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It didn't come in one sweep or realization for him. He knew something was wrong from the start, after checking on Owari-san and Komaeda-kun and Mioda-san. It was rather like the first sneeze of a cold - you knew you had caught it, but you weren't really sick yet.
As he started back to his cottage he figured out he was evil. He didn't like that word, though; it was like something out of a children's story: the evil wizard, the good princess. He mulled over whether he was "malevolent" or "corrupt", before deciding that he shouldn't be either.
The next day, he found out who the "good princess" was to his "evil wizard" - and it wasn't the Super High School Level Princess, surprisingly. She had been just as evil as him.
He felt the shock of what felt like betrayal when he realized he and Nanami were on different sides, even though he knew he was the one who had betrayed her. They had both been fighting against the mutual killing before, and now these... memories... had threatened to tear him apart from the inside.
That day, he found the dead bodies of Mioda and Saionji in the inappropriately-named live house. And in that moment - discovering his classmates strung up like dolls on a stage, watching as the rest of them sunk into a surreal chaos - he knew that he didn't want to be on Monobear's side.
One person did, though. That much was clear. And if that person had caught the despair disease also, then it wasn't much of a mystery.
When nobody was looking, he pulled Tsumiki around a corner and pinned her to a glossy, tiled wall.
"You've caught it, haven't you?" he hissed.
She just looked up at him, her eyes bulging. With an air of uncharacteristic defiance she whispered back, "A-and so what if I have?" And he knew that she had remembered also.
It was hard enough to think it to himself in the morning, and every time he saw Nanami, but he gathered up his doubts and told her, "You can't let the despair take over!"
Her eyes were already brimming with tears, and by the way she was heaving out hot breaths she was about to burst out in loud, uncontrollable sobbing. Hinata let her go reluctantly.
"Hinata-kun! What do you think you're doing?" Both of them turned to see a furious Owari, her hair flying up to create an "uncontrollable rage" effect. Hinata was briefly struck by the urge to laugh - she was definitely back to herself.
"I - uh -" Tsumiki had begun to cry, unsurprisingly. He gave it up.
Hinata fought against her, against Monobear, in the trial, and was only a little sorry to see her go. Even though he and she were the only two that knew about "that person" they had sacrificed everything for, some time in the past, they obviously had differing opinions about her.
-
Nanami knew something was different. She always knew. That much was to be expected from her.
"Hinata-kun, you've changed."
It was hard to build real friendships on this island, what with the looming threat of murder around every corner, the sadistic bear watching their every move - Hinata wondered how the others did it. Souda in particular seemed as if his problems were based more on whether or not his princess would ever like him than the fact that half of the people they had started with had died.
This being said, Hinata had acted as something of a partner to Nanami, as they had gathered evidence together for each of the trials and brought the culprit to execution every time so far. Even from these short (and thankfully uncommon) occurrances, though, Nanami had seen him at his most focused and least guarded.
He didn't look up from the table. "Seeing all of your classmates dying has that effect on you..."
"Not all of them."
"At this rate, it will be." It was somewhat of an exaggeration. There hadn't been a murder for a week, now. Despite this, he couldn't help but remember them as how they were as part of Super High School Level Despair. They each had the potential to kill... all except the one sitting in front of him.
"You really think that, huh..."
He finally glanced up. It was funny - every time their gazes met, he expected, even hoped, to see some glint of antagonism, just to prove that he hadn't gone completely insane. Maybe that was it. He and Tsumiki had gone insane, and these memories weren't real. Monobear had just planted them in their heads. He couldn't rule that possibility out. More than ever he wished she were back, just so that they could work this out together.
Nanami's eyes were blank as ever when they looked at each other across the table. He was looking for something there that didn't even exist.
The next day, he found out that the girl he had been looking at didn't exist, either.