Work Text:
Never in his life had Hajime ever felt himself going through the motions. He would never allow it. There was always something that he had to pay attention to, something to focus on, something that would not allow his mind to go blank.
Until now.
Not a thought echoed inside his mind as he prepared. Candles were placed in a small circle in front of him, surrounding the mound he refused to acknowledge. Not yet. He just needed to get through this. The flashlight he held, the only light in the room, scanned across the walls of the library and caught the colors of book spines. Hajime paid it no thought. Just work.
The air was chilled, the air conditioning on as low as it could possibly go, and Hajime was still shivering from his ice bath. His skin was still damp, and the air made his entire body prickle. Yet he still refused to consider it.
Just work.
He lit the first candle, then the next, until he had eleven candles surrounding the mound. Now he could turn off the flashlight, and he set it aside onto another library table. He picked up the container next and dipped his fingers into the jar. Reaching out, he sprinkled the salt across the center of the mound. White grains against green fabric. No, don’t look at it. Do not think. Just work.
Just work.
Just…
“I release you of your silence,” Hajime spoke to empty cold air, his voice crackling. He took in a deep breath, then let it out again. He closed his eyes.
Just…
“...Nagito Komaeda, I speak to you.”
“Oh you do, do you?”
Hajime opened his eyes again. His heart sank.
Komaeda sat at the table at the far other side, illuminated by the candles. His pale skin was near glowing by the light, hair flowing out and near translucent. In his thin hands was a book, just any book, open to halfway through. Hajime couldn’t see a title on the worn cover. Komaeda’s head was tilted forward, looking up from beneath near white lashes.
The book in his hands snapped closed. “You cut it awfully close. I was beginning to doubt the strength of your talent.”
Hajime sat in silence, staring across the table. The rest of the world had already fallen away, his coldness forgotten, his body fully numb.
Komaeda stood up from the chair, making no noise as he did so. “I was honestly surprised, I didn’t expect that you would decide to dirty your beautiful talent with my presence. You had another option, did you not?”
He did.
Not waiting for Hajime’s answer, Komaeda walked across the room. The entire environment around them was dark, save for wherever Komaeda went. In sure movements, Komaeda reached out and placed the book back onto the shelf, then grabbed the one directly beside it. He opened the book and flipped through some pages, and upon arriving at some conclusion, brought it back with him to the table.
“But you’re here! I didn’t expect you to be here, to be entirely honest, but here you are! I should not have been surprised to know the strength of your hope had been too strong against my meager luck.”
Hajime did not move.
Pale eyes scanned across the pages of his book, flicking through them until he found a particular spot to start reading. “I saw everything, but you probably already know that. You were always so shy about telling us more about your talent, probably so we couldn’t use it against you. That was always the last thing you wanted. Otherwise, you would be entirely talentless! Nothing else to pull you from the crowd, nothing to stand out, nothing but your one talent.”
Komaeda settled into his chair, his page turning becoming slower as he engrossed himself into his book. It became the only sound in the room, soft and worn paper fluttering, caught by Komaeda’s thumb and smoothed into place.
Hajime stared down at the table, and for the first time since he had pulled it out of the containment bag Monokuma had put it in, looked down at the pile surrounded by candles. The green jacket. The mirror to the one Komaeda wore right now. But the one sitting before him…
Torn and bloodied. The blood had only just started to dry. It had been soaked so deeply that it turned the green nearly black with its stain.
Komaeda turned another page. “I wasn’t afraid to die. I know it’s not the first time you’ve heard that, but it really wasn’t. I was always going to die, it just was a matter of whether my illness took me first or my own luck betrayed me. At least this way, I died to become the stepping stone to true hope.” Komaeda paused, lingering on the page he was on. “I… tried to die for true hope. But you stopped that, didn’t you, Hinata-kun? Actually no, not you. Nanami did. You let her. You spoke for her. The same that you always have, speaking for those who cannot. Truly a hopeful gesture.”
Komaeda finally looked up, staring unblinkly at Hajime in a way that was so unbelievably Komaeda that it couldn’t belong to anyone else. Staring through him, yet absorbing every part in the same gaze. “You’re going to do the same for me, are you not? But why? There’s no one here for it. You’re all alone. Did you forget that?”
No, he had not. Hajime had come alone.
“Hinata-kun, why didn’t you try to find Nanami? She was the one that everyone wanted you to communicate with. Yet you chose unsightly me. How undignified of you to go against the wishes of everyone else just for your own selfish desires. Is that truly how the Ultimate Medium should behave?”
Hajime didn’t have an answer. Not one he would permit to say aloud.
Komaeda finally pulled his gaze away from Hajime and looked to the candles that surrounded his stained jacket. They were small, little more than tealights and had already been halfway melted down. They would burn out quickly. “Is this how you want to spend our last moments, Hinata-kun? You know as soon as the candles burn out, you won’t have this chance again. Don’t you want answers? Isn’t that why you chose me instead of Nanami?”
Hajime could have chosen taller candles, or replaced the candles entirely to give himself longer, but something had told him not to. Maybe he regretted it. Maybe he would regret it later.
“Hinata-kun?”
Maybe he would regret all of this.
“Why didn’t you try to find Nanami?” There was a smile on Komaeda’s face and his gaze burned into Hajime. He knew the answer already.
Hajime had tried, but he couldn’t connect with Nanami. For the first time since coming to this island, Hajime had failed to connect to a spirit. All of the remaining students had crowded around Hajime and the circle of candles that surrounded the Galaga hairpin, but no matter what Hajime had done, Nanami never came.
She could have already found peace, having died knowing that she had saved everyone from the fate Komaeda had tried to condemn them to. It wasn’t the first time, hopefully it wouldn’t be the last that a soul would find peace without his assistance.
As soon as it had become apparent that Hajime had failed, the others had gone back to their cabins. Not a single one entertained the idea of using the small amount of time left in the night to contact Komaeda. They all hated him, and Komaeda knew that better than anyone else. They would see this as a waste of Hajime’s skill and talent, to communicate with a spirit no one wanted to talk to. Answers, of course they wanted answers, but to actually get them from Komaeda himself? The same person who had tried to damn them to a death they didn’t deserve? Not a chance.
It was why Hajime wasn’t here for answers. Not the ones that Komaeda would expect.
Pale eyes looked back down to the candles for just a moment, then back at Hajime. They would go out soon. Komaeda did not seem threatened by the oncoming end. Whether or not he would pass on was completely up to Komaeda, and if Hajime had to guess, then Komaeda was going to wait until the very end. But something still was holding Komaeda here. In this spot.
This library was the only spot Komaeda had felt peace, where his luck couldn’t find him. Where his illness could be pushed to the back of his mind and he could escape this life and disappear into another. This was always where Hajime would find him, and it made sense to this being where he would reside until it was time to pass on.
But after this meeting, Hajime would not be able to assist. He had never been able to contact a spirit twice, and as soon as the sun would rise or the candles burned out, Komaeda’s chance of redemption, of explanation, of anything, would disappear.
That wasn’t what Komaeda wanted.
That wasn’t what Hajime wanted.
Komaeda did not look away, gray eyes trained entirely on Hajime as if he was the center of the world. The same eyes that had been so filled with terror and pain just hours ago, staring at the warehouse ceiling, glassy and dead. The pain couldn’t reach Komaeda here, nor could the pain of his illnesses. But to condemn his soul to this island…
One of the candles flickered out. Komaeda’s form flickered with, then regained itself. “Huh,” Komaeda hummed, still not breaking eye contact. “I know you always told us that death was not to be feared, but I hadn’t thought it would feel like this. So quiet. A little boring. The despair of my failure still lingers, but I am eager to see what will happen next. What bright hope will come from my defeat. Your bright hope.” Something flashed across Komaeda’s features, but it was swept away with a smile as empty as Hajime’s heart. “I hope you remember me when you learn I tried to save you from.”
Hajime’s breath shuddered in his chest, and an ache broke through the numbness he had been striving to hold onto. Another candle extinguished. Then a third.
“Don’t despair for me, Hinata-kun!” Komaeda cooed, leaning forward on the table. The flames would have licked at his skin had he been tangible. Now they gave his body an almost ethereal glow. “You of all people should know better than to despair for worthless trash like me! I welcome death, I welcome the escape from a life that had been nothing but horrid, a constant tug and pull of my luck cycle, bad luck, good luck, bad luck, good luck!”
Komaeda was so close that Hajime felt like he could reach out and touch him, but knew there would be nothing under his hands to feel. Hajime’s hands clenched in his lap, nails digging into his pants in the desperate urge to feel something. “Hinata-kun, I am happy! I am free! I-”
“If you’re really free, then why are you still here?”
Hajime’s voice was weak and quiet, and every word had to be carved out of his throat. His eyes glistened, blurring Komaeda’s form in front of him, and he tried to blink them away.
Komaeda paused, his mouth still open. A fourth candle extinguished beneath his form, and he physically dimmed. His pale eyes were searching Hajime’s features, and for probably the first time since they met, Komaeda was rendered speechless.
Unable to contain himself any longer, Hajime stood up from the chair and slammed his hands down onto the table. The candles rattled and three already extinguished candles tipped over. One more flipped as well, extinguishing itself. Five candles gone. “If you’re so happy to be dead, then why are you still here?! Why didn’t you pass on? How am I supposed to help you, Komaeda? You killed yourself using Nanami! She’s at peace! Why can’t you pass on, too?”
Gray eyes were wide and open in such an exposed way that it almost stopped Hajime. Almost.
“You wanted to die! You wanted us all to die with you! And now I have to be the one to help you find peace because it’s my duty. My one talent! The one thing that brought me on this island with everyone else! And now I have to use that talent to help you pass on, but I-” Hajime choked on his words, and he felt the hot tears starting to slip down his cheeks. His breath rattled, sucking in frigid air that tried to freeze his lungs.
“I-... I don’t want you to go, Nagito.”
Six candles. Seven. Snuffed out. Komaeda was dim now, body turning translucent, hair faded on the wild edges. Hajime’s breath escaped him in a brittle sob he couldn’t choke back. All he had to do was help Komaeda pass on but he…
He couldn’t do this.
Hajime couldn’t see through the tears, and he crumpled back into his chair. Every breath he drew in to try to calm himself only chilled his body further, all the way to the bone. His own excuses were flooding through him.
He didn’t replace the candles to give himself the excuse that there wasn’t enough time. He didn’t try to wait until the next night to give himself the excuse that there wasn’t enough time. He didn’t focus, he didn’t speak, he didn’t do any of it because that would mean he would have to do the one thing that was expected of him.
All he had wanted was…
“I-I just wanted to see you again…” The words came out in a whimper that was barely recognizable as his own voice. All Hajime wanted was to see Komaeda one last time, when he wasn’t staked down to the warehouse floor, the entire room reeking of such malice and horrid agony that it had shaken him to his very core. But all this did was confirm that Komaeda had never been happy alive, and holding him to this earth was the most selfish thing he could be doing.
Yet here he was.
Coldness touched his face, but there was no pressure. It forced Hajime’s eyes to open again, only to find himself staring into the mixture of grays and greens he had wanted to see again so badly. He reached out instinctively, only for his hands to pass through the misty form that was becoming of Komaeda. Soon there would be nothing.
“I… don’t know why I’m still here,” Komaeda murmured almost sheepishly, the wide smile he usually wore barely there. “I thought as soon as I had seen the outcome, I would pass on, but… There is something still holding me here. I can feel it.”
His breath shuddered in his lungs, but Hajime couldn’t speak. Komaeda was lying. He knew. They both knew. The one thing holding Komaeda here was…
Hajime.
He swallowed, and it felt like forcing down shards of ice. “Nagito,” he breathed, obscenely aware of the lack of warmth even with Komaeda’s face being mere inches away. Komaeda’s form faded visibly, barely an outline remaining. There was no time. If he was going to do it… If he was going to free Komaeda… If he was going to do what he knew was right…
“Nagito Komaeda, I relea-”
His words were cut off as Komaeda leaned forward, pressing their lips together. Even if he could not feel the pressure of it, the coldness was such an assault to his senses that it stunned him into silence. Hajime's breath stopped, and he reached out again, even when he knew there was nothing he could grasp. Something, anything to hold onto, just something to make this real, something to make this moment last longer, something to tell him that this wasn’t the end, that this wasn’t-
Then there was darkness.
Bone-chilling darkness.
Hajime was left staring at the table, at the last trace embers of the last candles. At the green jacket soaked in blood. He reached out and touched it, the one thing he could still grasp. Whatever salt not stuck to the blood slipped off the fabric as he lifted it up from the circle in trembling hands.
The candles had warmed it, as if Komaeda had just taken it off and left it behind. The phantom remnants of Komaeda was a false comfort, but he clung to it all the same.
In the silence of the library, he clung to the last remnant of the boy he loved.