Chapter Text
This is very strange. There seems to be a line of crops that have surfaced around a small part of the outskirts of Jabberwock Island. I don't remember those being mentioned in the recent monthly report, nor do I just remember them existing in general. There's no one that was recently on the island that would've taken a hobby in farming or gardening, I mean until last week there was Fuyuhiko-kun, the unawakened Pekoyama-san and Komaeda-san. Now, there's only Komaeda-san.
Fuyuhiko-kun waited so patiently for Pekoyama-san to wake up, and told me it wouldn't feel right for him to simply leave for the Future Foundation without her. They'd left together only a few days ago, and I really don't think Fuyuhiko-kun had the time of day to be galloping around and planting things, given his brooding state.
"It'd be the greatest shame on the Kuzuryu clan for me to abandon her a second time," he'd said while I organised breakfast for him one morning. His left eye stared absently through the pristine windows of the restaurant and out into the ocean and sky, which at the time were still slightly dark from the amount of red that clouded the world. "I'm ashamed of the person I'd become in this world, Hajime-kun. No amount of atonement that I, a former Remnant of Despair, does will ever reverse the damage that I've caused to the world."
This was a common pattern that I'd observed while rehabilitating the awakened Remnants as they regained consciousness one by one. Their language was always self-blaming, and was spoken in a way that perfectly left me out of the eye of their storm. It was strange to me, especially when I led the Remnants to the absolute point of despair all that time ago. However, it was my responsibility now to make sure these students, my friends, were able to properly adjust to this new world. Not to push my agenda onto them once more.
"This disgusting eye, I still can't believe this, you know?" He brushed his right eye with a hand, tracing the vertical scar that adorned the lid. "To think I'd be capable of doing something like this…"
I remember holding a coffee mug in one hand as I mustered the best genuine smile that I could pull from my face without the burden of guilt. A smile that betrayed my thoughts and delivered as phony, but was my only way of comforting Fuyuhiko-kun.
"Don't worry so much." I'd begun. "You'd make Pekoyama-san upset."
That same day, Pekoyama-san regained consciousness and the two had promptly left the island together, with Fuyuhiko-kun insisting that he could rehabilitate his childhood friend back at whatever remains of their home.
And I'd come out of the restaurant conversation more sure than ever that, if it weren't for my transformation to Izuru Kamukura as the first step of despair, nobody would've ended up this way. Not a single soul that resided on this island would've had to experience the pain of waking up to this hopeless future.
I took off my sneakers and began to travel along the scenic strip of the beach, towards the mysteriously sprouted crops quite a long way away from the inn. As I walked and felt the grains of sand beneath my feet and the serene crashes of ocean waves, I thought of how the world looked much brighter than it did a few days ago, and how hard the Future Foundation and my friends had worked to return the world to this state. It's almost a miracle how, in the same way that the world so easily plunged into despair at the hands of the greatest talents of the nation, it had been resolved in almost the same, quick and easy manner.
Those crops still weigh on my mind, though, since I now undoubtedly think that it was Komaeda-san's doing. Come to think of it, it's actually been a while since Komaeda-san reawakened from his pod. Over a month, I think. In the time that he's taken to segregate himself from island life, the rest of his class had woken up and left in small groups. I wonder if he'd been so adamant on staying away because he was ashamed of his behaviour during the games, or if it's simply because he still didn't accept me, an artificial pillar of hope, as his caretaker for his time here.
I stared as Komaeda-san's back came into view as I came closer to the small island of crops. Just as I'd thought, the mysterious vegetables that had transpired here were his doing.
His head perked up when I drew closer, probably from the sound of my footsteps against sand and grass that had slowly become louder in the last few seconds. He turned around.
Komaeda-san's complexion was uncharacteristically bright and his sickly, frizzy white hair had noticeably settled down and was tied back neatly into a small low ponytail. He wore his usual white shirt with no jacket and his pants' cuffs were rolled up to assumably avoid the mess that his excessive gardening would do to his clothes.
This was very strange. Was this Komaeda-san? Was he mistaken about his dementia? Had his lymphoma cleared up in the month that he was spending away from everyone?
"Ah!" Komaeda-san exclaimed, standing up from his crouching position and jumping over a row of tomato plants as he patted away the dirt on his hands, leaving speckles of dirt and debris on his perfectly good white shirt. "Hajime!"
No honorifics, let alone my given name? Were we this close before?
He grasped both my hands and swung them up and down in excitement. "Did you come to see me? I'm so glad!" Komaeda-san pointed at this large green plant not too far from us with twinkling eyes. "Thanks to me falling down the ditch on my first day here, I happened to stumble across this patch of plants. And look, I sun-dried some mugwort! Let's make kusamochi tonight."
Mugwort was growing here this entire time? When the environmental situation was like this? And what does he mean he sun-dried the already grown mugwort just to make some kusamochi? When did I even tell him I liked kusamochi?
"Hey, Hajime?" Komaeda-san said, which was when I realised I'd been dazed and staring at the ground.
I released my hands from his grip and gave the same smile I gave to Fuyuhiko-kun before he left. That same phony smile that took all my energy to upkeep. "It's a relief that you're doing better, Komaeda-san." I began as I backed away from the frail man. "For the kusamochi… let's take back the mugwort to the restaurant and go from there. Although, I'm not quite sure if I can knead rice to make the mochi part…"
…
Honestly speaking, Komaeda-san's craftiness in the kitchen despite the robotic arm was quite shocking. I, in fact, couldn't knead the rice, however he was able to do that, make the green-bean paste and incorporate the mugwort. I hate to admit it, but the homemade kusamochi was among the best I'd ever eaten.
It's still surprising to me how I even have a favourite food when it feels like my desires ring hollow and artificial all the time.
We sat together after the meal across from each other on a table close to the porch, staring through the translucent frosted glass of the restaurant windows. A slight summer evening breeze blew in through the porch door that swung ajar, swaying the hanging beaded decorations on the ceiling.
It was serene, yet still unsettling to me how Komaeda-san was barely talking his usual nonsense. What was wrong with him? The Neo World version of him was so unsettling, and reading his files when I first awakened led me to realise that he'd always been this way. Lighting the school on fire, chasing 'hope' as if it's the only way to save him, insisting on his uselessness every chance he got. To be real, it was more frightening to see him not talking at all than it would've been if he was threatening murder and crime every other second. What was he thinking? What was he hiding?
A sudden thought appeared in my head: maybe the only way to allow for his successful rehabilitation was by both laying our hearts bare for each other to see? One insecurity for another.
"Komaeda-san," I hesitated. "What am I?"
I was stunned by my own question, but just when I was going to apologise for the sudden intimate moment that I had impulsively attempted, Komaeda-san smiled gently.
I couldn't help but obsess and overanalyse how strange this sudden shift of demeanour was of him. Of course, the personality I'd observed in his psychodive was quite gentle but even he denied that it was truly him. This gaze from Komaeda Nagito that I was receiving was unlike the malice that I'd perceived before. Rather, it felt genuine and stripped from all his knots of insecurity, reckless selflessness and lack of tact.
In front of me were honest eyes. Formerly more grey, but these days more emerald than anything. His gaze felt warm, soft and so incredibly uncharacteristic of the man that I had known, or the man I'd presumably known.
"Hinata-kun, what do you think you are?"
It didn't feel like he was posing a question to me, but rather trying to console me for something. I was quite used to this sort of supportive engagement, since I'd had so many conversations with Kazuichi-kun just like this. Trying to make the other person do the dreaded reflective thinking by rebounding the question and unpacking the response.
A little embarrassed and feeling at fault for the sudden deep question, I decided to step into the therapy ring for once. Perhaps this was really the way Komaeda-san could open up more and finally feel fit to reconnect with the rest of his class.
"At first, I viewed Kamukura Izuru as the facilitator for my thoughts, my personality as Hinata Hajime… but lately it's become increasingly obvious that I'm the facilitator. All that talk about how I will pave my own future, but my body and soul are so incredibly mismatched that I feel guilty even existing… to be living as this… fake ."
I couldn't stop.
"I'm not Hinata Hajime. This body belonged to Hope's Peak Academy the moment he'd signed those papers. I am merely the decoration that adorns Kamukura Izuru. My personality is artificial. My will to do anything is also artificial. My talent is artificial."
"Hinata-kun, do you really think that?"
His sudden change in the way he was addressing me very blatantly signified that I took this conversation in the wrong direction. There was no denying that I'd dug this hole myself. I wasn't faced away like a few mornings ago when I was talking to Fuyuhiko-kun. Komaeda-san and I were face to face discussing the knots in my heart.
"Well," I was cautious to pick my words carefully. "Komaeda-san, I'm not sure if you've viewed the footage of that final trial, or any of the footage from my perspective in general… but when I first watched it I almost instantly recognised that I was not the same Hinata Hajime as the one in the Neo World program. That's basically a fact."
Komaeda-san was deep in thought for a few seconds, robotic arm tapping in a set beat on the table as he continued to gaze at the greenery and ocean outside the window.
"Hinata-kun…" as he talked, he wasn't making any eye contact with me and instead looking anywhere except at me. "I'm not really sure how to word this… but it seems to me that you've been neglecting yourself while you were running errands for everyone else on the island."
Correct, but it was just part of my job. My responsibility for putting that initial cog in motion for Ultimate Despair, and my way to repay my debts for also setting the Neo World program up for failure.
"I don't know if you've noticed from the way everybody has been talking to you but, Hinata-kun… everyone is just hoping you'd get better too." He was finally looking at me. There was a resolute look in his eyes as he talked. "No one is blaming you for anything. It's similar to what you've said, you're not the original Hinata Hajime… but in the same way, you're not the original Kamukura Izuru either."
No, this was seriously not the same Komaeda Nagito that I knew. That look that's in his eyes. Unclouded, clear and obviously yearning for some sort of answer and resolution. That was seriously strange for someone like him.
It was as if the person before me wasn't even the same person that stepped out of the pod a month ago. I didn't feel it then, but I definitely feel it now. What happened to him when I wasn't paying attention?
"You're simply Hinata-kun. Not the same one, but it's not because you're a fake. It's because you've grown as a person."
Then I suddenly realised.
"Komaeda-san, how come you know about conversations that I've had with the others on this island?"
He cocked his head to the side and furrowed his eyebrows as if I'd asked something obvious. "Why, because I've been observing you this whole time, of course. How else would I know?"
What? What's the deal with this guy?