Chapter Text
Komaeda has spent a larger part of his life alone.
It wasn’t because he really liked being alone. But loneliness had become so familiar to him that sharing the space with another felt awkward, unsettling and jilted.
Still he would long for it. Hopelessly hoping for a day where he could befriend someone who wouldn’t wilt in his wake.
Not out of choice, but by chance. Most things in his life usually turned out that way. Utterly random, insanely beyond his grasp, beyond his control.
He was a lucky sort of guy after all.
That wasn’t enough to dispel the loneliness.
From the moment he was born, he was sure he had been placed under some kind of curse. Though most of his early childhood had been following around his parents on trips, finding a surprising amount of four-leaved clovers in the park and birthday candles lit at the dead of the night.
His luck had even stripped him of those simple pleasures.
His dog, his parents and his health. Everything seemed to slip by him one by one, and he held no power over it.
Nobody he could care for, nobody who would care for him and declining health. A failing body, he would be lucky if he could live even a year more.
He wasn’t all that worried though. He was a lucky sort of guy, and whether he lived or died had started becoming more inconsequential as the days went by.
Luck did not hate or love him. Luck tortured him, instead. And Komaeda was only a victim to it’s whims, and the best he could do was grasp onto anything he could hold onto and cling to it for dear life.
And this foothold in the chaotic troublesome world, had been hope. The plane, the one that had been hijacked had been despair, and the meteorite that had killed it was hope. Since it had defeated the despair, but in doing so it had killed his parents. Despair again, but then Komaeda had acquired all the wealth so even that despair had been hope in the end.
So, that’s how Komaeda had come to the conclusion that everything in life was for the sake of hope. Even his unnatural horrible luck succumbed underneath Hope’s hand.
Which was why the school known as Hope’s Peak had sounded like a utopia to Komaeda’s pathetic little heart. Hope… hope, and absolute good could surely only be born in a school that cultivated it. A school with talent, and not just any talent but Ultimate level talent. People so extraordinarily refined in their skills that it was almost superhuman. Almost like a power.
Of course, only people like that could be true hope. Not someone like him, who only brought misfortune wherever they went.
It was best for leeches - the talentless and despicable, the average, the meaningless nobodies who held even less than Komaeda to stay away from a place like that. It would also be best that he himself never stepped foot in there, not when his luck could strip away everything he cared for in an instant.
This is why he becomes so surprised that even after accidentally winning the Hope’s Peak lottery he tries to refuse.
“My luck will ruin this school.” Komaeda remembered telling the Headmaster, “the last thing I want to do is risk the safety of the most hopeful school in the world!”
Jin Kirigiri only shook his head with a soft smile.
“Don’t worry Komaeda. The school, and the Ultimates will all be able to handle it. I won’t let anything jeopardize anyone’s safety. Which includes your own safety.” Kirigiri notes pointedly.
It’s the first time someone fights for him. It’s the first time Komaeda has ever been wanted anywhere.
Before Hope’s Peak, the world was so blurry and far away. There were whispers though, about how pale and frail and unnatural Komaeda looked. How he had to be some kind of demon, a ghost, a harbinger of death.
He never corrected a soul. After all, he might as well be.
That’s why Kirigiri’s kindness is overwhelming. It’s more than he’s ever been offered, more than he could ever dream. To be called an Ultimate, to walk the halls of Hope’s Peak...it was almost enough for him to fool himself into thinking perhaps he could find hope and peace within himself.
He had been so lonely until now. If he was going to find an equal, or a friend or even a bit of hope for the future it would have to be here.
Komaeda is aware that he isn’t very likable. When others would meet his eyes, the first instinct was to flinch away. Perhaps it was his paper thin skin barely stretching over protruding bones. It was probably unsightly, to see ghoulish green-grey eyes shine against the bruising purple of his eyelids. His white hair was thin, static-y if a little brittle and his lips were permanently chapped.
He probably looked like a worn pair of white tennis shoes. Or perhaps, a sickened sheepdog.
And his personality was worse, he was slightly aware of this too. His long tangents about hope and despair were considered strange and offsetting to others, and Komaeda never did learn the right way to behave or react.
He wasn’t very good at being normal. Nothing in his life ever had been, and perhaps that’s part of the reason why he stuck around at Hope’s Peak at all. In some way, he was extraordinary even if it was extraordinarily unfortunate.
He wasn’t under the impression that he would suddenly become Mr.Popular upon entering the academy. He knew he was worthless and strange, that the most he could hope for from anyone would be pity.
Still despite not being disillusioned, there was not a single person at the school he liked him. His classmates all gave him the stangre looks he had received in middle school. Nothing had changed for Komaeda, besides the fact that his peers at least were interesting characters.
In place of becoming increasingly aware of his own pathetic existence, he focused his attention on the achievements of the Ultimates. The embodiments of humanity’s hope.
He revelled in hearing and seeing their progress. Their happiness became his own. (At least, that was what he had told himself to keep himself from falling into the deep end.)
In his heart of hearts, he wished that these manifestations of hope would reach out to him. Try to learn him, try to understand him. But the distance between the hopeful Talents, and the talentless Komaeda was too great.
It had been wishful thinking on his part.
At first he tried convincing them to use him, as a servant or slave however they pleased. This had only widened the gaping distance between him and the rest of his classmates. He could not understand why they seemed so put off by being called Hope.
To be a beacon of hope in this despairing world seemed like the greatest blessing anyone’s life could be given. To be a force of pure good… if they were why couldn’t they reach out and understand him?
Was he so beyond saving, that not even Hope itself would smile down upon him?
Well, it didn't matter. This lifestyle had still been better than the last, what with the school helping him with his health.
Then Yukizome-sensei waltzes into their life like a whirlwind.
Komaeda hadn't met anyone so kind and hopeful before. If this was the future for all students at Hope’s Peak, perhaps there was a chance for him still.
Komaeda is at peace with this, even if he does want more. Even if deep, deep down in layers of hurt and fear and desire he wanted to be seen as an equal before his peers more than anything.
To be seen, to be understood… to be loved. If he could somehow manage even one of these, perhaps he could truly die in peace then. End the eternal suffering that was his luck cycle, that was his life.
The answers to Komaeda’s secret desires comes in the form he least expects.
A boy. A reserve course boy, so plain and so ordinary that even Komaeda feels greater than him.
He is reserved but observant. Kind and understanding too, beyond the facade of a cold distant man. His eyes are hazel, almost gold in the sunlight. His hair, brown like the colour of steaming coffee on a rainy day. His skin, bronze and glowing. There was beauty in his simplicity.
For a boy so simple and plain, he is awfully charming and enticing. Handsome and lovely, in a way he had no right being.
At first Komaeda cannot understand it, cannot fathom why all his classmates surround him. Grow to like him without much effort, when Komaeda who was at least an Ultimate was right there.
He didn’t understand how such a plain boy could capture their interest. When he had nothing to offer them, or so he had thought.
Despite all this, Komaeda cannot bring himself to dislike the boy at all. He’s respectful if a little blunt, but he is kind in ways Komaeda didn’t know anyone but Yukizome-sensei to be.
In contrast there is Saionji. One of the most foul-mouthed and disagreeable in their class. Perhaps more than even Kuzuryuu, who has also eventually taken a liking to the Reserve boy (apparently he is friends with the yakuza’s sister) as well.
It seemed strange on the surface, but one day he overhears the girl crying. Komaeda rushes over in concern, and is surprised to see him. The Reserve boy holding the small girl in his arms as she cried.
Something about missing her dad, about how useless and clumsy she felt when she did anything that wasn’t related to dancing. Her voice trembles, broken by choked gasps and quivering lips.
She’s afraid. Komaeda realizes. She is also fearful of the world that is unforgiving and too big for a stumbling kid like her.
Komaeda sympathizes. But he wouldn’t know what to say, not when his talk of hope only seemed to turn others away.
But Hajime Hinata always knows the right thing to say.
He tells her that he understands. Except, he doesn’t really even have dance to turn too. He has nothing, because he has no talent, no expertise, nothing to rely on even when the world was against him.
Hinata tells her how lonely it is. To have nothing but your own clumsy body and pointless thoughts, trying to see where a disjointed and useless thing like that could ever fit into a world full of bright talent.
His voice is vulnerable too, so intimate and raw. Komaeda almost wonders if he should leave, let the two find comfort and solace in each other privately as they probably wanted.
But Komaeda was curious. He was curious and hopeful, and there was something bright and sweet that tinged Hinata’s seemingly desolate words. Like he had discovered something wonderful that would melt all that despair away.
“The world is less lonely when you remember that nobody does live alone. Not completely. We can find hope and reassurance in others. Even the food we eat is grown by someone else, and it’s only by sharing these abilities or talents and skills and ideas and thoughts that all the talents in the world can come together to create something beautiful.” Hinata says, his voice catching in his throat.
His words halt Komaeda’s heart.
“You don’t have to conquer the world alone. Nobody can. You can be clumsy and fall, but your friends will always be there to help you back up. There’s more to this world, and to you that is precious beyond your one ability or talent you know. Your thoughts, your emotions and your love. All those things are refined by your talents, but don’t determine them. You are enough, just on your own Saionji.” Hinata reassures, as Komaeda falls to his feet.
Part of Komaeda wants to laugh, right in that Reserve Course face. Were those the words that he had used to convince himself of his own worth? Is this how Hinata could allow himself to pretend to be equals with Komaeda’s classmates?
Komaeda wanted to scoff but all that came from his mouth was a choked sob. He wanted to pity Hinata, for his pathetic ideas about worth.
Yet, it was plain to see. It was Komaeda that was the pathetic one.
His words tinged with hope so pure was nothing compared to anything Komaeda had ever done or said.
“Your talent… Mikan’s talent, even Koizumi’s talent. You all started your journey because you just did it, right. Not to be perfect or even the best at what you did, but you heart told you it was what you wanted. And you followed it until the end. You don’t love dancing because you’re the best Saionji. You became the best because you loved dancing. If you pour that same love into everything you try to do… I’m sure, I’m sure that even if you feel clumsy, you’ll find yourself where you’ve always needed to be.” Hinata explains, so soft and gentle and that’s when Komaeda finally gets it.
Why everyone is so in love with him.
It was at this very moment that Komaeda fell in love with him himself.
Saionji cries harder, but now Komaeda realizes her tears are ones of relief. Of bottling up all these burdens, and troubles deep within herself and shouldering it on her own until it exploded.
The next day, Saionji only ever refers to him as a Big Brother Hinata. The class is confused, but when Hinata blushes so prettily in embarrassment, everyone is too charmed to ask any further.
It’s easy to see why people enjoy his company so much. He takes care of others, his hands are gentle and his eyes are warm. Even if it’s housed in a body that is awkward and nothing special on it’s own, Komaeda starts to believe that perhaps it’s the Reserve Course kid that was closest to the Ultimate Hope after all.
Komaeda yearns to learn more of him, now that he’s seen what Hinata can do.
But there is too much conflict in his mind. Hinata might be kind beyond anything anyone had the right being, but he was still a Reserve Course. He was still ordinary in the way most should be, but if Komaeda got too close he wouldn’t be able to pull away from Hinata. And if that happened, his luck would surely drive Hinata away from him.
Still, Komaeda couldn’t resist for long.
They talk, occasionally, in between classes.
Hinata returns a CD to Mikan, and they make conversation.
He’s surprised to learn that Hinata does seek to know him. More than the rest of his classmates. He doesn’t look resigned, or nervous or scared when they interact. Only curious, contemplative if a little annoyed but Hinata did wear the expression often.
It was… refreshing. To have someone reach out for him instead.
He wants to take up all of Hinata’s time. He wants to cut up sections of himself for Hinata to dissect, and he hopes that like everyone else Hinata would be able to see something hopeful, something lovable, something salvageable.
Nanami hosts a class game night at her home, since the holidays had started. Everyone was invited, so long as their sleeping bags all remained in the main room. Even Komaeda and Hinata are invited, and it’s that night that starts it all.
As everyone else begins to break off into familiar cliques, Komaeda and Hinata are naturally the leftovers. They’ve talked plenty together plenty before, but the intimacy of a later night and the sleepy but warm ambiance makes both of them more vulnerable than usual, defences lowered.
The one-sided competition and tension Komaeda used to feel upon Hinata’s presence had transformed into something else.
Hinata was surprisingly smiley with him. More so than anyone else, Komaeda noted which was strange.
In fact, the more Komaeda learned of him the stranger he was. He listened to Komaeda ramble about hope and would deconstruct every self-deprecating thing Komaeda would say.
“You hide behind hope and talent even more than I did, and too much higher degree. I hid behind it because I was insecure and looking for excuses, but I’m sure it runs more deeply for you. Why are you so obsessed with hope, Komaeda?” Hinata asks, curiously as they watch Nanami defeat yet another opponent in League of Legends.
The light from the huge screen reflects off of Hinata’s hazel eyes, giving it a more somber bluish tint. His voice is soft, as if trying to maintain some semblance of gentle warmth even when his words are powerful enough to send shivers up Komaeda’s spine.
Nobody had ever been so interested in him before. It’s a pleasantly delightful experience, to be awarded with Hinata’s complete undivided attention.
Komaeda tries to shrug, familiar tales of hope being intertwined with absolute good departing his tongue before he knows it. And once Hinata is given an inch, he takes a mile and confesses and admits leaving Komaeda’s mouth without him knowing.
Everyone is asleep except for them by the time Komaeda finishes. His mouth is dry, throat a little sore from speaking so much at once. He’d told him too much in one night, the plane crash, his many illnesses, his desire to be loved, his guilt.
Guilt he had never thought to acknowledge before. He almost asks Hinata to forget it at all, since he is but an insignificant Reserve Course student who had not needed be burdened with Komaeda’s million issues.
Hinata continues to surprise him. He steals Komaeda’s hand in his squeezes, warmth bleeding through his fingertips and lighting Komaeda up from the inside out.
“You’ve been alone through all of that, huh? No wonder you’re like that. If you didn’t believe in hope as much as you...things would’ve been much harder for you to deal with. Did you...ever go to therapy? Or tell anyone else about what you’ve been through? Or how much your own talent makes you suffer?” Hinata asks, eyes so concerned. His kindness is too much for Komaeda to take.
He almost wishes they could go back in time, when Hinata used to think Komaeda hated him. Back when Komaeda didn’t feel like he was cut open, like Hinata could see everything inside him.
And he didn’t look away. He only held onto Komaeda’s hand even tighter.
“Talent…? How many times do I have to tell you, it’s not -”
“Then, why are you at this school Komaeda? How are you here, if it wasn’t for that talent that Hope’s Peak Academy deemed worthy? Unless, you’re saying Hope’s Peak is wrong about talent… which would mean -”
“Okay! Fine, I… I’ve never told anyone before you. Nobody’s ever wanted to listen to me talk about myself like this so… it never came up. I guess. I’m supposed to go to therapy but I don’t want to waste anyone’s time so -”
“You realize that by actively ignoring your own health, you’re actually inconveniencing more people? Including yourself. If you’ve realized you have talent, it means you have hope too right? By your own definition. Which means…” Hinata smiles slightly, looking a little too smug.
Komaeda feels a shock through his system. If even he himself had hope, that meant…
“No more talking about being a stepping stone. Or dying. You love hope, right Komaeda? So you should pursue that hope inside you until the end.” Hinata grins, a beautifully heartbreaking smile blooming across his face. There’s a knowing look caught in his eyes but also something sad. “For someone was extraordinary as you, I’m sure a hope like nothing else must be born from that.”
Komaeda desperately wants to bring him off his high horse. Maybe if he leans over and physically seals his mouth shut, Hinata will be too distracted from saying things that messed with his heart.
“And what about you, Hinata-kun? What does a Reserve Course student want from hanging around Ultimates? Are you trying to be a stepping stone? Or is there something Hinata-kun loves that he will pursue?” Komaeda says instead, distracting Hinata by any means necessary. If Komaeda can turn the tables fast enough, perhaps Hinata wouldn’t notice how much he’s shaken Komaeda’s world.
Hinata blinks, as if he had been slapped in the face before groaning.
“I thought you were over this! For how long are you going to degrade me into accepting into some kind of role beneath you. I seriously thought you were actually starting to like and respect me or something I -”
Komaeda held Hinata’s chin, leaning dangerously close. If he could lean in and just shut him up, even for a moment so his enticingly sweet words would never intoxicate Komaeda again.
Instead his voice drops and octave, huskier than he’s ever spoken to anyone before.
“If I had ever intended to degrade you properly Hinata-kun, I would ask you to drop to your knees and lick my boots. If I had ever disliked you, it wouldn’t have been this easy for you to get me to talk to you like this. You’re smarter and more perceptive than you have any right being. I’ve stopped underestimating you a long time ago, but I would hope that by now you’d understand just what exactly it is I feel for you, Hinata-kun.” Komaeda breathes, looking right into Hinata’s eyes.
He watches Hinata’s Adam’s apple bob, something like a gasp escaping his lips. There’s a pretty flush settling across his cheeks, and Komaeda’s heart aches.
“W-What is it you want from me, Komaeda?” he asks, voice so breathy it sends tingles down Komaeda’s spine.
But he refuses to test his luck any more today.
He moves his hand away and instead folds his arms over his chest self consciously. Trying to gather his courage, though there are different words at the tip of his tongue the ones he wants to push out are completely different.
“Hinata-kun, would you be my friend?” Komaeda asks nervously, and something like disappointment flashes in the Reserve Course student’s eyes. Komaeda is about to take it back, but Hinata beats him to the punch.
“I-Is that seriously it? I was really expecting...ah, nevermind. What have we been doing until now Komaeda? Of course. We are friends.” Hinata smiles, ruffling Komaeda’s hair fondly.
Komaeda is way too happy about this newfound relationship to properly digest Hinata’s preface. Oh well, that could be revisited later. They fall asleep only after talking late into the night, and Komaeda had never been happier.