed. When they were both settled under the blankets, Hajime reached up to turn the lamp off.
In the newly restored darkness, Hajime caught a glimpse of pale eyes watching him from the other side of the bed. Nagito was holding himself stiffly, his limbs tense and unmoving. Huffing out a small laugh, Hajime lifted an arm in invitation. He made sure to keep his expression welcoming, not expectant. This was an offer, not a command.
An offer that was taken immediately, when Hajime found himself with an armful of boy and a mouthful of hair. It took some wiggling, but they eventually settled on a comfortable position. They were facing each other, with Nagito’s head tucked against Hajime’s chest and Hajime’s chin resting on the crown of Nagito’s head. They each had an arm slung across the other’s back pulling each other closer. Their legs were hopelessly intertwined, and if Nagito’s feet were like icicles, Hajime had always run hot and was confident they’d warm up eventually.
They both released a deep breath, settling into the comfort of holding and being held.
Hajime’s hand began rubbing idle patterns along the other’s back, an absentminded comforting gesture. Something to say, ‘It’s okay, I’ve got you.’ Gradually, their breaths became slower and deeper as the excitement of the past hour wore off and left them both sinking into exhaustion.
“You haven’t fulfilled the other half of your promise, you know,” came Nagito’s muffled voice. “You wouldn’t let me sleep on the floor, so I won’t take any excuses.”
Hajime huffed, causing strands of fluffy white hair to tickle his nose. So even in circumstances like this, Nagito was still a snarky little shit. “Nagito,” he obliged in the gentlest, fondest tone he had ever heard from himself, “go the fuck to sleep.”
“Hmm,” he replied, snuggling closer. “‘Kay.”