Slow Hope

Iruma had already been tinkering with the Exisals, but with Souda’s arrival, there began a project in earnest. It was a competition: see who could build something to bring down the dome first. It would have been faster if the two of them could work together, but Komaru supposed there was no hurry.

Komaru herself was starting on a garden. A proper garden, that would feed people. Harukawa had promised to bring back some of the plants they’d worked out were edible, when she and Saihara returned from their memorial trip. The supplies that had been included with the ship would only last so long. – although Iruma figured there was some kind of synthesiser involved, or else how had any food survived long enough for them to eat it? Komaru didn’t really understand, but it would be good if they could produce things on order. Soy sauce. Sweets.

‘I still think we should wait for the dome to come down,’ Shingetsu said. ‘Unless you seriously want to water everything by hand, every day.’

He said that, but he was helping her to plant out the seedlings.

‘I don’t mind,’ Komaru said. ‘There’s not a lot of useful stuff I can do, but I can tend a garden.’ She liked digging in the soil, getting it on her hands as she pressed the earth down around the seedlings. She’d never kept a garden before. The books they’d found might not cover the kinds of plants that were around now, but the principles were the same. She hoped.

They didn’t have the real sun on them yet, or the sound of birds. They worked in human silence.

‘There!’ Komaru said. ‘That’s the last one.’ She sat back on her heels, feeling proud of herself. Even though it only accounted to a few rows of seedlings.

‘Uh, Naegi-san?’

‘What?’ Komaru looked in the direction Shingetsu was looking. There was a small procession approaching them – Fukawa and Kotoko and the others, Gonta with a small tree wrapped in his arms, and most unexpected, Komaeda and Hinata.

Those two looked completely bedraggled, but somehow, seeing them felt like the sun coming out.

They hadn’t left them behind to die. They’d made it.

‘What’s all this?’ Komaru asked, rising to her feet. She wiped her hands on her pants.

‘We went to get you a plant,’ Oma said. ‘But we found these two instead.’ He looked at Komaeda and Hinata, a bemused expression on his face. ‘Who are you two again?’

‘I’m glad you made it,’ Komaru said, before Hinata could fall for introducing himself to Oma again. ‘Looks like you had a rough time, huh?’

‘You could say that ...’ Hinata said. He shared a glance with Komaeda that she couldn’t interpret.

‘Ah, Gonta not want to interrupt, but where should Gonta put tree?’

‘Oh!’ Komaru looked over the plot of earth she and Shingetsu had been working on. She hadn’t been expecting to put in a sapling of the size Gonta was carrying. She hoped it would be okay being transplanted.

‘It should be the first one we tried here,’ Fukawa said. ‘When we woke up.’

‘It definitely is!’ Kotoko said. ‘Daimon-kun, you’ll dig the hole, right?’

‘Me?’ Daimon looked taken aback a moment, until Oma held out the spade he was carrying with a smile. ‘Alright then, just tell me where!’

When Komaru had finished directing, Komaeda and Hinata had gone.

‘They went to the dining hall,’ Fukawa said, when she saw Komaru looking.

‘Is that right?’ She supposed it made sense ... they can’t’ve been eating well, just the two of them, and no supplies. But she’d wanted to ask what had happened. She still felt bad, for having moved on instead of waiting for them. But it turned out alright, she told herself.

‘It was a surprise to see him again,’ Kotoko said.

‘I would’ve hoped he’d forgotten us,’ Jataro said. ‘He probably wishes he had.’

‘Why’s that?’ Oma asked. ‘What’d you do?’

‘Uh ...’ Jataro said. ‘Made him do all the work. Drew on his face.’

‘Made him make us milkshakes,’ Kotoko said. ‘But they weren’t very good. He never could remember how I liked things.’

‘Sometimes we chained him up like a dog.’

‘You guys,’ Shingetsu said, horrified at their tactlessness.

‘You did all that?’ Gonta said. He seemed upset by the idea. Even Oma seemed taken aback ... or maybe he was impressed.

‘Yeah, you were sure brats,’ Fukawa said. ‘But that guy ...’

‘I think he’ll forgive them,’ Komaru said.

‘What?’

‘We all have to get along now, right?’ She gave Fukawa a smile.

‘Hey!’ Daimon said. ‘We’re ready for the tree!’

They planted the tree together then. Gonta lowered it into the ground, and Daimon stamped down the earth around it.

‘How long do you think it’ll take to fruit?’ Kotoko asked. The tree was barely a metre tall at the moment, and Komaru had no idea how long it would take to grow. Maybe they’d have fruit next season. Maybe not for years.

‘We’ll have to wait and see,’ Komaru said.

‘You don’t know?’

‘We don’t even know what kind of tree it is,’ Shingetsu said.

‘If it’s even the kind we thought it was ...’ Fukawa muttered.

‘However long it takes,’ Komaru said, ‘we’ll all be here to see it, right? And your baby too, Toko-chan.’ Fukawa gave her a strange look then; Komaru thought it was love. ‘So let’s look forward to that day, okay? And we’ll all enjoy it together.’

She and Fukawa. The former Warriors of Hope. The survivors of the new class of Hope’s Peak, and the survivors of the old. They’d see the future together, and share in its fruits.

Komaru believed that. Her brother had believed it too. That’s why he’d sent them here together. And maybe things had gone wrong at first ... but Komaru believed they could still make them go right.

Fukawa’s child ... all of their children would grow up in this new world.

They’d make it a world worth living in.