Hopelessly Obsessed (KomaHina)

2: Counting

Hajime's POV:

I gently tap my fingers on my blank notebook page, drumming a soft and careful rhythm. I'm not paying attention to whatever class this is, and it seems quite a few of my classmates' attention is focused elsewhere, too. Owari is sketching food in the margin of her page, Mioda is writing notes on a piece of sheet music and periodically passing it back to Saionji, and Komaeda is staring out the window, playing with his hair. I stare at the board long enough to register this is a math class, which I probably should've picked up on anyway. Maybe having three cups of coffee instead of sleeping isn't such a good idea.

Yukizome-Sensei looks around the room briefly before her eyes land on a certain white-haired boy. "Ah Komaeda, could you answer the question on the board?" she asks in her usual light-hearted voice. Komaeda snaps back to reality, and gazes over at the board. I know he hasn't been paying attention and from what I can see he has no clue. However, the question is multiple-choice, so everyone in the class can tell what will happen next.

"Uh...A," he quite clearly guesses. And surprise surprise, he's right. We all know very well about his Ultimate Luck. Last year, we decide to play Dreidel on Hanukkah for something different, and he literally had to stop playing because he kept winning so the rest of us could play. None of us really know much about him, he keeps to himself and every conversation with him is either about how much of a piece of trash he apparently is or hope, whatever that even means. But I'm still kind of interested in him. He's so eccentric and none of us really understand him.

The final bell rings which draws me out of my thoughts. There's a bit of a shuffle near the door, but before I know it, I'm outside the main building and walking toward the gate. I'm swallowed by my thoughts once again, but not for long as I feel someone bump into me from behind.

"Ah, sorry...I'm sorry..." a raspy voice says. I look over my shoulder and see Komaeda standing there, fiddling with his fingers. "I wasn't looking where I was going," he mumbled, avoiding my gaze. Now that I think about it, he does have a tendency to look at the ground when he's walking.

"It's fine; really," I say to him, "but you really should look where you're going, it's dangerous to stare at the floor like that." His eye twitches a little as he smiles at me, as if I just suggested something he would never consider doing. And for some reason, he does seem really uncomfortable. I take a step forward, leaves crunching under my feet, as we had been standing in a small pile of them.

"W-Well, I'll see you later, Hinata-kun..." he says as he walks on ahead. "Yeah, see you," I say to his back. I think for a second that he's still talking to me, but...he's muttering. Almost under his breath, to himself. It seems like he's counting. Wait, counting? Why? He seems to hurry out of the gate, so I can't see him anymore. "Well...that was weird..." I say to myself. Whatever, he's a weird guy.

"Are you just going to stand there forever, Hinata-kun?"

Another voice calls out from behind me, this one a soft, nonchalant voice from a girl.

"Oh, Nanami-san. No, I'm going home now," I say, turning to face her. She doesn't look up from her handheld console, intensely focused on whatever game she's playing. "Mm," she hums softly, "Did something happen with Komaeda-kun? He was acting weird when he walked away from you, you know?"

"No? He just bumped into me, that's all. And isn't he always weird?"

"Hmm...well, I don't think so. People don't do things without a reason, Hinata-kun. Every action can be traced back to a motive. So...Komaeda-kun just seems weird to us because we don't understand him. Probably."

She spoke as if she had been preparing a philosophical essay on Komaeda and all of his possible motives. I don't get what she's hinting to, though. It's not like I can just go up to him and ask why he acts so weird. Like he'd even tell me. I can already picture his response. "I'm honoured that you're worried about a piece of trash like me, Hinata-kun, but really there's no reason for you to worry about that." He would say with that same pure smile as always.

"Sure, I'll think about it, I guess," I say, scratching the back of my neck. "It's getting late, I should get going."

Nanami and I exchanged goodbyes, and I began to walk home.

Chiaki's POV:

I watch Hinata-kun walk away, the warm afternoon light adding an amber hue to his figure. I paused my game and smiled a little bit. "He'll think about it, hm?" I say to myself.

"Well, that's a start."

A/N: Humans share around 50% of their DNA with bananas.