Work Text:
1. The heart stops.
2. The skin gets tight, ashen with color. Slowly fading.
3. All the muscles relax. The bladder and the bowels empty. Nothing left.
4. The body temperature begins to drop 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit per hour. The blood can’t catch up.
He’s curled up in the bathtub, heaving out sobs of wreckage and all the things he wants to (but cannot) say. Maybe there’s a better way to say them. Maybe he should rephrase, reverb, rewind. Maybe he shouldn’t say it at all. His hair is splayed across porcelain; cheeks sunken in and tear stained from hours of crying. A soft mumble can be heard coming from his lips, the porcelain resounding it around the small room. He’s dirty, he’s dirty, he’s dirty.
His body is shaking, half naked and on the verge of overdose. Everything is burning and, for a second, he wants to scream that he deserves it.
He claws at his left arm, peeling off barely scabbed remains of last week’s wounds in favor of the blood that pools underneath. He watches it swirl underneath his skin, rising to the surface like a drowning man gasping for air. He digs deeper. He wants to reach the hadopelagic zone.
5. The skin gets purple and waxy. The lips, fingernails, toenails, fade to a pale color. Might be purple. Maybe blue. Say, off white.
6. Blood pools at the bottom of the body.
7. The hands and feet turn blue.
8. The eyes sink into the skull.
He’s clawing at his arm in his sleep again, screaming his throat raw in pain. Hinata can tell, in the morning, that it hurts. He offers him antiseptic wash and bandages and, for a second, he worries that Komaeda might refuse. That he might deny his help and let the wound rot and fester, until he loses another arm. Until there are no arms left to lose.
Every night is aching and pleading and forgetting what is there and what is gone. When did he lose his arm? When did he stop moving as much as he used to? When did he stop living? Every night, the dreams come crashing through like drunken cars into Pizza Hut front windows. And he screams. And he screams and screams and screams until he can’t feel his throat anymore.
And then he wakes up.
9. Rigor mortis has set in.
10. The purpling, the pooling of the blood continues.
11. Rigor mortis continues to tighten and set the muscles for another 24 hours.
“You did a wonderful job convincing people you love me, I almost fell for it,” he says, tipping his head to the side slightly, smiling. Komaeda is resting somewhere between anger and maniacal joy, and Hinata can’t quite discern which one he’s closer to.
Hinata doesn’t know how to respond, so he waits in silence for a moment before speaking.
“I do love you,” he says, eyebrows knotting together with concern. And the words he wants to say after die in his throat. They bubble up between trembling lips but pop before they erupt. And Hinata wants to cry.
Komaeda is sitting in the bathtub, left arm hovering over his bare thighs and right arm reared to strike. Hinata wants to grab him and shake him until his heart rattles out of his chest.
12. The body is in full rigor mortis.
He found her when she was still rotting.
He remembered the horror he felt. He covered the children’s eyes and rushed them away, too afraid to let them face her. He covered his eyes later, but it was too late. He remembered thinking that they never told him in biology class just how much the body bloats after death.
Her arm never fit his body. Like a mismatched glove. Too odd to claim, like O.J., that the glove didn’t fit right. Carbon dioxide and nitrogen molecules condense together in the dark. He stops breathing. Or, stops trying.
13. The gas in the body tissues forms large blisters on the skin.
14. The whole body begins to bloat and swell grotesquely.
15. Fluids leak from the mouth, nose, vagina, and rectum.
“Hey, so, I know things are pretty fucking shitty right now, but I need you to breath for me.”
“Wha— what…?”
“You’re having a panic attack,” Hinata says, carefully running his calloused fingers across Komaeda’s aching spine. “It’s going to be okay. Just breathe with me.”
16. The skin, hair, and nails are so loose they can easily be pulled off the corpse.
17. The skin bursts open in many places on the body.
18. Decomposition will continue until the body is nothing but skeletal remains, a process that can take a month or so in hot climates, and two months or more in cold climates.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“I’m dirty.”
“You’re not dirty, Komaeda.”
“I am!” he says, raising his voice. “I am, I am, I am. I know I am!” he begins to scream. Between heaves of his chest, he reaches for his hair, pulling at it. It used to fall out in clumps, but now it holds fast. It doesn’t rip out the way he wants it to. “I’m not some stupid fucking being, Hinata! I know that I’m dirty. I know that you’re only here because you pity me. Because there’s some fucking notion in your head that you’re disrespecting Nanami-san if you don’t care for me. I know.”
He heaves, sputtering a cough before pointing a finger at Hinata’s chest. His left arm hangs limply at his side. “Stop trying to be Kamakura-san. Hell, stop trying to be Hajime fucking Hinata. Because you’re not. You’re some amalgamation of the two of them and I’m tired of waiting for you to figure that out.”
19. After skeletonization, if scavenging animals do not destroy or remove the bones, acids in many fertile soils take about 20 years to completely dissolve a skeleton, leaving no trace of the organism.
20. There is no grave for Junko Enoshima.
Komaeda thinks this is some sort of divine intervention.
The cage is open. A tired dog becomes a broken dog becomes a dead dog. But dead dogs are still happy you’re here. Dogs are loyal like that. He bares his teeth like he’s declared himself enemy, but whines like a malnourished labrador.
He can walk out anytime.
??. Why are you still in there?
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. Hinata’s hand strokes his hair as he speaks. They’re intertwined on the bathroom floor, Komaeda’s limbs lost in Hinata’s own. Maybe this was how they were always intended to be. “I’m sorry,” he whispers again, quieter this time.
“It’s okay,” Hinata says softly. “We’ve both suffered enough to understand.”