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Nagito sat still in the hospital bed.
The bed is folded over neatly, laying flat against his body. Each fold is flattened perfectly, not overfolded or mussed, and tightly folded across his lap. His hands sit in his lap in an idle position. To anyone not familiar with the situation, this would be appalling. To Nagito, this was his normal.
His return to this hospital room, room 409, meant the cleaning of every crevice and crack. Chipping paint was glossed over. The grout was to be cleaned, not a speck of dirt in sight. Each bottle of medication was placed in an orderly position.
For as many times as Nagito had been to this room, he was still surprised the nurses knew his routine. Honestly, he wished they didn't.
"Yes, Hinata-san," a nurse could be heard from outside the door. "He's right in here, if you'd like to see him."
A quiet "thank you" could be heard before the door opened slowly, revealing Hajime. Nagito barely lifted his head from it's position, glancing idly at his boyfriend.
"How're you doing?" Hajime asked, slowly sitting down on Nagito's bed, wrinkling the sheets.
Nagito visibly winces at the act, instinctively curling his fingers as if he was restricting himself from doing anything about it. His hands are cold and pale, but his knuckles stick out like a sore thumb from his thin hands. Each one is bruised and purple.
“Good.”
“Just good?”
“Yes,” Nagito says, contemplating for a moment. “I’m fine.”
Hajime reaches out to hold Nagito’s hand. He does so gently, but still startles Nagito with the action.
“Nagito,” Hajime says. “Obviously you’re not fine if you’re back here.”
Nagito grimaces. For once, he actually looks like he has some life to him. He wants to pretend Hajime is wrong, but he knows he’s right. He wouldn’t have ended up in this hospital if he hadn’t relapsed and felt like shit for it. He wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t fucked up, would he?
“Like you care,” Nagito replies, whipping his head away from Hajime.
He got like this when he was upset. Mean. He didn’t mean it, truthfully, but it still came out like he did. He was often more mean than he intended to be, but at this moment, he really didn’t care.
“Nags, look,” Hajime says. “I know how you get, but…I care about you, okay? Don’t try to tell me I don’t care about you because you know that’s not true.”
Hajime runs his thumb over Nagito’s hand, careful not to brush any of his bruises as he does. He barely brushes one anyways, making Nagito wince away from his.
“Sorry,” he rushes to reply, letting go of Nagito’s hand quickly. “But, you know what I mean, right?”
Nagito doesn’t reply for a moment, too scared of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He always tended to do that. He was a frequent flier at the “poor timing” airport and he wasn’t afraid to admit it, except, it wasn’t the time for such a thing. Right now, he needed to think about why he was here.
“Yeah,” Nagito whispers. “I’m…sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Hajime asks, laughing lightly with a smile on his face.
“Calling the hotline,” Nagito says, staring at the wall opposite of Hajime. “Getting myself sent back here…relapsing. There’s a lot to be sorry for.”
“Is any of that your fault?”
“Well, I mean…yeah, relapsing was my faul–”
“I said,” Hajime interjected, “was any of it your fault?”
Nagito thought for a moment, trying to decipher what Hajime constituted as “his” fault. Obviously, relapsing was his fault, right? He did that, not someone else. And he called the hotline, he was the one who got himself sent to the hospital, he was the one who told the paramedics to call Hajime…wasn’t he? Who’s fault was it, other than his own?
“Yes…?”
Hajime attempts to argue with Nagito before realizing that he’s right. “Okay, well, I mean, obviously you didn’t want to end up back in the hospital, it just happened so…is it really your fault?”
“I guess not, by that logic, but…”
“Look, Nags,” Hajime says. “I know you relapsed and, sure, yeah, that is kind of on you because you were the one who actually did it, but…it’s not your fault, okay?”
Nagito stared at his boyfriend for a moment before bursting out laughing. This situation was awful, yes, but watching Hajime try to comfort him and failing was…to put it plainly, hilarious.
“Why are you laughing?” Hajime exclaims, a large smile forming on his face.
“Hajime,” Nagito says between laughs. “You are so fucking bad at this, I swear.”
“Okay, dumbass,” Hajime says, “you try then!”
Nagito shifts himself around, grabbing both of Hajime’s hands in his own before flashing his boyfriend a pair of sympathetic eyes. If someone was really paying attention, however, they would notice the quiver in Nagito’s lip as he tried to restrain himself from laughing himself off the hospital bed.
“Hajime, baby,” he almost falls apart laughing when he says “baby”, “it’s not your fault, okay? Things happen and sometimes you just have to push through them.”
He pauses for a moment, his sincere look breaking into a laugh. He tried to hold it for longer, but not even he can take himself seriously in this situation.
“Nags!” Hajime calls out, doubling over in laughter. “Okay,” he snickers, “next time, you’re doing the sincere talk…that was too funny.”
Nagito whacks his boyfriend’s arm playfully, “Hajime!”
The two can’t handle it anymore. The spectacle has become far to funny to keep from laughing any longer. This was usually how they handled difficult situations.
In between breaks of laughter, Nagito puffs out, “Hajime, I love you.”
Hajime stares at his boyfriend for a moment. Despite everything, even the hospital visits, he looks at him with adoration. There is a not a single drop of regret in those eyes. Not one. Even Nagito could tell you that.
“I love you too, Nags.”