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“Mind if I join you?”
Hajime looked up suddenly.
“Nice sunset,” Fuyuhiko remarked, staring out at it.
“It is.” Hajime mumbled an agreement. “It’ll go down fast, though.”
“Then wait 24 hours.” Fuyuhiko stated the obvious, seating himself next to Hajime. “Oh, sorry. Do you actually mind?”
“Uh, no,” Hajime shook his head, though his tone came out more subdued than he’d expected. “Go for it.”
Fuyuhiko stretched his legs in front of himself and swung them over the side, shoes barely grazing the waves. “I shouldn’t get these wet,” he said, backing up a bit. “Hey, again. If you’re not lookin’ for company… there’s other piers.”
Hajime laughed. “I won’t make you walk.”
“Something on your mind?” Fuyuhiko asked. “We don’t have to talk, just… I usually isolate myself to think, so you must be thinkin’ pretty hard. If you’re anything like me.”
The sun was already falling behind the horizon, faster than Hajime had even anticipated.
“...I’m not like you,” Hajime sighed. “Yeah… I’m not like any of you.”
Fuyuhiko glanced at him, knowing it wasn’t any kind of slight. Hajime was a bit morose tonight?
Hajime shook his head. “I didn’t mean… it’s me. My problem. It just gets to me sometimes.” He shook his head again. “It’s… I’ve been better about it. It really hasn’t been getting to me that much lately. I don’t know why tonight’s different.”
Just a few minutes later, and the sky had taken on a deep blue hue.
Fuyuhiko sighed. “I’m not changing your mind,” he said. “I know. I won’t try. But you know what I think. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Fuyuhiko…” Hajime’s tone was controlled, but betrayed the slightest hint of annoyance.
“Yeah, I… I know. I intruded on your space… I’m not gonna lecture you.”
“It’s okay,” Hajime reasoned. “You just… wanted to see how I was doing.”
Fuyuhiko nodded. “Look… I’m only halfway to halfway to you, but I get it. I never really felt like the perfect fit for my talent.”
You still have one, Hajime thought. “So… you ever have any trouble relating to the others too?” he probed the other for an answer. The sun was long gone. Redirect the conversation a bit.
“You could say that.” Fuyuhiko bit the inside of his cheek a little too hard and winced. “No… you could definitely say that. But I’m sure you got no desire to hear about how having a talent is hard.”
Hajime thought it best to not reply.
“But you’re right,” Fuyuhiko continued, as if not noticing the lull in the conversation. “I still feel kind of removed from some of the others. The ones who got lucky enough to… really… live off their talent.”
Am I being used as a sounding board? Hajime wasn’t sure where this conversation was going. “I don’t… think you get it.” He finally said. “But… thanks for trying. Genuinely.”
“Hey…” Fuyuhiko sighed. “I just wanna make sure you can have a nice time while you’re here. Not get so caught up in all this talent stuff. I’m not gonna say it doesn’t matter. It obviously matters to you. But I…” he thought for a second. “We got to watch a nice sunset. So… I want this to be a good evening for you. Not end it on a note where you’re just doubting yourself.”
He eyed the other skeptically. “Komaeda didn’t say anything, did he?”
Hajime shook his head. “Not this time.”
Fuyuhiko stared out over the water, leaning back, tilting his head towards the sky. “Good, and he better not.”
“Hey… Fuyuhiko…” Hajime started, then figured it might be too rude to ask him to leave to a different pier after giving him his blessing. “I’m not sure this conversation… right now…”
“Hey Hajime,” Fuyuhiko sighed. “You’re on this island with us– you’re not gonna go through your shit all by yourself. This talent stuff… it comes with a lot of doubt. I know you think… you say you’d sacrifice the best things that could ever happen to you for one of our problems, but… I think you got something good. I wish you could see it.”
Hajime closed his eyes, unintentionally in direct contrast to Fuyuhiko’s statement. “I know you…” he started. “Being born into your talent… it’s a bit different than how the others found theirs. I’m a little more okay with talking to you about it.”
“Yeah, you could’ve been me,” Fuyuhiko mused. “I guess anyone could’ve. I mean, genetically, no, but circumstantially…” He shook his head. “It gets to me too sometimes. Wondering if it’s a title I deserve or one I can live up to. But you know… you actually helped me… become a little more confident about it.”
So now he just wants to help in return, Hajime reasoned. Still a bit bitter, he pushed his negative thoughts to the side and opened his mind. Looks like this conversation was happening.
“But sometimes I wonder. Growing up with… uh, with Peko. With my sister. It made me wonder.”
Hajime had known it would come up, but still listened a bit more attentively at the mention of Peko’s name. His romantic feelings for her had been fleeting in retrospect, but he still reflected on them fondly. He never had revealed his feelings to her.
“This kind of thing… that you take on when you’re young… it’s more something that you’re handed. And expected to do. Most of us didn’t even get a choice. Shit, I mean–” Fuyuhiko lowered his voice. “Look, I don’t like Tsumiki. But shit.” He lowered his voice further. “You know the girls, they– they don’t involve Peko in a lot. Shitty, but she doesn’t exactly make herself, uh, available. But Tsumiki does.”
Hajime nodded.
“I don’t even think I’m supposed to know this,” Fuyuhiko continued. “So you tell anyone, you got a new problem with me, alright?– But eh– you wouldn’t.” He shook his head. “Tsumiki’s– she kind of… used to get the shit kicked out of her. I don’t know if it was at home, school, or you know, wherever, but she developed her talent from basically doing self-surgery. You know, set her wrist, give herself stitches, I’ve got some medical know-how here and there but– shit. Wouldn’t want a reason to actually have to use it on myself. Let alone on a daily basis.”
“It’s, uh… no, it’s not a secret,” Hajime said. “I– not to me. She’s… I mean, if you know, you know, and if you don’t, you can piece it together.”
Fuyuhiko sighed in relief. “Okay, good. I felt like I was crossing a line with that one, but shit. If it’s an open secret, I can’t tell if that’s worse or not.”
“Point is,” he continued, “Would you put yourself through all that to be the best at something? I mean, it’s gotta be psychological damage up to here–” he gestured– “And she ain’t exactly bandaging her brain.”
Hajime nodded again, but a little resigned. Fuyuhiko was really trying, but… “Even with you…” he articulated, “I feel like we’re… our experiences, there’s an asymptote you can’t cross. You can get close, but… that’s all. I think I get it, I get you more than the others… but… it’s still… not the same.”
“–Not the same, I know,” Fuyuhiko finished him off, speaking over him.
“You… had resources… people… I just… I don’t really have anything,” Hajime sighed. He hadn’t really wanted to admit it, but he finished his thought quickly as if to expel it from his head, transport it to the outside world where something could be done with it.
“What would you have chosen, if you were in my place?” Hajime posited, half-joking but with a tone of seriousness as if genuinely interested in the thought experiment.
After a beat of silence, he grinned. “Ultimite Sommelier?”
Fuyuhiko grinned back. “You really wanna die, huh?”
Hajime laughed nervously. “...Y–”
“No. Not actually. But good to know that's intimidating. I’ll file that one away.” Fuyuhiko sighed again. “Peko.”
Hajime sat at attention, noticing the dramatic shift in tone.
“Her…” Fuyuhiko trailed off. “The… I just…” Every combination of words that surfaced in his mind seemed incorrect. Regret? Regret seemed to be the strongest, but could he ever really regret Peko, even given the circumstances? Was he wrong, was he an awful person for imagining a life without her, a life where she never intersected his, if only she could have been happier?
“...If I… say something,” Hajime started, unsure if it would help but proceeding, “Will you… promise… please… not to kill me? Or even threaten it?”
Fuyuhiko stared at him bluntly. “Well shit, now you gotta say it. If it’ll get you to say it, fine, I promise.”
Hajime dropped his gaze to Fuyuhiko’s shoes. “I uh, when we first came here to the island, I think I… had… uh, something, kind of feelings for Peko. Maybe just an infatuation. I didn’t really know her but I thought… she was… she looked pretty…”
Fuyuhiko’s gaze immediately softened. His emotions converged upon and subducted each other, though all carried a prevailing undercurrent of sadness. He shook his head. “...Hey, I’m not… no, I wouldn’t… threaten you over something you can’t help, man. And you… you’re right for it. She is. She is pretty. She deserves to be… happy with someone. She deserves to be…” he shook his head. Just sad. “She deserves something normal. Nothing normal or average about her entire life. Mine either, but hers, really nothing. She… I didn’t… my…” He considered Hajime seriously. “Hey, look at me. I don’t… don’t think I’m one of those possessive fucks who’d off someone over a girl. Especially a girl who deserves…” Better? “She deserves to be…” Happy? “Shit, if she got to pick her talent,” he laughed wryly. “Animals? …Maybe? Maybe. I don’t think many of us got Tanaka’s olfactory fatigue. But she likes ‘em anyway.” He shrugged, resigned. “No, I’m just speculating. But I… don’t even think I could ask her myself. She won’t answer honestly anyway, she’d say she likes her talent, cause it’s what she’s meant to do, and I just… sometimes I feel so… guilty.”
He met Hajime’s eyes, any surviving levity in his voice exterminated. “This talent thing, it messes with your identity.” He hit the target on what he’d been trying to articulate all night. “It messes with your sense of self. Your decision making, your choices, Hajime… it’s just… not all it’s cracked up to be. You shouldn’t… well, I’m not telling you how to feel. You feel what you feel. I can’t say shit about it. I mean shit. It is hard. I know what I’m sayin’ is probably, ‘Yeah, means a lot coming from this bastard’, huh? But you… you have an option none of us do. You’re not beholden to the expectations we are– and look, I know it’s easy for me to say. And yeah, it is. I’ve never been in your camp, you’ve never been in mine, but you still wanna be me. You want to be any of us. But you’re not, and I ain’t entertaining it. No what-ifs, none of that crap. Make your own path. Try things and fail. Try things and succeed. I get scared for Peko.”
The sentence left his mouth before he could think it through or retract it. His emotional state, he was keeping an iron grip on, but his level words were coming out too fast. “I get scared she’s never going to know who she is outside of me. And she– it’s one thing to be born into that life but she– she… she had a chance… if she was just… if someone… she could’ve… her life… she could’ve been you.”
Hajime didn’t know what to make of the conversation. However well-meaning, Fuyuhiko’s words still stung. Some rang true, some only had the verisimillitude, but all the same, he wanted to hear Fuyuhiko’s conclusion. The sentiments got through to him irregularly, as if through a semi-permeable membrane; one sentence would sting him and make him feel as if none of these Ultimate students could ever truly relate to him, the next sentence would shake him to his core. We can never really empathize with each other, he thought sadly. But even the, albeit abrasive, attempt at sympathy wasn’t something he often received.
“Would you really want that for her…?” Hajime said tentatively. “I know it’s… asking you to give up… what, I mean, your best friend, right?”
Fuyuhiko closed his eyes, purely to reflect. There was no risk of tears forming when he felt so hollow.
“...I think I’m selfish,” he confessed. “All the time. There’s something… selfish about the things I want for her.” He shook his head. “But shit, I’m holding myself to my own word. I said no what-if’s for you, I’m not indulging in that shit for me. It happened– she, we raised her, she’s here, and she’s gotta work through some stuff. She’s gotta get better at talking to people, not just me. She’s gotta make herself…”
That seemed right as it was.
“She’s gotta make herself. Not me, not the Kuzuryu clan. She’s gotta make herself.” He shook his head, as if to dismiss the topic. “Whose talent… do you like the best?” he asked, back in a decent enough mood to lighten the conversation. He’d stumbled onto something he’d have to remember later for Peko, and for himself.
Hajime felt a bit jarred by the subject falling back onto talents again, but nonetheless attempted a thorough, honest answer. “Well, to start it off, Peko’s is cool.”
Kuzuryu nodded approvingly. “Naturally. Proceed.”
“Martial arts, though…” Hajime trailed off. “I never… I mean, I took some classes when I was younger, but I think my parents kind of enrolled me in it just to blow off some energy. You know, young kid stuff. I took it… as seriously as I could.” He laughed. “Speaking of stuff like that… Hermit Crab Caretaker.”
This actually drew a laugh from Fuyuhiko. “Yeah, you’d be the only one!” he said sarcastically, then considered it. “Seriously, I… shit, I mean, someone really does need to take care of those things.”
Hajime nodded. “I didn’t get attached though,” he said distantly. “Guess Tanaka’s out. Tsumiki’s is really useful. But you’re right, I wouldn’t want…”
Fuyuhiko nodded, as if to signify Hajime had said enough to be understood. “It is useful, though. I mean, I’ve had to pull bullets out of myself. Could’ve done me some good knowing what all the major arteries were.”
“Uh, doesn’t sound like I’d wanna be you either.”
Fuyuhiko laughed. “Next.”
“Guess Togami’s kind of in your boat, huh? Born into… yeah. And all that,” Hajime considered. “I guess Togami.” He settled back. “Koizumi too. Her photos… really neat stuff. Really pretty.”
Fuyuhiko nodded. There was some distance in his eyes at the mention of Koizumi. “I wish she never met my sister, you know that, right?”
Hajime gave him a tentative nod, not fully knowing what to say.
“She was always comparing herself to Koizumi, but I never knew it was Koizumi until we played that game. Always coming home from her school’s club in tears, saying she wasn’t good enough– ‘oh, I’m not good, I’m not good enough, I need to be better’. But I always I thought all her pictures were… nice.” Fuyuhiko settled next to Hajime a bit and extended his hands. “So get this, she did all the right things, right? She’d go through all this trouble with these lights and lenses she’d screw on– she must’ve had a lens that went half as long as my goddamn arm, right?” Fuyuhiko slapped the middle of his right forearm with the cubital side of his left palm in a clean, bisecting motion to demonstrate. “And she took great photos. She insisted on takin’ one of me before I came to the Academy and I fought the hell out of her but she took one of Peko too cause, you know, she got what she wanted. She wasn’t supposed to take pictures of Peko, but I’m really… glad she took that now. It’s like there was art of my best friend made by my sister. So it meant a lot to me.”
“But look, that day wasn’t… great either. Natsumi was pissed off, and you know, the only reason she took it was because Koizumi got her on this portrait photography kick, and she’d go on and on for hours about how, oh this, that, ‘oh it took me too long to get a good photo’ or that it was posed, some other bullshit, and the whole time I thought she was full of shit, and I thought it was just a good photo- she came up with these little things, called ‘artifacts’ or something, I guess is like squares in the picture, and she would zoom in and obsess over these tiny things. She was so good at all the technical… technical… the light, shadow, she studied it, but she was always saying, oh you know, ‘I’m not the best’, or ‘there’s someone who can do this better than me’, or faster, or, you know, all that.” Fuyuhiko turned to Hajime with a grimace. “Sound like anyone?”
Hajime fixed his interlocutor with an unamused stare. “Kind of.”
Fuyuhiko luckily took it good-naturedly, seeming to recognize the uncomfortable nature of the conversation for Hajime, and continued. “She wouldn’t listen to me, anyway. It was one of the only things she wouldn’t listen to me on, no matter how hard I tried, she’d just say ‘oh, I’m saying that cause I’m her brother’ and it was just impossible to get through, and I mean it just wrecked her. It just… her begging to get into Hope’s Peak, the obsession, she just got… annihilated by it. And I’m not… I’m not saying I even forgive… so don’t get the wrong idea, you better not, but those photos, right? Even if you recreated her photos it still wouldn’t be the same because she had that intention behind it. She… she had this attention to detail, and maybe it didn’t come as naturally as it did to Koizumi, but she was, I mean, voracious, voracious learner.”
“And you know what I was thinking the whole damn time Natsumi was going around thinking she wasn’t good enough? You better not tell anyone, but I was thinking that she was… you know, she was the one. If she’d been born first, she’d be me. And I’d be you know, you. Everyone, ever since we were all growing up, Natsumi this, that, just like your uncle, she’s ruthless, she’s, you know, she’s got it, she’s the one who knows the business, she’s interested in it, she’s prepared, she’s got it. And then she got unlucky.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that about you.”
“Don’t do anything stupid with it,” Fuyuhiko rolled his eyes. “But you know, I also told you that so you wouldn’t do anything stupid.”
Hajime opened his mouth just to inhale, but Fuyuhiko cut him off. “Anyway, I’m done talkin’ about my sister. You should talk to the others. Find something you like to do.”
“Yeah, uh,” Hajime tapped his finger. “Mioda. Ibuki-chan. I’d wanna shred.”
“So you should ask,” Fuyuhiko grinned. “Talk to ‘em!”
“Ask them what–?”
“To mentor you!” Fuyuhiko explained, as if it were a brilliant idea. “You wanna be talented, you got a bounty of talented people at your fingertips! The best at what they do even!”
“I… don’t follow–”
“I mean, I said it earlier, I’m only an Ultimate cause I got people training me. You think my ass was born knowing how to run the Kuzuryu Clan? We all had to get training to get where we are. Peko trained ‘til she passed out in her own– uh, yeah I get why you’re goin’ for the artistic talents,” he grinned, lowering his voice again. “Less messy. But shit, most of us on this island would love nothin’ more than to talk about their talent day in-day out. So… maybe you didn’t have what we had before, maybe you didn’t have the resources, mentors, what, the means to access these kinda skills. But you… you’re where you need to be.” Fuyuhiko smiled encouragingly– it still looked a little sad, but he wasn’t trying to wallow anymore. “You can start… and… you can choose… and you know, they… Koizumi and Mioda, I mean, Natsumi was right, Koizumi’s great at what she does. I have to admit. But they’re both the kind of people who got to choose what they wanted to do and hone it. As an Ultimate Talent. I’m… actually kinda happy you’d pick them over… you know.”
“Tsumiki?”
“...Tsumiki. …Kinda wanted to leave her alone at this point.”
Hajime nodded. The time for wallowing was over, but still. One more thing. “I don’t have anything to offer them in return, though.”
Fuyuhiko’s soft smile spread into another grin. “Hajime… these… people… are… freaks.” He rolled his eyes. “...Of nature. Kazuichi… all that bastard wants to do is talk to people about…” he started laughing again. “Fucking tanks! Military tanks. Or rocketships, some shit like that. You think he gives a shit what I do, you think he even knows? You think a bastard who’s asking me ‘if I ever got to ride in a tank’ knows what I do or gives a shit? He’s just askin’ cause he’s obsessed and he’s dying to talk about it with me. With anyone.”
Fuyuhiko smiled, reflecting on his classmates. No time for regret, but damn. Should’ve treated them better to begin with. “No one really… asks me about what I do. Save Komaeda. And you… but… I… don’t make myself available. As you know. It’s… not… most of what I do, most of what my family’s done, it’s not really… well, something to be discussed. You got your over the table stuff, negotiation tactics, financial matters, but if you wanna hear about that, you may as well ask Sonia. You’d get a straighter answer outta her.”
“I mean, you did say you pulled a bullet out of yourself.”
“One time! And I almost died. Hajime, I just, uh.” He sighed. “This is something I don’t wanna be talented at. That inspirational shit… I’m not givin’ a fuckin’ speech here. Just, believe in yourself. A little. You know, do whatever.”
Hajime nodded. It hadn’t resolved everything. “Don’t worry. Ultimate Motivational Speaker encroaches on Nidai’s territory. I’m pretty sure.” He sighed. “And uh… just, in the interest of being honest. It helped in some ways, not in others. I think there’s still some things I’m just… going to have to work through. I… still feel a certain way about not being the only one here… who… doesn’t have that… quality. I…” he sighed again. “I have to admit I don’t think it’ll ever go away. That feeling. But talking to you, I think it did help me.”
Fuyuhiko nodded. “I appreciate the honesty.” He looked away from Hajime, out into the ocean. “I can’t understand you either. I can’t help my resentment about… stuff… either. I guess we’re even.” He pulled himself to his feet and looked behind them, down the pier. “But shit, let’s be even while you get some guitar lessons.”
“You’re a pretty good listener.” Hajime looked up at him as he motioned to leave, but stayed seated.
Wait up or don’t. Fuyuhiko walked down the pier to the shore, waving with his back to Hajime. “You’re not bad yourself.”