lifeaftr | Got to get back up, but at your own pace

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Got to get back up, but at your own pace

Who: Hinata Hajime and Komaeda Nagito (

despairing_hope)
What: After being at their worst, they're left to pick up the pieces.
When: Backdated to 12/3. continues to 12/17 (ie a few threads likely)
Where: Islet 4, cottage and surrounding area.
Warnings: Spoilers Dangan Ronpa 2, 3, and Ultra Despair girls. Other than that will add as needed.

‘You got your wish’ shouldn’t be as upsetting as it is. Yet once they left Monsun and came down from its effects…the words are like a disease spreading out inside his mind. He remembers how it felt on Monsun, the lack of caring about anyone around him and watching situations with brief fascination. He’d always been bored and always felt…removed from everything. As if it all hadn’t mattered to him.

It hadn’t.

Hinata scrubs at his face and thrusts his hands into the water by the cottage that’s a work in progress. They had a solid roof. That’s enough for now. He splashes his face and stares across the sea. It feels like he’s out there in the sea with a storm coming and he has no idea what to do about it. He and the others had broken the world. Apparently, he overcame it. Jealousy stabs at him and he narrows his eyes. No. He hadn’t. He had. This supposedly better version of himself.

He flicks his fingers and glances towards the cottage. One good thing had come from the bad situation…he finally has an idea of Komaeda’s mind. There’s no mask anymore. He now knows everything Komaeda had said about himself…it was real. Typical of Komaeda he’d tried to hide that in a lie. He rises to his feet and heads inside.

“Hey, we need to get the fire going again.”

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"Do we have kindling?" He didn't really care about the answer though, he couldn't bring himself to care about much. Even after returning from the island he felt awful. A part of him would be alright if he just rolled over and died right there and then.

"...yeah. We do." Guilt stabs hard. Komaeda still isn't doing well. "Komaeda. I'm...I'm sorry." He has to say it. If only so Komaeda knows he really wouldn't have done that to him in his right mind.

"There's no reason for you to be sorry Hinata kun," he understands Hinata isn't the sort of person to act like that if given a choice. No, if anything... he should apologize, but what was the point? Apologies from scum are meaningless.

Why was he still sticking around so hard to this meaningless existence?

"Then we can add it and poke the flame."

"Come on. Once it's hot enough I'll make lunch." Komaeda seems so listless and without his own suspicions of him...it's worrying. It's really worrying. "You need to eat." He adds as he closes the distance between them. Quietly he holds out his hand.

"No. I have a reason. I shouldn't have said any of it." He'll leave it at that if Komaeda deflects it again. He..still has nightmares of a boat, faint flickers of green rooms. ...and every world Komaeda said still feels like a dagger in his ribs.

He looks at Hinata's hand, he wants to argue but decides to drop it and reaches out. He considered just getting up on his own, but he cou isn't ignore the gesture. No matter what, that was something he couldn't reject right now.

"I don't really need that much to eat," eating too much just made him feel sick most the time, and why waste food?

Edited 2017-12-10 07:01 (UTC)

He nods once, not pushing the matter. Komaeda will ask or make something himself when he's hungry. He grips his hand lightly as he draws him up. He releases it once he's steady. Neither of them needs the stress of prolonged contact. "Are you up for helping with the farm, later?"

Maybe if keeping Komaeda moving will cease that strange dullness in his eyes. No. It isn't strange. It's his fault that vulnerability is even there.

He might try to cook, but it would be a miserable attempt.

Help with the farm? He probably should, but he also couldn't help but think he would just ruin it. "If you think I might be useful."

"You'll do fine." He releases Komaeda's hand and heads out into the cool day. The seasons have to be changing. Hinata sets the kindling down in the center of the fire pit they'd dug out weeks before. "Can you bring two of the logs here?"

Keep him feeling even a little useful. He's worried about this...subdued nature. Not realizing his own mood is very much the same. He sleeps too long and works too hard now.

"I can," it felt like busy work being given to him to just be active. He supposed Hinata was worried in his own way.

He went to grab some of their logs, large enough to burn well, but small enough to carry two of them without too much difficulty.

"You know, you don't need to be concerned."

"...you haven't been your usual self since we left that island." He stares into the kindling and arranges it to his liking. He can't look up or Komaeda would see the guilt all over his face. He had been a monster. Still is judging by how he responded to people at his worst when the stress was too much.

"I'm worried." He admits, quietly. He dares not say it too loud.

"What even is my usual self at this point? It's hard to say," he hadn't felt 'normal' for a long time. And was his 'normal' even something that could be obtained now? "No matter what I'm going to be different though."

“But, you don’t eat much or even explore like you were doing.” Hinata points out. He feels slightly out of his depth. Komaeda tends to make him feel that way and this is no different. “You can’t deny...you’ve been acting strange.” So has he but he doesn’t want to admit to that.

"I never ate much Hinata kun..." it was like admitting to a lie, even though he had never really actively lied about that. "Sometimes there are just bad days, and sometimes there are many..." though he wasn't sure the last time it felt this way for so long. Exposed, even to himself. "There isn't a lot to focus on at the moment," Survival seemed just, not very important.

“There’s preparing for winter. It is coming.” He can feel the lack of desire to do much of anything invading his thoughts. Komaeda never ate much. He files that away and frowns. What can he do? Can he do much of anything? “...how can I tell your good days from your bad?”

It’s an honest question and an offer for help. Should Komaeda choose to accept it. He has his doubts he will.

"You shouldn't have to," he should be better about it, but... it was too much to fake it recently. Being exposed, needing to accept things he didn't really want to believe.

"We should just forget what happened."

“I can’t.” His voice despite his better efforts is pained. No. He can’t forget. Too much damage had been done to himself and to others. He adds the logs to the kindling and starts up the fire with a match.

...

“I really was a monster. Just like you said.” A greedy monster. He had caused so much pain and he can’t remember any of it. He’d hurt Komaeda and the world. He breathes in and arranges the wood. Now all he wants to do is sleep but he has to get up and get moving. “Come on, we have a tree farm to work on.”

"You weren't a monster," if anything he might describe him as an indifferent god, but that wasn't exactly right either.

He had nothing more to add, and it felt too quiet now bot to try and talk. They had the farm, but, it was just a stopper between the awkward.

"There's too much to try and explain." But he was ready to follow Hinata and help out.

Too much to try and explain? It doesn't change how awful he feels. How they feel. "Neither were you." He decides that should be said and walks to the side of the house. Tiny shoots of small plants break through the soil. He kneels down and starts to work one side of the farm, clearing out weeds and grass shoots.

He has nothing more to say to that, instead focusing on the water saved to give to the plants, pretty much all used and then some added items for nutrition. He didn't know that much about plants, but he remembered a few interesting things he had read before. He had tried to raise plants once, but they had all died rather horribly.

Thud. Thud. Something heavy and metal strikes wood breaking the quiet morning with the sounds of someone working. Thud.

Thud.

Outside by the old stump, a tall, lean man adjusts the log he set down. He breathes in and draws the axe up. It comes down to split the log in one smooth, precise blow. Thud.

Unless investigated, he continues until he's broken down the tree stretched out by the stump. The scent of wood smoke and cooking meat will slip into the cottage. He will be watching the door between swings or tending the fire.

Whenever Komaeda ventures to see what is going on, he stops what he's doing. "Hey. Sorry I'm late."

It takes him a while to focus on the sound of chopping. At first he ignored it as nothing, and then as a minor annoyance. It was when he finally focused on it that he was driven to check on it.

A mild hope filled him.

He didn't want to rush, rushing was believing too much when the inevitable would be nothing to be found. But he rushed anyway, and upon reaching the sound he was almost speechless. The joy and relief he felt was almost overwhelming.

"Hinata kun!" There was something about him though, the way he was carrying himself. It was different. "Does this mean you know now?"

He sets the hatchet head against the stump and leans on the handle. Komaeda looks happier than he saw him last time on the islet. "I do." Hinata straightens up, making a face. "You do a poor job of explaining anything."

He can see it all clearly now but what terrible pieces to give him. He shrugs, picks up the axe and resumes his work. His eyes drift to the hand still attached to Komaeda. "When I have enough favors I'm fixing that mess again." He can feel his senses are duller than they had been on Jabberwock but it's enough that he isn't alarmed.

Just the way it is. But one thing he can't leave alone. He halts his swing, muscles straining under his white button-up shirt. "You had that wrong. We can be anything we want to be. We can even start again." The axe falls and he splits another section of the trunk into a log.

He didn't have an immediate reply, he thought he had but it left him when Hinata talked about his hand. Again... so he had done something? Ah... so now he was the one missing things. There was an odd feeling that struck up, but he didn't have a word for it.

"Can we really start over?"

"...not in the eyes of the world." He watches Komaeda's expression. For the second he pauses in mid-swing of the axe, his voice gentle and soft. "I only have an hour on you. You're not behind. You're only missing two things." Again work resumes. They need wood for winter.

He now knows how to properly dry it out.

He hadn't thought he was that obvious, Hinata... knew him well. Hinata was different, but... this was who he had wanted to meet. This is who he had wanted to see. The one he knew would find him, would wake him, the one who... came to understand him.

He could feel something swell inside him as if it might burst.

"Then, we can simply think of winter for now."

"Maybe. We don't know what's going to happen with the islands." At the thought of Monsun his eyes narrow and he glares in its direction. "I wonder if anyone found its god."

He isn't sure he wants to know. Yet as he continues to work he pauses again. "We'll have storytelling soon...maybe." A pause.

"I can tell how waking you up went. If you don't mind it." It would serve as cluing Komaeda in and be getting favors to use for later.

"The islands are rather frustrating, the cost may not make then worth it," he definitely didn't feel like going back there anytime soon.

"You can tell any story you want, Hinata kun. I have no room to stop you."

"I want your opinion not telling me I can do what I want." Hinata waves his hand and resumes work. Half the tree done. Shouldn't take much longer to get the rest. "Even if the islands aren't worth the cost I'm still going to try. We need the resources and....I want to understand them."

He made a small frown, barely visible. He didn't like Monsun, he didn't want to go back. But the fact that it did have recourses and there were things to learn was true. The other side of the island was probably better for personal well being though. At least emotional.

"You didn't see anything, right?" he had been told it had all been private, that only he and the Kamakura Izuru he had met there knew what had happened, but he had to make sure first, if he was going to share real opinions.

Hinata stops what he's doing. Again. He isn't bothered by it. He sets the axe down and gives Komaeda his full attention. "I saw nothing. Your privacy is secure."

He felt a bit guilty to question it, but, it was something he didn't want to share. At least, he didn't want to share it for now.

"Then I wouldn't mind knowing what happened outside, and I don't mind if others want to hear it too."

He holds his gaze for a few seconds and smiles, a warm glow in his eyes. "Okay. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable." His thoughts spin in circles. There's a lot he could say but he won't offer things up without Komaeda asking for them.

He still remembers that grove of mango trees where they both fell apart. "Anything you want to ask me right now?"

He looks down, he can't meet Hinata's stare, he can't help but wonder one thing deeply.

"Why? Why did you put the effort, why did you wait?" He had known though, he had known deep down that Hinata would come, that he would find him. But... why? Anyone else, everyone else... would have left him where he was.

He stares out at the water for a long moment. How can he put it into words? Hinata meets his eyes again and pronounces his words slowly. "You gave us everything you had. You believed in me when no one else would. But no one believed in you. You did terrible things but so have every one of us."

He sets the axe down and comes around the stump to stand directly before Komaeda. "It's late, but you're my friend. I did a poor job of that for a bit and before you say anything you did too. I couldn't just leave you down there, Komaeda. You matter to me. To all of us. You're one of us. ...if you'll have us as your classmates."

It hurt yet, it felt wonderful. He only had one response, stronger than any of his other feelings to Hinata's words. The one thing that mattered more than anything.

"Of course, I love my class more than anything, I wouldn't trade them for the world," he paused for a moment, a small smattering of thought striking him. "And that includes you Hinata kun." Hinata was also a member of the class after all, and he wanted to make sure he understood he felt that way. Of course, there was a bit more too it, but why make a show of that.

His eyes go wide. He stares at Komaeda unable to form words at first. His lips move then he reaches out, a wide smile dawning in his own face. “I know it does. We’re all in this together. His hand closes on Komaeda’s arm as he steps just a hair closer. “We’ll find a way back to everyone. If I can go and come back, there has to be some way out. Right?”

"There has to be. It was mentioned that people can sometimes slip out, the way they slipped in..." if they coukd understand how that happened, perhaps they could induce it themselves.

“We can’t ask Storyteller about it. It has to be outside their power. We’re on our own with this one.” He retreats back to the side of the stump by the tree. He picks up the axe and resumes swinging. “But we can’t be sure. There’s another place in the mountains with symbols like the monkey compound. There might be answers there. We’d need an expedition Force for it either way.”

"If we talked about potential ways to get home, people might be more willing to volunteer for it," it was definitely a greater power, hidden down in the depths somewhere.

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Got to get back up, but at your own pace

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Forward dated to the 17th

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