#comakomaeda

After several unsuccessful attempts, the chik-chik-chik of his firestarting kit gives way to the crackle of a fledgling fire. 

“Get over here,” Hinata says, rifling through his pack for a certain something and rifling through his altered brain for survival tips. 

Komaeda waddles over, his thin shoulders shaking under his suit jacket. His ghostly white hair is plastered to his face from the rain, rivulets running down his high, prominent cheekbones. Another sneeze sets his entire body spasming, and he sniffles, pink lips slightly parted.

Was it possible to be completely pitiable and really damn cute at the same time?

“We’re sitting ducks in this position, you know,” Komaeda pipes cheerfully after a few moments of staring into the flames. Hinata ignores him. “All it takes is one Remnant or even a hungry civilian to-”

“T-Throw this on.” He tosses a small bag to Komaeda. “It’s a military-grade heating blanket Togami gave me a while back... It’ll keep you from freezing, at the very least.”

“Interrupting is rude, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda huffs, peeling open the bag with shaking hands- and promptly dropping his pants.

“Wha- what are you-” It’s rude to strip in front of people, too, you weirdo! Especially out of NOWHERE like that, why are his legs so cute, oh god his boxers have little clovers on them-

“You didn’t read the instructions? It very clearly says that it works best when applied to the skin, and especially not to go in with near-freezing clothes. I thought someone with every talent would know basic thermodynamics and survival skills...” Komaeda chides, folding his pants neatly and putting them to the side. “By the way, it’s also rude to stare.”

Hinata goes beet-red and takes this moment to study a particularly interesting rock by his feet. Was the blood rushing in his ears? Nonsense, must be the rain running down the windows outside...

“Wow, this really is cozy.” Komaeda’s head pokes out of the blanket. Hinata tries to ignore how his neck slopes down to bare collarbones, and the organized pile of clothing next to him, topped with those damn boxers again. “If I die here, at least I’ll be nice and warm.”

The fire is crackling now, and Hinata presses his palms against the pillar of hot air, trying to phase out how his freezing fingertips are shaking. He’ll prepare some rations and clean their guns and send out a report later, right now he just wants to get some feeling back in his rain-beaten skin. Komaeda’s lucky that he only has one biological hand, because this sucks.

“Hey... Come in here.” Hinata looks up, and realizes that Komaeda is staring at him, his ocean-green eyes soft with some form of pity. His voice is surprisingly tender, low and breathy, and Hinata tells himself that it’s because they were running all over earlier. 

“You need it more than me.” He kicks a stick into the fire, watching it smolder.

“The instructions also said it could fit up to 4 people. I know you’ve been working out nonstop, but you’re not that buff.”

Goddammit.

“Just don’t... Don’t look.” Hinata tosses his discarded clothes in the general direction of his drying suit jacket, scurrying over to Komaeda’s side of the fire. The blanket opens, and Hinata can see how delicate Komaeda is, ribs poking out, thighs rife with scars. He can imagine the heart thumping under his thin flesh and brittle bones, and that sudden thought sends him reeling as he presses against Komaeda. He’s... Warm, and not just because of the blanket. The gentle feeling of Komaeda’s pulse, the rise and fall of his chest... 

Nagito Komaeda is alive. Hajime Hinata is alive. They both live on despite what the world has thrown at them; they struggle hand over hand, nail and tooth, to live. And of all the people who have lived, the two of them managed to be born at the same time, to meet, and to somehow end up surviving together...

“Well, you looked at me...”

“Did not.”

“Sure, Hinata-kun,” he chuckles, his chest shaking with a hollow laugh. Thankfully, he goes quiet after that, his breathing steady as Hinata lets the heat permeate his core. 

“You didn’t have to do that, you know,” Hinata murmurs after a while, eyes burning from staring at the fire. Komaeda is silent for a while, and shifts against Hinata almost imperceptibly. Interacting with Komaeda has always been like that. Reading the tiny dips in his voice, scouring his words for hidden meanings- that’s how Komaeda communicates. 

“You didn’t have to save my life.”

“Okay, but...” Matsuda leans back in his chair, rubbing his temples. He needs a haircut and a shave, Izuru notes. For someone so brilliant yet arrogant, he lets things like that slide so often. His wavy black locks look tousled, and not in the stylish way that Enoshima’s do, when she’s Enoshima and not someone else. The bags under his eyes betray that if he has slept, he slept very little. “Put yourself in my shoes.”

“Your ugly sandals?” 

“Shut it, they’re comfortable. Anyways, my higher-ups are basically already crawling up my ass and breathing down my neck constantly, so what happens if they come in and see you looking like you went through a woodchipper?” He rolls away, retrieving some gauze and bandages, before rolling back, plucking a twig out of Izuru’s overgrown bangs. “Give me your hand.”

“Tell them that I fell out of a tree. I fail to see why telling the truth is so impossible here.” Izuru says, obliging and offering Matsuda his hand. Matsuda takes it, holding it like a manicurist would as he surveys the damage. Izuru hums a little at the deep, throbbing sting of the cut on the back of his hand contrasted with the scratchy warmth of Matsuda’s hand on his palm. 

“God, I’m gonna have to give this one a few stitches.” Matsuda blows his hair out of his face with an angry sigh, retrieving supplies from the table next to them. “Anyways, option A is that I tell them and they assume I’m lying and that I hurt you, and we can’t have anyone hurting the Academy’s pet. Option B is that I tell them, they believe me, and see that I’m replaced with a much less... lenient caretaker.” 

Izuru stares at his lap, watching Matsuda begin to work on his wound. They’re both silent, but not in the way that the artificial Hope can enjoy, not in the way where they spend hours reading manga and snacking and staring at the ceiling. This is a silence full of implications, implications of loss and the forced end of their relationship. Izuru knows this setup will end someday, yet he’ll do anything to prolong their unlikely happiness. How irrational.

“I’m sorry.” Matsuda looks up at him, slightly puzzled. Izuru Kamukura doesn’t apologize unless his caretaker makes him apologize, and even then all he can muster is a sarcastic “sorry” paired with a look of utter apathy that usually pisses Matsuda off more. But this time he means it, and that surprises even him. 

“...It’s fine. I’ll come up with something to cover for you.” He finishes his suture and moves to the second-to-last one, and Izuru can tell from the minute mistakes in his handiwork that he’s upset, though he doesn’t show it. “...And why were you in a tree in the first place?”

“I thought it would be interesting. I have not had the opportunity to test my Ultimate Parkour Artist ability yet, though I see that one is... Something I need to practice first.”

“Weirdo.” Matsuda manages a smile, and Izuru can tell from the crinkle of his frost-gray eyes that it’s genuine. 

“Listen, I want to let you have as much freedom as possible. Don’t make that hard for me, they want to fight me on this.” The neurologist snips the suture thread, before leaning in to look Izuru in the eyes. His tone is soft though his words are sharp, not an uncommon circumstance for Matsuda. He’s full of contrasts. Izuru thinks that’s why he enjoys his company so much, even if he is an ass. “Don’t get yourself hurt.”

“I won’t... I promise.”

_________

Izuru looks down at his hand, looks down at that long, jagged scar between his third and second metacarpal bones, like a lightning strike on his skin. He can’t comprehend why he runs his finger over the scar, imagining a quiet sickroom overflowing with pale dawn light, when the sky is a deep blood-red and the air echoes with gunfire and sirens. 

He has time to stand here and think, however. He’s untouchable. Besides, the remaining forces opposing Despair are panicked, hungry, and wounded, tattered remains of a futile resistance, staying where they are out of stupidity or sheer stubbornness. He doubts even their luckiest, most talented sniper could land a hit on him. That is, if they have any forces left.

“Izuru-chaaaaan! You’re being soooo slow!” That woman’s voice rings out, sticky sweet like poisoned honey. “We’ve got stuff to do before our little game starts! Chop chop, sweetie!”

As she walks, Izuru finds the crunch of her boots on gravel becoming more and more aversive. 

Every footstep, every footfall, he imagines those designer shoes crushing Matsuda’s skull. Snapping his bones like twigs. Kicking and bruising the skin that had once served as Izuru’s only comfort in a sterile and lifeless existence. Crunching his mouth that had once, when Izuru was just a new creation, sung to him during a sleepless and pain-wracked night. Mutilating his already-lifeless body until the only identifier Izuru had had was that familiar red-and-black tie.

“Jesus christ, Kamukura, move your ass.”

He traces the scar again.

“Don’t get yourself hurt,” Matsuda had said, a lifetime ago. 

“She’s going to realize I’m gone, and she’ll find us, and... Ahaha, I wonder what she’ll do when she does!” he wheezes, thin arms wrapping around his torso as he struggles to steady himself. “Maybe she’ll take out one of my eyes, or even a leg! Of course, she’ll make me do it to myself, because what would be the point in her lowering herself to touch me after I did this, thought I had the gall to get away- oh, there’s always self-immolation, I totally forgot! What do you think, Kamukura-k-”

As Izuru places his hands on Nagito’s shoulders, fixing him with a stern yet blank stare, the other boy’s inane ramblings cease almost instantly, fading into a slight whimper.

“Nagito.” Komaeda looks away at his given name, almost flinching. Makes sense, he supposes. The only one to call him that in years must be that awful woman. “You know I am the closest thing to a deity on earth, correct.”

“If you’re a god, she’s a demon, ahaha... Or perhaps a fallen angel? No, that’s not quite correct, although Lucifer was pretty beautiful, if you’ve brushed up on that? Of course you have-”

“Anyways. Thinking that I can be stopped by her or even inconvenienced by her is a grave misunderstanding of our abilities. An insult. Anything she can do, I can do ten times better. Do you understand?”

He looks like a scolded dog when he’s truly upset, Izuru has noticed. His chin droops as he peers doe-like at the SHSL Hope, giving a little nod. Komaeda’s thin, brittle shoulders shake as his chest shudders, as if he’s on the verge of tears, though a faint smile tugs at his lips.

Idly, Izuru wonders if Komaeda has any tears left in those pale eyes. 

“Perhaps my tone was too harsh.” He has no idea why he’s saying this. How strange. The words feel foreign on his tongue, as if someone else is speaking through him. Even stranger is how he takes a step towards Nagito, who flinches as if Izuru had pointed a gun at him (again). “I mean to protect you. I will not let Junko Enoshima, nor any of her comrades, lay a hand on you again.” 

There are the tears. Komaeda doesn’t seem to be aware of them beginning to overflow, running down his soot-streaked and hollow cheeks. 

The word agape forms in Izuru’s mind, and he finally understands the love he had read so much about, the feeling that began wars and families alike, the deep ache of the soul.