Chapter Text
Before coming to Jabberwock Island, Hajime almost never napped. There were barely enough hours in the day to finish his homework and study for entrance exams and read enough of next week’s material to avoid looking like an idiot in class. He could never find the time.
Now he’s got nothing but.
And it’s not like there are any exams to prep for out here, in the middle of the fucking ocean. For the first few days, he tried to keep up with his studies in the library. Then he flipped open a chem textbook to brush up on the basics and realized that the entire organic chemistry section was bullshit. Which kinda threw a wrench in his curriculum. Not studying feels bad, but not as bad as learning stuff that’s wrong.
It still makes him anxious. You’d think the constant threat of sudden death would put it in perspective, but… nope! Turns out that Maslow guy was full of shit. You can be scared of getting murdered and scared of flunking your college entrance exams, all at the same time. Or at least, Hajime can.
So even though it’s 2 in the afternoon, with sunlight streaming in through the huge, unsettlingly breakable window above his bed, Hajime is fast asleep when he hears the knock.
It’s a weird knock. The human brain loves patterns, so most people wind up knocking on some kind of rhythm. A nice even knock-knock, or a brisk rat-tat-tat. ‘Shave-and-a-haircut,’ etcetera etcetera. This sounds more like a woodpecker playing a round of whack-a-mole. One loud knock and then two quick ones, then a weird protracted silence followed by four more.
“Mh,” Hajime mumbles. “Uh. One sec.”
He doesn’t bother with a shirt. It’s hot. And he’s tired. And it’s not like there’s anyone left who’d care. Koizumi would've hit him if he tried to open the door half-dressed, but Koizumi is dead. Hanamura might’ve made a pass at him in the grossest way he could think of, but Hanamura’s been fish food for weeks. Probably Tsumuki would full-on scream, but there is no Tsumuki anymore. Half his friends are dead and Hajime can’t find a shirt. Literally who fucking cares.
He yanks the door open to find Komaeda, one hand outstretched for another chaotic, arhythmic, totally bizarre knock.
“Ohh!” Komaeda gasps, his eyes positively glowing. “Hajime! How fortunate I feel, to be privileged with such a hopeful sight! And how lucky to have found you here!”
“...In my room?”
“Exactly! You're a hard man to find, you know. Always out and about. But when I passed by your cottage I saw a butterfly land on your door; and as luck would have it, I found a cockroach in my coffee this morning!”
Hajime squints at him. As usual, he’s having a hard time keeping up.
“Please don’t worry about me, Hajime,” Komaeda says earnestly. “It would be a travesty to waste your feelings on a worthless animal like me. After all, I'm a sort of human cockroach myself! Haha! I felt a sense of kinship, watching his little legs twitch amongst the grounds.”
“Uh.”
“I didn’t eat the cockroach,” Komaeda reassures him. “I spotted him before my last sip.”
“...You drank the coffee, though.”
“Oh, yes! Thank goodness! If I saw him any sooner, I might not have caught you at all!”
Right. The whole… karmic balance thing. Hope from despair, and vice versa. “Uh huh. So. Did you want something, or…”
“No, please, I would never! I wouldn't dream of imposing on your valuable time! It was only—hm, how to explain it to someone so, so resplendent… Only a whim, Hajime. The senseless, selfish impulse of a simple mind.”
Hajime is pretty sure he’s never met a less simple mind.
He wonders if Komaeda wants to come in. He sort of wants to invite him in. Which is pretty stupid, after all the mean stuff Komaeda said in the hospital. (Hajime mentally crosses 'Ultimate Common Sense' off the list of possibilities. Might as well scratch out 'Ultimate Social Skills' while he's at it.)
Well. Whatever. Even if Hajime wanted to be hospitable, now is definitely not a good time. “Oh,” he remembers, “I got you something. Hang on.”
He closes the door before rifling around in his desk drawer, because if he doesn’t, he’s pretty sure Komaeda will come trailing after like a baby duck.
By the time he finds what he’s looking for, he half-expects Komaeda to be gone. Not that anyone on this island has anything to rush off to. Just because Komaeda is—unpredictable. You never really know what he’s going to do.
But when he opens the door Komaeda is waiting, still wearing that glittering smile.
“Here,” Hajime says, thrusting the gift at him. “It’s, uh. I already read it. But it’s interesting. It’s from another Ultimate, supposedly.” Unless the journal is just another of Monokuma’s tricks. But its author didn’t sound like Monokuma. They sounded sharp. Incisive. Humorless, and sort of… relentless? Not exactly Monokuma’s bag. “Some kind of investigator. ‘Ultimate PI,’ or something. And I know you’re into that stuff too, so…”
When he looks up, he can’t help but flinch. Komaeda’s smile has gone cold. Teeth bared in stiff straight lines, like keys on a piano. Eyes sharp and clear as breaking glass.
Reflexively, Hajime pulls his hand back. “Uh—”
“You really shouldn't waste your kindness on me, Hajime,” Komaeda says, all the words running together without any space between. “So much good fortune is an ill portent, haha! And luck is capricious; it has no sense of loyalty, or of… restraint. Of course you could never understand, fount of hope that you are, overflowing with—with generosity of spirit, with grace, but— You should step lightly, Hajime.” Even as Komaeda’s eyes go dark, his smile stretches wider. “That kindness of yours could be very dangerous.”
“Uhh.”
And then, like flipping a switch, the light flicks back on. “Ah! I'm so, so sorry, Hajime, for darkening your doorstep for so long. I could just die of shame. If you want to kill me, I understand. I promise to hold still."
"...I'm good."
"You certainly are!" Komaeda agrees, with a breathless little shudder. "I can't even begin to imagine. But if my worthless presence brought you down on such a hopeful day I just couldn't bear to live, so I'll get out of your sight. But I'll treasure your gift for the rest of my miserable life. I'd build a shrine for it but I know I'd only ruin it, with my disgusting talent, I'd probably bring the whole cottage down in flames—but I'll keep it close! I'll wear it over my heart, so I can bring you with me into the very trenches of despair!”
“You don’t have to—” Nope, that’s a lost cause. “Okay. Well. Glad you like it.”
“Very much so! Yes! So be vigilant, Hajime! Despair lies in wait around every corner!”
“Right. I mean, uh. You too.”
Hajime watches, nonplussed, as Komaeda practically sprints down the boardwalk to vanish through the gate. He takes a moment to reflect on the fact that he can’t even tell if Komaeda liked the gift or hated it. Or liked it so much that he hated it, or… hated it so much that it drove him to despair, which then filled him with hope? You can never really tell, with Komaeda.
“Ugh,” he sighs, kneeing the door shut. “I dunno. I don’t get that guy. Do you think he’s mad at me?”
Chiaki makes a cursory effort to sit up before flopping back against the pillows. “Oh. Sorry. I wasn’t listening. What did he say?”
“That he was very happy to see Hajime!” Sonia reports promptly. “But that good luck portends disaster, so Hajime should be careful! And he wants to put the present in a shrine!”
Chiaki yawns. “It sounds like he liked it.”
“Yeah, but… I dunno. Sometimes I think that pisses him off even more? Like he only gets really upset if you do something he likes.”
“That sounds very confusing,” Sonia says loyally. “I can speak only to my own experience, but I greatly enjoy receiving something I like from someone I like.”
“I like video games,” Chiaki contributes.
“We know, Chiaki.”
“And sunflower seeds.”
“Komaeda likes them, too,” Hajime mumbles.
Sonia tries to exchange a significant glance with Chiaki, but it rebounds off the brick wall of Chiaki’s total lack of socialization. She settles for giving Hajime a sympathetic smile. “Oh, Hajime. You give him too much of yourself! In Novoselic, children are taught never to put too much faith in any one lover, lest you be cast adrift should they die in combat, or an evacuation drill.”
“…Why would they die if it’s only a drill?”
Sonia looks appalled. “Drills are very dangerous, Hajime-kun!!”
“Rock drills can deal piercing and slashing damage,” Chiaki agrees. “Plus AOE staggering, sometimes.”
“It’s important to be prepared for every possibility!!”
Hajime knows a losing battle when he sees one. “Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Now come back to bed,” Chiaki complains. “Sonia’s too pointy without a buffer. She’s got too many bones.”
“My sincerest apologies!! I shall remove them at once!!”
“Please don’t,” Hajime sighs, flopping back onto the mattress. He spent half the day sleeping and he’s already exhausted. There’s never any homework and there aren’t any exams and he’s always, always tired. But the warm arms wrapped snugly around his ribcage help a little.
###
Hajime couldn’t tell you how he wound up in bed with two different sort-of girlfriends, one of whom is a NEET and the other a literal princess. (Though Chiaki is only really interested in the actual sleeping. And sometimes holding hands.)
Probably the mortal peril played a part. The sort of sinking, sickening dread that fills your lungs up with tar, makes you feel like you’ll never take a deep breath again. No shit, they could all use a little comfort.
But mostly it was Sonia’s doing. She approached him, very matter-of-fact, after the first trial, and laid out a pitch on the benefits of oxytocin in the face of stress, and how citizens of Novoselic are encouraged to share their bed with at least one trusted comrade in times of war. (Hajime is starting to suspect that half of these Novoselic traditions are just Sonia doing whatever she wants).
At the time, he was speechless. Obviously. It’s not like he had any experience with this stuff, unless that’s just one more thing they scrubbed off his hippocampus. But Sonia is beautiful and unwavering and also, not that it really matters, a literal princess. It’s not like Hajime wasn’t sold.
He’d swear his heart stopped when another voice rang out from behind the arcade cabinet.
“I want in,” Chiaki said blearily. Had she been there the whole time? Hajime could only hope that she’d slept through most of his pathetic sputtering. “On the sleepovers. And feeling safe.”
Hajime looked toward Sonia, nervous, only to find her positively glowing. “Oh! Wonderful! Tanaka-san informs me that three is a very lucky number! And as our adversaries sew distrust among our ranks, it will be a great comfort to have two such dependable companions by my side!”
Chiaki blinked up at her, a little starry-eyed. Hajime got the sense it was her first time being called dependable. (Not that he could relate.)
So that’s good. It’s… really good, actually. It’s just everything else that’s the problem.
Every time Hajime thinks they’ve finally scraped bottom, Monokuma blows out the foundation and sends them tumbling deeper into the dark. Maybe there really is something to Komaeda's stupid theory of equivalent exchange. For every out-of-your-league girlfriend you pick up, you get one bonus trauma, free-of-charge.
Kazuichi keeps trying to follow Sonia home, which kinda makes Hajime want to grab him by the throat and give him a Very Firm Lesson about consent. But of course Sonia insists that there’s no problem, because Kazuichi is pathetic but harmless, and also because she knows six different ways to kill a man with a hairpin and a pack of floss.
Chiaki takes a sudden, uncharacteristic interest in Fuyuhiko, who's too lost in his grief to even notice. (It probably doesn't help that, for Chiaki, 'taking an interest' mostly means 'playing the same handheld games as usual, but in your line of sight.')
Tanaka tries to train a pack of special-ops attack squirrels and actually succeeds, which is way more worrying than if he’d failed. Kazuichi challenges Hajime to a duel for 'monopolizing Miss Sonia' and then bursts into tears when Hajime just says, Yeah, okay. Sure. If it'll make you feel better. Akane picks a pointless fight with Monokuma that takes Nekomaru out of commission without warning, overnight, with no way to know if he’s ever coming back or if he’s just—gone.
And Komaeda keeps pissing people off.
Hajime is pretty sure he’s doing it on purpose. Pushing people’s buttons, pushing his luck. Needling Fuyuhiko and goading Kazuichi and baiting Akane like he actually wants her to take a swing at him, even though Komaeda looks like he's made of tissue paper and Akane could deadlift a tank. (Hajime has to intervene on that one personally. He’s really not interested in putting a classmate on trial just for sneezing a little too hard on Japan’s brittlest psycho).
“Why would you do that?” he demands, after dragging Komaeda away. “You know you can’t take her.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of raising a hand against one of the Ultimates! Each and every one of you is my greatest inspiration!”
“So, why?”
Komaeda’s eyes glitter. “Could it be that Hajime-kun is worried about me?”
“Of course I’m worried,” Hajime snaps. “I’m worried about all of us! On murder island! Where apparently they can just—release a virus to wipe us out, all the time, at any time, except it’s more fun to make us do it for them. And the rules keep changing, and everyone’s just…” His eyes burn. He swipes at them roughly with one hand. “Yeah! Yes! Jesus! I’m worried about you! Is that what you want to hear?”
“Hajime is too kind,” Komaeda purrs. “Such an undeserved honor for a wretched, worthless—”
“Will you stop that? It’s gross. And I know you’re just messing with me, so just—spare me.”
Komaeda looks sideways at him. In the fading gray of twilight, his eyes shine like mirrored glass. “Do you have dreams of heroism, Hajime?” he asks: a little softer, a little colder. “The knight in shining armor, come to save the villain from himself?”
Why is it always fucking riddles with this guy? “Huh?”
Komaeda lets slip a little giggle. “I guess what I mean is… If my actions are so loathsome, why come to my rescue at all?”
Because I want you alive. Hajime bites it back. Komaeda would only laugh at him. “Maybe you forgot that killing someone gets you killed?” he scrapes out, instead. “I’m not really looking to execute any more friends.”
“Ah. Of course. Hajime is a sensitive soul.”
Right. Sensitive. ‘Sensitive’ is when you don’t want to watch a bunch of people die horribly. Hajime barks a laugh, blinks the blur out of his eyes. “Yeah. I guess you’ve really got my number.”
###
Sonia and Chiaki corner him in his cottage that same night.
“Hajime-kun,” Sonia greets him, when he opens the door. “Chiaki and I wish to speak to you. About us.”
“O-Oh yeah?”
“‘Yeah!’” Sonia repeats, and you can actually hear the air quotes. “We are growing concerned that—”
“Can we go inside?” Chiaki asks plaintively. “I need to use an outlet.”
Hajime has no idea what to expect. It’s not like he’s got any points of reference. He’s never had one girlfriend, much less two. He’s probably never been this close with anyone. Or, if he has, he can’t remember.
“Hajime-kun!” Sonia says fiercely. “We are concerned that you mean to bring Komaeda-san into our bed!”
Hajime chokes. “Wh-What???”
“Not literally,” Chiaki says. She thinks about it. “Not necessarily literally.”
Hajime tries to laugh. Maybe he manages it. “What are you guys even… What? Komaeda?”
It’s ridiculous. Not that Komaeda isn't—sort of—a certain kind of beautiful. And exciting, in the most stressful sense of the word. And kind of... magnetic? Like how you can’t help staring at a smoldering eight-car pile-up. The way he can turn on a dime. Like he’s playing a whole different game.
…But that also makes him more than a little terrifying.
“Come on,” Hajime protests, in the face of their deafening silence. “I wouldn’t—I mean. That guy is nuts.”
“Exhibit A!!” Sonia shrills, planting both hands firmly on his desk. “You court him with books and shiny baubles!”
“Wh– I give everyone gifts!”
“Exhibit B! You speak of him more often than of any other classmate! Typically with no small fervor, and—and at great length!!”
“At least once a day,” Chiaki agrees.
“Well, sure,” Hajime concedes. Komaeda is a dangerous guy. “He’s unpredictable. But it feels like there’s an underlying logic… Like, if I could just figure out how he thinks, then—”
“Exhibit C!” Sonia cuts in. “ You are still talking about him!”
…Ah.
Hajime rubs the back of his neck. “You’re getting more into this courtroom stuff, huh?”
Sonia’s eyes shine with resolve. “Our very lives hang in the balance!!!”
Chiaki elbows her.
“…And I discovered a VCR player in the library,” Sonia admits. “And a trove of— But I am not the one on trial here!!”
“And I am?”
Sonia hesitates.
Chiaki just nods.
Hajime sputters. “On what charges??”
“We think you have a crush on Komaeda,” Chiaki says calmly. “From how you’ve been mooning over him.”
Hajime chokes.
He—what? On Komaeda? The same Komaeda who jerks him around, and fucks with his head, and insists on inserting himself into all of his plans? The same Komaeda who would be perfectly happy to watch them all die, as long as it sewed the seeds for some completely hypothetical, totally irrelevant ‘future hope’? That Komaeda???
…Maybe in the really early days, when Komaeda woke him up on the beach and ferried him through the most stressful day of his life with soft eyes and an easy smile... Maybe Hajime had kind of, sort of, very briefly thought of him as someone he could learn to rely on. And look how that turned out.
It’s not like Hajime hates Komaeda. He… pities him, probably. The hunger in his eyes, the lie behind his smile. The way he keeps insisting that everyone leave him alone but still jolts to attention when anyone comes close, like a dog whose owner just said the word ‘treat.’
Though it would be easier to pity him if he didn’t insist on being so—so Komaeda about everything. Fervid and frantic and uncomfortably eager to peel back his skin and lay himself bare. The freaky self-flagellation jags; the way his voice goes all breathy when he goes on one of his ecstatic little tirades about hope. Like an open wound, all too desperate to bleed.
Of course Hajime watches Komaeda. Someone has to keep an eye on him. That doesn’t mean he has a crush.
When his ears start working again, Sonia is still talking.
“He does not make me feel safe,” she’s saying, shrill with defiance. “And he is not a good conversationalist! He discomfits! Seemingly deliberately!!”
Hajime frowns. But… that’s not true, is it? Komaeda is a great conversationalist. A little showy, maybe. And more than a little alarming. But taking all the weird little shards of himself that he gives you, and trying to piece them together into some larger mosaic… It’s fascinating. It’s exciting. Like a puzzle box. (A puzzle box full of knives. An undisclosed number of which may or may not be spring-loaded.)
But Sonia probably won’t find that very convincing. Hajime grasps for another angle.
“You’re dating Tanaka,” he points out.
“Yes! Yes! An excellent example! Gundham-kun would never ‘leave a homie hanging’! He is responsive! Adaptive! Creative and, and constructive, with a strong sense of play!!”
Hajime is pretty sure that’s just her experience. No one knows how to ‘yes-and’ like Sonia. “Nagito’s playful,” he tries.
“No, Hajime! He is—mischievous, at best! He cannot commit to a bit! He insists on changing the rules, or changing the game, without deigning to inform anyone else!”
…Yeah. Totally. “But isn’t that what makes him so interesting?”
“No!!”
“Yeah, no,” Chiaki agrees.
“You too?” Hajime asks, a little crestfallen. He’d got the sense that Chiaki at least sort-of liked Komaeda. She never seemed to turn on him like everyone else. But maybe that’s just because Chiaki never really turns on anyone.
“Oh,” Chiaki mumbles. “Um. I like him okay. He seems like he’d have a secret route, and those are usually the most interesting. But I don’t think I want him to ever touch me.” She falls silent for a moment before adding, a little plaintive: “Can’t we date Fuyuhiko instead? I like his little smirk. And when he calls you a bastard.”
“He said he thinks of me as a brother.”
Chiaki considers that. “He said that about Peko, too. Maybe he’s just stupid?”
Hajime snorts, and then settles. There’s something still bothering him. “Wait. Hold on. Why am I in trouble here? Even if I was into Komaeda—and I’m not saying I am!—it’s not like you guys have to date him.”
Sonia hesitates. “Things have been—trying,” she says, uncharacteristically soft. “And… we come here to feel safe. And I fear that, so long as we fail to grasp Komaeda-san’s true intentions, his comings and goings might make this space feel… less safe.”
Hajime’s defensiveness evaporates. “H-Hey. Come on. You know I wouldn’t…”
Komaeda never actually tried to hurt anyone, part of him wants to argue. Except by tampering with evidence and manipulating a murder trial toward a false conviction that would very much get all of us killed, the rest of him points out.
“Look,” he says instead, taking both of her hands in his. “I’m not gonna put you guys in danger. Or make you feel like you’re in danger, or—whatever. If—I mean—in the totally impossible, fully hypothetical world where I wound up d-dating Komaeda…” He refuses to acknowledge the way his stomach lurches at the thought. “We could just… I dunno. Hang out at his place.” Or the motel, his traitorous brain whispers. Or the stacks at the back of the library. Pressed up against the shelves.
Stop that, he tells it. You’re not helping.
Sonia is still considering what he’s said. Weighing the intrinsic risk of Komaeda against the obvious hypocrisy of telling anyone who they can and can’t date when she's dating the fucking Blue Exorcist.
“I suppose that I cannot rightly stop you,” she says slowly. “It is not as though you are one of my subjects. Alright, Hajime-kun. I trust you. But please keep us apprised of any further developments.”
“Of course,” he promises. “But honestly, I just… really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”
Sonia’s mouth tugs up, wistful. “Haha. Yes. Wouldn’t that be nice.”