Three Conversations, and Another Unseen

“Nagito, all those times you leap at my brother, hiss and slap at him repeatedly…”

“Yes, Izuru?”

“You are just being playful, yes?”

“What do you mean?”

Izuru reached back and winnowed out a lock of the dark, calf-length hair currently being brushed by Nagito, who had begged to do so until he was given permission. Izuru held the lock and fidgeted with it.

“When you call him a dirty Reserve and say he is not good enough for Meshi…”

“Yes?”

“Do… you actually like Hajime?”

Nagito kept the brush moving at a steady pace from his kneeling position on Izuru’s bed. “I really don’t think I could have made my feelings any clearer,” he said, cheerfully.

Izuru wound his lock of hair in and out of his fingers. After a few seconds, he said “Why do you dislike my brother?”

There was a tut. “How could I not, seeing you every day? He’s a Reserve. He’s average in every single way. He doesn’t have a talented bone in his body. And if that weren’t enough, he doesn’t know his place. I really don’t know what even gives him the barefaced cheek to talk to Meshi, let alone why Meshi indulges him. My brother could have anyone he chose.”

Izuru had wound his hair back and forth all the way up to his fingertips, which he wiggled. “And what does that tell you?” he asked quietly.

“That he’s played some kind of atrocious trick on my poor dear twin to make him think he’s in any way worthwhile.”

Nagito thought he heard a whimper. At some point he’d started brushing faster. He didn’t think he’d snagged a tangle, but he slowed down anyway. Honestly, what clumsy hands he had.

“Anyhow, I don’t want to talk about the Reserve. I’d rather focus on the beautiful, wonderful, godlike, talented Hope in front of me. Let’s talk about you instead!”

Izuru unwound the hair from his hand in one steady pull. He said “Nagito. You know that I was put through the Accelerated Talent Development Program.”

“Of course!” Nagito beamed. “And now you’re wonderfully perfectly wonderful, and—”

“Do you know what they did to me?”

“Well… they brought out all your latent talents, right?” Nagito looked at the ceiling and touched the bristles to his lips for a moment. “Although I don’t think you ever said how…”

“I… not important. I did not mean to bring that up. Did you know it was a twin study?”

“Eh?”

“One twin was the test subject, the other the control.”

“Ah. Ah! I understand.”

“Good—”

“You’re saying Hajime does actually have a purpose after all. He’s the background contrast to make your light shine even brighter. He’s your Watson! Your Weasley, your Robin, your… well, not your Ryuk, haha! I’ll admit, I never thought of it that way. You’re really so intelligent, Izuru!”

“That, is not,” said Izuru, with some apparent difficulty, “what, I was saying, at all.”

“Then I apologise for not being able to keep up. I’m only a small step above a Reserve myself, remember, Izuru. You’ll have to spell things out for me.”

“I—” Izuru tugged at his lock of hair, once, twice, three times, again—Nagito gently retrieved it and added it to the mass he was brushing.

The silence stretched out.

“I think,” said Izuru, “that we should see other people.”

Nagito dropped the brush.

Meshi only stopped leaning on the door buzzer when Izuru finally opened up.

“I’m here to slap the bastard who made my precious angel baby brother cry,” he said.

Izuru bowed his head slightly.

Meshi slapped him.

Izuru didn’t react.

“Right. Now, what on earth is the problem? What’s this, that I only gleaned between heartbroken sobs, I might add, about you breaking up with Nagito?”

Izuru mumbled something in the general direction of the ground.

“What?”

“I said, he does not like Hajime.”

Meshi rocked back on his heels. He raised his hand, the real one, to his lips, drummed his fingers against them. “Invite me in,” he said.

“You are always welcome, even when Hajime is out.”

“You’ll regret that in future, probably.” Meshi sauntered inside like a tomcat. He splashed himself over the couch and beckoned Izuru, who trailed after and slowly folded himself into an easy chair (Hajime’s, Meshi noticed).

“What’s really going on?” he prompted, when it became obvious that Izuru wasn’t going to open any discussions.

“N… Nagito does not like Hajime.” Izuru was staring at some fixed point near the corner of the ceiling.

“Okay. But Nagito isn’t dating Hajime. I am.”

“He does not want you to.”

“I’ll indulge my most beautiful, dainty, sensitive, adorable baby twin in most things, but the men I see are my own business.”

“I don’t like him being mean.”

Meshi tapped his lips again. “Well, I get that, but don’t you think that’s really between th—”

Izuru suddenly turned to look at him. The intensity was uncomfortable. “Why do you like Hajime when your brother does not?” he demanded.

“He’s an idiot.”

“No… Nagito is very clever. He is bright and witty and lovely and beautiful and f… f…” Izuru’s brows drew together and his gaze dropped abruptly. “He is perfect,” he said, “but he is wrong about this one thing.”

“Mhm, of course my darling Nagito is perfect! I meant Hajime. Hajime’s an idiot.”

“I… asked why you liked him, not for you to be mean…”

“Look, Izuru.” Izuru, even more red-eyed than usual, glanced at him. “I’m a morosexual. I’m attracted to idiots. The other day, Hajime saw a picture of a stop sign and it broke his brain because it was in English and an octagon. I’ve never wanted in his pants more.”

“You like him because you consider him stupid?” If he didn’t know better he’d think Izuru was about to cry.

“No, I find him sexy because he’s stupid. I like him for everything else about him. His kindness. His calming presence. The way he opens doors for me and then gets flustered and pretends he was just fanning himself with them. The way he puts up with me being, well, me. That big blush of his when I compliment him. How patient he is with the children. His little frown when he’s working—and how hard he works. How warm his chest is. He starts conversations on his own but has to be told to grab my ass—do you know how rare that is?”

Izuru was listening, though not exactly contributing.

“Do you miss my brother?” Meshi asked.

“Yes. A lot.”

“He misses you. Think of all you went through just to date him! The guy I hired to seduce you…”

“What?”

“…the time I tried to seduce you…”

“When did you try to—”

“Look, the details aren’t important,” said Meshi generously, waving a hand. “What counts is that you passed every bullshit test I threw at you. You forced me to admit you actually are good enough for my flawless, angelic, pearlescent, fluffy-wuffy baby-waby Nagito! That’s never happened. I had to chase away all the previous ones with a pocketknife. He loves you and you give every indication you adore him. I just don’t get why you’d throw away your chance at heaven.”

“B… because,” said Izuru, “your baby brother is beautiful and perfect and lovable…”

“Yes?”

“But so is mine…”

Meshi took a deep breath through his nose. “I’ll talk to Nagito,” he said. He got up, patted Izuru on the head, and left.

As he did so, he realised Izuru had forgotten to shut the front door. The big guy had it baaaad. Well, who wouldn’t? Meshi’s baby-waby bwother was utterly perfect, after all!

Hajime just had to look for a giant black squid sprawled among the weeds and there his brother was.

“You look like crap,” he said.

“I am it,” said Izuru.

“Meshi’s worried.”

“About N… Nagito.”

“About you too!” Hajime dropped his butt into the grass. “Just how long is this going to go on?”

“I will… get over him eventually…”

“You don’t sound so sure.”

“…you three are my favourite people in the whole world, so it may take… some time…” Izuru sighed. “But it is the sensible course. We are statistically unlikely to spend the rest of our lives with our high school sweethearts, whereas you will always be my brother.”

“Ugh, this is all so unnecessary!” Hajime flung up his hands, then gripped his knees with them. “I never asked you to do this for me!”

Izuru turned his head toward him. Dandelion seeds, upset, leapt into the breeze and spiralled off. “You never need to ask, Hajime. You know I will do anything for your sake.”

“Yeah…” Hajime winced. “Yeah, I know exactly what you’ll do for my sake. But I don’t want you to do this. It’s not you he has the problem with in the first place, so what does it even solve? And… and… I feel guilty that I still have mine and you’re miserable!”

“I would be miserable anyway, watching you two fight all the time.”

“Ugggh. This is dumb. You don’t have to choose between us! No-one’s making you choose!”

Izuru reached out a finger, hooked a stem, and rubbed the fluffy white head against his cheek so softly that it remained unruffled. “Neither of you is demanding I choose,” he said, “but one of you was making me feel that I had to.”

Hajime, after fishing for awkward moments for something else to say, got up and went back inside.

“Izuru, get up. I need you now.” Hajime pounded on his bedroom door a few more times for good measure, stood back and waited.

Izuru, in a grey t-shirt and some grey chequered boxers Hajime didn’t recognise, opened the door. He was rubbing at the deep circles under his eyes. His hair was a rat’s nest of tangles and he was wearing one sock.

“This has gone on long enough,” said Hajime, and grabbed his hand.

Pulling at Izuru normally had as much effect as pulling at an ancient oak or the smaller type of mountain, but this time his twin followed him without resistance.

“Where are we going?” asked Izuru muzzily once Hajime had shoved a pair of his sandals on him and led him out of the front door.

“Need you to do something,” said Hajime in a clipped tone.

“Okay…” Izuru trudged along without further comment; another worrying sign if any more of them had been needed.

Meshi was leaning against the wall outside when they arrived. He and Hajime exchanged efficiently conspiratorial looks. Hajime, before Izuru had any time to raise an objection, pulled him into the Komaeda twins’ home.

From the living room came a tremulous “Meshi-nii? Do I still have to keep sitting here?”

Izuru’s head snapped toward the source of the voice like a sunflower at high speed.

Meshi and Hajime nodded to each other, then both as one shoved Izuru forward. They closed the living room door firmly behind him. They both leaned against it.

“You think we prepared the ground well enough?”

“Oh yes. I had a long talk with my lovely, adorable, stubborn baby brother. He knows what he did wrong. You think Izuru will forgive him?”

“Izuru will forgive you for robbing a grandmother at knifepoint if he thinks you’re sorry.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s an Izuru thing.”

The door handle rattled.

“You’re not coming out until you’re lovey-dovey again!” called Meshi.

“Meshi-niiiii…”

“I’m chaining the door shut, my darling twin whom I wuv wuv times ten thousand!” Meshi rattled the chain from his trusty collar until the whining stopped. “Right.”

“Right,” echoed Hajime.

“Well, how shall we pass the time while our silly brothers talk it out?”

“Uh…” Hajime shrugged. “Video games?”

Meshi stared at him for a second. Then he said “Hajime, how many sides on a pentagon?”

“I know that one. It’s fifty,” said Hajime confidently. “Because Pentagon is in America and they have fifty states.”

“Yep. That’ll do it.” Meshi headed for the stairs, already shedding his clothes. “Come here, my handsome, sweet, sexy, spiky-wiky Reserve.”