Chapter Text
28th April
‘…Happy birthday to you,’ finishes the room, and Hajime cheers with everyone else, trying to clap while holding a drink. He flashes a conspiratorial and slightly mean-spirited grin at Nagito, who is towering decidedly awkwardly over Koizumi and Asahina by the cake; Nagito may have a flair for the dramatic, but he shares Hajime’s distaste for this kind of fuss.
Saionji bustles over with a knife and a handful of candles, and shakes a lighter out of her kimono sleeve. ‘Okay, you get one candle each, and don’t ask me what I had to do to get hold of these,’ she says, with the volume of someone several drinks in. Someone wolf-whistles from the crowd. ‘Mahiru-chan can go first, because we have to respect our elders – ow! Okay, smile...’
Koizumi lands a well-practised flick on Saionji’s cheek before posing in front of the cake, pink-faced and self-conscious in the face of the phone camera. Come to think of it, Koizumi hates this kind of fuss too. Maybe Saionji has grown out of fewer of her sociopathic tendencies than Hajime thought.
He cheers dutifully for each puffed-out candle, the smell of the wick curling pleasantly into the room. It’s a nostalgic smell, but, as with so many things that give him déjà vu, he can’t actually remember any of those childhood birthday cakes: like the rest of the pre-apocalyptic world, they’ve vanished, intangible as candle smoke.
‘And last but not least, happy birthday to the guy I don’t trust with fire or knives,’ says Saionji, and Nagito blows on the unusually strong candle four times before it finally goes out. Hajime concedes, begrudgingly, that it probably has more to do with his luck than his lung capacity, but he files it away for later as an argument for getting an inhaler anyway.
Cake done, the room relaxes back into loud chatter and thick, pungent cigarette smoke. Hajime picks at the slice Nagito has brought back, feeling like an uncomfortably quiet island in the noisy room: the rare parties he attends these days all seem to take place in sweaty izakaya backrooms with terrible acoustics. He thinks wistfully, as he often does, of how they’d drink on the huge, silent beach on Jabberwock Island, cooling off in the sea on the stickiest, most humid nights. Of course, most of those nights on the beach were spent hatching plots for what they’d do when they finally got back onto the mainland and into semi-civilisation; but he still can’t stop the twist of nostalgia in his chest.
It’s obviously reasonable that they have their own lives. Hajime is so proud of them: of the new Novoselician social medicine scheme that Sonia’s so excited about, and of Mioda’s cult fanbase, and of Souda’s new girlfriend who actually sounds half-decent for once. Of Pekoyama and Kuzuryuu’s impending baby, a terrifying shock of adulthood that still hasn’t worn off two months after they officially broke the news. Of Koizumi and Saionji’s full, real-person lives, so normal you’d never guess they were part of a terrorist cult six years ago: all these friends they’ve somehow made, filling the room and drinking and talking so happily you could forget that the world was ever on fire. Or, of course, that Hajime ever struck the match.
But god, he misses the island days so much it hurts. They were imperfect, sure: fifteen terribly damaged misfits, struggling through the awful mental and physical consequences of what they’d done. But they had each other. They were a team, a family, the first place where Hajime felt like he belonged. Sometimes, selfishly, he thinks that the happiest nights of his life were spent lying luxuriously in his or Nagito’s bed with the windows open and the night breeze blowing in, listening to the sound of a party outside, knowing they’d all still be there when he emerged. Sometimes, selfishly, he doesn’t begrudge himself for smuggling in that USB stick. Hajime is a traitor through and through.
Hajime is startled out of his thoughts by a hand on his shoulder: and there’s Naegi’s grinning face. He wishes Nagito a happy birthday, hugs both of them and perches on the bench next to them, yelling over the noise.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says, ‘I had a meeting with Munakata-kun that overran. I tried to convince him to come down to the party, but –’ he rolls his eyes, a little too fondly for someone whose boss tried to murder him with a sword a mere few years ago, ‘obviously no dice. Aww, did I miss the cake?’
Naegi, as ever, is exceptionally skilled at party small talk, and Hajime, as ever, is thankful for his company. They chat about the New Hope’s Peak project (there are still plenty of logistics to iron out, but it’s getting there – Hajime isn’t quite sure how he feels about that); about how Nagito feels being 27 (‘surprised’, he says pleasantly); about Hajime’s job in the mountains last week (scenic, and luckily the bomb threat was a false alarm, which shows things are still on the up, right?).
‘Is Kirigiri around?’ says Hajime. She’s usually an ally in his quest to find the quietest, calmest spot at the party.
‘Oh, no, not tonight,’ says Naegi. There’s something in his answer that makes Hajime frown – some small hesitation in his face, or voice, or something – but it’s gone quickly. ‘She’s working a case up in Sendai at the moment.’
‘Anything interesting?’ says Nagito, ears pricking up at a hint of the morbid.
Naegi shrugs with a half-guilty smile. ‘All I know is that it’s a bunch of serial murders, and she won’t tell me anything else in case I get implicated. Pretty standard, really.’
‘Well, I look forward to hearing about it when it’s resolved,’ says Nagito affably, as if he doesn’t have a stack of unread detective novels in the apartment at all times.
At that moment someone emerges from the crowd to enthusiastically greet Naegi; Hajime faintly recognises him from the Sixth Division but couldn’t even begin to remember his name. Naegi flashes them that open, half-guilty smile again as he’s shuffled over to another group of people: no wonder everyone at the Foundation likes him so much. Hajime is a special case in that he mostly works alone and seldom works in the office, but he should probably still try and get to know people. He’ll go to the next round of after-work drinks, he thinks, ignoring the fact that he pretty much is at one now.
Nagito raises his eyebrows at Hajime and tilts his head in the direction of Naegi.
‘You mean about Kirigiri, right?’ says Hajime. Nagito nods. ‘I know, I thought something was going on with them too. Reckon she’s really out there working a case?’
‘I suppose we’ll see,’ says Nagito.
Half an hour passes in which Hajime hopes he’ll get a second wind and become the life and soul of the party; but while everyone around him gets drunker, he just gets more tired. On one hand he envies all the drinkers their energy; on the other, the thought of alcohol has been bringing up a horrible spike of anxiety for him lately. His alcohol tolerance has recently lowered to the point where he actually could join in if he wanted to, and that has some terrifying implications for his skill base, his job and, well, the person he is. For now, it’s safer to stick to soft drinks and forget all about it.
Nagito is flagging too, staring absent-mindedly into his glass of lemonade. Historically, birthdays have always been weird for him; Hajime gets it. They’re probably weird for everyone in their cohort – most of them have expressed some kind of survivor’s guilt to him, some sort of amazement they’re still alive – but no-one has felt that way for quite as long as Nagito has.
‘I think,’ says Hajime, daring to look up at Nagito in hope of reciprocation, ‘I'm ready to call it a night.’
‘I think I am too,’ says Nagito. Hajime restrains his shout of triumph; it’d probably be so loud people would actually be able to hear it over the music.
Hajime says goodbye to Saionji and gets called a ‘boring fuck’ for his trouble; hugs Koizumi, promises to meet up for a coffee next time he’s in Headquarters; waves to Asahina and Naegi where they’re jammed into unreachable tables across the room. He heaves a sigh of relief when the fresh air hits him: it’s a warm evening, but it’s still a blissful contrast with the packed izakaya.
It’s only ten, but he feels exhausted just thinking about the thirty-five minute walk home: night-time train services still haven’t been reintroduced in most parts of the country, owing to becoming mass-murder hotspots during the worst of the Tragedy. As with most inconveniences in the post-Despair world, Hajime doesn’t really have the right to complain. Instead he walks in silence, staring down at his scuffed trainers and the potholed pavement.
‘Alright, Hajime, what’s the matter?’ says Nagito, nudging at his shoulder.
‘Nothing,’ he says, snapping out of it with some effort. ‘Sorry. I’m just tired.’
‘Okay. Do you mind if I make a guess at what I think might be troubling you anyway?’
Hajime shrugs and makes an affirmative sort of grunting noise.
‘I think you’re feeling hurt that more of our class didn’t show up. Is that right?’
Hajime frowns and thinks about it. ‘Ah. Maybe. Yeah, actually.’ Thinks about it a second longer. ‘Yeah. But it’s not that I’m hurt, I’m – I think I’m actually just really pissed off.’
‘Mm-hmm,’ says Nagito. Hajime looks at him for a reaction, but his face is perfectly still, waiting for him to elaborate.
‘Like, how were we the only two to show up? Out of thirteen? More, if you count the Class 78 lot. Is it that fucking hard to make an effort to stay in touch after everything we’ve been through? Okay, obviously Sonia and Tanaka can’t exactly fly over, and I guess Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama have an excuse now. But Souda’s what, like, an hour away on the train? How’s that so hard?’
‘He does get motion sickness,’ says Nagito.
‘Alright, fine, that’s true,’ says Hajime.
‘But he does also only live an hour away,’ adds Nagito.
Hajime sighs heavily. ‘I know, I know, I’m being unfair. But also – I mean, Mioda was friends with them for years, wasn’t she? And Tsumiki – I guess they weren’t always the nicest to her, but people can change, you know? Aren’t we all supposed to be proof of that?’
‘I know,’ says Nagito, his voice finally betraying some heaviness. ‘I miss them too. I love them, Hajime, and I know you do too. And I do think they owe you, to a certain extent. You saved their lives, after all.’
Hajime looks at him in appeal. ‘It’s really fucking selfish for me to agree with you, right? I just… I don’t understand how they can move on from it all. I don’t know how they can hang out with so many people who don’t just get it. I know it’s pathetic, like – reliving your high school glory days, or something.’ He realises the mistake of his comparison and laughs bitterly. ‘And I know, I obviously didn’t even hang out with you guys in high school. But… they were like family to me, you know? People who just understood.’
‘You barely remember a world without them,’ points out Nagito. ‘It’s only understandable.’
‘Fuck,’ says Hajime. ‘That’s true. God, that’s messed up.’
They wait in silence at a street light; the single car drives on, and Hajime takes Nagito’s hand as they cross.
‘God, sorry I’m being such a buzzkill on your birthday.’
‘It’s okay,’ says Nagito. ‘As generous as Saionji-san was to include me when she was organising Koizumi-san and Asahina-san’s party, I don’t necessarily feel the urge to celebrate it myself.’
Hajime squeezes his hand and smiles. ‘I know, you were very gracious about the singing. Do you have any plans for the weekend? You’re not working, right?’
‘I’m not working, and honestly, not really. I might buy a coffee and read in the park, if it’s not too hot tomorrow. Are you working?’
‘That sounds nice,’ says Hajime, ‘and nope, I turned down that job. I’ll make you breakfast in bed tomorrow if you want, I’ve got no plans either.’ He flashes a grin at Nagito. ‘I’ll be completely at your mercy.’
‘That is an appealing thought,’ says Nagito, smiling back. ‘I’ll think about how I can take advantage.’
The idea of Nagito, say, talking down to him until he can no longer string together a coherent thought is a cheering one, and it bolsters him for the rest of the walk home. Hajime lets them into the apartment, treads off his shoes from the heel, switches on the light, winces at the stuffiness and opens the window. Then he collapses onto the sofa with feeling. Nagito follows him in and, with an accusatory look, turns off the main light and switches on the lamps.
They’ve shared this apartment – lived together just the two of them – for eighteen months now, which for Hajime sits in the precise mind-boggling gap between ‘what the hell, we only moved in two weeks ago’ and ‘all previous living situations feel like a fever dream’. Which, to be fair: an underground lab, a cult in a mansion, a VR killing game in paradise and an island exile are all, Hajime supposes, a little unconventional. It’s almost strange how normal this apartment is, like the two of them have wandered into some parallel universe in which they encounter the world the way they’re supposed to. It sent them both into spiralling freak-outs at first – the sort that, if left unchecked, end in five-bullet Russian roulette and government-funded lobotomies – but nowadays they’ve just about adjusted to a slower domestic rhythm of cooking dinner (mostly Hajime) and sticking up pictures (mostly Nagito) and bickering over the ideal lighting set-up (entirely Nagito; Hajime doesn’t know why he cares so much). It’s weird; it’s scary; it’s nice.
Hajime leans his head back on the sofa arm and closes his eyes, exhausted. Nagito, in the bedroom, strums on the terribly-tuned guitar he found at the side of the road last week; the traffic, still slowly increasing in volume every month, hums four stories down. An evening breeze licks into the room. It should be a peaceful place to be, but now that Hajime is aware of the tangle of frustration in his head he can’t look away from it. It’s like it’s pulsing in the back of his brain, sapping his energy. Is he the odd one out again? Is he being left behind? Does he need them more than they need him? Even the thought of Kirigiri moving away is ringing a new alarm bell in his head: they’re all leaving one by one and he’s powerless to stop it.
He’s stuck between the rock and the hard place of bored and tired: between properly looking his irritation in the face and clearing the air, and forgetting all about it and going to bed. Which is to say he continues to lie paralysed on the sofa, in a bad mood and annoyed with himself for being in a bad mood. He responds in the way this kind of mood calls for: making it worse by brainlessly browsing his phone.
‘Oh, are you fucking kidding me?’ groans Hajime out loud.
‘Are you alright, Hajime?’ calls Nagito from the next room.
The email he’s just read has got him off the sofa alright. He walks through to the bedroom and brandishes the phone in Nagito’s face, incandescent with outrage. ‘The Foundation say they’re not paying me the full amount for that job in Hakone. Because – get this! – the bomb threat was a false alarm so I came home after a day.’
‘Oh, that’s strange,’ says Nagito, ‘they’ve never done that before, have they? Is it in your contract?’
‘I’ll check,’ says Hajime, ‘but it’s probably in the small print, they’re usually pretty thorough. I’m technically just a contractor, so that’s probably why. Urgh, fuck.’
‘Calm down, Hajime,’ says Nagito with what Hajime would call an infuriating amount of tranquillity, picking the guitar back up and resting it in his lap. ‘It’s a little frustrating, but it’s not the end of the world, is it? Sounds like,’ his smile takes on a wicked edge, ‘you’ll just have to create the explosion yourself next time.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ says Hajime, exhaling heavily through his nose. ‘At least we have the money from your library job, or we’d be screwed for rent.’
Nagito looks at him for just a beat too long.
‘Oh, no,’ says Hajime. Hysteria throws an arm around his shoulders like an old friend. ‘You’re not going to say what I think you’re going to say. You’re getting paid by the library, and we’re paying our rent in three days’ time, and everything is fine, right?’
‘I told you, Hajime,’ says Nagito, with polite surprise. ‘They were paying me for the stock-take, and then they offered me a volunteering job.’
Hajime takes a deep breath. ‘Okay. Fine! News to me, but sure, let’s roll with it. I have another question, then: why did you take a volunteer job when you know that we pay rent every single month?’
‘It’s fine,’ says Nagito, with an airy shrug. ‘I’ve always made rent so far, haven’t I? My luck is good for that, at the very least.’
‘I’m not underestimating your luck, I’m really not,’ says Hajime, ‘but I’d kind of like a stable life where I don’t end up thinking every month that this time I’m going to end up homeless for sure, for no goddamn reason.’
It’s an unavoidable kick in the head of the elephant in the room. Hajime braces for impact as Nagito places the guitar to one side again (with a thud and a horrible screech of strings) and stands up with his arms crossed. ‘Are you having a little trouble with your memory again, Hajime? Because I believe I’ve warned you in the past about my luck cycles, but really, if you’d like a reminder, I could –’
‘Yes, but there are ways to mitigate it, having a stable income could reduce the probability –’
‘I know you’re an expert in everything, Hajime, but really, on the subject of my luck, I believe I’m quite knowledgeable. I could get the job and then be fired from it, or become injured, or we could become homeless because the building burns down or gets overrun with mould. Or you could die and I could be unable to pay rent, or –’
‘Okay, okay! That’s still kind of defeatist, isn’t it? I thought you were past that.’
‘It isn’t defeatist, it’s fact,’ says Nagito, with finality. ‘If my methods work, I don’t see any point in inviting disaster by doing things differently.’
More like he doesn’t see any point in being told what to do, thinks Hajime. Though, to be fair, Nagito really does have reason to be afraid of his luck; and Hajime really can’t say he wasn’t warned. He’s always, right from the very beginning, been attracted to the wild ride that Nagito tends to drag him on board for. Previously, Nagito has had odd jobs come up at the last minute; found cash in strange places; and once, memorably, misplaced his wallet the same week in which the previous landlord had an entirely unexpected heart attack. Hajime hopes the same doesn’t happen this month: at least this landlord fixes things on time.
‘Fine,’ says Hajime, ‘and I guess I’m also short of some money this month, so I can’t really complain. I’ll just have to take that job in Kyoto this weekend after all, and you can figure something out.’
‘I will do,’ says Nagito, and then presses a knuckle thoughtfully to his chin. ‘Hmm, actually. I might accompany you to Kyoto.’
‘Sure, fine, as long as you’re not accompanying me to the terrorist cell or whatever it was. What do you want to do there?’
‘Did I ever tell you I grew up in Kyoto?’
‘Oh,’ says Hajime, caught off-guard. ‘Yeah, I think so. Do you… still have any family there?’
Nagito laughs disarmingly. ‘Oh, no, all of them died a long time ago. Probably any distant relatives perished in the Tragedy, if not before. No, I hid a fair amount of money around the house in case somebody broke in and stole my wallet again. Perhaps I’ve been lucky and hidden some in a place the looters haven’t found yet.’
‘Oh,’ says Hajime again. ‘That sounds like a good idea, actually. Do you…’ He hesitates for a moment. Nagito can be private about this sort of thing. ‘Do you want any company?’
Nagito makes a face that most people don’t get to see on him very often: earnest, tentative. ‘Honestly,’ he says, ‘I really would like the company.’
So, then. Not such a quiet weekend after all; but Hajime feels a little buzz of nervous excitement as he always does before his missions, before his plunges into talent. He’s curious, too, about Nagito’s house – if it’s even still standing. Nagito’s told him a few things about his life before Hope’s Peak, but they don’t talk about it much; Hajime can’t exactly reciprocate, after all.
They get ready for bed, apparently deep in respective thought; Hajime sends the email saying he’ll do the mission after all, which he’ll start on Sunday. Nagito crawls into bed second, soft and a little damp from the shower, and Hajime rolls closer, wraps an arm around his waist.
‘Night, love you, happy birthday,’ he says, his eyes closing. Nagito, equally tired, mutters some love you too-sounding syllables into the pillow. Hajime thinks wryly for a moment about how the party is probably still ongoing at this minute; then he’s out like a light.