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It was all quite bizarre, one moment Komaeda Nagito was stood a centimeter above Hinata Hajime, and the next he was sat on the floor, about half his height, looking around in a daze. Sure, the students of the 77th class, and Hajime, had seen some bizarre things in the twenty something years of their lives, from the fall of Hope’s Peak, the years of Despair that followed, and their experience within the New World Simulation, but seeing a eight year old Komaeda Nagito was not something they’d expected to see...well...ever.
It probably occurred when he’d been messing with the concoction he’d gained, from their brief trip to aid Makoto and stop Mitarai from practically brainwashing the world with fake hope, with his bizarre luck, it probably made sense that after all that good luck he’d had, that something bad would happen. Being de-aged to an eight year old was...maybe too far though, just how bad WAS his luck?
“What...the hell?” Fuyuhiko managed to choke up, as Komaeda managed to tug himself to his feet, clothes way too big now, he looked like a child who’d snuck into his parents wardrobes, to try on adult clothes and feel all grown up...except it just made him look even smaller than he’d already shrunk to.
“Wh-who are you? Wh-where am I-I?”
The voice that spoke was definitely that of Komaeda Nagito, except it was a few octaves higher, and rather than it’s usual slightly smart-ass tone, it sounded laced with fear and doubt. It wasn’t a tone anyone would match with Komaeda...ever.
“Does he not remember us? Crap.” Souda grumbled, and Komaeda took a few steps back, tripping from the trailing excess of clothing hanging from his arms, falling flat on his behind in the process giving out an adorable squeak.
“I guess not…” Sonia added, and Hajime ended up being the one to crouch in front of the small luckster.
“Hello, Komaeda. Can you tell me how old you are, and if you recognize any of us?”
“No- No I don’t know any of yo-ou.” Komaeda stuttered, and then tried to shuffle back away from the group of adults.
“I’m eight,” he added.
“Mikan do you reckon you know any..way to undo this?” Twogami asked, and Mikan gave a couple of stutters before shaking her head.
“I-I don’t.”
“Then maybe it’ll wear off?” Ibuki suggested and Mahiru nodded.
“Maybe!”
“Then what do we do with him till now?” Nidai asked, loudly, causing Komaeda to flinch and try and shuffle back a bit more, failing at the action.
“Who knows…I guess we look after him?” Akane added and the group murmured in agreement.
“I don’t need looking after!” Komaeda snapped, this was the first time he’d spoke with an ounce of confidence and the group looked slightly reassured, a small fraction of Komaeda’s normal personality slipping through.
“Ah, sure… but it’d be best if you stopped with one of us, right?”
“I don’t need anyone! I don’t want anyone! Leave me alone. I shouldn’t be around people.” Komaeda managed to chime, pointing a finger, tears filling his eyes.
The group looked taken aback, with no idea how to deal with the child.
“Well, who normally looks after you?” Twogami suggested, in the hopes of getting somewhere with the noncompliant child.
“Nao…” Komaeda said, giving a sniffle, tears still threatening to spill, Hajime had no idea what spurred him on, but he found himself moving to sit beside the child, ready to tug him into a hug if necessary
“Right, so you wouldn’t want to worry her, would you? By trying to look after yourself?”
“Nao is mean. I hate her. All she cares about is my money!” Komaeda wailed, and tried to climb up to his feet, tripping on the too-long jeans, Hajime catching him, and giving him a quick pat on the back, to reassure him he was okay. Komaeda seemed to enjoy this action, and shuffled closer, into Hajime’s arms.
“Aweh!”
“Are you sure? I’m sure she loves you.”
“Nuh Uh! Nao just wants money. Everyone just wants money. I don’t want it anymore. It just gives me bad luck!” Komaeda pouted.
“Has he always had this thing with luck?” Peko asked, and Fuyuhiko shrugged, beside her.
“Nao works for me, but I hate her! I hate, hate, hate her!” Komaeda exclaimed, feeling more comfortable around the group of strangers.
“Works? For a child?” Mahiru asked, and Hiyoko shrugged.
“Mhm! Nao get’s paid to look after me! But she isn’t as nice as the other se-ser- servants.” Komaeda struggled to get the word up, tongue not complying with the word.
“Jeez, he had servants?” Souda asked, looking a little envious. None of them really knew anything about Komaeda, and that was becoming startlingly evident.
“Mhm. But all the other servants left, and now there’s just Nao.” Komaeda let out a yawn, rubbing his eyes.
“I bet his parents were filthy rich or something…”
“I don’t have any.” Komaeda muttered, into Hajime’s shoulder, but everyone still heard.
Sure, none of them likely had parents anymore, in such a despair filled apocalypse, there was a lot of casualties, and while some knew of the faints of their relatives, some were missing or just unaccounted for, not that any of them wanted to face their families anymore, after what they’d done and had to atone for… still, Komaeda was speaking as though none of that had happened, because he could only remember the first eight years of his life.
“Eh?”
“A hi-Hij- Hia- A bad person tried to take over a plane once, but then a me-meteor smashed into the plane, and it killed him… so then we were safe! But then the me-met-meteor killed my parents too, because my bad luck follows good luck! So now Nao looks after me, but she just wants all the money I got.” Komaeda admitted, struggling to get a few words out that his tongue was unfamiliar with.
Everyone gave a couple of blinks, and silence….
“Eh?”
“Just how bad can your luck be?!”
Komaeda gave another yawn, head falling to rest on Hinata’s shoulder, eyes closing for a bit, before struggling to open once more. He’s obviously grow to not mind Hajime’s presence, among the strangers he faced, and a couple of the 77th class couldn’t help but coo at how cute it looked.
“My luck is always bad. I don’t mind. I deserve it.” Komaeda pouted, sleepily, his next words easily guessable to anyone on the island, “It’s because I’m trash, Nao say’s so!”
“You’ve got that wrong, Komaeda. You’re not trash.” Hajime replied and Komaeda looked up in surprise, eyes widening.
“Wh-what?”
“It’s true. None of us think you’re trash.”
“R-really?” Komaeda asked, sniffling, bringing the baggy sleeve of his coat up to his face, to wipe his nose and eyes.
“Yep. Really. Ignore what Nao says, okay?”
“But Nao says I should listen to her, because she’s giving up her time for me, and I should be grateful!” Komaeda retorted and Hajime pulled a face, much like a frown, only with a promise of murder if ever he met Komaeda’s head servant, that is, if she was still alive...hopefully she’s been killed by one of them while they were remnants of Despair.
“Ignore her. Okay? We think you’re nice, so don’t listen to her!”
“I agree, you’re quite an odd human...but you’re worthy of MY time.” Gundham supplied and Souda just gave an eyeroll, wondering if his words were actually understandable, let alone comforting.
“O-Okay… thank you…” Komaeda mumbled, closing his eyes once more, obviously exhausted.
“I think he’s tired…”
“God no wonder he turned out so weird…”
That comment was Hiyoko as far as Hajime could tell, trust her to be slightly...unaffected.
“He can stay with you, Hajime, right? He seems to have grown attached to you…”
“Yeah...no problem.” Hinata replied, if worse came to worse, he’d just borrow some of Izuru’s never ending skills, to help look after the child, even if it meant mentally communicating with the ever-bored alter personality living in his head since he’d awoken.
“I’m not sleepy! Don’t make me sleep…” Komaeda pouted, again.
“You’re practically falling asleep on me..” Hajime replied and Komaeda shook his head, giving a longer yawn as he did, obviously exhausted.
“But Nao makes me take my medicine before I sleep and I hate it. It’s horrible. I don’t want to sleep!” Komaeda shouted, and Hajime held his ear, slightly deafened.
“Me-d-d-icine?” Mikan asked, interest piqued.
“Mhm! Nao says I shouldn’t even bother with it.. But the scary people from the hospital said I need to take it. I have to go a lot for check ups too… I don’t like it at all. I have to go a lot. I went once when a car drove into me as well. They even took me after a bad person stole me from Nao. I go a lot, but it always smells and it’s too bright, but Nao hits me if I don’t do as she says, and it hurts more than going” Komaeda admitted, and the class had a hard time processing everything. Basically he had really shitty bad luck? And a demon carer?
“I don-t want to slee-p.” Komaeda muttered, eyes falling closed once more, and while he’d been protesting, he couldn’t help but fall asleep on Hajime’s shoulder.
“Blimey…”
“I think I’ll take him to my cottage, let him sleep. In the meantime could you try and have a look at what he was messing with? See if you have any ideas?” Hajime asked, the obvious leader of the island. The 77th class nodded in agreement, leaving Hajime to take the small child to his own cottage, before helping fix his clothing dilemma. Since Hajime didn’t want to start stipping an eight year old Komaeda, he simply rolled up the jeans to a decent length, folding the fabric over several times to a length that didn’t trail, removing his jacket, and then tucking him into Hajime’s bed, his small figure drowning in the size of the furniture.
Hajime wasn’t really sure whether he should leave him, but Alter Ego still lurked in the system, and the tech on the island, so in the end, Hajime left the AI to watch over the small figure, while Hajime went back to the 77th class, to try and help in reverting the problem that had happened.
“It’s so bizarre.”
“I think maybe this helped?”
“Yeah!”
“Then how would we undo it?”
“Time maybe? Didn’t it originally have a time limit, in stopping the poison when forbidden actions were triggered, so maybe this deaging also has a time limit?”
“We don’t know the time limit though, and we can’t exactly ask the creator…”
“It shouldn’t be long.. I don’t think she’d be able to make it hugely efficient considering the situation they were in…”
“True.. so maybe we just observe him?”
“I guess so.”
And in the end, the 77th class came to the conclusion that the deaging would wear off in time, hopefully a short time, as they weren’t sure how to handle the cute eight year old, who obviously had issues with his self worth, compared to the man who had manipulated one of them into murdering another of their classmates, and trying to kill everyone more than once... It was very absurd.
“Right. Then we’ll leave things as they are. If it takes longer than a week for him to revert we can try and produce a counter.”
The class went their opposite ways after that, most retiring for the day to their rooms, exhausted by the crazy events of the day. Hajime did the same, returning to him room, to find the small figure of Komaeda, snuggled up still asleep. Since it was a fairly large bed, and Komaeda was taking up a pretty tiny amount of space, Hajim found no issue of just sharing with the small child for the night and slipped in beside the small figure.
.
.
.
It was only a few hours later that Hajime was awoke to the sound of distress, a muffled scream and the oddest sensation that someone was shaking the bed. When he managed to force his eyes open, he was met with an unexpected sight,
Somehow, over the space of a few hours of sleep, Komaeda was now back to his normal size, and age, sat hunched up in the bed, knees up near his face, and head down in his arms which rested on said knees. Hajime had never quite seen the other male look so vulnerable, he was always one to be more snarky.
“Komaeda?” Hajime tried asking, the lighter haired male showed no signs of hearing him, instead sobbing silently into his arms, shoulders shaking, and breath unsteady. Hajime moved on impulse alone, wrapping his arms around the distressed male, to try and calm him. Komaeda stiffened on contact, in Hajime’s arms, before lifting up his face, tears streaking the pale skin, eyes wide in surprise.
“H-Hinata?” Komaeda managed to cough up, voice shaky as he did.
“Breath.” Hajime commanded, and Komaeda shook his head.
“Try. Please.”
“I- everything is my fault. Everything. I don’t even deserv-”
“You’ve got that wrong...whatever you’re going to say about yourself, please...stop.”
Komaeda froze, eyes blown even widder, an uneven intake of breath causing him to shudder slightly.
“I- but I-”
“No. Okay? We’ve all done horrible things..sure.. But you, you probably remained the most hopeful of us all, and you’re the reason everything came to an end in that thing. ” Hajime explained, regarding the simulation.
“And on top of that, you never fail to surprise me, so don’t talk down about yourself...please?”
“But- H-Hajime..”
“Nagito. Please.”
Komaeda finally gave a nod, caught off guard by his name, and instead just latched into Hajime, arms around his neck, breaking out into sobs in the slight shorter male's shoulder.
“I- It’s still my fault everyone died. Anyone who gets too close... “ Komaeda sobbed, and Hajime ended up placing a hand on Komaeda’s back, occasionally rubbing in a circle, reassuringly, doing his best to comfort the sudden broken state of Komaeda.
“I- I tried not to think about it for years- and I’d almost forgotten- and then- then-”
Obviously today’s experience had brought up memories he’d long since buried.
“It’s okay, Nagito. We’re here for you now, and I personally don’t plan on dying anytime soon. Okay?” Hajime reassured and Komaeda gave a weak nod, giving Hajime such a look of vulnerability, that Hajime found himself crying alongside the light haired male. How long had it been since he’d cried? For Nanami? All those years ago? They’d all been carrying such a weight on their shoulders, and while some obviously had been able to carry such a thing, Komaeda had been hiding his pain for so long, without any comfort, and Hajime was sure he could feel about five years of built up anguish release itself from his soul, as he openly sobbed alongside Komaeda, wrapped in each other's arms.
“We'll be okay… I’m sure.” Hajime choked up, and Komaeda gave a weak smile.
“I think so too.” Komaeda replied, and Hajime moved a hand to wipe away a tear from Komaeda’s cheek, Komaeda stiffening under the soft touch, a caring action against him… it’d had been way, way too long, since someone had been so kind to him, not hit him, or make snide comments towards him, tried to cause him pain or harm or death… and Hajime understood everything.
“Th-thank you Hajime.” Komaeda murmured, as Hajime finally moved to brush his own lips against Komaeda’s, lightly, and hesitantly, but Komaeda welcomed it.
‘Thank you for loving me, even after everything.’