Notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HINATA... AGAIN!

So here's the second part of the fanfic that I had intended to post in full for his birthday LAST year... and no, I have not had my beta go over this chapter either! My notes on the first chapter are just full of lies, I admit it!

Quick note, I make reference in this chapter to something from the SDR2 stage play which wasn't in the game. It's not a big thing, I just want to stave off any confusion before it occurs!

And without further ado, here is the second half of this fanfiction, finally. I hope you enjoy!

Until that smile returns
part 2

For weeks, Hinata had known that once the recovery program was finalized, Pekoyama would be the first one he would use it on. There wasn't any question in his mind.

Kuzuryu was generally pretty good about pretending that he didn't idle around the research center so much—he attended their communal breakfasts and dinners more often than Hinata himself did, and he made his way back to his cottage most nights.

But Hinata had taken to checking the observation room several times a day—for no practical reason, really, because he was far from achieving any observable results—and, nine times out of ten, Kuzuryu was there.

Part of him wanted to chase Kuzuryu away, to encourage him to do more with his time than sit at a comatose girl's bedside, but he wasn't honestly sure if that would be the right option. He knew that it would make Kuzuryu angry in the short term—but when the Kamukura part of his brain instinctively started unraveling the long-term effects, he panicked and put a stop to that train of thought. Whatever decision he made, he wanted it to be a product of Hajime Hinata's judgment.

Besides... he actually rather liked having him there. Kuzuryu himself was a physical reminder that Hinata's work was actually going to mean something, that it was truly important to at least one other person.

There were more than just those ten lives depending on him.

As the days passed, Hinata found himself progressing from quick glances to short strolls along the perimeter of the room, keeping careful distance from Kuzuryu as if he were a stray cat that would be scared away. It was an amusing analogy, but after some thought, Hinata decided it was surprisingly apt; like a feral cat sitting just outside an apartment, seeking nothing more than temporary shelter from the elements, Kuzuryu's silent, aloof presence was a comforting one, even with a wall separating them.

Gradually, Hinata started taking longer walks through the room, weaving between the pods to check on his classmates' conditions—and inevitably passing carefully by Kuzuryu's chair from time to time.

It was a delicate sort of dance, inching closer to Kuzuryu's chair day by day, careful not to cross any boundaries. But there was always that growing desire to offer some sort of comfort, to try and endear the stray into accepting human warmth.

And then, one day a few weeks into the routine, as Hinata passed by Pekoyama's pod, he felt compelled to finally reach out.

So he patted Kuzuryu's head.

Instantly the yakuza reacted, whipping his hand up so as to capture Hinata's wrist, but Hinata reacted with a swiftness that sent his consciousness reeling and easily evaded his grasp.

The two boys stared at each other for several moments, Hinata feeling confused and flustered even as Kuzuryu's one visible eye burned with a strange sort of apprehensive ferocity.

"Uh... sorry," Hinata muttered, shoving his hands into his pockets. "I'm not sure why I did that."

Kuzuryu narrowed his eye, then scoffed as he turned back towards Pekoyama. "Whatever. I don't really care."

Behind him, Hinata shifted on his feet awkwardly. "That didn't seem like not caring."

"Well, it was. Go ahead and try it again if you don't believe me."

Hinata hesitated, but with a shrug, he reached out and patted Kuzuryu's blond head again, fingertips brushing the strap of his eyepatch.

"I wasn't fucking serious!" Kuzuryu screeched, cheeks burning redder than usual.

Hinata laughed, but he didn't regret it. On the contrary, he was a bit glad to see that his friend wasn't losing his edge.

It became sort of a custom, after that, for Hinata to come into the observation room at various points in the day, walking around, passing by Kuzuryu's seat, and patting his head. Every single time, Kuzuryu would yell at him, or glower darkly, or mutter curses underneath his breath. But after a while, his reactions seemed to be growing gentler, less violent.

It seemed that the ornery cat was gradually warming up to human touch, Hinata thought, mirth flooding his chest.

He wouldn't ever dare say that out loud, of course.

Eventually, Kuzuryu began wandering elsewhere in the facility too, away from Pekoyama, and occasionally idling by Hinata's side. Once or twice he asked Hinata for details on his work.

"Umm, I'm not exactly sure how to explain it," Hinata said, smiling nervously. "I know how to do this, but don't know that I know it... I guess? It's like the theory is just sewn into my body somehow, and it's being put into practice on autopilot."

"If you don't wanna talk about it, just fucking say so," Kuzuryu grumbled.

Hinata laughed. "No, I'm telling the truth! But let's see... You know how if you try pouring out a can of soup, most of it will come out, but there are still some bits and pieces stuck to the inside?"

Kuzuryu wrinkled his freckled nose in disgust. "Great analogy."

"I'm doing the best I can, here," Hinata said with a sigh. "So in that same way, there are fragments of everyone left over, even though they've been deleted. Basically, I'm trying to find those pieces, analyze them, and use that information to recreate the entire soup again."

"Huh." Kuzuryu leaned on the back of Hinata's chair, staring at the computer screen full of code. "Is there enough information to make anything meaningful of it, though? Can you really get down the specifics?"

Hinata was silent for a bit, considering his answer as he stared at the code that his friends' lives hinged upon. "That... will depend on our classmates, I think. I'm sure I will end up with a lot of junk data, and I'm working on something to help eliminate the parts that don't fit, but beyond that it's up to them to return to who they were before."

"So it might not even work."

Alarmed by the dejected tone in Kuzuryu's voice, Hinata swiftly turned his gaze up toward him. "No, that's not... well," he paused, stopping himself from making guarantees that he might not be able to uphold. The truth was that he wasn't entirely sure if he'd be able to succeed. "I'll do my best," he said carefully, "and, well, we've got a better chance this way than if we surrendered to the Future Foundation, at least."

Kuzuryu's only response was a noncommittal grunt.

Hinata thoughtfully tapped at his keyboard, too lightly to register any keystrokes, before continuing. "I could probably ensure a better chance of success if I let the Kamukura in me take over completely..."

"Who the hell would ask that of you, dumbass?" Kuzuryu scoffed as he stood up straight again, releasing his weight from Hinata's chair.

A smile tugged at the corners of Hinata's lips. "Yeah. I guess you're right."

He heard Kuzuryu's shoes lightly scuff the linoleum floor as he turned to leave, and after a moment's thought, Hinata spoke up again. "Hey, Kuzuryu?"

The yakuza's footfalls stopped. "What is it?"

"I said that it would be up to our classmates to come back as themselves, right?" He glanced over the back of his chair towards him. "It's true that there are a lot of variables at play here, but if there's one thing I'm certain of, it's that Pekoyama will do everything in her power to return to you."

For a long moment, Kuzuryu was silent. Finally, he started walking again, but there was a distinct fondness in his tone when he spoke. "You think I don't know that? Dumbass."

Hinata knew that his code was messy and ugly; he suspected that he thought too hard about what he was building, that he was too resistant to falling back on his Kamukura instincts. But it wasn't like he was intending to market the program at any point, so cleaning up the code wasn't a priority. As long as it still worked as intended for him and his classmates, the excessively long compiling times weren't an issue.

Besides, it gave him time to relax, to rest his cramping fingers—and as the compiling times grew longer with the program creeping closer to completion, he and Kuzuryu took to spending the time chatting. Even when the silent nighttime chill fell upon the research center, Kuzuryu would often stick around, sitting close to offer Hinata warm companionship.

If Hinata were being perfectly honest, maybe that gave him even less incentive to clean up his code.

"You know," he said on a whim one night, during a lull in conversation, "why do you hate me patting your head so much?"

Kuzuryu scoffed. "Why shouldn't I hate it? You're fucking weird for wanting to pat another guy's head."

"You patted my head before."

Kuzuryu bristled. "No I didn't!"

"You did," Hinata insisted, grinning. "Remember, when Komaeda—"

"No! That never happened!"

Hinata put on a show of going into deep thought. "Huh... then maybe some of us did lose some memories of the Neo World Program? I might need to go back and make some adjustments to my calculations now..."

"Don't bother doing that to yourself!" Kuzuryu shouted without missing a beat. "I didn't lose any memories, it just never happened, all right?"

Hinata laughed lightly. "All right. I'll take your word for it, then."

They fell into companionable silence then, surrounded only by the sound of whirring computer fans.

"It's not my head that's the issue," Kuzuryu said finally, quietly. "It's my eye."

Hinata turned to look at him. "Your eye?"

Kuzuryu raised a hand to gingerly touch his eyepatch. "This one. I'm just... I haven't even had the guts to look at it what's under here myself yet, you know? I don't like thinking of what might be there... or if it's even still my eye." He lowered his hand again and pulled his arms around him, shuddering. "So I guess I'm just kinda jumpy about anyone getting too close to touching that area."

"I see." They fell into silence again, Hinata leaning just slightly into Kuzuryu's arm as a show of comfort. "You know," he said a moment later, "I have an eye that I'm not sure belongs to me, either."

"What, because it's red?" Kuzuryu huffed. "That's not the same."

"It's not exactly the same, but it's not entirely different either." Hinata stared down at his hands. "Actually, I don't even feel like my entire body is my own, most of the time."

Kuzuryu peered up at him curiously. "But it is your body. You were Hajime Hinata at the start, and now you're him again. Kamukura was the one who didn't belong."

Hinata chuckled; it was encouraging to hear someone tell him point-blank that he was always meant to be Hajime Hinata. "Thanks. But still, it just feels like my body changed too much to be familiar. I do feel like I'm slowly regaining ownership of it, but at the same time, it seems like there's a limit to what I can reclaim." He tapped his right cheek, just below his eye. "When we first woke up, this one was red too. But it started changing almost immediately, and it was back to its original color after about a week. It was like I was becoming Hajime Hinata again... and then it stopped." He smiled grimly. "The left eye hasn't changed back at all. Maybe there's a limit to how much of me can be me again."

"Hey." Kuzuryu pointed firmly at Hinata, commanding his undivided attention, his expression stern. "You are Hajime Hinata. Even if that eye of yours never turns back, you're still one hundred percent you."

Hinata smiled softly. "That applies to you too, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, the irony wasn't lost on me." Kuzuryu sighed and relaxed back into his sitting position. "Hey, Hinata?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you check what's under this eyepatch for me?"

Hinata whipped his head towards Kuzuryu fast enough that he worried it might fly off his neck. "What?!"

"Don't tell me what's under there." Kuzuryu frowned, clearly toeing the edge of his comfort zone with his request. "I don't wanna know if that's... someone else's eye under there or not. But I feel like... the truth shouldn't be hidden. It's just... I hate to admit it, but I don't have the courage to be the one to uncover it for myself yet."

Hinata still had difficulty processing what was being asked of him. Kuzuryu's request... put a huge amount of responsibility on him. But it also expressed a huge amount of trust, too. "Are you really okay with me being the one to look?"

"Who else would I ask?"

A strange warmth filled Hinata's chest; Kuzuryu really did trust him that much.

He's only asking you because Pekoyama can't.

Hinata shook away that ugly thought and focused on the task at hand instead. "Okay," he agreed. "I'll do it. So do you want me to... look right now, or...?"

Kuzuryu raised an eyebrow. "Well shit, it's not like we need to prepare some sort of ceremony for it. Go ahead and lift the patch."

"Right." Hinata's hands were sweating—why did this feel so intimate?—so he wiped them off on his trousers before raising his left hand towards Kuzuryu's face.

Kuzuryu let his eye fall half-lidded, making him appear almost serene, even as he jumped in response to fingertips brushing his cheek. Hinata paused at the edge of the eyepatch, waiting patiently; the yakuza quickly grounded himself with a deep breath, and once he had stilled again, Hinata flipped the patch up.

Like his left one, Kuzuryu's right eye was half-closed, giving Hinata a good look at a large scar marring the eyelid, stretching vertically between cheek and brow. The eye itself was cloudy and dull, clearly incapable of vision...

And it was colored a pale cauliflower blue.

Hinata felt his stomach churn. It was incredibly surreal to be looking at the face of one of his closest friends, superimposed with the gaze of what he knew must have been Junko Enoshima.

He took a deep breath. "You can't see out of this eye, right?"

"Doesn't look like it."

"Yeah, it's—"

"Don't tell me what it looks like." Kuzuryu's expression hardened.

"Right." Hinata gulped, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to say. Was there any way to express encouragement, to insist that Kuzuryu was still himself, without giving away what Hinata saw under his patch?

Kuzuryu took a deep breath and let his eyes fall closed completely, apparently reaching the limits of his comfort. "Okay, that's enough. Put it back now."

"Oh, sure." Gently, Hinata placed the eyepatch in its original position.

Then, just as easily as taking a breath, he leaned forward and placed a light kiss upon the patch.

Hinata froze. The action had come so naturally to him—too naturally. He hadn't even thought about what he was doing, but there he was, lips brushing against the fabric of his friend's eyepatch.

He pulled back as quickly as he could while trying to maintain his cool. Had Kuzuryu noticed? He peered at the shorter boy; his eyes were still closed, and he didn't seem to be reacting. Had the kiss been so gentle that he hadn't even felt it?

"Um, I'm done now," Hinata said, settling back into his sitting position even as the fluttering in his stomach refused to be tamed.

Kuzuryu gave a grunt of understanding and opened his eye again. "Thank god that's over. So what are you up to now?"

"The compiler's almost done, so I should probably get back to work," Hinata said, pulling the keyboard back in his direction, eager for a distraction. "I'm on the verge of making this breakthrough, and I don't want to leave until then. You can go get some sleep if you want."

"You've become a real workaholic, " Kuzuryu mumbled, but he didn't move to leave.

Hinata never made that breakthrough that night, and at some point he had had fallen asleep on his keyboard. But when he woke up to five hundred lines of semicolons and an angry barrage of syntax errors, Kuzuryu was slumbering against his side, so somehow it didn't seem like that much of a failure.

For weeks, Hinata had known that once the recovery program was finalized, Pekoyama would be the first one he would use it on. It wasn't any sort of favoritism on his part, really; there wasn't any question that of the bonds broken by the killing school trip, her bond with Kuzuryu had been the strongest. No one would object to mending that one first.

Then, at the very last moment, Hinata changed his mind. Instead of Pekoyama, he activated his completed program on the Ultimate Imposter, because his leadership skills would be an asset on the island as the rest began to wake up, and it only made sense to revive the first fatality first, right?

And though they were all genuinely elated to see the program successfully bring back one of their friends, Hinata simultaneously felt awful.

He was afraid of how bringing back Pekoyama would affect his relationship with Kuzuryu. He had let his emotions affect his logic, and he had acted so selfishly as a result. It was terrible, it was unfair, and the guilt was eating him from the inside.

So, instead, Peko Pekoyama was the second to wake up.

Seeing the way that Kuzuryu smiled as she stepped out of the pod, as if the sun had finally risen again after a long night wrought with nightmares... Regardless of what it meant for Hinata, that sight made it all worth it.

Notes: Yes, that's the end. It's not totally happy, but it's the ending I've had planned from the start!

I may someday post a sort of mid-quel told from Souda's point of view, though... *eyes emoji*