Chapter Text
Hajime Hinata was sitting in the restaurant on Jabberwock island, eating dinner with some of his closest friends: Kazuichi, the Ultimate Simp Mechanic, his somewhat obnoxious ‘soul bro’; Fuyuhiko, the quieter, hot-headed Yakuza, though by far the most down-to-earth and dependable of the bunch; and Nagito, the idealistic boy who, despite their falling-out in the simulation, had quickly become his closest friend again once they had a chance to start over.
Today was a pretty average day for them. The usual.
“-and then she said she was busy!”
“Wow, what a surprise,” Fuyuhiko said with an impressive amount of sarcasm, not even bothering to look up from his plate.
Nagito nodded along, also as usual, having easily gained the mechanic’s friendship with the smallest amount of sympathy and a willingness to listen to his… Sonia… issues.
“-and then she-”
“Hey, losers!” Ibuki yelled, scooting a chair up to their table.
“Hi, Ibuki,” Hajime greeted neutrally. “What’s up?”
She immediately groaned and put her head down on the table in dejection. “Yoko and Mahi are having a date night and Ibuki’s sexy nurse is too busy doing something doctor-y, so Ibuki has NOTHING to do.”
“Isn’t Mikan helping TeruTeru with his sprained ankle…?” Nagito wondered aloud.
Hajime had been thinking the same thing. The pervert had recently sprained his ankle while pulling some stupid stunt trying to peep on Akane. Served him right.
“Speaking of that!” She wrapped her arms around Nagito’s and Hajime’s necks, roughly pulling them into her boobs and away from their food. “When are my Nagi-chan and Haji-chan gonna confess their love under the stars?!”
“C-confess?! Under the-?!” Kazuichi gaped at them with wide-eyes, looking absolutely scandalized.
“Ibuki, stop,” Hajime coughed against the arm half-strangling him. “You’re gonna give Kaz the wrong idea.” That moron would latch onto gossip like he was on an actual deserted island and it was the first bite he’d had in days.
“Kazoo is just jelly because he’s the third wheel,” Ibuki snickered, letting them go.
“I am not the third wheel!” He pointed accusingly. “And cars need three wheels to drive anyways!”
“Yeah, but a bicycle doesn’t!” She flashed the peace sign.
Fuyuhiko smirked. Kazuichi cried cartoonishly. There was no way he would ever win an argument against Ibuki. He shouldn’t even try.
“Awww, don’t worry, Kazoo, you can sit over at the single table with Ibuki! We’ll have tons of fun!” Now she was over on the other side of the table, with an arm wrapped around Kazuichi’s shoulders. She had only actually remained seated at the table for about 60 seconds in total.
“That doesn’t make me feel any better!”
“Well, actually,” Nagito piped up, “we’re just friends, so we’d be joining you at the single table.”
“Riiiiiight,” she winked. Not at all subtly.
“No, really, Ibuki, it’s true,” Hajime insisted.
“But you guys are Ibuki’s OTP!”
“Is that like a UFO?” Kaz asked.
Ibuki snorted. “Aww, Kazoo is so cute.” She whirled around towards—oh boy—Fuyuhiko. “You get it, right, Baby Gangsta?!”
“Don’t you fucking start with me!” he threatened like a pissed-off dad warning his misbehaving teenager.
“Oooo, is Ibuki in trouble?!” She did not sound even a little bit sorry.
At some point, they managed to weasel their way out of the restaurant, shortly after Fuyuhiko had made his own escape, cruelly leaving Kazuichi alone to deal with Ibuki. He felt zero remorse.
As they made their way back to their cottages for the night, Hajime shoved his hands in his pockets. “So, uh, what’s an OTP?” Nagito should know, since he always seemed to know really random things.
Nagito looked at him in surprise for a second, which only made Hajime more confused. “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know, since you only read textbooks and boring things like that.”
“Boring...” he muttered under his breath, half offended.
“It’s like your number one favorite ship,” Nagito offered.
“... If this is another joke about boats-”
“Oh, hahaha, I guess you wouldn’t get that, either. It’s like… a couple that you think is really cute.”
“What, like, celebrity magazines?”
Nagito shrugged. “Yeah, you could think about it like that.”
“Wait-” He stopped walking. “We are NOT a celebrity couple!”
Nagito thought that was hilarious, apparently, because he hunched over, shoulders trembling, his arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to stifle his laughter. “Can you imagine?” he giggled, wiping a tear from his eye.
Could he imagine…?
They were close… but that close…?
“Oh!” Nagito announced suddenly. "I have a proposal."
“You… a what?” He said, dumbfounded.
“We could do a dating experiment!” He spread his hands out to the side for dramatic effect.
Hajime just stared, so he took it as a sign to continue.
“For some arbitrary amount of time—let’s say a week—we could pretend to be dating! Not publicly of course. Secretly—just to test out the idea, you know? Like casual dating, but with a predetermined time frame, and of course, with less commitment. Because who knows? Maybe it would be fun! And you decide it was a great idea and you want to keep doing it! Or! Maybe it's a terrible idea, and afterwards things go right back to normal. Of course, you could just decide after one date that it’s the worst expereince you’ve ever had in your life, which would be entirely expected—”
As he kept rambling, Hajime let his thoughts wander.
Honestly, he hadn’t really thought about… dating, or… romance, or anything like that. There were always too many more important things going on. But their lives had finally slowed down. They were living on Jabberwock Island for the foreseeable future. Assuming no plot twists or surprises, their lives were expected to be as mundane as they could be. He should probably start considering dating at some point, right? Isn’t that what people do? It was hard to imagine another way to start moving their lives back in a more normal direction.
Honestly, it wasn’t like the thought had never crossed his mind. Him, and Nagito…
Let’s be realistic. He liked to think he was realistic, after all. He lived on an island in the middle of the ocean with less than two dozen of his peers. And there were only a few who weren’t already paired up. Peko and Fuyuhiko, Akane and Nekomaru, Mahiru and Hiyoko, Gundham and Sonia… Him and Nagito already spent all their time together and already got teased every once in a while, just like Ibuki had been teasing them at dinner. It did make sense. So the concept had definitely crossed his mind.
...He had just never seriously entertained the idea.
Would it… hurt to seriously entertain the idea...?
After a brief moment of deliberation, he mentally shrugged. What was the worst that could happen? “Sure.”
Nagito froze in the middle of his sentence, staring at him in shock.
“Uh…” Hajime scratched the back of his head awkwardly. “You’re the one who suggested it.”
"Really?! When?!" Nagito demanded suddenly. “Now?!”
“Wh-whoa, uh, I mean…” He put his arms up defensively.
“Ah!” Nagito seemed to recover and back off a bit. “Sorry. Are you sure? You probably don’t want to do something like that with someone disappointing like me…”
What, a minute ago he was trying to convince him to do it, and now he was trying to convince him not to do it? That was Nagito for you. “Why not?” Hajime shrugged, trying to play it nonchalant. Er, not play. It was nonchalant. Yeah.
“...Why not...?” Nagito was now staring up at the sky with an expression of wonder.
He was so weird.
“But I, uh…” Hajime cleared his throat awkwardly. “This is just going to be a week of dating, right?”
Nagito looked at him curiously. “Yes, of course, that’s what we already established. Are we not on the same page about that?”
“It’s just…” His face felt warmer. He hoped it didn’t show. “Just going out and going places together, and…”
Nagito stared blankly.
“Nothing, you know…” He paused. “More?” The last part came out as a squeak.
Nagito stared at him blankly some more. Suddenly his eyes went wide. “Ah!! Of course, I would never, EVER be so presumptuous a-”
“O-Okay, okay! I-I was just checking, no need to elaborate!!” It felt like his face was on fire.
Eventually, despite the tangent along the way, they made their way across the actually very short distance between the restaurant and their cottages. They stopped by Hajime’s first, as it was closer. That was a pretty common thing for them. They’d hang out, or eat dinner with the gang, leave together, and wave goodbye at Hajime’s cottage.
But this time, instead of leaving like he normally would, Nagito paused, awkwardly hovering around the doorframe. He was eyeing the floorboards, looking like he wanted to say something.
“What's up?”
He shifted his weight from foot to foot. "I..." He smiled sheepishly. "...want to hug you." His eyes flicked up to Hajime's. "But that doesn't start until tomorrow."
Hajime opened his mouth to reply that it wasn’t like this would be the first time they’d hugged, but before he could even get a word out he was cut off by Nagito yelling, “Bye!” and spinning around on his heel, leaving Hajime standing bewildered in front of his own cottage, without so much as a glance back.
Okay.
That was the weirdest goodbye he’d gotten in… a while.
At least this week wouldn’t be boring.