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000:00:00:00:05:46:22
Five minutes.
You’re going to meet your soulmate in five minutes.
“Hey, are you nervous?” Hajime good-naturedly knocks your shoulder with his own from his spot next to you. The seat on your other side is empty and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.
“I am so far past nervous.” you reply through gritted teeth. You wish you’d checked the seating plan more thoroughly on your way in, but your pleasant surprise upon realising that you’d be sitting with a friend had been enough to distract you from the timer ticking away on your wrist for a few moments. By the time you’d thought to check you had already taken your seat, and you don’t particularly want to get up again and draw attention to yourself.
Or rather, you want to put it off for as long as possible before your timer sounds and every eye in the class is either locked on you or the person about to walk through that door.
“Hello class!”
You freeze. The young woman striding through the door is short, smiley, wearing a dress absolutely festooned in frills and is most definitely the teacher. Your eyes snap back towards your wrist.
000:00:00:00:04:25:34
You sigh in relief, only to frown when Hajime snorts under his breath.
“Destiny’s running late.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, tugging your sleeve down. “According to fate, they’re doing just fine.” You’re way too anxious to be dealing with jokes right now. Hajime, for all his lack of social grace, seems to sense this and wisely apologises.
“Hey, um… it’s gonna be fine, okay?” He shifts uncomfortably. “I mean, they’re your soulmate, right? They’re gonna like you no matter what. That’s…” You catch his eyes glancing toward his own arm, covered up by a privacy band. You’ve never even seen his timer, you realise. “That’s what everyone says.”
You suck in a deep breath. “Yeah… yeah, I know. Thanks, Hajime.” You pause. “Yours will too.”
He doesn’t answer.
At the front of the lecture hall, your teacher is pulling files out of her bag. She straightens up. “Hello!” she repeats, sounding more like a young child than a school teacher, “My name is Usami Monomi! Welcome to Hope’s Peak Academy! I’m sure we’re all going to get along amazingly!”
She launches into a start of the year speech about her subject and you try to listen – you really do – because it’s probably important, but your gaze inevitably drifts back to your wrist.
000:00:00:00:02:59:13
You’re going to be sick.
You should have braced yourself, honestly. Prepared what you were going to say in advance, bought something smart to wear, found some sort of gift to give them, anything! But with the stress of the entrance exams and the following relief and celebration upon finding out you’d been accepted into the most prestigious school in the country, your timer had been shoved to the back of your mind right up until the moment it flashed at the 24 hour mark in the shower yesterday.
000:00:00:00:01:28:09
They’re going to come through that door in one minute and thirty seconds. They’re going to come in and see you and your timers are going to go off and everyone is going to see and god what if they’re disappointed and-
Your stomach drops very suddenly.
…Their timer is going to go off, right?
Unrequited timers are rare, but they do happen. You can see it now, the door opens and only one chorus of beeps will fill the silence. All heads will turn towards the third row from the back to find you trying to sink into the Earth itself. The poor sap with a timer still ticking will meet your eyes and guilt and pity will spread across their face like wildfire. Miss Monomi will realise what has happened and you think she’d probably let you excuse yourself; she seems like that kind of person. Hajime will probably follow you, skipping out on his first day of his life-long dream to try and cheer you up, because he’s a good friend like that, but you likely won’t be consolable because you’re destined to be alone and he still has someone out there.
Hajime nudges you again, not very gently, this time with his wrist. Calm down.
30 seconds.
Your heart slams itself against your ribcage. You’re not sure when you started holding your breath.
10 seconds.
9…
8…
7…
BAM.
The door slams open with such force that you jolt sideways and straight out of your chair.
“Ah! I’m so sorry I’m late!”
You smack your head against the desk in your haste to sit up but you hardly care about that or Hajime’s worried look because there are two timers going off and one of them is attached to the young man frozen at the front of the class.
000:00:00:00:00:00:00
Nobody speaks.
He’s beautiful. Tall and slender and pretty and wow. His long fingers shake as they clutch a shoulder bag knocking against his knees. Pale and unruly hair falls between two wide green eyes, fixed on you with something that you can only describe as… awe.
Nobody’s ever looked at you like that before.
And in that moment, you feel like everything just clicked into place. Like a machine that was working perfectly fine before, enough to keep going its whole life, maybe, but flows so much more smoothly with that new gear.
He’s your soulmate. He’s perfect.
He looks like he’s been through hell, honestly.
“Um… excuse me, Nagito Komaeda? Are you quite alright?”
Miss Monomi’s voice reminds you that every eye in the class is fixed upon you. Your cheeks burn and Nagito – Nagito, your soulmate – snaps to attention.
“Oh! I’m so sorry for being late, sensei! I was hit by a car.” he says apologetically, gesturing to his various scrapes. Monomi squeaks and you hope it was loud enough to cover the sound of you choking on your own spit (evidently not, if the look Hajime’s giving you is any indication).
“A-A car?!”
“It’s quite alright!” he continues hurriedly. “I was rather lucky, actually. The driver was turning anyway, so it was really more of a bump. I’m perfectly fine, really.”
You really doubt this, but then to your utter surprise, Hajime stands up. “Don’t be dumb. You should at least go and see the nurse.”
“I’m sure the nurse has better things to do than waste her time with-“
Hajime either would not or could not hear this, as the next second you find yourself nearly hauled out of your seat and sent stumbling down the aisle towards your supposed destiny. “______ will take you.”
Monomi looks like she’s just been told Christmas has come early. “Yes, yes, what lovely idea! Don’t worry, I’ll email the both of you notes from today’s session – off you go!”
She practically kicks the two of you out, mumbling about true love, but not before someone wolf-whistles and a voice that sounds suspiciously like Ibuki yells “GO GET ‘EM!”
The door shuts, and you’re left standing in the hallway with the guy you’re allegedly fated to be with.
He’s staring at you.
“Um…”
He blinks. “Ah, I’m sorry. I was just… so sure that this day would be ruined, somehow.”
What? Oh god. He is disappointed, isn’t he?
As if reading your thoughts, he quickly hurries to correct himself. “I mean, I just thought I would ruin it! I have a tendency to do things like that; I’m incredibly unlucky. Or I thought that something awful might happen to you just a few seconds before my timer ran out, or you would take one look at my face and not want anything to do with me.”
How can someone say such negative things with such a thoughtful smile…?
“To be honest, I was rather surprised that I was only hit by a truck… that doesn’t seem like nearly enough bad luck to balance out my fortune of being blessed with such an attractive soulmate…” He trails off, and you get the feeling he isn’t really talking to you at all at this point. You heard the compliment though, and a smile tugs at your mouth, despite the – rather worrying – statements surrounding it.
You stick out a hand, and he blinks at it. “______ ______. I’m glad to finally meet you.”
You have a feeling that the road isn’t exactly going to be smooth sailing.
“Nagito Komaeda. Really, the pleasure is mine!”
You have a feeling that it’s going to be worth it.
OoO
Inside the class, Hajime shoots a quick text to your phone informing you that he’ll drop your bags off by your dorm after lunch. After a moment, he also adds that he’s happy for you. Because he is.
He keeps telling himself this even as he twangs the privacy band hiding a timer that’s been sitting at zero from the moment he laid eyes on you.