Half in Sunlight, Half Still Despair

When Hinata finds Komaeda, he’s sitting in Jabberwock Park, half his body in the shade of a massive tree that grew behind the park bench, and half in the brilliant sunlight.

‘Why, good morning, Hinata-kun,’ Komaeda says, lifting his head as Hinata approaches. He has a paperback held open on his lap. ‘Beautiful day we’re having, isn’t it? Of course, all the days are beautiful here. Isn’t it lucky this facility was built in the tropics and not on an island in the Arctic? Oh, except such unpleasantness would probably be fitting.’ He smiles at Hinata. ‘Don’t you agree?’

Hinata wants to disagree, but he turns the idea over in his head and can’t find anything wrong with it. ‘You’re probably right.’ He sits down next to Komaeda, on the shaded side of the bench.

‘Now there’s an achievement,’ Komaeda said. ‘I got you to agree with me. If we can call such a small thing an achievement …’ He sounds wistful, not sarcastic; something about it makes Hinata’s stomach twist.

‘Everyone else recovered their memories from the island,’ Hinata says. ‘Why are you pretending not to have?’

Komaeda closes his book and folds his arms over his chest, lips pursed in consideration. ‘It’s probably just my luck,’ he says. ‘You did say I was the most troublesome one to wake up. Probably you should have just given up, but I guess perseverance is another one of those Ultimate talents they gave you. I know I would have given up immediately.’

Hinata frowns. ‘Stop that.’

‘Is something wrong, Hinata-kun? Here I was all happy that you were speaking to me … but I guess there must be something wrong or you wouldn’t bother.’

‘No, I –’ Have been avoiding you. Hinata doesn’t say it. He’s not surprised Komaeda has noticed, though. He put off dealing with Komaeda for so long, leaving the recovery of his mind till last, that now he has this Komaeda in front of him, claiming not to remember anything … he finds he doesn’t know what do with him. ‘Nothing’s wrong. I just thought we could talk.’

‘But won’t that be boring for you? I mean, that’s what you said before.’ Komaeda’s voice grows breathy. ‘Kamukura Izuru-kun.’

No-one uses that name. Hinata doesn’t even use that name. It’s the line he’s drawn in the sand, his statement for who he wants to be.

But maybe Komaeda wants something different. He looks Hinata right in the eye; there’s nothing malevolent in that expression, except for the intensity in it.

‘It won’t be boring,’ Hinata says firmly.

‘Ah …’ Komaeda lets the sound become a sigh, his gaze drifting away.

‘Am I boring you?’

Komaeda’s eyes widen. ‘No, not at all. I’m just surprised, you know. I thought I might get more of a reaction. But I guess you’re not going to be flapped by the likes of me. They really went all in making you.’

Hinata can’t help but frown. Komaeda’s eyes are guileless, meeting his readily. But still … ‘Why don’t you say what you really think?’

‘Is that what you want?’ However soft Komaeda’s voice is, it still manages to chill Hinata’s spine. ‘But I can’t tell you that. After all, if we’re going to live together on this island forever and ever until the day that we die, then we have to get along, don’t we?’ He leans forward slightly, so that his face is closer to Hinata’s. ‘Can I be this honest, though …? As it’s you, Hinata-kun. I think everyone will be happier if they keep believing I don’t remember what happened in the simulation.’

The chill settles. Hinata lets out a short breath, not quite a laugh.

‘Right. I understand.’

‘Of course you do. I’m sure you realised it all along. It’s kind of you to make an excuse to talk to me, though. No-one else has.’

The statement makes Hinata uncomfortable, but he can’t argue with it. They’re stuck here together, but without that to force the bond between them … well, some of them would still keep company. But others bear weights they can never forgive.

He misses Nanami, right then. She would be better at this sort of thing than he is. But Hinata watches them all, and he sees that Koizumi does not forgive Pekoyama, any more than Pekoyama forgives her. If Hinata is capable of forgiving Komaeda, it is only because his own sins are as bleak. But not everyone sees things that way.

Or maybe they’re all just pretending.

‘Do you wish you hadn’t done it?’ Hinata blurts the words out, and Komaeda actually looks surprised. Then his eyes soften, look almost gentle.

‘Would we be here now if I hadn’t?’ He laughs, and casts his eyes downwards. ‘You surpassed my expectations, of course. It would have been too simple for me to have just succeeded.’

‘You –’ As if there’s anything simple in what Komaeda did. What he engineered.

‘Was that too honest, Hinata-kun? Should I take it back?’ Leaning forward again, Komaeda places a hand over Hinata’s. Hinata is too surprised to pull back. ‘What about you? Do you wish you hadn’t done it?’

Hinata thinks, at first, that he means bringing the AI Enoshima into the simulation. Then he thinks, no, Komaeda means further back. Back to the decision he made when he was still only, and in truth, Hinata Hajime.

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Everything would be different.’ Komaeda lifts his hand, and he touches, just the barest of brushes, Hinata’s temple. ‘You would have died for her, you know.’

‘I know.’ The words come out too forcefully; Hinata stands up, and breaks the contact between them. But things could be different, he doesn’t say. But Nanami might still be alive, he doesn’t say.

Komaeda stays seated, leaning back and considering him.

‘Do you miss her?’

Hinata meets his eyes disbelievingly, but Komaeda doesn’t seem like he’s making a dig. He reads Hinata’s face nonetheless, and it turns his eyes regretful. ‘I hated her, you know. The most of anyone. But don’t you think, us spending the rest of our lives here, the world blaming us for what the Future Foundation did, nothing left to even hope for …’

‘Don’t say it –’

‘Don’t you think it’s boring?’

Now he can see it, that light in Komaeda’s eyes. That light that doesn’t dim in the face of other people’s despair, but grows brighter.

Hinata knew it was there.

‘I won’t be bored any more,’ Hinata says. ‘What I said to you, back on the boat. I misjudged.’

Komaeda’s eyes round in surprise.

‘I wish you were only boring.’

Komaeda’s eyes crinkle then, and the malice isn’t gone, but it is perhaps stayed.

‘You don’t know what it means to hear you say that. Hinata-kun … Kamukura-kun …’

‘Whichever.’ The word sounds blunt. ‘It’s just the two of us, right now.’

‘I won’t slip in front of the others.’ Komaeda leans forward. ‘I guess we’re both pretty good at pretending, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah,’ Hinata says, before he leaves. ‘We are.’