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Hinata wondered if it was selfish to hope that Komaeda would fix himself somehow. As if Komaeda would wake up one day and not be sad or weird or annoying anymore, would just be there and good and whole. He liked to think he wanted that for Komaeda's sake but he didn't, really. It was entirely selfish. And he would ask Komaeda if he wanted help, but Hinata was sure whatever answer he got would be either depressing or confusing. Probably both.
Komaeda was looking up at him, but he didn't say Hinata's name. There was no neat prompt for Hinata to start talking, no travel phrasebook opening, and it left them both adrift as Komaeda lay there beneath him. Hinata tried to think of something to say, but everything came up 'please don't kill anyone', 'please don't let anyone kill you', 'please don't leave'. He could choose some inane object at random to point out and comment on, a usual safe "out" in conversations, but that would only include the bed, the lamp, or the dark absence beyond his bedroom window. It was like they were lying in an IKEA display.
Komaeda was the first to give in, giving Hinata a put-upon look. "If I was more intimately forward," he mused, "do you think we'd move quicker, or slower?" Hinata gave him a blank stare. "You know, sexually."
"What," Hinata said, and it was such an unhappily flat statement that it came out a bit desperate.
"You're not very good at this. Does it freak you out? Sexual intimacy, I mean?" Komaeda said, a smile splitting his dry lips. "Because I can't decide if you're holding back for some noble reason, or if you're disgusted by me. The latter I would understand, the former doesn't seem much like you. No offense."
Komaeda stretched his neck a bit, it having cramped up on the soft white pillows. When Hinata had first touched him he had placed his hands on Komaeda like he was delicate, transient. Like if Hinata pressed his fingers too hard, too carelessly, Komaeda would burst apart, a soap bubble. Hinata sat back now, and considered Komaeda for a few moments.
"You don't disgust me," he finally said, like the words had been pulled from his mouth. "You don't freak me out. You're pretty," he continued. "I like you."
Komaeda looked up at him, smiling sympathetically. Hinata had a sick gut feeling that Komaeda was humouring him, but couldn't say why. "Thanks, Hinata," he said. "That's nice of you."
It was like Hinata was dying on a hospital bed, and Komaeda was dutifully regarding his final rendition of the play 'Wooden Compliments, Your Lover, and You'. It was a performance full of hope, which Komaeda could probably appreciate in some removed kind of way. Sadly, the hope itself was nothing but the hope that Komaeda would somehow stop being so fucking perceptive for five seconds and let Hinata lie to him. But Komaeda looked at him with that strange, sad smile, silently offering Hinata condolences on how worthless his kind-of flattery was.
Hinata pulled his fingers back from where they had been idly beginning to wriggle into the hole in the hem of Komaeda's t-shirt. It ripped it a little bigger when he jerked his hand away so suddenly, but Komaeda didn't seem to mind. He only frowned when Hinata stuffed his hands in his own pants pockets, obviously done with his idle explorations of clothes and the unfamiliar skin beneath them.
"So, if I don't disgust you... you're holding back?" Komaeda said, trying to offer Hinata an out, a chance to pull his thoughts together, to figure out what he actually meant to say.
Hinata grabbed the inaccurate explanation like a lifeboat. "Yeah. It's... taking it slow. We're taking it slow. Kids do that, right?"
He wouldn't put money on the hope that Komaeda actually believed him, but it would be too cruel to ask him if Hinatas predictable reassurances had seemed genuine, on the off chance Komaeda did believe him. Hinata liked to tell himself he had some grasp on Komaeda's mind, but it would be arrogant and dangerous to assume that Hinata truly understood him.
Komaeda looked at him. "Maybe that is what kids should do," he said. He carefully layed his hand on Hinata's leg, and Hinata relaxed. "But we're not really children anymore, Hinata."
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