Hajime's B-day! What's his B-day surprise?? Hope its a good one. Boy could use a happy surprise...
You know, my only regret is that I didn’t get to this sooner. What can I say though? College has taken up a good amount of my time. That and being yelled at for things that I have nothing to do with. But Hajime definitely got a surprise.
It had been the first year since everyone had been freed from the Neo World Program, and Hajime’s classmates were all trying to reintegrate into society and fix the things they had done. Families that had been separated found themselves together, lots of injured adults found themselves being patched up by the ultimate nurse herself, and the ultimate breeder himself pounced on taking care of the children who had been thrown amidst the despair around them.
Countless days had passed since he had freed the rest of his class, one by one. After going through thirteen different fake lives. Thirteen other worlds that had disregarded that Chiaki had ever existed.
Had she even existed in the first place?
Hajime continued to ask himself that multiple times a day. Lacking the majority of his own memory made trying to verify her life that much harder. Occasionally, he would recall a very faint memory of a fountain with the sun setting, and grunting angrily at games with someone. The more he tried to confirm that with himself, the more his head hurt. It didn’t help that his memory mixed with Izuru’s, and he could recall of the bloodshed he caused.
Then that image would come back.
A girl laying on the ground covered in an unfathomable amount of blood.
“Hey, got a sec?” a wispy voice asked, bringing Hajime back to the boat rocking gently beneath him. The laughter of Hiyoko at something unimportant Mikan had done could be heard over the quiet chatter of everyone else. Nagito had been sitting in front of Hajime for some amount of time that hadn’t been accounted for.
“I-uh, yeah. What’s up, Nagito?” His hair bounced with him a little bit as he sat back up, his hetero-chromatic eyes wide. Nagito chuckled a little bit before sitting next to Hajime.
“It’s New Year’s, Hajime. Exactly one year since you woke me up,” Nagito sighed a bit as he played with his messy hair. His fingers couldn’t run through the entirety of the lock they were in, so he spent some time trying to get a few of the knots out with his fingertips.
“Has it really been that long?” Hajime looked down at his lap. He could recall of the events that had happened on the island with such clarity- from the first time he said hello to everyone, to each death and investigation. He remembered every execution in excruciating detail, and he could hear Usami and Chiaki hitting the invisible wall between them before getting-
“It’s not healthy to think about the one person you couldn’t save, really. What’s the use of torturing yourself about it?”
“I…” Hajime clenched his fists tightly, as he kept his gaze trained on anywhere but where Nagito was sitting. “Did I really let her…” Nagito shook his head and put his hand that was still intact on a stiff shoulder.
Hajime knew he wasn’t wrong- Izuru wasn’t the same person who had met Natsumi and Sato. He wasn’t the one who had met the compassionate Chisa, and saw Kibougamine change. It didn’t excuse what he did as Izuru in his opinion, but it would be simpler to just agree with the point given to him, so he simply nodded and closed his eyes. The two sat in silence, before a well manicured hand was on his opposite shoulder.
“I believe it is not just New Year’s Day,” Sonia’s concise voice rang out, and feet shuffled toward them.
“Yeah, isn’t it time we get down to business? Ibuki’s been dying! If I had to write a song about this, it would be something like… I don’t know right now, actually.” Ibuki trailed off, humming in thought.
“W-well, I wouldn’t-I wouldn’t call it ‘business,’ per se…” Mikan timidly brought up, causing an annoyed groan to come from Hiyoko.
“Jesus, nasty pigshit like you needs to learn your place!”
Mahiru quietly tried to console Mikan and make Hiyoko hush. Kazuichi came up with the imposter. Holding a small device- assumedly a portable game console that was modified greatly- Kazuichi gently handed it over to Hajime with a smile.
“It was one HELL of a process, but I think you might be happy with this. I’m glad that Ryota and Byakuya could help me with the process of extracting the data and coding things correctly.” Hajime stared at it, his eyebrows raised. He couldn’t recall the last time he had been given a gaming console.
“Thanks, you guys, but… games aren’t made for this anymore, remember? The factory in Towa city shut down.”
Hajime scrambled to look at the screen of the console that had emitted the all too familiar voice. Pixels started to form an image that had been haunting his dreams for what felt like ages. Light pink hair was moving as if a breeze had made its way into the virtual world. Bright pink eyes looked up at Hajime, and her cheeks were puffed out angrily. Hajime’s hands began to shake as he clutched onto the little handheld device.
“I’ve missed you, I-I’m so sorry for everything, I-”
“Please don’t worry. At least I’m here now, right?” Chiaki gave her signature smile, jerking a few tears out of Hajime. He held the device to his chest, happy that Chiaki had made it out of the world with them in some form. He couldn’t wait to catch her up on the good that they had all brought into the world since Jabberwock Island.
“Happy birthday, Hajime!”
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