A Danganronpa fic.
First published July 2022.
Komaeda x Hinata, 3708 words.
The time comes that they have to give up on Koizumi. Despite the life support systems, the intravenous nutrition, the muscle-conditioning programs Hinata has frantically built – despite these things, Koizumi’s body gives up. There’s no will to endure any more, because Koizumi’s will is gone.
There’s no crematorium on the islands, and so they bury her. Kuzuryu digs the grave – insists on doing it alone – and when the burial is done, he is the one who lingers there.
‘Go on ahead,’ he tells them. ‘I got some stuff to settle.’
Hinata and the others leave him to it. Komaeda falls in beside Hinata – to dig at him, Hinata thinks. But Hinata doesn’t have the energy to slap him down, after the night he’s spent trying to keep Koizumi going.
‘I guess your talents just weren’t up to snuff, huh, Hinata-kun?’
Hinata would feel irritated if he didn’t feel so weary. ‘We always knew it was a long shot.’
Sonia, who is walking ahead of them, looks back.
‘It is unfortunate that we couldn’t help Koizumi-san,’ Sonia says. ‘But we mustn’t let that stop us trying to help the others.’
She’s right. She’s right, but it doesn’t make Hinata feel any better.
‘That’s like Sonia-san, isn’t it?’ Komaeda says. ‘That’s true hope. What a shame she only has you to rely on. If only you hadn’t given up being Kamukura –’
‘Kamukura wouldn’t have tried helping anyone,’ Hinata says. He has kept some of Kamukura’s skills, yes, but he no longer possesses his single-mindedness, that ability to focus on absorbing skills to the exclusion of all else.
‘That’s right, Hinata-san,’ Sonia says. She stops to allow him to catch up with her. ‘Are you feeling like you might regret your decisions? You mustn’t think that way.’
Hinata doesn’t look at Komaeda, who was the one to bring it up in the first place.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to stop trying.’
‘Good,’ Sonia says. She looks past him, back toward where they have left Kuzuryu at the graveside. ‘It must be hard for Kuzuryu-san.’
Because he feels culpable for Koizumi’s death. Because he’s relieved it isn’t Pekoyama beneath the ground. Hinata doesn’t need to be a genius to understand those things.
Sonia starts walking again, and this time Komaeda keeps his silence.
Komaeda seems to avoid the others. At least, he keeps his mouth shut when they are around. When Hinata is alone, though, Komaeda will hunt him down, or he’ll linger nearby. Waiting for the opportunity to strike.
‘Don’t you have other things to do?’ Hinata says one day, when Komaeda strolls in while he’s working on the program he hopes will wake the others.
‘No-one needs my help,’ Komaeda says, and he pulls up a seat to inspect Hinata’s code over his shoulder.
‘I don’t need your help either.’
‘Of course not,’ Komaeda says. ‘The boy with all the talents. If only you could use them.’
‘You could stop distracting me.’
‘Are you telling me to go away?’ Komaeda says. ‘Would you rather I were beneath the ground, like poor Koizumi?’
‘Koizumi didn’t deserve what happened.’
‘Ah, of course. Whereas I did this to myself.’ Komaeda holds up his hand – not Enoshima’s hand, but his hand. There’s no scar, but Hinata still imagines the knife there. ‘But Hinata-kun, we all deserve to be dead. You must know that.’
Hinata takes his hands off the keyboard. He turns to look Komaeda in the eye. ‘Naegi didn’t believe that.’
‘And so you decided to take on his hope.’
‘This isn’t his hope,’ Hinata says. ‘It’s mine.’ He looks away. ‘I want to see everyone again.’
‘Even me?’
Hinata thinks of how they found Komaeda, in the game – the cruelty with which Komaeda had treated himself. ‘It’s better than the alternative,’ he says.
Nidai is the next one they bury. It seems particularly unfair – Hinata would have expected him to endure the longest. But maybe Nidai, being content with his own sacrifice, had less reason to hold on.
Hinata has to think like that, because he cannot believe that all their friends can just be gone. And Komaeda came back, didn’t he? Why should Komaeda, who engineered his own death, come back when Koizumi and Nidai cannot?
It isn’t fair.
This time, Owari insists it’s her turn to dig the grave. She’s still hardly recovered any weight since they woke, and Hinata is reluctant to leave the job to her, but whatever wasting her body has been through, she is still quick to offer a fight to anyone who suggests she cannot do something. And so they allow it. Owari disappears, after their makeshift funeral, and she doesn’t come back to eat either, not at dinnertime, nor for breakfast the next day.
‘You haven’t seen Owari?’ Hinata asks Sonia in the morning.
‘I have not. It seems she never returned to her room last night.’ Sonia seems troubled by the idea.
‘She’ll be alright,’ Souda says, joining them at the table. ‘Probably just wants to be alone. I get it.’
‘But if she doesn’t tell us anything,’ Sonia says, ‘we would not know if something happened to her.’
‘She’s tough, though.’
‘I’m sure she’ll come back when she’s ready,’ Hinata says to Sonia.
‘I hope you’re right.’
It was easy, when they woke up, fresh with Nanami’s gift of their game-life memories, to have hope. To think there was something they could do to bring their friends back. Now, that feeling is harder to hold on to. It’s the thing they have decided to do, but the hope of success feels like it is slipping away.
One day, waiting for his code to compile, Hinata asks Komaeda, ‘How come you woke up, and Nidai and Koizumi didn’t?’ He rests his head on his arms and watches Komaeda across the room. Komaeda is sitting on the floor, back against the wall.
‘What do you think?’ Komaeda asks.
Komaeda did it out of spite, Hinata thinks, but he doesn’t say that out loud.
‘Maybe it’s because you knew we weren’t in the real world,’ he says. He considers that. ‘I wonder if Tsumiki was the same. She clearly remembered something.’
‘Tsumiki and I are hardly the same,’ Komaeda says, but he stops his protest when Hinata sits suddenly upright.
‘It’s not as if she shows any more brain activity than anyone else,’ Hinata says. ‘But if I get this program working –’
‘Would you try to bring her back first?’ Komaeda asks. ‘That would be an interesting choice.’
‘I just ... I want to put effort where it will count.’
It feels like the admission of a secret. But Komaeda has no faith in his ability to do any of this, so maybe it doesn’t hurt for Hinata to express his fears to him. He cannot dishearten Komaeda any further than he already has been.
‘I didn’t know it would feel like this,’ Hinata admits. ‘Losing them again.’
‘Did you think you would have forever? Poor Hinata-kun.’
‘Not forever, just ...’ Longer than they’d got. Longer than the time they’d had together. In the game world. Before Enoshima got to them. Whichever.
Komaeda gets to his feet. He walks over to Hinata, and he places a hand on each of his shoulders. Komaeda’s hand and Enoshima’s hand. The pressure shouldn’t be comforting but it is.
‘I thought we’d have longer,’ Hinata says, and doesn’t move away.
Hinata keeps working. Owari reappears, and when they ask where she’s been, she just says, ‘I needed to clear my head.’
‘For three nights?’ Kuzuryu says.
Owari nods. ‘There was a lot to think about.’
‘It’s alright, Owari-san, you don’t need to explain yourself. We are just glad to have you back with us.’ Sonia smiles at her, that perfect smile that reveals nothing of the worries Sonia has had till now.
‘Yeah.’ Owari turns to Hinata. ‘I dunno about any of that Neo-Neo World Program stuff. But I wanted to say that you should keep going. That’s what Coach Nidai woulda said.’ She gives another nod, like she’s satisfied with her miniature pep talk.
Hinata hadn’t realised there was any doubt that he would keep going. Whatever Komaeda says to him, he hadn’t realised that the others held their goals in any doubt.
‘Of course we’ll keep going,’ Sonia says. ‘Hinata-san, if there’s anything we can do ...’
‘I’ll tell you,’ Hinata says.
Once, in the game world, he and Komaeda had discussed what hope was. It was when they’d been trapped in the Fun House, and things had been as hopeless as they’d ever seemed. Maybe that was why Hinata had smoken to Komaeda then, after avoiding him since the first trial. Maybe it’s why he lets Komaeda speak to him now.
‘Do you still think hope is an absolute good?’ Hinata asks. They’re on an evening walk along the beach, with the stars and the moon shining down on them. The night sky was never so bright in the world they used to live in, but here, alone on the island, it is resplendent.
‘Are you having your doubts, Hinata-kun? And Owari-san came back just to tell you to keep going.’
‘Is it really good to keep going? I feel like I’m leading everyone on.’
‘I wonder.’
Hinata walks further down the shore, to stand just barely out of wave’s reach. ‘I try to act like I know what I’m doing. It’s hard, though.’
‘Hinata-kun.’
Komaeda hasn’t followed him down. When Hinata looks back over his shoulder, Komaeda is only a shadow, except for his hair in the moonlight.
‘You lose if you don’t try too,’ Komaeda says, and he laughs abruptly. ‘See, now I’m giving you a pep talk too. How presumptuous.’
‘I’m the one that asked.’
Komaeda doesn’t say anything more right away. The waves come closer to Hinata’s feet.
‘Say, Hinata-kun.’ Komaeda takes a step closer. ‘Why did you try to save someone like me?’
Hinata swallows. ‘That’s because ... I still can’t kill anyone.’ Except he has. ‘I don’t want to kill anyone any more. Not even you.’
Even standing two metres away, Komaeda feels so distant to him.
‘Even for a useless human being like me, you had hope?’
‘It’s not about hope,’ Hinata says. ‘I just don’t want to see anyone die any more.’
‘Is that right?’
Hinata takes a step back from the shore. He turns to face Komaeda.
‘Maybe it is presumptuous,’ Komaeda says, ‘but I wish things had turned out that way.’
‘What?’
Komaeda turns his shoulder to him, looks up at the sky. ‘You’ll realise sooner or later.’
‘Realise what?’
‘Sorry, Hinata-kun, of course someone like me would say too much. You should go back and get some sleep. Or you won’t be able to try hard tomorrow too.’
‘I know that,’ Hinata says, and when Komaeda begins to walk away, Hinata wants to chase him. But the sand gives beneath his feet, and he stumbles. And Komaeda doesn’t wait for him.
The problem with trying to write a program specifically to wake up Tsumiki is that Hinata isn’t sure he understands Tsumiki. Not on the island, where she cringed from every little thing, and not when she was Despair either. What sort of a world would he have to write, to produce the person that Tsumiki was? A cruel one, he thinks. Even before Enoshima, Tsumiki was a person who had seen too much cruelty.
He tries to update the program, but it’s hard to focus. He keeps thinking of when he introduced himself to Tsumiki in the game world. The way she kept apologising to him.
Komaeda clicks his fingers beside Hinata’s head, and Hinata jumps.
‘You really aren’t focused today, are you?’ Komaeda says. It somehow doesn’t seem as critical as it usually would.
‘I was thinking,’ Hinata says, ‘about whether what Enoshima did would have worked on anyone. Whether it was something about us that made us vulnerable.’
Komaeda sighs, and he leans back against Hinata’s desk. ‘You met those people,’ he says. ‘Clearly it didn’t work on just anyone.’
‘You mean Naegi and the others?’
Komaeda shifts to face Hinata better. ‘It didn’t work on you either this time, did it? Tell me something, Hinata-kun. Why do you think you followed her the first time?’
Hinata looks at his screen, the lines of code he’s been staring at for the last thirty minutes. It’s a question he hasn’t liked to think of.
‘She was ... unpredictable,’ he says. Surprises himself by laughing. ‘I wanted to see what it was she’d do next.’
Komaeda is listening very intently.
‘Is that what you wanted when you put her into the game world?’
‘Maybe,’ Hinata says. He hesitates. ‘I think I was lonely.’
‘She was real,’ Komeada says, ‘and the rest of us were beneath notice. Is that right?’
Komaeda is thinking of the conversation they had on the boat. He’s talking about himself, and Hinata can’t correct him.
‘Do you wish you’d paid more attention now, Hinata-kun?’
When they were Despair, Tsumiki could be summed up so easily. She liked to hurt people, and to have them reliant on her. She would have done anything that Enoshima asked, and had. She was Enoshima’s creature, and yet ...
Probably Tsumiki had never been summed up so easily. The details hadn’t mattered to Kamukura, only the patterns.
The details matter now. Whether Tsumiki learned from treating her own injuries, or from helping others. Whether she had, on her own, generated excuses for it, or whether that was something Enoshima had taught her.
When she apologised for something, what was the response she wanted? Was there any response Hinata could have given that would have been the right one?
Is he trying to wake Tsumiki up, or to recreate her?
Komaeda is always there when Hinata looks for him. He’s there when Hinata dreads the things he might say. Whether they are true things, or only things Hinata is afraid are true.
And yet sometimes, he is a comfort to Hinata.
Hinata doesn’t understand that either.
So maybe none of them are so easily summed up.
His new approach to the Neo-Neo World Program takes time. He’s running an external test when Souda interrupts him.
Souda seems more subdued than usual, hovering in the doorway.
‘I thought you should know,’ he says, ‘Mioda flatlined earlier. I managed to bring her back, but, uh ... well, it’s probably going to happen again.’
‘Oh.’ Hinata doesn’t know what to say. The program, all the work he’s done – it all becomes meaningless because there’s no time.
‘You, uh ... think that program’s ever going to be ready?’
‘It’s always going to be too late, right, Hinata-kun?’ Komaeda says.
‘Shut up,’ Hinata says. ‘I’m trying.’
‘Hey, I was just asking,’ Souda says.
‘Not you,’ Hinata says.
Souda looks at him with a dubious expression.
‘Maybe you’ve been working too hard,’ Souda says. ‘Who did you think you were telling to shut up?’
‘Komaeda,’ Hinata says, ‘of course.’ He looks over toward the window where Komaeda stands.
Somehow, Komaeda looks like he feels sorry for him.
‘Right,’ Souda says, drawing out the syllable. ‘Of course. You, uh ...’ Souda looks genuinely thrown. Hinata has a feeling like doors slamming. ‘You been sleeping alright, Hinata?’
‘What?’
‘Cos, uh ...’
‘He’s saying you’re going crazy,’ Komaeda says.
‘What?’ Hinata says again, more forcefully, and Souda backs up.
‘Poor Hinata-kun. I guess the task was too much for you after all –’
Hinata ignores him. ‘What are you saying, Souda?’
‘Komaeda died,’ Souda says. ‘Komaeda was the first one who died. What did you think happened?’
Hinata stares at him. Even without looking directly at Komaeda, he knows he’s still there at the edge of his vision.
‘You haven’t been talking to Komaeda this whole time?’
He’s right there, Hinata wants to say, but from the way Souda is already looking at him, he knows that’s the wrong answer. Souda isn’t joking.
‘You have. You think he woke up. Shit.’
Komaeda pushes off from the window. He walks over to Souda, to stand so close that he can breathe in his ear. Souda doesn’t react at all.
‘This is no good,’ Souda mutters, not talking to Hinata or Komaeda. ‘What are the others gonna say?’
‘I’m not crazy,’ Hinata says. Souda and Komaeda both look skeptical. ‘Maybe ...’ Hinata wants to yell at Komaeda, but that won’t help his case. ‘... I’m being haunted?’
That might be an excuse Sonia would go for. Even Souda might find it preferable to the idea Hinata has lost it. Hinata finds it preferable. He finds it preferable to the idea that Komaeda is gone and Hinata has failed at the task he’s set himself from the very beginning.
‘Haunted,’ Souda says.
‘You don’t need to say anything to the others,’ Hinata says. From the look in Komaeda’s eyes now, Komaeda definitely pities him. Or Hinata feels himself piteous, if this really is just his brain making things up.
‘You want me not to tell them?’
‘We’ve all got enough to worry about,’ Hinata says. He has enough to worry about, without going crazy as well.
‘You’re probably right. I should just pretend we never talked about this. Yeah.’ Souda gives a decisive nod.
But Hinata knows that even if Souda pretends, he will not forget.
Hinata goes to check on Mioda, but as ever, there’s nothing about her vitals to indicate anything untoward. If she does go, it will come out of nowhere. Just like with Koizumi. With Nidai.
With Komaeda.
The pod Komaeda was in is empty, but of course it is. If Hinata tries to think about when Komaeda woke up, his brain shies away from it. When he tries to think about finding Komaeda dead, his brain shies away from that too.
‘Maybe it’s because you threw away your talent,’ Komaeda says. ‘They put all this effort into improving your brain and now it has nothing to do but make up ghosts.’
Hinata doesn’t say anything. He leaves the room where Mioda and the others sleep, and he heads outside. He’s not thinking of it consciously, but he’s heading to their makeshift cemetery. He’s going to count the grave markers.
If he thinks about it, he’ll notice that he doesn’t hear Komaeda’s footsteps.
If he thinks about it, maybe what Souda says will be true, and Komaeda will disappear. Is Hinata’s spirit really clinging onto him so tightly? If he had to have kept seeing someone, couldn’t it have been Nanami? Or did he already exhaust that well when Nanami came to him that time?
Nanami was virtual, and so she saved him in the virtual world.
Komaeda was real, and so he is damning Hinata here.
Perhaps it makes sense. The malice of his death couldn’t be appeased just by the act of waking in the real world. It would have to endure. Except, Hinata thinks, that what he has been feeling from Komaeda isn’t malice.
There are three grave markers.
Three graves, none of them old enough to have the grass growing over them.
Hinata drops to his knees. And he feels it, when Komaeda puts his hand on his shoulder. He feels it.
‘Why’d you have to die?’ Hinata says.
‘After everything that happened,’ Komaeda says, ‘what makes you think I’d give you the satisfaction of waking up?’
‘Why’d you come back then?’
Komaeda doesn’t answer right away. As if he has to think about it. Which he shouldn’t, because he is a figment of Hinata’s imagination.
‘Maybe I wanted to be wrong,’ Komaeda says.
Hinata turns his head, enough to see Komaeda’s hand where it rests. Not enough to see his face.
‘If you could turn it all around,’ Komaeda says, ‘I wanted to see that.’
He sounds wistful. Neither of them need to point out that Hinata has failed.
Hinata puts his hand over Komaeda’s. And he remains there like that, with Komaeda behind him. Holding on until he can’t feel Komaeda’s hand at all any more.
When he gets back home, it’s early evening. Kuzuryu is preparing dinner, while Souda sits around and commentates at him. Souda startles guiltily when he sees Hinata, but Kuzuryu says ‘hey’ casually, and if Souda has said anything to him about Hinata’s slip, it doesn’t show.
‘Sonia’s sitting with Mioda,’ Kuzuryu says. ‘She hasn’t tried to die on us again so far.’
‘That’s a relief.’
Kuzuryu glances up from his chopping. ‘When are you actually gonna try that new program of yours? Mioda won’t wait forever.’
‘I thought I’d try a different approach,’ Hinata says. ‘It’s customised for Tsumiki at the moment.’
‘Tsumiki?’ Kuzuryu lifts his eyebrows, though his eyes are back on the knife he’s using.
‘You wanna bring the nurse back first, huh?’ Souda says. He laughs awkwardly. Wanting to make a joke about Hinata’s taste in women, probably, but too uneasy to do so.
Komaeda isn’t here any more, though.
‘It would be useful to have her knowledge,’ Hinata says. He doesn’t want to go into the thought process behind his choice – it was based on false information. From conversation with someone who never woke up at all. ‘I can rework it for Mioda first though, if we think that’s better.’
‘Mm.’ Kuzuryu doesn’t affirm or deny.
‘Tsumiki’s talent might be more useful,’ Souda says. ‘Ugh, but she’s depressing. I feel like if Mioda woke up, that would be a real mood booster.’
‘It would be if any of them woke up,’ Kuzuryu says mildly. He glances at Hinata again. ‘Do what you think is best.’
Souda eyes Hinata, more dubious than Kuzuryu.
‘I’ll try it with Tsumiki,’ Hinata says. ‘At least then I’ll know if I’m on the right track.’
Kuzuryu nods. There’s someone he wants to bring back most of all, of course.
Hinata doesn’t have that person any more. But still, he will keep on trying.
‘Let me know when dinner’s ready,’ he says. ‘I’ll get back to work till then.’
Even if they’ve lost three of their group. Even if they might lose the rest, Hinata will keep on trying. Because he too wants to see the future where it turns it around. He wants to show Komaeda he can do that.
He can only wish that Komaeda’s ghost might show up to see it.