Chapter Text
The boat carrying the three members of the Future Foundation, Makoto Naegi, Kyoko Kirigiri, and the real Byakuya Togami, vanished against the horizon. Hajime stood there for several minutes even after he couldn’t see the boat anymore. Even Izuru, the ultimate at everything, shouldn’t be able to see that far. The sea breeze ruffled through his hair. His mercifully short hair. Brown, too. Spiky as all hell, but...that was the way he liked it. Not long and black and -
The sun flirted with the seawater. It was easy to imagine the glistening light as a blush…like how Chiaki had when…no. Hajime shook his head. Those weren’t healthy thoughts. The sky was blue. The sea was blue. And Chiaki was gone. She had sacrificed everything to save them. Not just her life - her entire existence. At the very least, he owed it to her to cherish her memory. Not wanting to forget her had been his driving motivation to escape Enoshima's trap. Now that he'd made it - that everyone had made it - he would honor that promise. Not just that. He would find a way to revive their sleeping friends too. That's what she would have wanted.
“Yo! Hajimmy!” There was only one person who would butcher his name that way.
“Hello, Akane,” he said. She was looking well. Or at least better than he’d hoped. After what Enoshima had said, Hajime had expected her to be skin and bones. In serious danger of starving to death. And while she didn’t look as healthy as she had in the simulation, she didn’t seem to be in danger of collapsing in the next ten minutes. Seeing her in the flesh still felt strange though. She looked a lot like her avatar. Most of them did.
“Hajime? Are you listening?”
“Huh?” He blinked. “Sorry, Akane. What were you saying?”
“Food!” She pointed toward the hotel. “Everyone’s ready to eat, and you’re holdin’ us up. Besides, they want to talk about what to do next or something like that. I don’t really get it.”
Hajime forced himself to smile, though he couldn’t tell whether it was for her sake or his. “I get it. I’m coming.” Before he could suggest they travel together, she ran off down the beach, yelling like, well, Akane. Or maybe it was a bit more like Nekomaru. Hajime hoped he’d wake up soon. He hoped everyone would. Naegi seemed to have faith in him, and that sentiment comforted Hajime more than he could express. Taking a deep breath, he headed to the restaurant.
The resemblance between the simulated hotel and the real one stunned Hajime. Alter Ego had told him that the virtual world was Mostly Jabberwock Island, but still, seeing the real one be this functional and well-kept made Hajime wonder if he wasn’t still in a simulation, like a dream-within-a-dream type of thing.
He made his way past the cottages and the pool. Even now, there wasn’t a single leaf in the pool. Well, there weren’t any trees around the pool either, so he guessed it wasn’t that strange. It was strange that the cottages were really there. They weren’t labelled of course, so maybe that had always been part of the attraction? Or had the Future Foundation built them when it was repurposing the island? He supposed it didn’t really matter.
Walking into the restaurant, Hajime was struck by its emptiness. Just a short time ago, everyone had been eating and laughing and having fun together. Chiaki. Mikan. Togami. Even Nagito. And now all of them were—
“Yo.” Fuyuhiko held up a hand in what could almost be called a wave. Despite the two years lost to him in the simulation, he hadn't changed much either. Unlike Hiyoko, he hadn't grown any taller. His pinstripe suit still fit him perfectly. And Hajime had already grown used to seeing eyepatch in the simulation. Even so, he tried not to stare at it too much. He had a sneaking suspicion that the Ultimate Yakuza had already dug out Junko's eye rather than leave it in. At the very least, he could have waited for Mikan to wake up. She was the Ultimate Nurse, so she was best equipped to handle that kind of thing. When she woke up, that was.
“Are you troubled, Hajime?” Sonia approached him, concern written over her graceful features. “You look worried.”
“No, I’m just….” Hajime stopped. “Yeah. I was thinking about the others.”
“That’s one of things we’re here to discuss,” Fuyuhiko said.
“We can talk while we eat, right?” Akane had started eating anyway. Did she ever get full? Well, he supposed it made sense. She was catching up on lost time, in a way. Her plate was piled with enough food to amaze even Hanamura. “So let’s eat!”
“We have to be careful, you know?” Kazuichi lingered near the exit. The 7th Island flag over his head flopped around in the breeze. “Resources are limited now. We’re dependent on the Future Foundation’s shipments, aren’t we?”
“I agree,” Hajime added. “We have to ration the supplies we do have…in case the others wake up as well.”
“Do we even know if that will happen?” Sonia moved so that a table stood between her and Kazuichi. “Naegi-kun and the others said it was impossible.”
“Almost impossible,” Fuyuhiko growled. “But it’ll happen. It’ll definitely fucking happen. B-because I-I need to see Peko again.” A single tear spilled down from his eye.
“Fuyuhiko.” Hajime didn’t know what to say.
“But, like, wouldn’t it be better if some of them didn’t wake up?” Kazuichi scratched the back of his neck. “I mean, if Komaeda-kun stayed asleep, we’d have more food, and we wouldn’t have to deal with him. It’s a win-win.”
“You’re right,” Fuyuhiko nodded. “It’d be better for all of us if that bastard never woke up.”
“That is wrong!” Sonia held out her hand commandingly. “He is still our classmate. Our friend. We should not wish such a fate upon him.”
“Miss Sonia’s right,” Kazuichi said. Hajime barely refrained from rolling his eyes. Would it be better if Nagito stayed comatose? He didn’t know. It would be easy to say, yes. Let him stay that way. But Hajime couldn’t bring himself to do that.
“So when will they wake up?” Akane sprayed bits of food everywhere. “I wanna fight coach Nekomaru!”
“Enough!” Fuyuhiko slammed his fist on the table. The plates rattled against the wood. Akame glowered, but Fuyuhiko steamrolled on before she could object. “Cut the bullshit! We need…we need to talk about, you know, the big thing. Being Ultimate Despair.” His outburst settled over everyone like snow. It slipped through Hajime’s skin and froze his blood. Every beat of his heart struggled to push through a glacier.
And then it happened. The thought crept out from the caverns in his mind, knocked against his consciousness like a tree branch on a window. It held a post-mortem stiffness, and it felt so cold that the ice from earlier could have been a summer rain.
How boring.
Number of Students: 5