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There’s an odd emotion tied with hope.
It isn’t despair – Nagito knows it isn’t. He despises the feeling enough to know when he’s experiencing it.
Nor is it sadness – well, maybe it is. It’s a special, no, a different kind of sadness.
It’s that tugging feeling at the bottom of your heart that tells you that there’s no use in blind trust.
It tells you to run. It tells you to stop associating with the people around you. It tells you to lock the essence of yourself away, keep every secret from those prying eyes.
It’s hard to ignore it. It has always been impossible, and to him, it felt as if it would stay that way forever, no matter how hard he tried.
How on earth could he open up to anyone if he was trapped between two worlds like this?
And then he met Hajime Hinata, and the emotion fell away.
Nagito was open, and Hinata was open – they could read each other like books, and somehow he was content this way.
It scared him, almost. It scared him how much he trusted Hinata. It terrified him how he felt that he could place his heart in the other man’s hands.
He had never trusted anyone like this before and at the same time, the anticipation nagged at him. It was strange, how his luck had given him a soul like Hinata’s and hadn’t handed him any bad luck in return.
And yet he was content with it.
Of course, he knew his luck cycle would come back to bite him eventually. It always did.
But he was content with how it was for now.
He walks with Hinata frequently.
It’s always around the rooms in the Funhouse, and hunger constantly nags at his stomach, but it’s still walking, and it’s still with Hinata.
Deep down, he knows that he oughtn’t waste what little energy he has with this sort of trivial occupation, but he can never bring himself to reject the shorter man.
The fourth time Hinata finds him from where he’s sitting in the lounge in Strawberry House, Nagito notices how worn down he looks (down being the key word here; he isn’t worn out, as that suggests exhaustion. No, Hinata is worn down, like he’s having pieces of himself chipped away with every moment he spends trapped here.)
His cheeks are sunken into his face, and dark bags ravage the spaces around those glittering hazel eyes. He’s lost a bit of weight, the homely roundness around his waist gone with his body’s desperate effort to keep him from starving.
And yet he still extends a hand to Nagito with a weak smile, and offers to walk and talk with him.
He accepts, greedily almost, hungry for Hinata’s attention.
He doesn’t recognise this desire for companionship that he experiences whenever he’s around. It’s an odd and unfamiliar feeling that is exclusive to the tan-skinned man.
All he knows is that he wants to be around him, and he doesn’t feel any regret.
This time, they talk about luck. The question Nagito asks Hinata is given with a smile – ‘what do you think good luck is?’
It’s a fairly open-ended question, but there’s only one answer that he’s looking for.
Of course, Hinata responds correctly with only a snippet of hesitation. Maybe that’s his Ultimate talent – Ultimate Question Answerer.
He resists a snicker at the thought, because that’s impossible. Hinata gets lots of things wrong – that’s one of the main reasons why Nagito steps in so frequently during class trials.
‘Absolute power’ is the answer Hinata gives him, and he can’t help the grin that comes to his lips.
He launches into a story that he’s only told once or twice – the story of how he lost his parents. At this point, he can’t view the event with anything but optimism, because in reality, it’s what got him to Hope’s Peak Academy in the first place.
One story leads inevitably into another, and before he knows it, Nagito is shaking.
He’s not okay, he realises.
This is not what normal people talk about on walks with their best-friend-turned-favourite-person-in-the-world.
He comes to his senses and immediately starts apologising to Hinata, the words frantic and garbled and going way too fast to be individually discerned and it continues until-
Until a pair of arms wrap around him, gentle and delicate. Soft, like he could break; shatter like glass in the shorter man’s embrace.
And he’s tempted to, he really is.
But he doesn’t. He can’t afford to break completely. Not now.
But maybe it’s okay, he ponders as he leans into Hinata’s embrace. Maybe, just this once, he’ll let himself be vulnerable.
It’s for the sake of hope, he tells himself.
It’s all for hope, for Ultimate Hope, for the prevailing hope that’ll emerge from his trial, whether it be the traitor alone or the remaining five.
It’s a mantra he chants as he slices open his arm and his thighs. He repeats it over and over in his mind as he tries to scream from the burning pain.
He hesitates before the Monokuma plush. He stares at it for a moment, and he recognises despair pulsating through his veins.
No.
He will not let despair corrupt his Ultimate Hope, nor the hopes of the others.
He stabs the knife through his hand.
The fire rages before him, and he knows there’s no more turning back.
He places his trust and all his faith into his talent. His ridiculous, pathetic talent – luck.
He wants to spit. The word is vulgar. It’s vulgar, but if his plan is to work, he must feed it everything. Give his luck the ultimate sacrifice, and let it do the rest for him.
He hears the panicked cries of his classmates from behind the curtain, and the clicking of rapidly retreating footsteps.
It’s time to say goodbye, isn’t it.
It isn’t a question. It’s a statement, because the fact is absolute.
This is where he dies, for the sake of Ultimate Hope.
All things considered, it isn’t the worst way to go out.
At least he’ll take at least one person down with him.
The footsteps reappear.
Thank you, he thinks to himself.
Thank you for making me useful.
Thank you for letting me trust you.
Glass begins to smash to his left.
I’m sorry it has to end this way.
Grieve for me at least, Hinata-kun.
The air turns acrid with smoke and the building scent of poison.
He takes a long, deep breath through his nose.
Even though you’re talentless, even though you’re from that Reserve Course.
You still have hope.
I am in love with the hope that sleeps inside of you.
I am in love with you.
Goodbye, Hajime Hinata.
He refuses to close his eyes.