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He lies awake sometimes, just to think. Those nightmares seem to never end.
Staring at the ceiling, or what he can make of it in the shroud of nightly dark, Hinata simply allows himself time to reflect. He lets his thoughts run wild and free, hands threading idly through his hair - on occasion, Komaeda's, if he's feeling affectionate and his boyfriend isn't complaining - and thinks about everything.
He thinks about how he likes to make his tea, and how he likes his juice in the mornings, and how he reads the paper very rarely and hears of global news in the most bizarre ways - he remembers the one time Komaeda messed up his relay of a story so badly that he ended up telling Hinata than someone set the entirety of the Pacific Ocean on fire. It was adorable, because he watched him get so flustered, knowingly spewing nonsense but not being able to stop himself. It was a nice memory. Nice memories help, really help a whole lot, when he has to deal with the nightmares. Komaeda understands.
Hinata likes his consistency, and spends more than a few nights staring and thinking. The dreams are too tiring to deal with sometimes, and so he simply lies down and thinks.
He thinks about how the world never stops; how no matter what happens, he is only a small insignificant part of something grand and wonderful, and wishes desperately that maybe he would stand out. Be important. Be acknowledged. But that's a train of thought that lingers, emerging only from his tunnel of concerns when he least expects it - and when he's not too preoccupied with, as formerly stated, the nightmares.
"Hinata-kun," Komaeda mumbles sleepily from beside him, always seeming to know when Hinata forgot to sleep. Couldn't sleep. He fidgets too much. The albino pats his cheek. "Close your eyes."
"Can't." Is his clipped response, quirking his mouth into the slightest smile to reassure the other, and maybe to reassure himself. "Go to sleep, Komaeda. I'll be okay."
The albino doesn't reply, but his eyes slip shut, even as he tries to blink them into alertness. He's exhausted. Hinata is too. Regardless, he stays awake and thinks.
He thinks about the nightmares, more often than not, because every single person he knows strikes an alarming resemblance to the people in the dreams. Down to their very names and specialties and titles, the people in his nightmares are driven by an array of motivations and horrid acts of desperation, and, ultimately, forced into a killing game against their will. They, the ones that are supposed to be friends, kill each other one by one.
He too, is forced to play the game.
God, there is so much blood.
Hinata thinks that one day he might get used to the night terrors - that there's nothing wrong with him, even if he dreams of death and destruction - but he can't deny that he's scared; so scared that it's hard to ever get to sleep. That's why he lies awake sometimes; not for minutes, but for long, crawling hours, thinking and thinking and thinking.
The dreams... worry Komaeda more than they worry him, however, and Hinata thinks that maybe that's the worst part.
A particular disruptive night was one that was only very recent; when Hinata had exhausted himself thinking and had successfully plunged into sleep for once - straight into one of the most horrific results of the killing game yet. That's the thing he hated the most about the nightmares; that they continued. Once someone died in his dreams, they wouldn't come back. It was hard to speak to the real, live people after watching them die, naturally.
He had woken up in a fit of tears, one of the scarcer reactions that ever came over him, but for a rightful cause.
"Shh," Komaeda had gotten up, respectfully keeping his distance, but held a hand to the brunet's shoulder, and the other with a thumb to wipe away the tears. "It's okay, Hinata. It was just a dream."
"You," he choked, tugging the concerned boyfriend to his chest and holding onto him for dear life. He couldn't think like Hinata at this point - he felt like another, crueler person who dreamed of others' despair. "You died, Komaeda, you died so brutally. It was terrible."
Komaeda shook his head, murmuring softly into his ear, "I'm here, it's okay now. Don't worry, I'm right here."
"I'm so messed up - "
"Hinata, calm down. You haven't done anything, it's okay."
"Why won't they ever stop?"
"There's no way someone like me could tell you - "
"I'm just some kind of monster, aren't I? Dreaming of our friends dying, and watching them get executed."
"Hinata - "
"I just want to get some fucking sleep for once in my goddamned life!"
"Hinata, you need to breathe," Komaeda's voice raised, ever so slightly, worry overtaking his usually defiantly calm features.
The brunet bristled, suddenly overwhelmed. "Shut up! Just shut up! Leave me alone!"
Silence.
"I... If you want me to leave, Hinata, you're going to have to let go of me first."
His tears eased, steadily, but he was distraught and he clung tight to Komaeda; refusing to let go. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and skinny, angular arms held him close; awkward, but somehow comforting.
"It's okay," His boyfriend nuzzled into the crook of his neck, so close that white, wet lashes fluttered across a tan collarbone, gentle and shaky. He didn't want to think that those haunted grey eyes were crying because of his own tears, so Hinata simply held tighter, breathing in as Komaeda affirmed: "Everything is going to be okay."
It was not okay. The sight still lingers; knives and cuts and fire and spears and blood and the fact that Komaeda was so unstable in his dreams - he never gets that bad, even when he forgets to take his medication - and it scares Hinata, because he thinks that the nightmares are trying to tell him something. Either that, or he's out of his mind.
He thinks he might be.
Maybe the universe is one massive joke, and he's screwed up in the head metaphorically, and his boyfriend is screwed up in the head literally - and for both of them, meds suck. He wants to apologise to their friend and shared nurse, Tsumiki, for offending the medication she prescribed, but it's shit and everything is going to shit so it's not helping. It never helped.
A few weeks later, Hinata lies awake again, staring up at the same old ceiling with a cold space in the bedsheets beside him. His nightmares finished, apparently. The storyline ended.
It's not the first time. He knows what will happen next - it will simply start all over again.
Where's Komaeda?
Hospital.
He can't believe he forgot.
Komaeda's been in hospital for a week now.
He's scared. God, Hinata is scared. He can't go to sleep. He can't stay awake. He's scared to be at home without his boyfriend because he thinks too much. He scared to go to a friend's house because he doesn't want to break down in front of any of them; telling them that he dreamed of their savage deaths. He's scared to go to the hospital, full stop. He can't stand hospitals.
He curls himself into a ball, and stares aimlessly ahead.
He can't stand it. Against his will, he calls Souda. The mechanic, at the very least, would not remind him of piercing spears and pools of blood.
"Hinata? The hell, man? It's 3 in the AM, my friend, so this better be good."
But then again, it's Souda. He would never understand. "... no, it's nothing. Sorry for calling you up so late."
There's an audible sigh on the other end. "Hinata, come on. I'm not that stupid. Something's wrong, right? Tell me - is it the BF? If he's done shit to ya, I'm comin' over to put 'im in his place, y'hear?"
"Stop acting tough, I'm pretty sure the last time you saw Komaeda, he had you running away screaming. And no, it's not him." He pauses, "... it's me."
"Wh - shut up! That never happened! And whaddaya mean it's you? What did you do?"
"Nothing... nothing. I'm just... there's something wrong with me."
Souda exhales loudly, but there is a hint of melancholy in his voice when he speaks. Hinata blames it on the time of night, or, well, the time of day. Souda shouldn’t be insightful; he never is. "There's somethin' wrong with all of us. You'll get by, Hinata. You always do. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to the sleep you rudely interrupted..."
"Bye," the brunet says half-heartedly, turning the words in his brain.
'There's something wrong with all of us.'
That's true, Hinata thinks. It's not okay, but it's true.
He visits Komaeda the next day, as early as possible, to relay such information. His boyfriend, with a nervous smile, agrees.
"Hinata-kun," Komaeda begins, the smooth lilt in his tone being an absolute comfort. "The world is truly a difficult place. That is why you need to believe in yourself - and hope for the future."
"Do you believe in me?" He asks bluntly, needing the assurance to calm his unsettled heart.
“I believe in … your hope.”
“That’s practically the same thing, right?”
“Of course.” Komaeda replies, blinking as if to say, ‘close enough’.
“I’ll… get through this, won’t I?”
His smile is almost sad, when he says, “You always do.”
And he wonders if he missed the ‘but I won’t’ tacked to the end of that sentence, because Komaeda dies the next day.