#I swear there's a reason why not everyone attended in nagito's side

[xshinina]

*Married life playing in the background

This idea was probably funnier in my head

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: School Unity Club

Author: @thatsrightdollface

For: @bebexox4

Pairings/Characters: Hajime Hinata/Nagito Komaeda, with appearances by both Chiaki Nanami and Kokichi Oma.  Others mentioned.

Rating/Warnings: T.  Some mention of self-deprecating thought might be a relevant warning.  There is also occasional swearing.

Prompt: Non despair hopes peak au with Enemies-Friends-Lovers komahina

Author’s notes:  Hi there!!!  Happy Komahina Secret Exchange, and I hope you enjoy your gifts!!!  :D  This is prompt one of two you can expect this time around.  This was really fun to work on hehehe.  Thank you!!!

1. Okay, Why Are We Starting a School Unity Club Again?

The first time Hope’s Peak Academy tried to recruit Nagito Komaeda, of course he turned them down: he was unworthy, he insisted, trying to laugh at himself, trying to raise his metaphorical palms in obvious surrender.  I mean, come on.  Hope’s Peak… haha, that was for genuinely amazing people.  For the Ultimate Students, glimmering irrefutable beacons of hope to everybody else.  They were — no.  Nagito couldn’t go to school with people like that.  Practically superheroes, so hardworking and disciplined and just everything Nagito knew he didn’t deserve to be.  What would he even say?  How would he know where to sit, or when to participate in class discussions, or how to tactfully say no when they felt obligated to invite him along places?

But, in the end, Hope’s Peak Academy hadn’t so much wanted Nagito as a student, he gathered, as they’d wanted to study his luck.  Nagito’d always had unreasonable, relentless, mythically impossible luck.  Amazing things happened to him, and then… like clockwork, like the gears of the universe churning away… equally devastating things inevitably followed.  The Ultimate Lucky Student.  That’s right.  After years of fallen-apart loved ones and distant extended family members and snakes slithering out of his bathtub drain the second he realized “You know, I think this might be my favorite brand of shampoo,” Nagito Komaeda’s absurd luck was finally going to help somebody.  Hope’s Peak could learn from his luck, and that was worth humiliating himself daily, stumbling around Ultimate Students, rambling and awestruck.  That was worth knowing he’d never belong, because he hadn’t worked for his Talent.  It wasn’t really a Talent at all.

When Nagito was happy, he knew he was sure to feel tears burning against the back of his eyes very soon.  He was happy about the chance to attend Hope’s Peak, despite everything, despite knowing he should have turned the invitation down again, whether his luck could be useful or no…  and so, of course, bad things followed.  Bad things he hadn’t talked to his classmates about, yet, and probably never would.  Because it wasn’t like Nagito had come to such a prestigious institution expecting anybody to actually care about him.  It wasn’t like he would have clawed his way in without being invited.  Right?

Nagito liked to think that was right, anyway, just the way he liked to think he didn’t actually want any of his fancy, impossible new classmates to contradict him when he described himself as worthless, a faceless background character in their lives.  Why should they tell him he was more than a bystander?  Nagito would hold the camera when his classmates wanted a group photo.  That should be more than enough.  If he wanted to get something done for their sake, he could lean on his Ultimate Luck.  If he drew a lottery number, it would always win.  If a car was careening out of control through the school grounds, it would be sure to hit him before it clobbered anyone else.  A weird system — a horrible system, from some points of view — but it was the least Nagito could do.  It was his so-called “Talent,” after all.

Maybe that was why the Reserve Course had never made a lot of sense, to Nagito.  See, some people could pay a hell of a lot of extra tuition money and buy their way into Hope’s Peak…  but not as Ultimates.  It felt like a flashlight demanding to be called the sun, to Nagito.  Like a puddle on the street insisting it was the ocean.  If Ultimates really were “hope,” then how dare anybody scramble around to grab their spotlight away, right?  Reserve Course attendants would probably be easier to get along with than the Ultimate Students, given that Nagito was more or less “one of them”… a nobody, a stranger, an intruder here in this place for gods.  But he didn’t go looking for friends among the Reserve Course, either.  Why should he want to be buddy-buddy with arrogant pretenders?  It wasn’t like Nagito had ever felt especially good at talking to people, anyway.  He’d probably say something wrong; he’d probably mess something up; he’d probably just get furious.  Wouldn’t you want to turn off the flashlight that thought it was the sun?  

Better not to delude yourself, even if the truth was ugly, full of shaky, simpering smiles and resignation.  Happiness led to pain.  Good luck led to misery.  On and on and on, and Nagito had been fairly sure he’d graduate from Hope’s Peak without any of his classmates having memorized his full name.  You know, if he lived that long.

That’s why it was all the more surprising when Chiaki Nanami… the Ultimate Gamer…  kept insisting on talking to him.  Of course, Chiaki was kind to their whole class.  She had no reason to sit silently and play phone games with Nagito until his phone caught fire in his hands — she had no reason to chat about his favorite super-indie horror titles during breaks in schoolwork, coming over to stand by his desk on purpose.  Chiaki wanted to understand everybody: she told Nagito as much, honestly.  Chiaki wanted their whole class to be a team, and so when she asked Nagito to show up for movie nights he did.  He knew he’d suffer the bad luck for it later, but he picked up the phone when Chiaki called him every time.  

If she wanted to be friends with everyone, Chiaki shouldn’t have to work for the Ultimate Lucky Student’s friendship, obviously.  He should be a shoe-in.  And it wasn’t really that Nagito was having fun that kept him sticking around, probably.  It wasn’t really that he was starting to banter with the Ultimate Mechanic and the Ultimate Gangster, as if they were actually… uh… friendly acquaintances, or something, either.  Chiaki told him he was reliable, even if he still wouldn’t admit he belonged with the rest of them.  Even if he said hurtful things sometimes and didn’t seem to realize it.

“What?!” Nagito had balked, then.  “Have I insulted you?  Oh, no.  No, that’s unacceptable.  For someone like me to speak badly of an Ultimate Student, even without meaning to —”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Chiaki had answered.  She reminded Nagito of a cat, pretty consistently… heavy-lidded eyes, and a voice like a tail swishing slowly back and forth.  She didn’t look up from the game system in her hands as she drawled at him.  “You say horrible things about yourself, and about how you can’t understand why I’d want anything to do with you…  makes me feel like you don’t think I can pick my own friends.  I say I think you’re okay, and you spend the next half an hour telling me why that’s a stupid thing to think.  Kazuichi says he’s glad you stopped by to help him work on that robot project he’s building, and you have to make him apologize for thinking ‘trash like you’ deserves to hang out with the Ultimate Mechanic at all.”

Nagito wasn’t sure how to respond to any of that.  He’d cleared his throat.

“Your friends will hurt when they see you hurt, Nagito.  I always heard people in games saying that, and now I know it’s true.  Okay?”

“Hm.  Okay…  if you’re sure, as an Ultimate Student.”

“I’m sure as your friend Chiaki.”

“Interesting.  I mean…  yeah, I’ll do my best not to hurt you?”

Nagito had been watching the way he talked about himself around Chiaki Nanami for about a week before she came to him with a plan she’d been working on with the Ultimate Supreme Leader.  Kokichi Oma was a couple years behind them, but he was always scheming like the “Spawn of Loki” the Ultimate Animal Breeder declared him to be — his latest plan involved trying to unite the two branches of their school, the Main Course and the Reserve Course, coming together for some sort of mysterious club.  Chiaki was all for it, apparently, and Nagito had wanted to say a lot of things.  He’d wanted to say it sounded like reassuring the puddle that ships could drown in it after all, and coral reefs were sure to grow.  It felt false, and wrong.  But a lot of things Kokichi Oma said felt “false and wrong,” and Nagito wanted to be Chiaki’s real, worthy friend so badly.  He agreed to help, however he could.

“It’s so generous of the Ultimates to share their Talents with everybody!” Nagito said.  That was a fair enough rationalization, wasn’t it?  “You really are a commendable person, Ultimate Supreme Leader.  Even if practically everything you say is a shameless lie!”

And, “Hey now, most of my nefarious criminal organization members wouldn’t be called ‘Ultimate,’ and they’ve got more talents to share around than this whole stuck-up school,” Kokichi answered, voice light and airy, like he wasn’t actually invested in the conversation… though his eyes said he really was, unless that expression was just another lie from him?  Lies upon lies upon lies.  People told Nagito he was confusing to talk to, but surely he couldn’t have anything on Kokichi Oma.  Was that okay for him to think?  “A lot of these titles we got assigned feel pretty arbitrary, if you ask me.  And it’s ridiculous we’ve never actually met so many of our classmates!”

Nagito raised his eyebrows. “Classmates?”

Kokichi stared him down, smile practically painted on.  “Classmates.  Yeah.  Just think of how many possible recruits for my organization might be waiting in the Reserve Course…  ya think any of ‘em are interested in a life of evil?”

“Most of the people who made the games we play aren’t Ultimates, either,” Chiaki murmured, at Kokichi’s side.  She was muted and dusky pink, with a tender, hesitant smile — Kokichi was so glaringly bright and loud next to her.  They made a strange team, but of course no stranger than Nagito and anyone in the world.  “Please, Nagito.  The School Unity Club is going to try and form real friendships…  I think it’s a chance for us to do something good, and to learn what it’s like to be in the Reserve Course.“

As if Nagito wanted to understand something like that!  Haha!  Oh, Chiaki.  No.

But that’s what led Nagito here, to the first official School Unity Club meeting.  He filled out the Getting to Know Everybody Questionnaire Kokichi and Chiaki passed out, and he hung around in the back of the room, hands folded in his pockets, face perfectly neutral, until a spiky haired Reserve Course guy came storming up to him.  What could have possibly gotten this uppity loser so mad?  Chiaki had decorated this classroom herself, specifically for trash like the both of them.  They should be so grateful.  There were streamers and everything.

“Are you Nagito Komaeda?” Mr. Pointy-Hair spat.

“I am.  Nice to meet —”

“So you’re the one who wrote that people who joined the Reserve Course have ‘no good reason to be here’ on the questionnaire.  Knowing we’d all read it — knowing how much we want to attend Hope’s Peak Academy —”

Nagito nodded, letting himself smile.  Ah, okay.  This was making a little sense now.  “Excuse me, I think you misunderstand something,” he tried to clarify.  “I don’t believe I have a good reason to be here, either…  really, we’re almost the same, you and me.  I probably have more to say to someone like you than my whole class!”  Nagito paused.  Glanced over at the Ultimate Gamer.  “Except for Chiaki.  Maybe.  If she still thinks so.”

Mr. Pointy-Hair didn’t look reassured by Nagito’s explanation.  If anything, his cheeks were flushed red, the fury creeping up to the tips of his ears, and his hands were clenched into fists at his sides.  He was a little shorter than Nagito, but he was standing as tall as he possibly could.  “Someone like me?” he asked.  It was a question, somehow, but what exactly did he expect Nagito to say?  Mr. Pointy-Hair’s teeth were ground together, but there was something honest and wholesome about his mossy green eyes.  Nagito might have wanted to ask his name, if he didn’t feel sure he was about to get yelled at.  Why weren’t they understanding each other, exactly, here?

“You’re not an Ultimate,” Nagito said, explaining something painfully simple.  “This is a school for extraordinary people, and you and I are both unworthy of it.  You see?  But that shouldn’t be news to you…”

Mr. Pointy-Hair was spitting mad.  Was he going to punch Nagito, next?  Or simply tell him how awful he was?  Nagito was bracing himself either way, but he shouldn’t have bothered.  That was when Kokichi Oma’s spotlight found them, after all.  That was when the Ultimate Supreme Leader — sauntering around on a stage made of pushed-together desks and using a super-chipper ringmaster voice — declared, “Oh!  And what’s this?  Mr. Komaeda and Mr. Hinata are already picking a fight!  I think we just found some volunteers for a club project, guys!”

There was a scattering of polite, confused applause, and this Mr. Pointy-Hair Hinata spun around on his heel and threw himself out of the room.  The door slammed, and his footsteps thudded away down the hall.

Nagito took a stumbling half-step after him.  He didn’t mean to.  This was the sort of pretender who thought he deserved to be an Ultimate without earning it, after all.  There was no reason to wonder what their club project would be together, or if he’d ever learn Hinata’s first name.  There was no reason to ask what the Ultimate Supreme Leader had in store for them to work on — there was probably no reason to assume he and Hinata would ever see each other again, or get another chance to try and have an actual conversation.

Nagito asked Kokichi what their assignment was, anyway.

1½. Talking to You’s Like Trying to Paint in the Rain

Hajime Hinata figured if he just never attended a School Unity Club meeting again, he could simmer for a while and then amble on like this never happened.  Like he’d never met Nagito Komaeda, with his hazy dark eyes and drifting, shaky-yet-infuriatingly-resolute voice.  If he never joined up with the club again, then he couldn’t be assigned any weird-ass “club projects,” could he?  And since Nagito was part of the Main Course…  an Ultimate, even if he’d tried to convince Hajime they were “the same,” or whatever…  their paths wouldn’t necessarily cross, otherwise.  They even had passing periods at different times, and if Hajime saw Nagito’s fluffy, flyaway white hair from across the hallway he just stopped in his tracks and stalked away.

But, I mean…  that isn’t the end of the story, obviously.  Hajime underestimated the Ultimate Supreme Leader, and also how ridiculous things could get at Hope’s Peak Academy.  Sometimes, the place barely even felt real.

Hajime received the instructions for his and Nagito Komaeda’s club project midway through math class.  The guy in front of him — who he’d known the whole year, mind you, and was definitely just some guy who liked comic books and was often a little late to class — turned around in his seat and stage-whispered, “Hey, Hinata, you wouldn’t happen to know the answer to question thirteen, would you?”

“There is no question thirteen,” Hajime answered.  “The worksheet only goes to ten —” and then he actually looked up, to raise his eyebrows at his classmate and/or see if they had different worksheets for some reason.  And well.  Hm.  Wouldn’t you know it, this wasn’t his classmate at all.  This was very obviously Kokichi Oma from the Main Course in a wig.  The Ultimate Supreme Leader was wearing a Reserve Course uniform with the tie knotted all sloppily, and he grinned like the damn Cheshire Cat as he handed over a big envelope with the words “This is not your School Unity Club project assignment!” scribbled on it.

“Oh!  Nice eye,” Kokichi grinned.  “Aren’t you a smart one.”

“I don’t want to work with Nagito Komaeda,” Hajime hissed.  “And Kokichi, this isn’t your class.”

“Are you sure I’m not enrolled in the Reserve Course, too?”

“Ugh.  Yes?  And you’re two years behind me.”

Kokichi scratched at his forehead.  Hajime thought maybe he was taunting him, intentionally fiddling with his wig so that a little of his flippy purple hair snuck out.  “Nagito’s stubborn, isn’t he?  Kind of like you.”

“We’re nothing alike,” Hajime said, but even as he spat those words he knew they weren’t completely true.  Honestly, Hajime felt sick with guilt for getting his family to pay this ridiculous Hope’s Peak Reserve Course tuition — he’d tried to change his own mind, convincing himself it didn’t matter whether the world called him Special.  The Ultimate Students were just people, he told himself.  So what if nobody thought he was good enough to be one of them?  He could still live a happy, normal life…  he could still pour attention into the hobbies he loved, and spend time with the people he cared about, and maybe it was kind of a pain to have your face on convenience store magazines anyway.

Hajime told himself stuff like that over and over again, but it wasn’t like it stuck, you know?  It didn’t change the tide of his thoughts.  It felt like the minute he painted a nice, encouraging picture of an alternative to Hope’s Peak Academy for himself, it got washed away.  Staring into Nagito’s serene, self-righteously knowing eyes had felt a little like that, too.  Hajime got the feeling that he could talk to him and talk to him, but it was almost impossible to change this guy’s mind until he changed it himself.  

It was infuriating, wasn’t it, talking to people like that?

“If you want to prove you’re really different than Nagito — you’re really not super-stubborn and impossible to reach — you can always just do the project,” the Ultimate Supreme Leader grinned.  “Up to you.  I told him to meet you by those big fountains after school, and I think he’s actually gonna do it.  He asked what your first name was, too…  I told him it was ‘Daisuke.’”

“But it isn’t.”

“Oops, my bad.  So tell him yourself.”

Hajime read the crayon-drawing assignment sheets waiting for him in that envelope during a break, sitting slumped over at a table with a bunch of students he didn’t really know.  Apparently, Kokichi and the Ultimate Gamer wanted Hajime and Nagito to make a short documentary film showing everybody what life was like in the Hope’s Peak Reserve Course.  They were supposed to interview students and get some funny stories; they were supposed to go over some of the things people were studying, and rate whether the desks were comfy.  Just…  get a portrait of the Reserve Course as people, basically, the instructions said.  And be sure to let the Ultimate Supreme Leader know if anyone seemed open to helping with this prank he had in the works.  Get them to sign a short, totally-harmless liability form.  It’ll be fun.

Hajime crumpled the envelope and all its assignment sheets up, one by one, preparing to toss them away with the rest of his trash.  But then he unfolded them, running a hand through his sticky-uppy hair.  

You know what?  

Why not.  

Maybe it would do Nagito Komaeda some good, to get to know the people he was insulting.  To see the school from a different point of view.  Maybe it would be satisfying to see him feel like a jerk, fumbling around, trying oh-so-messily to explain himself to anybody a little less forgiving than Hajime.  Anyway, it was sort of annoying the guy thought his name was something random Kokichi Oma had pulled out of a hat, too.

So Hajime went to meet Nagito by the fountains.  For a moment, before they actually started working on the project, it had felt sort of right.  Nagito had stood up from where he’d been bent over some homework; he’d smoothed down his vest, and smiled awkwardly, self-consciously.  Hopefully.  It had looked like maybe he would apologize.  Maybe he’d thought over what he said, and Hajime didn’t need to spend any time convincing him he was an asshole.  In that case, maybe Nagito was the kind of willowy handsome that Hajime liked in drama actors, if you got past the funny way he held himself.  In that case, maybe his voice was sort of soft and lyrical, and if they were talking about something else…  almost anything else…  Hajime wouldn’t really mind listening to him.

But then, uh.  Hajime got close enough for Nagito to wave, and call, “Do you understand what I meant, now, then?  It’s nice to meet you properly, Daisuke!”  And it only went downhill from there.  

It didn’t help that the minute Hajime handed Nagito the school-owned camera Kokichi had finagled for them to use, it got carried out of his hands by an actual hawk.  What the hell?  “Ultimate Luck,” Nagito clarified, but what did that even mean?  So then they were gonna record the thing on Hajime’s phone, except that they couldn’t decide where to start.  Who to talk to.  They got into a half-shouting match in front of a few of Hajime’s friendlier classmates, who excused themselves as quickly as possible.  They tried to film the gymnasium, but it was closed for emergency fumigation and they ended up gagging, hunched over outside the doors for about five minutes.  They tried to film in the dorms, but Hajime’s entrance pass cracked in two when they attempted to use it.  Those were expensive!  Augh!  Why was Nagito laughing?!

Whatever Hajime tried to do, it felt like Nagito came sliding over to step on his toes.  They were getting nowhere.  This project was getting nowhere.  They had to delete the one decent interview they managed to get because Hajime himself accidentally had his thumb over the camera.  He had literally no idea how he could’ve missed something like that.

“Ultimate Luck,” Nagito said, again, for about the millionth time that evening.  “See?  It’s really not always much of a talent!”

That was the last straw.  Hajime was done.  Nagito was still obsessed with this concept of “talent”; Nagito was the last person who should be making a video trying to show what life was really like for Reserve Course students.  The Ultimate Supreme Leader was probably just messing with them, just being a little shit like people said he tended to be.  School Unity?  What could Nagito Komaeda do to work towards School Unity?  He was probably the sort of person who would want to trap a lizard that thought it was a dragon, just to show the poor little guy how small he really was.  Hajime didn’t have time for this.

And so he told Nagito as much, and he gathered up his things.  He deleted all the footage they’d recorded for their project, and went back home.  That could’ve been the end of it.  If Kokichi turned up in any of his classes again, Hajime would just tune him out.  If the Ultimate Gamer asked him why he didn’t come around anymore, yeah, okay, he’d apologize, but that was it.

Hajime didn’t hear anything from the School Unity Club for about a month.  “Good riddance,” he thought.  He imagined himself slamming a book closed.  And then possibly kicking said book under the bed, or something.

When he got a text from Kokichi Oma — wait, how had the Ultimate Supreme Leader gotten his phone number?! — Hajime almost didn’t open it.  But morbid curiosity won out in the end, as it so often did.  Morbid curiosity, and that claustrophobic, helplessly-stricken pull to the Ultimate Students Hajime still felt, even now.  He had wanted to be valuable, to be seen; he had wanted to be a revelation.  Every breath he took on this earth could have been game-changing, if only he’d been born someone else.

“Nice work on your video,” Kokichi said.  “Turned out really insightful.  I think it’ll help the Reserve Course students feel seen, too.”

Alright.  Hold on.

What?

***

2. The Light

When Nagito Komaeda asked the Ultimate Supreme Leader whether it had been difficult, convincing Hajime to come watch his documentary about the Hope’s Peak Academy Reserve Course together, Kokichi said, “You just better not mess this up, kid,” with a big, sloppy wink.  Nevermind that he really hadn’t answered the question, actually, when Nagito thought back on it – nevermind that Kokichi was… again…  younger than him.   Maybe it meant Hajime had struggled against the idea of ever actually talking to Nagito again, and Kokichi’d had to bribe him with glittery promises like, “If you give the video a chance, I’ll delete your phone number from my contacts list!”  Or maybe it meant Nagito should feel lucky – lucky in a good way, mind you – because Hajime hadn’t needed a lot of nagging at all.  Maybe Mr. Pointy-Hair was genuinely curious.  Maybe he’d be willing to forgive how badly things had gone, and try, Nagito didn’t know, “hanging out” again, sometime.

“Why did you lie about Hajime’s name, to me?” Nagito asked.  “I looked…  inconsiderate.”

“Who knows?” Kokichi said.  “I do stuff like that, you know.”

It would’ve been way too easy, if Kokichi Oma had been willing to answer a simple question for once.  But all the same, Nagito ended up sitting alone in a dark, lonely classroom after club activities were over for the night; all the same, Nagito had finished up the Reserve Course documentary film on his own.  He’d purchased four separate video cameras, and lost them all to his ruthless luck.  He’d interviewed people from Hajime’s classes, asking the questions Hajime had scrawled out on the back of Kokichi’s crumpled-up assignment envelope that time they tried working together.  “What brought you to the Reserve Course?”  “What’s your most precious goal, and how do you hope the Reserve Course will help you get there?”  “Do you like going to school here?”  “What do you think Hope’s Peak could do differently, to show that it values all its students?”  Some of the answers he’d gotten were genuinely shocking – one of them made him cry, actually, and try to shake the girl’s hand afterwards.  (She took his hand, yes, but then asked why there was so much mud on it.  Oh, crap.  Nagito’d forgotten that happened…  he’d been swallowed up by a surprise swamp on the way across campus that day.)  All of the answers were…  human?  Maybe sometimes it was easy to get so wrapped up in this business of hope and despair, talent and luck, that Nagito forgot how learning a person’s abilities just barely scraped the surface of what it would be like getting to know them.  He didn’t talk much at all, giving his interviews – aside from asking questions, of course.  He laughed at jokes, sometimes, but he tried to laugh quietly, without wobbling the camera too much.

Nagito had expected the interviews would enrage him – would make him think these people were ungrateful, were building themselves homemade trophies to take away from the Ultimate Talents the Main Course actually earned.  And sometimes, yeah, sometimes he did want to argue back.  Put them in their places, back in the dirt with him; click off the flashlight that thought it was the sun.  But he listened, for a while, anyway.  Maybe it was because Hajime would’ve wanted him to, at first – maybe it was because Hajime might have said he couldn’t do it.   But in the end, Nagito found himself with a lot of footage of people telling him their truths, and so many of those stories tasted familiar. That longing, that hurt, that want, that hunger.  It had been written all over Hajime’s face when they first met, but Nagito’d never asked his story, had he?

Ah, well.  Nagito had tried making the documentary into something Hajime wouldn’t hate, you know?  He’d gone to one of the Reserve Course’s basketball games and recorded the crowds cheering, recorded the players’ teamwork and struggle.  None of the players were the Ultimate Basketball Star or anything, but it still mattered when they won, didn’t it?  Maybe not as much, existentially, or for the hope of the world as Nagito understood it, but – but it could still be emotional watching them come together and ruffle each other’s hair, afterwards, reminiscing about the game.  Nagito had attempted to go to a Reserve Course swimming team competition too, but of course the pool flooded the second he stepped in the building…  and like, really flooded, in that most of the bleachers were still underwater and they hadn’t been able to drain the dressing rooms, yet.  Some sort of weird, constant flow in from ocean?!  Nagito wasn’t sure on the specifics.  Point being, he’d stopped attending sports events for a while, but he had asked Chiaki to record the Reserve Course’s musical production of Les Misérables so he could splice some of it into the documentary.

Nagito didn’t ask specific questions about Hajime Hinata while conducting his interviews, but he’d heard some stuff about him all the same.  He was a good classmate, people said – a hard worker, soft-spoken, but he didn’t just sit back and take kindly to bullies.  He was smart, but his handwriting was terrible, and he and Nagito seemed to like the same type of video games.  Hajime’s classmates mentioned him in passing, see, discussing him among themselves…  or they said, “Oh, no, Nagito’s probably okay.  He was with Hajime a couple days ago, remember?  Hey, Nagito, are you two friends?”

Um.

In that moment, Nagito had wanted very badly to say yes, yes they were friends. He would’ve been proud to have Hajime like him, as a person, the way Chiaki seemed to.  But he just sort of smiled and shook his head.  “We were working on a project together,” he offered.  “School Unity Club.”   It was probably fair to leave it at that, right?  

But now the documentary was finished, and Hajime had been persuaded… somehow…  to come to some empty classroom after School Unity Club let out and watch it at Nagito’s side.  Nagito hadn’t really felt like he should be going to School Unity Club meetings lately: it was surreal to be back here again, inviting Hajime into the ruins of a game tournament.  There was a scribbly, multi-color scoreboard, and bits of the floor were duct-taped off into what looked like a beanbag chair/slime vat obstacle course.  The janitors at Hope’s Peak must have hated Kokichi Oma.  Or who knows, really?  Maybe he was planning to slink back in and clean all this up himself, after Nagito and Hajime finished with their video.  Nagito showed Hajime over to some chairs he’d set up in front of his cracked-apart personal laptop.  He pulled out Hajime’s chair a little bit, like they were someplace fancy, and Hajime scoffed.  He sat down, though.  And then he gestured to Nagito’s chair, like, “Well?”

They watched the documentary in silence.  Sometimes Hajime shifted, or scratched at his neck.  Sometimes he gasped, or shot Nagito careful, considering eyes.  Nagito…  for his part…  tried his best to keep his expression neutral, the same as he’d done at that first School Unity Club meeting.  The last interview was with himself, after all, and he thought he’d made his own points pretty clear.  He didn’t understand what the Reserve Course meant, in connection to the Main Course here at Hope’s Peak Academy…  on one hand he still thought it defied the point of the whole place, but on the other it was a class full of creativity and excitement and hope for the future, too.  He’d learned a lot from the Reserve Course students, and it had been fun spending time with them.  The interview questions had been written by Hajime Hinata, but they’d honestly become Nagito’s questions too, by the end.  He thanked the viewer for watching, and the interviewees for talking to him, and the swimming team for their forgiveness when he tried to explain that it was his weird luck that ruined their tournament.

It wasn’t perfect.  Nagito stumbled over his words, sometimes, and he contradicted himself, and he went on a short monologue about how it was possible hope came in innumerable different forms.  He hinted at one of his most embarrassing thoughts, too – that maybe…  just maybe, possibly, against all odds… it might’ve been more merciful to have a world without the worship of talent, a world where all people could just live as themselves and know that was enough. He had almost edited that part out.  In another life, he probably wouldn’t have wanted anyone in the world to hear it.  It flew in the face of everything he was supposed to honor, after all.  It was skeptical of the very concept of the Ultimate Talents themselves.

Nagito might not have been able to explain exactly why he kept that part of his own interview in the documentary.  Maybe he wanted Hajime to get him, if they ever spoke again.  Maybe so many strangers had been utterly, vulnerably honest with him, he felt like it was sort of his turn. Either way, he winced, taking in the frustrated surrender on his own recorded face.  He kept his arms folded over his chest and gritted his teeth.  Hajime was watching him imagine a world where all that mattered was the light, whether it came from a flashlight or the sun.  For all Nagito knew, he sounded ridiculous.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be,” Hajime said, slowly, after the credits rolled – Chiaki was thanked for most things Nagito hadn’t attributed to either himself or the conspicuously-absent Hajime Hinata.  “Thanks, Nagito.  You…  are you going to the next club meeting?”

“What?  Am I…?”

“I mean the School Unity Club.  If you go to the next meeting, I’ll come too.”

Nagito swallowed, fidgeting.  He brushed a little messy white hair behind his ear.  “Yeah.  Yeah, absolutely.”  He decided to push his luck, just a little, then, seeing Hajime smile: he decided to try and make this raw, beautiful person that hated him laugh.  “Maybe Kokichi’ll stop pestering me if I finally participate.”

Hajime snorted.  He relaxed, just the littlest bit, and Nagito felt his insides twist.  That was an unfamiliar feeling.

“Probably not,” Hajime said.

“No… probably not.”

That couldn’t have been part of the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s secret conniving plan, though, right?  To get them to bond over mutual frustration…  to pester them both until they started commiserating about it…

Right?

But then, maybe Nagito shouldn’t put it past him.  Kokichi’d earned his Ultimate Student-status somehow.  Maybe he and Chiaki hadn’t been completely wrong about a School Unity Club, either.

Well, now… they’d just played right into the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s hands, hadn’t they?

That didn’t matter too much, somehow, when Hajime was taking Nagito out to arcades with his other friends, and on hikes in the forest, and to read quietly on a bench in the park.  Sun on their skin, wind in their hair, ruffling the pages of their books just the littlest bit…  or else grabbing Nagito’s book away and hurtling it out horrifyingly fast into oncoming traffic.  Or maybe it was the first book Hajime got him as a gift that would get stolen by a randomly-appearing hawk, this time?   At least now Hajime knew Nagito usually laughed that desperate, rattling sort of cackle when he was upset.  Nervous.  Panicking.  At least now Hajime would rub his back, a little, and tell him they were fine.  Hey, hey.  Nagito, look at me.  Your luck isn’t your fault.  Just breathe.

Breathe.

No, falling for the Ultimate Supreme Leader’s machinations barely mattered at all, this time.

2 ½. So Glad I was Wrong About You

The first time Hajime Hinata kissed Nagito Komaeda, he hadn’t been expecting to do it, himself, if you’d asked him just five minutes before.  They were doing homework together, and the year was almost over – Nagito had asked Hajime to come to the Main Course Graduation Ball with him, as friends, of course, and high school was winding down to an end for both of them.  Hajime had just worked weekend shifts at a thrift store to buy himself a set of four-leaf clover cufflinks to wear with his suit, small and gold and hopefully not the sort of thing Nagito would think was tacky.  They were…  Hajime hadn’t known what they were, exactly, until he found himself watching the way Nagito talked with his hands, staring off into the distance, swept away in what they were discussing.  He remembered something their mutual friend Chiaki Nanami, the Ultimate Gamer, had said a few weeks before:

“I don’t think Nagito’s gonna ask you to go to the ball as his date-date.  But if he does, be nice.”

Hajime hadn’t pressed Chiaki on that, for some reason.  He’d been a little distracted by how she was completely annihilating him in the game they were playing.  Why hadn’t he…  dammit, why hadn’t he really heard her, then?  If Nagito asked him out, like…  as a boyfriend…  Hajime was supposed to treat him gently.  Maybe Chiaki thought Hajime would’ve wanted to say no, to an invitation like that?  It was hard to say.  Her expression had been all dusty lavender, vague and soft, watching her character defeat Hajime’s so, so mercilessly.  The game had been reflected in her eyes, neon and flickering and fast.

But maybe…  maybe what Chiaki said had meant more than just some run-of-the-mill politeness advice.   It could have meant Nagito’d told Chiaki he was interested in taking Hajime as his date-date, but had backed away squirming from the idea because he was still getting over the concept that he was somehow fundamentally broken.   Maybe he didn’t realize Hajime had bought those four-leaf clover cufflinks like a promise, because he didn’t want this Graduation Ball to be the last chance he got to wear them.  To be fair, Hajime had only just realized that, himself.  Who else was he gonna wear four-leaf clovers for, if not the Ultimate Lucky Student?  He’d gotten to know Nagito’s luck extremely well, over the last year together; he knew which scars he tended to keep hidden, because he hated explaining their backstories, and he had watched Nagito’s closing monologue from that Reserve Course documentary over and over in the dead of night.  Trying to understand it.  Trying to understand this impossible, contrary guy who had just helped him edit his last Japanese Literature essay of the semester.

Hajime had kept telling himself he was done with Nagito Komaeda – for weeks, he’d told himself that.  It felt like such a waste, now.  They were both growing beyond Hope’s Peak Academy, in their ways, even though obviously there had been a time when Hajime would’ve told you that was impossible.  He hadn’t thought he could imagine himself a meaningful future without some link to Ultimate Talent, without this school, whatever exactly it was, but the possibilities had started painting themselves to life without him really noticing it.  The change crept in so sweetly, somewhere between the Ultimate Supreme Leader dragging the whole School Unity Club into participating in the next academy-wide musical and that time they’d all gotten lost in the mountains and Hajime found himself spreading his coat out over Nagito while he slept.   Living had changed things, brought meaning where none had been assigned by fancy academy board members.  When Hajime learned about the Izuru Kamukura Project – a study that had apparently endowed some random Reserve Course student with all the Ultimate Talents under the sun – he was jealous, yeah, but not the way he felt he should have been.

Hajime leaned across the desk and took Nagito’s face in his hands; he kissed him fast and hard, before he could change his mind.  Kissed him like he’d yelled his actual first name in his face.  Kissed him like truth, and the revelation he’d always thought maybe he could be, if only, if only, if only.  He felt Nagito tense and then soften; he felt Nagito try to speak, and then close his eyes, pale lashes brushing against his skin.  Hajime ran his hand down Nagito’s neck, and tangled it just a little in his unbrushed hair.  Nagito made a wondering, helpless sound, and Hajime held him closer.  Pulled back.  Kissed his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” Nagito said.  Hajime didn’t think he knew what for.   Maybe he was still sorry for saying he didn’t think Hajime had any reason to come to this school and that whole tangled-up, confusing introduction they’d had; maybe he was just worried he’d turned out to be a disappointing kisser.  Somewhere out in the hallway, Kokichi Oma was laughing, calling, “You’ll never take me alive!” to someone chasing him with a mysteriously bedazzled mop.  Somewhere out in the hallway, Izuru Kamukura – Reserve Course student-turned living god – was staring out at the world and realizing it was all immeasurably, heartbreakingly boring, when all the talent possible was limp in his hands.

“Why?” Hajime asked.

“Um,” Nagito said.  There were so many words churning inside him, but he was holding Hajime’s hand really tightly, now.  He cleared his throat.  “I mean, we can try that again, if you want.  If I did it wrong.”

Hajime and Nagito were both strong believers in second chances, by that point.  They went to the Main Course Graduation Ball with Nagito holding Hajime’s hand just as tight, and no, that absolutely wasn’t the last chance Hajime had to wear those four-leaf clover cufflinks.