"Actually, I know..."
"Hm?"
"I know what you wanted to ask." Hachiman Hikigaya repeated.
"Are you sure?"
"Uh..." Hachiman Hikigaya tilted his head up at a forty-five-degree angle. "It was probably about choices, like what Hayama went through today, right?"
"Emmm..." After pondering for a while, Sogo Doma finally shrugged. "Fine, then if you were Hayama, who would you choose?"
"No one."
"What if you had to choose?"
"Then I'd get rid of the condition that makes it necessary..."
"What if you can't?"
"I think I could..." Hachiman Hikigaya said with a serious expression.
"That confident?" Sogo Doma cocked his head. "Let me make this clear beforehand: Hayama and the others got away unscathed entirely because they were lucky—or rather, because I couldn't be bothered to hold it against them..."
"What would happen if you did hold it against them?"
"They might die!" Sogo Doma was still smiling, yet Hachiman Hikigaya could not sense even the slightest hint of a joke in it.
"They'd die?" He repeated the words before adding, "So the premise that makes it necessary is fear of death, right? If I'm not afraid of dying, wouldn't that eliminate the premise?"
"Are you not afraid of death?" Sogo Doma asked, his smile unchanged.
"I am!" Hachiman Hikigaya answered honestly. "Who wouldn't be afraid of death? But for humans, aren't there things more frightening than death?"
"What if everyone dies if you choose no one?"
"If betrayal doesn't exist, wouldn't it be better for everyone to be together?"
"What if it isn't you who dies, but your family? For example, your little sister..." Before Sogo Doma could finish, Hachiman Hikigaya's expression changed. "There's no way a hypothetical like that could happen!"
"Dead Fish Eyes, anything can happen in this world. Just like no one knows whether tomorrow or