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i'm in the rec room right now
there's no one else here if you want to come here?

ok. i'll be there in a few minutes.

[And he does show up, true to his word! Shoulders a little tense, but other than that, he's outwardly calm as he glances around for her and ventures over. Maybe a couch?]

Hey.

[But when he speaks, his voice is a little subdued, matching the tension in his shoulders.]

[ he may notice that she is watching... dora the explorer, of all things. there's a reason for it she didn't randomly decide to watch american children cartoons. she pauses it as soon as he comes in. ]

Hello! [ hajime raises a hand in greeting. ] So.

[That's... kind of cute? He's never seen this particular American cartoon, but alright.

He can't help but snort a laugh through his nose, though, quirking an eyebrow at her as he takes a seat. No other pleasantries, huh? Straight to the point again.]

The short answer is yeah, I am lucky. It's as Komaeda said. It's something that can't be controlled, but things will always work out in my favor, in the end.

I told you that when I went "back," I remembered some things...? That's why I have that talent.

[ hajime is also on the "that's not how talents work but ok" train. the whole way the concept works for dangans is still something that has not been fully explained to her though so she just rolls with this. ]

How are you sure that it will always work out for you?

Because that's one of my talents.

[Implying it's not his only talent. It's circular logic, really; if "luck" is his talent, then things will always work out for him. And he knows things will always work out for him because luck is his talent.

The corner of his lips quirk up into a humorless grin.]

Hope's Peak really is amazing, to be able to study something as vague as "luck." I know it sounds unbelievable, that's... why I didn't say anything to you about it. But I promised you I'd be honest.

[ hajime considers this and then leans in... and then kind of lightly smacks both of his cheeks with her hands. and then she just... squishes his cheeks, smushing them together. ]

Explain your reasoning for the gun thing.

Gnk--!

[Well this is a thing that's happening now. He doesn't do much other than stare at her with more than a little disbelief, because is squishing his cheeks really the right kind of atmosphere for a discussion like this?!]

Komaeda would never have believed me if I didn't do something extreme like that. It happened once before, a long time ago...

[Okay, no, this is too ridiculous. He reaches up to grab her wrists to try to free up his cheeks. Let him live??]

[ no. this is what he gets for doing dumb things??

hajime does, at least, let go. so there's that. ]

Ah, Hajime-kun [ yes she just used his actual name because this is Serious ] have you considered not having to prove to other people things like that?

[She might have let go of his cheeks, but he doesn't let go of her hands out of a suspicion that she'll just grab his face again. Instead, he sighs quietly, closing his eyes and shaking his head.]

That's not it, Ichinose. I know Komaeda. How afraid he is to let himself get close to someone because he's afraid his luck will hurt them. If I could prove to him that I have the same talent... maybe he won't feel so alone.

It was the only way I could think of to prove it to him in a way he'd understand. That's all.

He still wants to test it our further though.

[ he seemed... very excited about it? ]

You know, a lot of people's powers have been limited after they got here. Your luck may be practically foolproof back home, but it might not be the case here?

I'm not surprised. I trust him, but he has some... kind of extreme ideas.

[It's exhausting tbh. Komaeda's still Komaeda, no matter what.

But he shakes his head again, opening his eyes to meet hers.]

It would have to be gone completely for me to die from something like that. What I thought... what I was afraid would happen would be that the gun would still go off and wound me, but I knew there's no way I'd die from it.

Besides... it's not something that can be turned off or even controlled. It's just a part of me, now. After what happened.

I don't like it.

[ it's said more to herself than to him. but she follows it up almost immediately, ] I can't really tell you what to do here though! I don't know yours or Komaeda-kun's circumstances, after all, so it'd be very ignorant of me to just scold you.

[ she smiles for a second but then her expression returns to neutral. ]

You still shouldn't keep doing risky things just because your luck will keep you safe. I heard about what you did about the nightmares last month.

[He can school his expression into impassivity, but he can't hide the flash of pain in his eyes when she says she doesn't like it. It hurts. It hurts because the person he is now doesn't even want these talents. He doesn't hate them, he can't hate them when he was able to use them to save everyone, but it's still so hard to shake the feeling that he's someone else entirely. The Hinata who had existed before the virtual reality, and the Hinata who had been created in the virtual reality, the one everyone here had thought they'd known... were they really still him? Her words hurt.

All of those thoughts flicker through his mind faster than any words ever could be spoken, and he finally releases her hands, fully aware that he's at risk of having his cheeks slapped again.]

I'm sorry, but... I had to try. I came back to find everyone suffering... I had to test my theory. There's no way I'd risk anyone else getting hurt. Luck had nothing to do with that, I just... I'm not the kind of person who can sit idly by when there's something I can try to do to help.

As for our circumstances... it's complicated. For all of us.

No, I get wanting to help people. Just don't try to take it all on yourself? There are lots of people here with very comfy shoulders for you to lean on, and I hope that I can be one of them!

[ hajime glances away from him to look at the paused cartoon. ]

We probably won't ever fully understand everyone's circumstances while here. Our worlds can be pretty similar to each other, but there's also a lot of differences! I still want to do my very best to get to know you though. You're a very important person to me and I want to learn everything about you that you're okay with sharing.

[You're a very important person to me, stop this emotional roller coaster, he wants to get off?? One emotion at a time, please.

He just sighs quietly and leans forward a little, clasping his hands between his knees and staring at the floor.]

You're... a really important person to me too, Ichinose. I know I can rely on you. But if I tell you what happened... why I have all these talents, what they actually mean...

[He glances sideways to her again without straightening his posture, and echoes her words from before.]

You wouldn't like it.

I don't like a lot of things, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened to you. If we only listened to things that we did like then we wouldn't really know much about anything.

[ her gaze leaves the screen and returns to him. ]

If you don't think I'm the right person to tell these things to, that's fine. I just want to make sure that you're okay.

...You're really mature, Number Two.

[He repeats what she'd told him those few days ago, glancing up from his hands to meet her eyes. He's trying to read her face, use what he knows of her to determine exactly how telling her might affect their friendship. He still cares for her, even after everything he'd told Roxy about how that wouldn't be a good idea.

So he just exhales through his nose and shakes his head. It's better to be honest if he wants to let himself get closer to her, he knows that. It's just difficult.]

Have I told you about how... I was part of Hope's Peak Academy's Reserve Course? How I was so plain, so ordinary, someone so completely bereft of talent I was considered less than trash?

You didn't mention that part.

[ he told her about all the murders, but not this. the displeased face she is making is because she definitely does not agree with that assessment of him? ]

No offense, but your school was awful. [ a pause. ] And wrong.

It wasn't just the school. Ask Komaeda sometime what people with talent thought about people who had none. Ordinary people...

[He gives her a bit of a crooked smile and a shrug, accepting what she says about it being wrong.]

Anyway... Hope's Peak needed more funding to keep researching talent. So they created the Reserve Course, a normal school with the Hope's Peak brand, all to get more money to study talent. There's no way someone like me could afford the tuition to go on my own, but they offered me the chance to enroll in exchange for volunteering for a certain project. A project to create someone who could be everyone's hope.

[ that seems kind of sketchy. she doesn't say so, though, since she would prefer for him to finish his explanation. ]

And you took the offer.

[ that's really the only conclusion to jump to. hajime waits for him to go on. ]

Yeah. I didn't think I had any choice. To become someone who could make a difference, someone who meant something...

I didn't want to be trapped in a boring, normal life. So I volunteered for the program. To turn someone ordinary into someone extraordinary, they had to go through extremes.

In short, they tried to erase my personality completely and jam every single talent into my brain. And I volunteered for it willingly.

[ it kind of reminds her of rue, in the sense of making people who lived normal lives into heroes. the difference being that rue didn't actually believe that the average person was useless; he wanted to prove that they were just as extraordinary as people with powers, like the gatchaman. he'd probably be absolutely furious if he heard about hope's peak. ]

And that's what you remembered when you came back. [ she reaches over, cupping his cheek with her hand. ] What happened?

Ah...

[He pauses with her hand on his cheek, meeting her eyes with no small amount of surprise and a hint of a flush. But he sighs and closes his eyes, resting his cheek against her hand.]

I wasn't myself after that. I was someone else. They called me Kamukura Izuru, the Super High School Level Hope. Hinata Hajime back then couldn't handle all of that. What parts of my personality they hadn't cut out or erased were repressed completely by my brain in an attempt to protect itself.

It's not until the Neo World Program restored my memories of my time before the Project that I could really be Hinata again. The murders, everything you saw... that all took place in the virtual world of the Neo World Program. When we finally chose to exit that program, after uncovering the truth of it all... we all reverted back to the people we had been. But we kept our memories of the time in the program.

I have all of Kamukura's memories and all of my own. All of his talents.

[ ah. that does explain some questions she has been wondering, like how he suddenly got very good at certain things that she (no offense?) knows he wouldn't have been great at before. at least, not on the first try. hajime's neutral expression doesn't shift except for a slight twitch of her lips, downwards. ]

What do you think about those talents, Number One?

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