Chapter Text
Hinata jolts at the sound of a thick textbook slapping against the desk. Looking up with reluctance, he sees Komaeda staring back down at him. He’d finally convinced himself to go to class, despite that ominous text that’s clearly from Komaeda.
The man is looking at him expectantly, as if Hinata has something of his. He sniffs and rubs his nose, waiting for the other to break the silence.
“So, what are we doing for our project?” Komaeda asks.
His heart stutters for a moment while he thinks of an excuse. Or play dumb.
“What project?” He croaks, glancing around at all the other teams paired up. Surely there has to be someone else not already taken. Unfortunately, everyone looks away when they meet his eyes.
They must already know.
“The one I messaged you about? It's okay if you didn't read it.” A frown forms on Komaeda’s thin face. “I understand.”
“Ah, sorry. Maybe you have the wrong number?” Hinata asks, hoping it'll throw him off his scent.
Instead, his green eyes narrow, round doe eyes suddenly becoming as sharp as glass. “No I don't.”
Feeling like a cornered animal, he shrinks. Something uncharacteristic for a full grown man. “Ah… well…”
Before he can come up with an excuse, Komaeda is smiling again. He slides into the seat next to him. “It's okay, I already have some ideas. I'm excited to be working with you! It's lucky you didn't come to class last time. I'd much rather do this with someone I know.”
He could cry. There's no worse feeling than being the hare to the fox. He's hardly been sleeping, thanks to his last encounter. It's been making recovering from sickness slower.
He reaches out to the textbook with a shaky hand. He flips through the pages gingerly, fingers stinging from the orange peels stuck under the nails. “Ideas?”
“For the project. It'll be easy! We pick one criminal case and each person has to build an argument. One for the defendant, one against the defendant. I've already looked through some cases.”
Right. Of course. “And how long is this project for?”
“Until midterms.”
Hinata gawks. That's two months away! He was expecting a couple of weeks at most.
“And! My favorite part, we'll perform our arguments before the professor. As our midterm.”
How is that a good thing? His palms are already sweating at the concept. “Right…”
“Of course, we can't see each other's arguments until the midterm. But we're still expected to work together!”
“How confusing,” he mutters. “And we're expected to do that, how?”
Komaeda glances at him from the side. “Well, collaborative research. We need the same evidence. The objective material has to be assembled into a document for us to build our case. From that document we can pull whatever we want.”
Hinata scoffs. “Sounds like we're playing detective and lawyer.”
“Isn't that the fun?”
Absolutely not. Instead he grimaces. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Silence falls over the forum as the professor walks in. A short man with salt and pepper hair and a generally round physique.
He takes a long moment sorting through papers before clearing his throat and addressing the class. His voice is surprisingly shrill for an older man. However strange the professor is, his credentials are what make him intimidating.
He rambles about the project, reiterating Komaeda's overview. It confirms everything he's nervous about and leaves him more stressed.
After a drawn out rubric of the expectations for the project, they're cut loose. Something is said over the rustling of students packing up that they should start sooner, not later.
Hinata couldn't get out of there fast enough, himself. He's hardly made it out of the forum before an unfortunately familiar, lanky figure trots up besides him. He could hear him before he arrived, woodblock boot heels clicking on the concrete.
“Hinata!” Komaeda chirps. “We should take the time to start our project!”
“Oh, uh…” his brain wracks for excuses, but his stomach finds one first, growling. “I was going to get lunch, sorry.”
The cheery smile on Komaeda's face falls into neutrality. He tilts his head slightly, wide eyes fixed on him.
God, was he always this unsettling?
He snaps out of it, beaming again. “I'll just go with you!”
He wants to scream no. He wants to tell him to fuck off. “Sure,” tumbles out of him instead.
It's an awkward walk to the cafe. Komaeda trails behind him. The entire trip, Hinata is glancing at him from the side. His wild hair glows in the sun, casting wispy shadow on his face. He feels burning guilt for having glided his tongue over a strand of it.
He's disgusting for doing such a thing. No normal, self respecting man would have ever thought to do any of that. It's the kind of behavior he'll take to his grave.
Before he can even think to open the cafe door, Komaeda bounces ahead of him, opening it for him. He beams, like a dog expecting a treat.
Hinata more or less shoves past Komaeda, not offering a thanks or acknowledgement. There's a flicker of darkness that he can sense boring into his back. It follows him to the table he picks and sits down across from him.
Wordlessly, they set up their computers. Heaviness sinks onto him, making him squirm. He did not want to do this with Komaeda.
“Excuse me,” he announces, removing himself from his seat. “I'll be getting some food.”
Much to Hinata’s chagrin, Komaeda gets up too. “Oh, good idea! I'll get some too.”
He takes a deep breath, stopping himself from lashing out. Instead he wordlessly scoots himself to the counter. He rushes to order, reducing the opportunity for Komaeda to talk to him. As soon as he was done speaking however, the man jumps in.
“And I'll get a milk tea.”
Hinata’s jaw drops at the audacity. Is he expected to pay for Komaeda's order? He doesn't have the chance to tell the barista to make it separate before Komaeda is sliding over currency, paying for the both of them.
“The change is tip,” he rasps.
There's no room to argue over what's already done. Instead, Hinata quietly fumes, the more affluent male having already decided to pay for him.
He kicks his heel on the floor, much like a pouting kid. Loitering by the end of the counter, he keeps his head down. Ignoring the eyes on him, he grabs his coffee and sits, leaving Komaeda to fetch his own.
Another man paying for his order? How embarrassing. He works for his own money. Not only that, but it's likely everyone in this room falsely believes they're on a date. A huge blow to his ego.
If his project partner noticed his sour mood about his order being paid for, he doesn't mention anything. In fact, he seems to ignore it himself.
“So, where should we start?” Komaeda asks, breaking the silence with a cherry demeanor.
“Hm,” Hinata clears his throat, doing his best to put his shame behind him. “Let's look at what cases you've picked out.”
As it turns out, every one of Komaeda’s cases are horribly gruesome. They detail destructive and brutal murders in which the victims' friends and family are left in ruin.
He's not sure what he expected, but it wasn't this. His appetite dissipated the moment he viewed the evidence. Dismembered, burnt, bloated, beaten bodies of the dead sear into his mind. He grimaced as he flipped through them, becoming more and more ill as Komaeda rambled on about the history of the dead.
“Why these?” He asks, mid rant.
“Huh?”
“Why these cases? They're so… bleak.”
Komaeda lights up, clearly having been waiting for this. “They're not bleak! Finding the responsible party brings hope to the victims. But, wrongfully accusing will devastated them, and bring about despair. Isn't that interesting?”
“Interesting.”
By the time he had managed to slip out of this session, hours had passed. They had decided to settle on an incident where a young woman was crushed under the weight of an elevator. It seemed like an accident, the doors being opened and her being pushed into the cavity, where coincidentally, the emergency stop brake failed and the cab crushed her.
The images still linger in his head, even as he drags off to his dorm. They fortunately agreed on what stance they'll each take. Hinata wants to argue it's the buildings fault for not keeping up on maintenance and should have been held liable. Komaeda argues it's just a freak accident.
They spent more than half their time bickering. At least to Hinata it was bickering. Komaeda was grinning throughout it all. As he drew more evidence, his partner would slyly mention something that threw him off. Small things that made him second guess his initial impression.
When he got to his dorm, the sun was beginning to sink, the lights of the campus flipping on. He's still running through arguments about why the building manager should be held liable. He's so lost in thought he almost misses his door.
Taking a few steps back, he returns to it. Glancing down, his thick brows draw together. A basket. It's small, and inside are a bunch of oranges. Some tissues. Some eye drops. A note.
He picks up the paper and opens it. Inside a simple message is scribbled in sharp print made from a pen running out of ink. Get well soon.
How nice. How embarrassing. He's been so sick his neighbors have noticed. Hinata glances around, trying to gauge who. Maybe the ones next door? The walls are fairly thin. Or maybe the guy down the hall who saw him coughing roughly into his elbow. Whoever did it, he'll have to be thankful when he sees them.
He sets the basket on his kitchen counter and takes an orange. Peeling it reintroduces the sting to his abused nails. Ripping back the rind reveals deep red flesh of the orange, greyed by the thin membrane of the sections.
He stares at it for a long moment, unsure why. Tenderly, he pulls the rest of the peel away and separates the segments. It's sweet, but not as sweet as a typical orange. He can't say he dislikes it, though. In fact, he reaches for another. Then another.
At the end of the evening, he'd eaten the collection of oranges given to him. Noticed, when he reached for one more while absently scrolling through his phone. Immediately, he felt bad for tearing through them so fast. He should've rationed them.
Remorsefully, he pushes the basket away. He should eat some real food. Work on something. Maybe go to sleep.
Just as he's cooking up something small, his phone buzzes. Instinctually, he picks it up, glancing at the screen. Immediately, he knows it's Komaeda, despite not having saved his number. Immediately, it ruins his mood.
A simple message, asking to come up with another date to work on their project. It's not asking if he would, it's asking when.
We made good headway today. We'll meet up sometime next week. When's good for you?
Hinata sets his phone down slowly, taking a shaky breath. Later. He'll reply later. Or never. He could keep pretending it's the wrong number, but Komaeda knows it's not. Somehow. He glances at the basket, suddenly not hungry.
He turns off the stove and tosses his half cooked food in the trash. While cleaning up, he stares vacantly at the tap water.
There's no reason to be scared of Komaeda. There's no reason he should feel like throwing up.
There's no reason the thought is repulsive.
There's no reason.
Then it all comes rushing out. Those oranges he'd eaten barely half an hour ago make a reappearance in his sink, hurling it up. He pants, staring at the dark red, clumpy, stringy remains of the fruits.
He vomits again at the sight. Mostly stomach acid that burns on the way up. It makes him whimper and reach for the tap to wash it away with shaky hands.
Hinata slinks off to his room where he crawls into bed. It's small and creaky, hardly comfortable. It's a twin, making it hard to spread out. He wouldn't have tonight anyway, curling in on himself and staring at the wall. He watches the shadows cast onto the wall from his window, blue and black dancing on the undecorated parchment.
He watches the branches dance on his wall for hours, talking to himself in his head, running in circles. He tells himself he's clean. He tells himself he has control. He tells himself he is good.
Caught up in his ever circulating mantra, Hinata’s eyes eventually grow heavy. He's exhausted himself, sleep grabbing hold of him. He sighs in relief, knowing in the morning he'll likely feel better.
Until he jolts awake. It has to be much later into the night, likely early morning. His eyes are blown wide staring at the ceiling. Everything is silver in the dead of night. When he sits up, he knows something feels different. He senses something, somewhere.
Getting out of bed, Hinata pads out of his room, slow and careful. He walks into his living room, desperate not to make a sound.
He freezes the second he steps into the livingroom. A tall, lanky figure stands inside, looking down at the window. Pearlescent white hair glows in the moonlight, a halo of light around his head. There's a shuffling sound. White as his hair and drawn tight to his back, wings obscure the silhouette.
Hinata stopped breathing, the figure still in his living room. He doesn't know how to react. Yell? Question? Grovel?
The figure turns slowly and he recognizes that face. Komaeda. Or he thinks it's Komaeda. It's hard to determine who he's looking at, other than an angel.
The angel smiles, soft and sweet. Nothing like the sharp and cunning one he's used to. He seems unfazed by Hinata’s look of horror. He turns fully and Hinata realizes the angel, Komaeda, is unclothed. He noticeably has nothing on his groin.
He walks to Hinata methodically. “Hajime.”
He feels suddenly cold, the angel calling him by his personal name.
“Hajime,” Komaeda calls again.
He comes right up to Hinata, nearly chest to chest. The angel looks down at him, face obscured by the darkness of the room. He can only see the glimmer in his eyes and the halo backlighting his hair..
“My sweet boy,” Komaeda whispers, thin fingers reaching out to brush the sides of his face. “What have they done to you?”
Speechless, any sound gets caught in his throat, mouth agape. His face is cupped in the angel's hands, softer than anything he's felt.
“I would have never done that to you,” he continues. “Hajime.”
His slow breathing is the only sound between them, gaze fixated on Komaeda. A pressure is built in his chest, building up and threatening to explode. Hinata grits his teeth to stifle the sobs, but the tears blur his vision and spill regardless.
“Shh… don't fret.” He thumbs away the drops from Hinata’s cheek. “He isn't done with you yet.”
A hiccup spills out, before he swallows down the other undignified sounds. “I-”
“It's okay,” the angel reassures, wings opening slightly. “You have nothing to fear.”
To his surprise, Komaeda leans in, the sharp nail of his thumb pressing on his lip. The pad of his finger sinks in. He kisses over it, moving to now cusp Hinata's chin.
It makes his heart race faster than anything in his life. He finds himself warmer, something igniting inside. He falls into it, shamefully accepting the kiss. This angel is no man, not in the biological sense. Who would he be to shove away a messenger of God?
Komaeda’s heavy white wings wrap around them, his clawed hands gripping tanned biceps. It's protective, shielding from the insistent outside world. They kiss reverently, a desperate mashing of lips. Tongues slide, pushing between lips and gliding over teeth.
Hinata moans, pleading for Komaeda. He wants desperately for more. To drown in the soft affection this holy creature so graciously offered. Komaeda seems more than willing to offer.
He'd be more than happy to take everything the angel could offer him. To accept whatever he's willing to give. His fingers twitch to hold him back, but fear stops him.
Komaeda’s hands slide into soft brown hair, curling and tipping his head back. Obedient to suggestion, he opens his mouth. Komaeda nips his lip before kissing the corner of his mouth. He moves along to his cheek, his jaw, his neck. He layers kisses over freckled skin, later dragging his tounge over his collarbone.
“Komaeda,” Hinata whimpers, eyes shut. “Is God… okay with this?”
Komaeda pulls back suddenly, a vacant expression on his face. He looks apologetic. “God?” He parrots. “What God?”
The ring of a bell sounds throughout the room, chiming in slow succession. It slows down time, a foreboding feeling rising.
“There is no God, Hajime,” the angel says. “You can't be saved… not from yourself.”
Hinata jolts, becoming rigid. His eyes open wide to the bright morning light in his room. He's sweating through his sheets and he's more than parched. He's gasping for breath, disorientated.
He looks around, searching for any sign of the angel before realizing he never truly existed.
How long has it been since he dreamt of Komaeda? Years, it had to be. Despite overheating, he feels cold. Cold and sicker than ever.
Groaning, he gets out of bed to prepare for a cool shower. He woke up thinking about Komaeda more than he went to sleep, the effort of resting useless. At least here, he can wash away the confusion with a freezing shower before class.
He chastises his mind for letting him stray, disappointed in such an indulgent dream.
No God? Ha. Tricks of the devil.
He was not raised to be so easy to sway.
He glances at his phone, the one he's being ignoring all night. The battery has drained but he sees an additional notification. Komaeda. He forgot to respond.
Ignoring me, Hinata? Not cool.