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bravemccalll · 6 years

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you make a fool of death with your beauty .3

chapter three – hope comes bearing gifts

Hajime remembers his parents through rose-tinted glasses. He remembers his mother’s laugh lighter and sweeter, his father’s hair darker and softer. His memories are filled with all the good parts of when they were alive: how his father had held his bike steady when he first got on it, how his mother had cheered when he won first place in the spelling bee when he was eight.

Of course, the dark always manages to worm its way in, despite how tightly you seal the door.

He remembers Kazuichi’s arms as a steel band around his waist when he tried to push his way towards his parents’ bodies. He could see them, they were lying right there, he only had to get closer, just one touch –

Kazuichi had been crying, Hajime remembers the wet patch on the back of his neck, soaking the collar of his shirt. “You can’t!” he’d sobbed and dragged Hajime further and further away. “Then everyone’ll know and what’ll happen to you?”

Hajime hadn’t cared.

They’ve been cremated, his aunt told him during the second week of his stay at her house. Hajime hated it there, simply on the principal that he hated anywhere that his parents weren’t which was everywhere now. We’re going to spread their ashes in the lake that your father used to fish, do you remember it?

Hajime thinks that he has a piece of rope wrapped around his ankle to keep him tethered to the Earth. That day it snapped.

Hajime finds himself talking to Chiaki a lot. She sits on his workbench with her legs swinging as he works and they talk about everything.

He asks her what she does for a living. ("Games designer but they've given me a few months off - without pay, mind you - because of...well, y'know.) She asks him why Kazuichi dyed his hair when they were fifteen. ("I believe he said to me, quote, un-quote, 'Why the fuck not?")

She doesn't say much about Tsumiki. He doesn't say anything about the years after his parents died.

But it's fun.

He can’t remember when they started talking like this, with her roaming his kitchen and him letting her. He finds he doesn’t mind.

A sweetshop has opened up three doors down. Kyouko’s Kandy.

Peko wonders if there is going to be any competition. Kazuichi offers to throw a brick through their front window. Nagito has already roller-skated past them five times, trying to see who owns the place.

Hajime wants a nap.

The owner of Kyouko’s Kandy is not actually a woman named Kyouko but actually a short man with spiked brown hair called Makoto Naegi. He introduces himself with a smile that rivals the sun and gives them a box filled with taffy.

Hajime decides he likes him.

“So, who’s Kyouko?” Kazuichi asks around a mouth stuffed with sweets.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” says Peko from behind the counter. Fuyuhiko snorts from in front of her and she gives him a coy smile. Hajime doesn’t notice.

“Oh, it’s not a problem!” Makoto says, happily. Hajime does notice that there is little that Makoto doesn’t say with a smile. “Kyouko is my wife. She’s the one who inspired me to open up my sweet shop so I named it after her.”

“Aw,” Chiaki sighs from beside Makoto. “That’s so sweet. Get it? Sweet?” She grins at everyone. Hajime groans. Nagito laughs.

“I get that a lot,” Makoto giggles. He giggles. Hajime is convinced that this man is a human part-time, a cherub full-time.. “My husband hates it.”

“Husband?” Fuyuhiko asks.

The smile disappears. “Um, yeah. I have a wife and a husband. Polygamy and all that.” He fiddles with his thumbs.

“Oh, that’s fine!” Chiaki says, patting his arm. He smiles at her. “Not that you need my approval or anything, I’m just trying to say that, y’know, that’s not weird or anything, because it’s not! It’s not weird at all, I’m just trying to say – “

“We’re just trying to say,” Nagito interjects, “That it’s all fine here. You don’t gotta worry or anything.” Chiaki grins at him, red cheeks and all.

Makoto looks like he’s going to explode with happiness. Fuyuhiko locks eyes with Peko and winks. Her lips twitch. Hajime doesn’t notice.

Here’s the thing: Hajime had never thought about polygamy before.

That night when he and Nagito get into bed, he asks Nagito his opinion about it. Nagito thinks it over, his head resting on Hajime’s chest. Hajime runs his hand through Nagito’s hair.

(“It looks like a cloud,” Chiaki had told him earlier, hands braced on his workbench, watching him roll out dough. “Doesn’t it?”

Hajime had snorted before he could stop himself. She’d raised her eyebrow in a silent question. “Well, it’s just – your hair looks like candy floss.”

She’d laughed joyfully and the sound had filled his lungs. “Shut up, pinecone.”)

“I think it’d depend on the person,” Nagito says eventually.

“Me too,” Hajime replies. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Nagito says, his voice a rumble on his collarbone and Hajime wonders if he can see the words branded on his skin.

Fuyuhiko meets Kyouko before the rest of them and marches into The Pie Hole with a scowl.

“Anyone ever tell you that you look like an angry puppy when you make that face?” Nagito asks as he rolls to a stop beside Hajime. Fuyuhiko glares at him. Hajime snorts.

“I just met Kyouko,” he growls.

(“Angry puppy,” Nagito murmurs.)

“Oh?” Peko says, looking intrigued. “What was she like?”

“She said that she thinks my intuition must be incredibly good because there’s little to no actual physical evidence to explain how I’ve solved these crimes.” Hajime tries to not look embarrassed. Nagito rolls his eyes at him.

“She into your work?” Peko asks, looking at Fuyuhiko with a raised eyebrow. He looks slightly sheepish under her gaze and Hajime doesn’t understand why.

“She’s a detective as well. She wants to work on Tsumiki’s case with me,” says Fuyuhiko.

Hajime glances at Chiaki who had been sitting quietly ever since Fuyuhiko came in but perked up at the mention of her late best friend. He looks back at Fuyuhiko who is staring at Peko. Peko stares back at him before getting up and heading towards her office, through the kitchen.

“Will you work with her?” Chiaki asks, her voice small. Hajime wants to give her a hug but can only cross his arms tightly across his chest. Nagito reaches a hand out and pats her shoulder.

“I’ll have to think about it,” Fuyuhiko says before disappearing into the back.

“Why’s he leaving that way?” Nagito wonders, scrunching up his nose in confusion.

“No idea,” Hajime replies.

“You’re both so dumb,” Chiaki sighs.

Here’s the thing: Hajime had met Peko at three in the morning in the middle of winter when he was eighteen and drifting through life like his feet weren’t on the ground.

He had been sitting on a curb outside what would soon be The Pie Hole in a woolly jumper with a cooling apple pie cradled in his arms and she had slumped down next to him. “I read this quote once,” she said. He barely looked up, only tilted his head slightly. “It said: ‘What is human existence? It turns out it’s pretty simple: We are dead stars, looking back up at the sky.’”

“Powerful stuff,” Hajime murmured. He had been living with his aunt, miles away, but he had run away, back to the town where his parents had once lived, where Chiaki had died on a street not a few blocks from that corner, where Kazuichi was sleeping in his bed a few streets away. He hadn’t slept in too long, his eyes stung with exhaustion. He remembered breaking into what used to be his house to use the oven to bake his pie. He left quickly, the ghosts that haunted what used to be a home had watched him, their eyes boring into the back of his neck.

“I don’t like it. I’m not a fan of poetry,” she said. “I’m Peko.”

“Hajime.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. He hadn’t been able to tell if she was being honest or not; her face was blank and she blinked at him.

“Ditto,” he said, eventually.

“Can I have a slice of your pie?” she asked, head nodding to the pie that he had sat on his lap.

He stared at her, dumbly. “It’s apple.”

“Yes.”

“I-I don’t have a fork.” She reached into the pocket of her red parka and pulled out two plastic forks. “…Alright.”

He placed the pie on the ground between them and she handed him a fork and together they ate his pie.

“This is good. You should bake pies for a living,” she told him, face still blank, crimson eyes staring out into the darkness.

“I want to,” he replied. His phone buzzed in his pocket, probably his aunt phoning to figure out where he had run off to again.

“I’d fund it,” Peko hummed. There was a rip on the knee of her jeans. Hajime stared at it.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he’d said and she had smiled at him for the first time.

Later, Hajime would fall asleep in the bare living room of the house he used to share with his parents and he’d think about crimson eyes, a red parka and a hopeful smile.

(Years later, Hajime bought her a mug with stars painted on it. She’d smiled at him like she had then and Hajime had grinned back.)

Hajime had never actually met Gundham’s girlfriend until this moment. He’d seen her from afar, all long blonde hair and white sundresses that flared at the waist.

She’s wearing a sundress right now. It’s snowing outside. Hajime is so tired.

“Well, how Gundham and I met was when I was attempting to summon Abbadon [because blah] but before I could begin the incantation, Gundham ran in and stopped me. He explained later that I could have ended the world if I had gone through with the ritual! I am so sorry for that.”

“We accept your apology,” Nagito says, solemnly. Hajime elbows him in the ribs but she smiles at him.

“Sorry, what’s your name?” Chiaki asks from beside her.

“Oh dear, sorry, I sometimes get so caught up in everything that I forget to introduce myself. My name is Sonia. Sonia Nevermind.” She gives them all a dazzling smile.

Nagito leans over and whispers into Hajime’s ear. “Is this the week of meeting new people or something?” Hajime snorts.

Fuyuhiko enters through the front doors and sits next to Chiaki. She smiles at him and his lips twitch in response. “Fuyuhiko, this is Sonia. Gundham’s girlfriend?”

Fuyuhiko nods at her and she smiles back, brightly. Hajime wonders if everyone he meets now is always going to smile like they have the sun in their mouth.

“I wouldn’t say that Gundham is my boyfriend,” says Sonia.

“Oh?” Nagito asks, leaning over the counter, intrigued by the possible drama. Hajime rolls his eyes.

“Yes. I think life partner would be more appropriate. He protects me from both demons and men who disrespect me,” Sonia replies, looking wistful.

Chiaki hums in thought. “Only one man has ever disrespected me. He’s dead now.”

Fuyuhiko’s head shoots up from where it had been hunched over the menu to stare at Chiaki in shock. “Holy shit, did you kill him?”

“Nah,” Chiaki says. “He died of a heart attack. It was unrelated.”

Fuyuhiko looks like he wants to say something but just turns back to his menu. “You all are so weird,” he mutters.

Here’s the thing: Hajime knows that he isn’t the smartest guy out there. Or the strongest, or the bravest. But he doesn’t really think those things matter in the grand scheme of things. There are things that matter.

Fuyuhiko’s grin. Peko’s coffee stained mugs. Kazuichi’s rough palms. Nagito’s roller-skates. Chiaki’s eyes as she gasped herself to life on that damp concrete.

Some days he wakes up and doesn’t think it’s enough. That these things can’t keep him tethered to the Earth, that he’ll go floating up up up, somewhere no one can ever reach him.

Other days he wakes up and likes to think it is enough.

(He hopes it is.)

Kyouko walks into The Pie Hole with her back straight and her eyes flashing. Hajime fears for his life for a moment before he remembers that he works with Peko every day and he saw her fiddling with a sharp knife again when he was cleaning up the other night. Hajime knows that it’s Kyouko because he saw her coming out of the candy shop with one hand holding Makoto’s and the other in the clasp of some blonde man who looked like he sneered for a living. Sneering must pay a lot, Hajime is 90% that he had ten Rolexes on his wrist.

She makes a bee line for Fuyuhiko who is mid-conversation with Kazuichi about the morals involved in honey making. Hajime abandons his pie display to pretend to clean the counter so he can listen in.

“We should work together,” Kyouko says instead of hello or how are you like everyone else does.

Fuyuhiko twists on his stool and gives her a blank look. “…Anyway,” he says, turning back to Kazuichi who is grinning at Kyouko as though he’d never seen a woman before. “Bees don’t use the honey, so as long as they’re treated well –“

“This is ridiculous,” Kyouko interjects. “I’m a good detective and you seem to be as well, so what’s the harm with working together?”

“I work alone,” Fuyuhiko snaps.

Kyouko points a gloved finger at Hajime who jumps. “I thought he was your partner.”

Hajime watches Fuyuhiko’s face turn red with increasing wonder. “It's not like that! He-he has a boyfriend,” he splutters.

Hajime snorts. Kyouko rolls her eyes. “I meant a professional partner.” She looks like she is regretting offering to work with him.

Fuyuhiko squints at her and seems adamant about ignoring the flush across his cheeks. “How’d you know we work together, anyway?”

“I went to go and see Mikan’s body and the man at the desk said that another man was with you. I guessed. And I was correct.” She sits on the stool next to Fuyuhiko and picks up a menu.

“I could’ve been the partner!” Kazuichi exclaims.

“No,” Kyouko replies without looking up. “Could I have a slice of pumpkin pie, please?”

“Sure,” Hajime says.

“Thank you.” She turns to Fuyuhiko once more. “We should work together. What leads have you got so far?” Fuyuhiko doesn’t reply and glares at his cup of coffee. “I’m only going to keep pestering you until you cooperate,” she points out.

“Why do you want to work with him so bad?” Hajime asks as he sets her plate in front of her.

“Thank you. My husband – Makoto, I believe you’ve met him? – wants me to make friends. So – “ she spreads her hands out in front of her, “- here I am.”

“You’re doing a terrible job,” Kazuichi grumbles, poking at his strawberry pie with his fork, evidently still upset about Kyouko’s dismissal.

“I thought so,” she sighs. “I just thought that a good mystery would help me make friends.” She frowns at her pie as though it held all the secrets to good quality social interactions.

Fuyuhiko watches her for a moment before huffing a breath. “My only lead is Tsumiki’s girlfriend, Junko Enoshima. But she won’t let me in to talk to her. Something about ‘emotional trauma’.” He scoffs and takes a drink from his coffee cup.

He doesn’t look at Kyouko so he doesn’t see her smiling at him but Hajime does. She turns back to her pie and he passes her a cup of tea. “On the house,” he tells her and receives another smile before he disappears into the kitchen.

Things are going quite well. That’s why he knows they’re about to go bad.

His suspicions are confirmed when he steps towards his ovens to check on his pies and as he turns around he sees Chiaki, standing by the back entrance to the building.

“I have something to tell you,” she says, her voice steady and her eyes focused on the raspberries he left in a bowl on his workbench. "I got hit by a car when I was sixteen and I think I died but I don't know how I came back but what I have to say is - the person driving the car was Tsumiki."

Hajime feels his tether to Earth snap and he drifts away.

#hajime hinata #chiaki nanami #nagito komaeda #fuyuhiko kuzuryuu #peko pekoyama #kazuichi souda #nicola writes #danganronpa #komahinanami #komahinanami fanfiction #kuzupeko #kuzupeko fanfiction #kyouko x makoto x byakuya #someone hug my son hajime he's very sad all the time help him #pushing daisies au #you make a fool of death with your beauty #dangan ronpa #sdr2

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