Work Text:
Nagito had a mission. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he flipped through the cookbook, searching for anything he could make without burning down the entire house.
Normally, Nagito didn't take many risks with... well, pretty much anything. He didn't wash clothes because he was afraid of staining Hajime's white work shirts. He didn't clean because he always ended up covered in bruises every time he tried to sweep the house and ended up bumping into every single piece of furniture in the process. And the last time he tried to do the dishes, his hands were so slippery with dish soap that he dropped a glass. In his futile attempt to catch the object, which had already shattered against the sink, he ended up sticking a shard of glass in his wrist, leaving a scar, which was thankfully quite small.
The thing was: everything in Nagito's life had always been a matter of good or bad luck with no in-between, or everything that could go wrong went catastrophically wrong, or, by some absurd twist, the most unlikely thing possible happened and everything ended up working out. But in the last few weeks, something had been increasingly bothering him.
Hajime was the only one doing everything.
From the small reminders, like making sure the door was locked, to the routine tasks that kept the house running smoothly: cooking, cleaning, organizing, or fixing anything that broke.
It didn't help that Hajime was also the only one with a real job, the sole source of income in the house. In other words, besides carrying the weight of all the household responsibilities, he spent all day working only to come back and inevitably deal with the mess his boyfriend left behind.
The truth is, all of this made Nagito feel like a dysfunctional adult and a burden on the life of the person most important to him.
I mean, he was good at practically nothing. He had a terminal illness that stubbornly refused to progress but also wouldn't go into remission, filling his routine with doctor appointments and expenses that seemed never-ending. Komaeda had said more than once that it was all a waste of money, but Hajime insisted on going anyway.
His talent wasn't useful either, as he was unable to control it. In fact, Komaeda was certain that sooner or later this would become an even bigger problem. Nagito had been granted the greatest luck in the world: Hinata's love, and for his cycle of luck to continue, something equally terrible would have to happen to counterbalance that supreme fortune.
Nagito's hands trembled so much at the thought that he feared tearing the page of the book he was holding; the mere thought of it was enough to make him anxious for the rest of the day. Hinata was always telling him that his own luck would nullify anything bad that could happen to him, but that didn't stop the brunette from waking up one day and realizing there was no point in staying with such useless trash.
Nagito shook his head to rid himself of the self-deprecating spiral that had taken hold of his thoughts. Hajime would be very upset if he knew Nagito was putting himself down again; he was probably already tired of hearing his laments every single day.
Looking back at the book in front of him, determined to cook at least something edible to prove he could survive on his own, Nagito let out a heavy sigh. The more he leafed through, the more he realized that most of the recipes required a level of skill he certainly didn't possess, and the few that seemed less complex called for ingredients he simply didn't have at home. Maybe he should have thought about going to the store first, but it was too late for that now. He had promised himself he wouldn't leave that kitchen without preparing at least one dish.
There were, of course, some simple breakfast options, but it was mid-afternoon, and it would be a bit ridiculous to start frying eggs right now.
Then his eyes lit up.
Among the many pages, he found a cake recipe that promised to be quick and easy. From experience, he knew any cake would result in at least a pile of dirty dishes afterward, but it came with one major advantage: he had all the ingredients at home. Besides, the oven seemed like a safer bet than trying to fry anything.
Decided, Nagito began organizing the counter with everything he needed. He placed the margarine, milk, baking powder, and eggs side by side, along with a few bowls that barely fit on the cramped space. When he pulled out the mixer, he nearly knocked everything over, making him let out a sigh of relief once it was safe.
Once finished, the sight of the counter full of ingredients gave him an unexpected boost of morale. He quickly washed his hands, took a deep breath, and turned the page to check the first step:
Whisk the egg whites.
Komaeda blinked. Okay, that would be a challenge, but he was sure he could do it. After all, separating the egg whites wasn't necessarily difficult. He'd seen Hajime do it a million times and remembered having managed it too, on the odd lucky day.
Nagito then separated two bowls, one for the yolk and one for the white, and reached for one of the three eggs he'd separated, already feeling the anxiety weighing on his fingers. He placed the shell against the counter and tried to crack it as gently as possible. It took him six tries to crack the egg.
"Okay, that wasn't so hard," he muttered to himself. It might be a very slow process given his excessive caution, but it wasn't impossible.
He held each half of the shell carefully and let the yolk slide out, bright orange, trying to repeat the movement he had seen his boyfriend do so many times before: passing the yolk from one shell to the other, letting the white fall into the bowl. The white, however, remained where it was.
With a defeated sigh, Nagito resorted to the less elegant method: he let the yolk run into his own hand, the white running down his fingers like a viscous, cold liquid until it finally dripped into the bowl.
He repeated the process with the second egg, already feeling a bit more confident, but when he was on the third and final egg, the yolk broke between his fingers, leaking along with the clear liquid into the bowl below. Komaeda let out a gasp of surprise and quickly tried to switch to the egg yolk container, dirtying the counter in the process. In the end, he managed to salvage only a portion of the yolk, which slipped from his hands, sticky and useless.
The worst part, however, wasn't the mess, but the small orange thread that was now mixed with the egg whites.
"That's not enough to ruin everything, is it?" he said, staring at the bowl as if it could answer. "I think it'll be okay if it's just this little bit…"
Now there was a slightly more serious problem: the broken yolk all over his hands. He had tried to salvage what he could, but in the end, he'd have to follow the recipe with a little less than expected. He could try cracking another egg to add more yolk, but it seemed like a waste.
Taking a deep breath, he wiped his hands haphazardly on a dish towel and immediately regretted it, realizing he'd have to clean that later, too. He'd deal with it another time. For now, he contented himself with turning on the mixer.
The noise was immediate, shrill, and before he could prepare, a jet of poorly beaten egg white splattered out, splashing the counter, the floor, and most importantly, his own clothes. The white shirt, so clean seconds ago, was now speckled with sticky spots.
Nagito blinked in disbelief.
In retrospect, he should have put on an apron, but it was a little too late for that now. The next step of the recipe called for mixing the egg yolks with the margarine and sugar, something much simpler and which he did surprisingly quickly. He followed the recipe right up to the point of beating the freshly prepared mixture, gradually adding milk and flour. He was already feeling a certain hope that maybe he would actually be able to finish this cake.
Sure, there had been a few accidents here and there, but that was just his luck. There was no fighting it, and as long as it wasn't a complete obstacle to his goal, Nagito didn't care that much.
It was only when he was halfway through mixing the batter and adding the milk that he realized he had forgotten the flour entirely.
Nagito froze, hurriedly turning off the mixer. The batter already looked a little strange, too liquid, but it didn't seem like a lost cause. It could still be saved. He just needed to get the flour.
He opened the pantry and pulled out a new, still-sealed bag.
Now, Nagito had always had a tendency to be a little clumsy, but tripping over his own feet was stupid even for him. Yet, the next thing he knew, the platinum-haired man was on the floor as the bag of flour tore open, sending a white cloud spreading across the floor, the counter, and inevitably, coating his entire body.
Nagito blinked, covered from head to toe, feeling his platinum hair turn even whiter. Silence filled the kitchen as he sat on the floor, feeling like a complete idiot.
He stood up, a little sore and with his ego severely bruised. Suddenly, all his will to finish the cake had vanished, and for a moment, he considered just throwing everything in the trash.
But he was so close to finishing. He really wanted to see the look on Hajime's face when he came home and saw what was waiting for him… The platinum-haired man's heart swelled with a newly found hope. There was no point in even being upset about this; things like this would always happen, and he couldn't let it shake him.
With that thought, he turned on the mixer again and concentrated on not overdoing the flour. The batter, surprisingly, began to take shape. It looked firm, even promising. Then he added the yeast and the beaten egg whites he had prepared earlier. Despite the previous mishap, they didn't look too bad, and Nagito decided to believe they would do the trick.
Feeling a little less sad, even with his body aching from the fall, he chose a large, round pan with a hole in the middle. For a moment, he wondered if it wouldn't be better suited for a pudding, and greased it with a thin layer of flour. Finally, he poured the batter in.
Everything seemed to be going well until he saw the final step of the recipe: bake in a preheated oven at 356°F for approximately 40 minutes.
Of course, the part about preheating the oven came after he had already finished everything…
But that was okay. He turned on the oven and checked the clock on the wall; he still had about an hour before Hajime returned home. Enough time to deal with the mess, since the chosen recipe didn't have a glaze on top. He could even make some, but there was no point fixing what wasn't broken.
He gathered the bowls, the spoons he'd used to measure the margarine, and the mixer, piling them all in the sink for later washing. Then, he dedicated himself to cleaning the counter and the floor. When he was finally satisfied, he took a deep breath, already quite tired, and figured enough time had passed for the oven to be properly preheated.
He carefully placed the pan inside and set the timer, not wanting to risk turning all his effort into charcoal. Now, all that was left was to face the pile of dishes. It made no sense to go through all that trouble to please his boyfriend only to leave him with the cleanup.
Most of the items were cleaned quickly, though the not-so-small mixer was tricky to wash in the sink. Not to mention how frustrating it was to have to wash it three times because the batter kept stubbornly sticking to it.
Finally! It was all done. The cake still had about 20 minutes left in the oven, but that was nothing. Only then did Nagito allow himself the luxury of relaxing.
Or almost…
Looking down at himself, he realized the obvious: he was covered from head to toe in flour and egg. The smell was starting to bother him. What was the point of all that effort if Hajime came home to find him even more repulsive than usual?
Nagito hesitated, biting his lip. He didn't want to leave the cake unsupervised, but… it was for a good cause. It would just be a quick shower.
Komaeda went to the bathroom, leaving his dirty clothes aside, he'd deal with them later, and turned on the shower. The hot water brought immediate relief to his aching body. It was almost embarrassing how tired he was just from making a cake. He could blame the anemia, the lack of exercise, maybe even the lymphoma, and it wouldn't be a lie. But deep down, he didn't need to go that far; he knew that if it weren't for all the chaos caused by his luck, he wouldn't have had to spend the entire afternoon on something so simple.
The platinum-haired man flinched as he ran the soap over his legs, glancing down to notice a small but already prominent bruise on his left leg.
His expression darkened. Of course a simple fall like that would leave a mark… Could he really consider the day a success after all that?
He got out of the shower a short while later, drying himself carefully and avoiding the bruised area before heading to the bedroom to get dressed. He was only halfway through when he heard a sound in the distance that sounded an awful lot like the oven timer…
Nagito's grey eyes widened as realization struck: the cake.
He ran to the kitchen, not caring that he was only partially dressed. If he'd let the cake burn because he spent too long in the shower, it would all have been for nothing.
Without thinking, and driven by panic, he opened the oven and grabbed the pan, which was, of course, absurdly hot. The shock of reality was instantaneous; pain consumed his hand, and by instinct, he let go. The pan clattered to the floor with a loud crash. Tears of pain welled in his eyes as he cradled his red, throbbing hand to his chest.
Just as he felt completely humiliated, Nagito looked at the floor where the pan had fallen and realized, by some miracle, it had landed in a way that protected its contents. The cake seemed intact.
"I-It's okay…" he tried to calm himself, even as his whole body trembled. The pain still radiated from his hand, and he could feel himself shivering from the cold now that the adrenaline had left him. "I-It wasn't that bad… I-I just need to get up, take care of my hand, and get the cake out of the pan…"
Then, he heard the sound of keys in the door and a familiar voice.
"Nagi, I'm home! You have no idea what a day I..."
Hajime stopped abruptly. Before him was Nagito, half-dressed, kneeling on the kitchen floor, a pan beside him, his hand clearly burned.
Hajime was at his side in an instant, holding the platinum-haired boy's slender body tightly.
"What happened?" he asked, his voice filled with concern. Nagito, still trembling, gave him his usual smile.
"Nothing much, Hajime. I just wanted to make you something when you got home. Of course, things got a little out of hand, which is to be expected from someone as insignificant as me. But look how lucky you are, Hajime! It seems that, despite everything, the cake survived me!"
Hajime fixed him with an even more serious, almost cutting look.
"Nagito, this isn't funny! You hurt yourself pretty badly."
"It's nothing, Hinata-kun," Nagito replied, trying to sound nonchalant, though the pain still throbbed in his hand.”Just a little burn, a minor obstacle for a day that was already destined for chaos…"
"Minor obstacle?" Hajime's eyebrow arched as he carefully took Nagito's injured hand. "Nagito, your hand is red, throbbing, and you're shaking. This is not nothing!"
Nagito attempted a nervous laugh, moving his hands as if to show he was fine, but he failed. "See… I'm really alright, Hajime. A little pain has never stopped me before, and you know my luck always balances these things out…" he said, averting his gaze as if trying to prove the situation was still under control.
"Nagito, this has nothing to do with luck now," Hajime insisted, frowning. The brunette lifted them both carefully and turned on the cold water, placing his boyfriend's hand there. Nagito shivered when he felt the icy water, but tried to hold his ground.
They stayed like that for a few minutes before Hajime decided he'd had enough. Gently taking the injured hand, he examined the wound again. It seemed less bad than before; normally, something like this would have resulted in a worse burn.
Calmer now that he knew his boyfriend was out of danger, Hajime pulled Nagito closer and kissed his forehead, feeling his cold, half-naked body against his.
Only then his brain clicked:
"Wait... why are you half-naked in the kitchen? Do you realize how cold it is?"
"I know, Hajime." Nagito replied, with that crooked smile. "But I had to save the cake before I could get fully dressed." Hajime sighed, feeling a headache building.
"It was really stupid to pick up that hot cake with your bare hands."
"I know, but there was no time to waste!" Nagito retorted, still a bit dramatic, but proud of his clumsy courage.
"Nagito... between eating a burnt cake and getting you hurt, I'd rather have the burnt cake," Hajime replied, trying to remain patient.
"Ah, but Hajime-kun, you don't understand! If I hadn't saved the cake, it would have been ruined and all the effort would have been for nothing!" Nagito retorted, gesturing wildly with his uninjured hand.
"Nagito, seriously!" Hajime sighed, stepping closer to grab the platinum-haired man's shoulder. "You just got burned and you're shaking. You're worth more than a cake!"
Nagito opened his mouth to say something. Hajime glared at him and, realizing he couldn't convince him, decided to save this conversation for another time.
"Okay, okay... why don't we let the cake cool first and get you dressed properly before any further kitchen adventures," he said, grabbing a cloth from one of the drawers and using it to gather up the fallen pan and place it on the counter.
While the cake rested, Hajime and Nagito went to the bedroom to change the ultimate luck into warmer clothes. If there was one thing Hajime enjoyed doing, it was helping Komaeda get dressed, somehow, it always seemed much more intimate to him than many other things.
Hajime helped him put on old but comfortable sweatpants and a cute light blue sweatshirt. Nagito seemed more excited than usual, and Hinata couldn't help but wonder why.
Anyway, he went to the bathroom to get some burn ointment from the small cabinet where they kept medicines and such. Normally, people only had a medical kit at home, but when you live with Nagito Komaeda, you always have to be prepared.
The brunette returned shortly afterward with the ointment in hand.
"Let me see," he begged.
Nagito started to refuse, trying to maintain his usual dramatic stance, but quickly realized it wouldn't make any difference. With a resigned sigh, he relented and let Hajime apply the ointment carefully, almost as a gesture of silent devotion.
Nagito's skin reacted with a slight tingle, but he closed his eyes, almost savoring the care. When Hajime finished spreading the ointment, Nagito, not wanting to waste any more time, jumped to his feet, beaming and restless.
"Come on!" he exclaimed. "We need to get back to the kitchen, Hajime! The cake is waiting for us!"
Finally, Hajime gave up, figuring that by then the cake would be cool enough to unmold. He followed Komaeda into the kitchen, where the ultimate luck was waiting for him, already placing plates on the counter and handing him a knife. Hajime shook his head, smiling slightly.
"You went to all this trouble, so it's only fair you get the first piece," he stated, earning an immediate pout from Nagito.
"I made all this for Hajime, so of course I want him to get the first piece!"
"For me? Y-you didn't have to…" Hajime murmured, blushing. He never knew how to react to the platinum-haired man's praise.
"Of course I did! Hajime is always doing so much for me, I wanted to repay you in some way," Nagito said, with his usual proud smile.
Resigned and blushing, Hajime broke off a modest piece for himself. The smell was divine, and the cake looked fluffy until he turned it over to examine the crust.
The bottom was completely burned.
Nagito's eyes widened, his heart instantly sinking.
He mentally reviewed every detail of the recipe, his eyes burning. He was absolutely certain he had followed every step. He checked the timer, ran to get the cake as soon as he heard the oven… so how could this have happened?
Hajime, noticing his boyfriend's confusion, looked more closely at the oven. The timer was correct, setting forty minutes, but something caught his eye: the small broiler button was still switched on.
"The broiler was on… that must be it," he said, turning his attention back to Nagito.
But his words barely reached him. Nagito was already crying. After all that effort, in the end, he had forgotten to check if the broiler was off. It didn't matter how hard he tried: his luck always got the better of him.
But this time, could he really blame luck? Or the anemia, the lymphoma, or even his dementia? In the end, the only thing that went wrong from start to finish was himself.
It wasn't like the mixer had broken or anything. From the start, it had been Nagito who had forgotten to buy the ingredients or preheat the oven. Even things like the egg yolk and flour accidents were the result of Nagito's own ineptitude.
Komaeda felt arms pull him against Hajime's firm chest, his hand gently running through his unruly white hair. Still, he didn't feel any better.
Meanwhile, Hajime tried futilely to calm him down, not understanding why a burnt cake suddenly seemed like the end of the world. But with each passing minute, Nagito's breathing seemed shallower and his face redder. At this rate, Hajime feared his boyfriend would faint.
"Hey, Nagito... I need you to breathe. Do you hear me?" Hajime insisted, cupping the platinum-haired man's face in his hands.
"You... you don't understand, Hajime..." Nagito murmured, his voice trembling and broken, almost a whisper. "I... I try so hard... but everything I do always ends in disaster. Or, at best, it works... but only after so much back and forth, so many mistakes, so much confusion..." He choked back tears, feeling the weight of frustration. "I'm... so tired, Hajime. Tired of always being a problem... tired of always failing..."
Hajime gently squeezed his shoulders, looking into his red, teary eyes, trying to convey calm and reassurance.
"Nagi..."
"No!" Nagito interrupted, his voice trembling and filled with frustration. "Hinata-kun is always trying so hard to take care of me and the house, and he's always having to deal with everything that's wrong with me!"
"Nagito, there's nothing wrong with you," Hajime replied, not understanding where it all came from.
"Of course there is!" Nagito shouted, backing away, fury replacing sadness. How could he not see it? “I’m always sick… so sick! We always have to go to the hospital every six months or so, just to spend more and more money and hear the same thing over and over again. They told me I only had three months to live… and guess what? It’s already been two years! It would be really wonderful! If only I weren’t still sick.”
He swallowed hard, his throat aching, and continued:
“And then dementia came… and suddenly I don’t know if forgetting my house keys was just my luck or my mind failing.”
"Komaeda, you can't blame yourself for being sick!" Hajime retorted in disbelief, as if it were the cruelest nonsense he'd ever heard.
"But it's not just about the illness, Hajime, you don't understand!" Nagito shouted, tears streaming freely. "Everything in my life, every single thing, always depends on my luck cycle. And no matter what you say or if you think it's nonsense, I've lived long enough to understand that. No matter how hard I try or how many times I retrace the steps, it's not even a matter of skill; my luck always decides whether things will turn out well or not!"
Nagito crossed his arms, looking away, suddenly uncomfortably exposed. "I'm useless... and I know you don't like it when I say this, but it's the truth! I have a bad talent that only makes things worse, I can't do anything right, and I'm not even close to what a true Ultimate should be... I'm just... just scum, a piece of trash who keeps dirtying wherever I go." The usual admission felt more painful now, somehow more real. "This isn't fair to you... and it isn't fair to me. I'm tired of not being able to do anything on my own."
Hajime took a deep breath. He knew he had to choose his words carefully, because every misplaced sentence fueled Nagito's tortuous thoughts. Still, his heart sank at the sight of Nagito's red eyes and trembling body, as if the entire weight of the world had settled on his fragile shoulders.
"Listen," he began slowly, moving closer, unhurriedly, until the distance between them was minimal. "You're saying I take care of you and the house as if it were a problem, Nagito. But do you really think I would do that if it were a burden? I do it because I want to. Because you're important to me."
Nagito opened his mouth to retort, but Hajime held up a hand, signaling silence.
"You talk about your illness as if it's your fault. It's not. It never was. I knew from the very beginning that living with you would also mean facing those hospital visits, the medications, the uncertainties. But that doesn't mean I'm alone in this. You're the one in every appointment, holding on tight even when you're scared. That is also effort. That is also courage."
"We gained two years, Nagito. Two wonderful years I've had you by my side against your prognosis. You call that bad luck? I call it the greatest luck of my life. Every extra day is a victory, not a failure. And I will fight for every single day to come, without a single regret. So I couldn't care less about having to go to the doctor, especially if it's to hear once again that, despite everything, my boyfriend is still going to be with me." He explained, feeling his own eyes grow misty.
"And the dementia? Forgetting the keys? Nagito, I forget my keys. I leave the milk out. I lose the car keys. That isn't your 'luck' or your mind failing you. That's called being human. It's life. It's normal. And if it really is the dementia…” Hajime continued, softer. “No one has control over that. And if you forget things or get confused, we'll figure it out. We always have. It doesn't mean your mind is failing you. It means you need support, and I am here."
He took a step forward, cupping Nagito's face with both hands, forcing him to look into those firm eyes.
"You say your entire life is decided by luck, that no matter how hard you try, nothing truly depends on you. But I don't believe that. If luck were truly the only thing that defined you, I wouldn't be here now; my own luck would never allow anything bad to happen to me. It wasn't luck that kept me going, Nagito. It was you. Your persistence, your strange, passionate way of seeing the world, the way you always want to do something for others, even when you think you're just getting in the way. You have a habit of saying you're useless, but look: here you are, baking me a cake, trying to give back somehow. That's not useless. That's you trying, again and again. And I admire that more than any talent."
Nagito's tears were falling silently now, but his breathing was still rapid, his chest rising and falling. Hajime pulled him back into his arms, holding him tightly, as if he could mend every broken piece.
"Listen: you're not scum. You're Nagito Komaeda, and I love you. Sick, distracted, unlucky, it doesn't matter. You don't have to do everything alone, and I know how awful it is to feel inferior to others. You don't have to prove yourself capable of getting it right every time. But if you really want to help, then we can do things together." He pulled his face away just enough to look Nagito in the eye without any doubt.
"Cooking, cleaning the house, even small things like watering the plants or organizing the groceries... we can do it together. If you're afraid you'll forget something, I'll be there to remind you. If it goes wrong, we'll both laugh and try again. You're perfectly capable of handling yourself, but I like being with you."
For a few seconds, the kitchen was silent, except for the muffled sound of Nagito's crying, which hid itself against Hajime's chest. But gradually, his body relaxed, as if those words had finally broken through the suffocating wall of hopelessness.
"Do you really believe what you just said?" the voice asked in a lower, embarrassed tone.
"Without a shadow of a doubt."
Nagito took a deep breath, trying to contain the trembling of his lips. He wiped the sleeve of his sweatshirt across his face to wipe away the tears, even though his eyes were still red and puffy. Her smile, that fragile but genuine one, finally appeared. "Thank you, Hinata-kun… I'm so sorry about all this. I guess I got carried away by negative thoughts."
Hajime sighed, but this time tenderly, running his thumb over his boyfriend's face to wipe away the last traces of tears.
"No need to apologize. Everyone gets carried away sometimes. The difference is, I'm here to pull you back when that happens, understand?"
Nagito let out a short, almost embarrassed laugh.
"You say it like it's so simple…"
"It's simple when it comes to you," Hajime retorted, and before Nagito could get lost in his own thoughts again, he tugged at his hand, the uninjured one. "Now come on. If we stand here, the cake will get too cold."
Nagito blinked, confused.
"Do you still want to eat this? It's burnt."
"It's a little burnt," Hajime corrected, arching an eyebrow. "But nothing a knife can't fix. And I'm not going to waste the effort you put into this, understand?"
Nagito watched him with a mix of anxiety and anticipation.
"There," the brunette said, carefully cutting off the burnt underside. "See? There's still plenty of good stuff left."
Nagito looked surprised, as if that solution had never occurred to him.
"It's so obvious... why didn't I ever think of it?"
"Because you were too busy blaming yourself," Hajime replied matter-of-factly. He broke off another generous piece, repeated the process, placed them on separate plates, and pushed one in front of Nagito. "Now let's eat. I want to see if it's as good as it looks."
Nagito was momentarily hesitant, but as he took the first bite, his eyes lit up. The dough was fluffy, just the right amount of sweetness, even with all the accidents.
"It's... really good." He smiled, savoring the mild flavor. Hajime watched him eat, satisfied, and took a bite of his own.
Things would still need to change a bit before they could truly say everything was okay, but that didn't matter right now, as they knew they were one step closer to understanding each other and themselves.