♛ :: it's the opheliac in me

It was so dull, though, that he couldn’t help his meandering gaze. One by one his eyes fell on his classmates - or should he call them superiors?

He shook his head a bit, chasing the thoughts from his head, and turned his attention back to the board. However, the lesson had already come to a close.

When the bell rang for lunch, he allowed his classmates to push past him out of the room. He was the last one out, as usual, save for those who stayed behind to eat in the classroom. He gave a little wave to them as he walked through the doorway.

Komaeda had little difficulty navigating the crowded hallways; in almost no time he found himself in the cafeteria. The crowd there was a bit overwhelming, to be honest; so much hope in one room? How could he possibly compare?

There was one person, however. One who gave off a completely different aura from the rest. He recognized her face, her fluffy pink pigtails, though he wasn’t entirely sure what her name was. Nonetheless, the feeling she gave him as he walked past her was entirely despicable and entirely unpleasant.

Despair.

He ignored it, however, and continued on his way. Were he in another place, another scenario, he might have approached her, but at the moment he saw no need. Even despair could lead to hope, after all.

No, too fattening. Too many calories. Strawberry milk would have to do.

She turned away from her lactose friend, about to look though her bag for her phone. Who knew how many texts she had? Sheesh, it's so hard being famous. Hot people have problems too, you know. But somehow, she got this feeling like she was being watched.

Beaming as she felt a rectangle of plastic and a jumble of keychains, she pulled out her phone and opened it. The screen read "0 New Messages," but everyone just had to be busy. That had to be the explanation. It's not like she, you know, didn't have any friends or anything.

Closing her phone and perking up from her bag, the gyaru looked up to see some kid with the messiest hair she'd ever seen walk out. This shouldn't had pissed her off, but for some reason, it made her want to smash his face against the wall and watch the blood pour from his mouth.

No, no, it didn't make her feel anything.

Anything at all.

But she had nothing better to do, and tracking this kid down and inquiring why he was ogling her like that sounded like a fun idea. Might liven up the area, after all. Seeing if she could, maybe, just maybe, entertain herself for the next hour and a half. Chew on him a bit, test to see if she can make him squirm. Sounded like fun, like a grand old time! 

She stood up out of her seat, smoothing out her skirt and adjusting herself. Staring for the door, she called out towards the boy.

"Hey, kid! Where do you think you're going?"

The way she immediately went to his bed, laid herself out on it like some kind of succubus, did she really think he was going to be seduced by such a disgusting person? The past was the past, and whatever she had used to get him into bed before she didn’t have now. More than anything, her act was just pissing him off more.

He took a deep breath to calm his aggravated heartbeat a bit before speaking. “…No. I’m not. Whatever you had on me before, you don’t have it anymore.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so angry over something so small, she really had a knack for it, didn’t she? “…But then, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

[[ warning: nsfw. ]]

But when she started talking about Hinata… it was just too much.

“Hope? If you’re going to make fun of me, try a little harder. A title like Hope…” He wanted to say ‘that’s not even possible’ but his mind helpfully supplied instead a bitter that’s all I ever wanted. He had died for hope once and he’d be all too willing to do it again. Hinata didn’t even care about hope. And why would the files say everything else except what Hinata really was? They wouldn’t, simple as that. Hinata was a reserve student. He had no talent. He was average, boring, talentless trash and he still considered Komaeda too low to be worth friendship. That kind of person couldn’t possibly hold a title like Hope.

Ah, it seems like he noticed her tactics. Wouldn't it have been more fun if Kamukura heard them? To have him walk out, exhausted and annoyed at the noise... Prepared completely to bitch at Komaeda for waking him up, then to see her standing there. Uncomfortably, Komaeda would've tried to cover for himself, leaving Junko to plant a seed of doubt-and despair-in him again. Oh yes, she missed Kamukura. Uncrossing her arms, she sighed and pawed against the door for the doorknob. It was dark, and it wasn't like she had any way of seeing it. Oh god, why was it so hard to find this damn thing, she really should've thought this through. 

Finally grasping the doorknob, she twisted it and pushed against it with her back. She lowered her voice to a more appropriate level, to not wake Kamukura. Look at her, being so sweet to Komaeda! Isn't she just such a good girl? It took a lot of self restraint, after all. Good girls don't pin people to walls and shove their hands down peoples' pants, right? If she keeps being a good girl, she'll get a treat, right? 

"Well, wanna take this little chat inside then?" 

Junko invited herself into his room, inhaling the scent. Ah yes, she missed this, even if it had only been a few hours since she latched herself onto him. Feeling for a light switch, she flicked it up with a single red nail. It looked identical to her room, a few differences, but its not his fault he just really really sucks at interior decorating. She walked over to his bed, pressing her hands into the sheets and then crawling onto it, laying down on her back and putting a single knee up. Who cared if her shoes were on his bed, its not like he cared or anything. Even if he did, what was he gonna do about it? Beat her? He didn't have the balls for that.

She placed her hands against her upper chest, smiling over at the open door. "Aren't you gonna join me?"

Hinata’s room was right next to his, but the hallway was dark and Komaeda had no doubt what he would find when he got to his door — and there she was.

He stopped short, not wanting to get too close to her (he was now well aware of how her hands liked to wander), and shifted uncomfortably when she spoke. That tone…

She was angry. He wasn’t going to be able to just brush her off and get to the relative safety of his room.

“I don’t follow your orders anymore…” He kept his voice soft, he still didn’t know how thick the walls were and he had no intention of cluing Hinata in on all this Despair stuff before he even knew his own identity. It would be too much for a normal person… “And what I do with Hinata—” …No, she’d said his name first. She must have overheard them, right? Even if Hinata had been in SHSL Despair as well, he was just a reserve student. Where there was one, there had to be plenty more, and Junko couldn’t have any interest in someone with no talent. “What I do with Hinata is my business. He’s just a normal person.”

The last thing Komaeda wanted was for Hinata to catch Junko’s eye somehow, especially if it was his fault. He had barely met this girl, even if she claimed so much more, and he had no idea what she considered despair-worthy and what wasn’t. If he let on too strongly that Hinata was in any way important to him, there was a chance she would hurt him just to make Komaeda despair.

…He’d never had anyone that could be taken away before. It was an unpleasant feeling.

She sneered at him, clicking her tongue and crossing her arms. He doesn't follow her orders anymore? Hell no, he'd follow them and he'd like it. It doesn't help he paused a bit there, meaning he was hiding something. He wanted to protect Kamukura, of course, since Komaeda still didn't know the truth. A normal person, huh? He was not a normal person; Kamukura Izuru was the farthest from a normal person as humanly possible. 

"Him? A normal person?" She cackled loudly, not caring for waking her new housemate. The sheer idea of him being normal was sidesplittingly hilarious to her! Her laughter was cut suddenly when she slammed the back of her heel against the door, not breaking it, but enough to create loud pounding sound. "He isn't normal. He's far from it."

He could get a dog. Animals were supposed to be good for companionship, right? And he needed all the companionship he could get, it was no secret he couldn’t get any from humans. He could give, would give gladly, eagerly, but he couldn’t receive anything in return. He wasn’t worth it, was he? No talents, just luck driving his life, clinging to survival on hope alone.

Hope was enough, though. Hope didn’t keep him warm at night, didn’t make him feel loved, and if hope couldn’t then nothing could, but that was okay. Hope was enough, always and forever, hope would keep him alive as long as he needed to be alive, hope had brought him back to life when his death had failed to bring the desired outcome. Even if hope couldn’t hold him tight or give him a kiss when he was feeling alone…

Couldn’t it?

He didn’t stir at the feeling of lips pressed against his, couldn’t even if he’d wanted to, his head felt like it weighed more than a car. So did his arms, legs, fingers, and everywhere else. Even his eyelids were too heavy to budge, but his lips were still sensitive, and even though he’d never experienced it before, he had no doubt this sensation was a kiss. His first kiss, what a novel idea. Here, in this dangerous, terrible place… where?

There was plenty of room in his house for a dog, he could clear out a whole wing just for it, spoil the dog rotten and treat it like a king. What good was money when he had no use for it? Even if things like the murderer kidnapping him hadn’t been that big of a deal, finding out that his good luck to outweigh it was more money had always been a bit of a disappointment. There was no one to spend it all on, just himself, and he didn’t want anything, material goods weren’t worth anything to him, all he needed was hope, all he had was hope, hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope hope…

Hope wasn’t the feeling pressed against his lips, or the light touch creeping up his shirt, hope wasn’t the slightly cold sensation in a clean line along his neck. Hope wasn’t the vague feeling of a body hovering over his, attached to the lips and the hand and probably responsible for the wetness left against his throat. No, that wasn’t hope, it…

When he jerked awake his knee made no contact — she was shorter than him, after all — but one hand pushed forcefully against her shoulder, and his head snapped back and hit the wall hard, adding a bruise and possible whiplash to his already unpleasant post-pass-out state. He scrambled to push himself further against the wall, anything to get away from her, she was so close, so so close. “No no no, not you…”

The setting came back to him in pieces, Junko, the bed he missed dearly, her hand in his hair, the crushed can outside, being pulled up to his knees, her hand against his throat, her voice whispering disgust in his ear— was it true? It sounded possible, all of it sounded possible, but he couldn’t dwell on it, the past had passed, he wasn’t that person anymore. Whether or not he had been SHSL Despair before had no bearing on the here and now, it didn’t change that he had held on so long, he couldn’t give up now. He wouldn’t.

“S-shit, watch it!”

Falling flat on her ass, Junko internally cursed at herself. Fuck, fuck fuck fuck. She had wasted precious time checking up on him and making sure he was still alive instead of doing what she should’ve. He couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes, but she was hoping (ew) for at least 10 minutes with him. 10 minutes would’ve been enough time to reacquaint herself with what she had missed, see what had changed, like running into an old friend at the store. Have a nice chat, hey Komaeda, how is that hope thing going? Still a huge freak? Dick still bomb?

... Yeah, dick probably still bomb. Bomb probably wasn’t the best word to describe it though, it definitely not the best, and she probably could’ve had better, but dick was still pretty decent. It could’ve been a more than decent, if he actually did some the work. Yeah, the foundation was good, but you have to make sure what you’re building on top of it after it is fine and well too.

“Has it ever occured to you that I don’t want your hope, but rather, the despair that comes from your disgusting hope? And besides, why can’t I touch ya? I sure had permission before, you know?” She brought herself on her knees, then slumped them to the floor, knees together but calves opposite from each other. Placing her hands in between the space between her thighs, she giggled and raised her hand in the air, as if she had a question to ask. “You reaaaally forgot, didn’t you?” Lowering her hand in one swift and fluid motion, she pointed straight at him. “Remember that time I rode your dick? That was lots and lots of fun!” She brought it back to her, touching the tip of her finger to her chin as she spoke with sudden calm and near doctorly demeanor.

And there he was, flat on his face; a large figure lying on the ground in the middle of who knows where. Luckily for him, no one had seemed to be around. A guy like Hifumi would no doubt face an immediate death if he were found by the wrong person. He lifted his head and pushed up his glasses up to take a better look at his surroundings.  Where the heck was he? Well there was one thing he knew for sure; compared to the scene set before his eyes, the afterlife didn’t seem that bad. Surely this scene, his revival, meant something… he was the The Chosen Hero brought back from the dead to save the world from such catastrophe! And as The Hero, he couldn’t just sit back and idly watch the world fall into chaos!

Hifumi stands up and pulls his backpack from behind, opening it and rummaging through it’s contents… pencils, paper, doujins, anime dvds, hand held video game systems, a bag of potato chips… how is it even possible to fit all this junk in here? 

“AHA! There it is!”

He hauls out a large hammer, painted in blue, black, and yellow… the one and only Justice Hammer! He dramatically swings it into the air while setting himself into a heroic pose.  

Oh, that is just adorable - He thinks he's people.

Junko, using her plank as a walking stick of some form, slowly walked over to the self proclaimed "Hero". Her heels clicked against the hard concrete, her makeshift walking stick adding in a little response to the heels' call. He wasn't intimidating in the slightest, nor did he remember her true role in the game. That was probably for the best, at least, in her eyes. A possible disciple, the first of her class! She stopped a few feet away from him, placing her hand on her hip and tilting her head to one side.

“…that’s…”

He had raised his hands to pull hers away from his neck, but his arms lost their strength and slowly lowered back to his sides.

“…that’s not—”

A single thin line of blood trailed down his neck from the puncture wound she had created with her nail. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, but if he did, he thought maybe the feeling of the blood would be all too reminiscent.

“possible…”

…Wasn’t it?

He had seen it on the island, hadn’t he? He’d tried so hard to help everyone, to make their hope shine through, to bring them to the best possible ending for hope no matter how it happened… and every last one of them had refused him. Hope had seemed so impossible on that wretched island in the end, so impossible he had been forced to orchestrate his own murder just to have any chance of hope winning in the end.

And if he could move his neck at the moment, he would be able to look around and see exactly what that final sacrifice had gotten him and everyone else.

A world full of despair. The ones he had wanted so badly to protect, to give hope… even if they survived, they were weaker than he’d ever thought, they’d all fallen prey to despair on the island, why not here, surrounded by it everywhere they looked?

And Hinata. Hinata Hinata Hinata Hinata Hinata. Komaeda had put so much hope in him, had trusted him on a level further than he had ever been able to trust anyone before… and Hinata was a fraud. A fake. Talentless, worthless trash, no better than Komaeda himself! All that hope, all of it, for nothing!!

Nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing noth

“..ing… nothing……”

She’d done it. She made Nagito Komaeda, Hope itself feel despair. Releasing her holds on him, she allowed his body fall to the floor and slump against the wall. He looked uncannily similar to the many Monobear rioters she had seen so many times before. Minus the head, everything in alignment for a body scene was perfect. Except he was alive still, right? A pulse of fear washed over her and she opted to kneel over him, her knees on the other side of his legs. If he was dead, would she do? A Master cannot be without a pet, and a pet cannot be without a Master. She wanted to see that look of despair on his face again, to see those soft emeralds go cold and the lock up and the fall and the breathing and the heartbeat and she wants to see that face again, that look of all of the hope leaving his body and his knees failing out, god did she want to see that again and She pressed her right index and middle fingers to his neck and held her breath.

"..."

The pulsating under her fingers told her, no no, he was still very much alive. Junko released a sigh of relief and placed her head on his shoulder, the tension and nervousness in her stomach now gone. Pulling her hand away, she noticed something on them. She looked down, seeing that the tips of her fingers coated in a red that was definitely not nailpolish. His neck, though usually the soft soft cream of someone who doesn't enjoy the sun, had a long lovely beautiful stream of red flowing down and stopping at the collar of his shirt. It was Komaeda himself, the fluids of his newly formed despair, formed at the exact moment he lost that disgusting sick hope. She wanted to feel that, feel that loss and bitterness and sadness and frustration and Komaeda and all of that that is despair in her.

She brought her hand to her mouth and allowed herself to lick at the blood. It stung her tongue a bit, but it wasn’t completely unpleasant. It tasted like metal, almost as if she were licking a frying pan. She had tasted better things, and would have preferred something sweet, but desperate times call for desperate measures. (Except she didn’t need to do this, one of her told her that, it isn’t necessary, it’s so so very wrong, but another her popped in, no no, she did, she needed to feel him inside of her again.) At the same time, it tasted like the sharpness and bitterness that is Komaeda. But it was gone again, it was gone and she needed more. She moved her head in, lowered it to the area above her shirt and licking up. It was the same taste, but more pure and lovely and bitter and sharp because her tongue was there. Her tongue was on his skin, and he was warm and alive. God was he alive. She brought her other hand to his hip, feeling the warmth of his leg. It wasn’t as good as the skin on skin contact though, so she figured just a bit under his shirt would be okay, right?

No, none of it made sense. He had always known, always believed in hope, no matter how bad his luck got. He always had hope, he could always trust his luck, the pattern never changed, only varied enough to give him a scare now and then.

Bad luck: The multiple diagnoses. The worst luck of his life, and a promise of death hiding just around the corner. Good luck: Hope’s Peak Academy. Even though it had scared him at first, such an amazing place choosing him by chance… it was really, really good luck. But was it enough to count against the diseases? And even if it was, what could have possibly gone so wrong that he had turned to despair, after a life so dedicated to hope, a life that relied on hope?

Something must have gone wrong, the proof stood in front of him, over him, taunting him with words that pulled at him in all the wrong ways. Those hands were touching him again, those lips spat poison, and he had no choice but to taste it, his own self-hatred feeding into every word. 

His fingers dug into the floor until they hurt, it took everything he had but he tore himself away from Medusa’s gaze, stared at the floor as the disgust in him boiled up into a dark anger. At her or at himself, he couldn’t even be sure.

“…What was it, then?”

His voice was quiet, but the acid came through just as well.

His limbs felt unnaturally weak.

It was strange, as Gundam was usually one of the more physically and mentally stronger students of Hopes Peak. He’d handled worse than.what he did and walked out of it unscathed.

That fact did nothing to help the fact that he felt like something much akin to a statue, complete with stone-laden limbs.

He was practically dragging his feet, and his grip around the staff in his hand was rather loose. He gritted his teeth as he forced himself to move forward, occasionally having to brush the fallen strands of hair out of his face.

It had been quite a long time since he’d been outside, and he’d spent a majority of the way avoiding any rioters. The amount of close calls were beginning to weigh on him, and only the feeling of fur brushing against his skin as the Dark Gods squirmed in the muffler around his neck kept him from taking a break to rest, the safety of his friends being valued much more than the burning feeling his legs were experiencing.

His eyes flickering over the expanse in front of him, he stepped over another broken piece of concrete, only to come to an abrupt halt mid-step. He brought a leather heel down on the large piece of building, his head slowly tilting in the direction of the sound he had heard.

Grip tightening around the staff as much as he could muster, the sharp wood digging into the flesh of his palms, his expression darkened as he opened his mouth.

“You there.”

Because he is.

Already in an odd mindset, with her thinking about Monobear and all, hearing Gundam's voice didn't really seem to affect her. She leaned up from the beam, still not facing him, and spoke in an oddly familiar voice.

"Upupupupu... It seems I've been caught again!"

Junko turned around and grinned a toothy grin at her old follower, along with his little friends.

  "Hello Gundam. It's a pleasure to see you again. Along with all my small, furry friends, right?" She picked the plank up and held it horizontally in her hands and calmly walked towards Gundam. She removed her one hand from the beam and flipped the wood beam back up, putting it into the ground and holding her hand out. She clicked softly, trying to get near one of the hamsters. "Come on Cham-p, didn't you miss me? I've missed you! You've gotten a little chubby, haven't you?"

“St— stop! Stop!!”

He pushed her away roughly as the panic set in, stumbled back away from those hands that acted all too familiar with him, like they’d pulled him close before, like they knew the curve of his waist from experience. He wasn’t sure when he’d tripped over his own feet and ended up on the floor, but the shiver of disgust that went through him felt all the more appropriate looking up at her instead of down.

Yes, he had… he must have known her at least a little, if what he’d read in those files was true, every member of SHSL Despair had to have at least met her once, but this— this feeling welling up inside him was different, it was too much, self-hatred piled on disgust piled on hatred for her and a little more for himself for good measure. Why was she acting so familiar!?

She gasped as she was shoved, hands falling at her side. What had she done? She was just greeting her friend, there was no need for "Nyagito" to shove her like that... unless. Biting her lip, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked off to the side sadly as she listened to him speak.

He had forgotten her. 

He had forgotten everything about them.

Fighting back a grin, she inhaled deeply through her nose, then exhaled sharply. This was probably the best luck she'd had since being brought back, and she wasn't going to let this go to waste. She could get her revenge, after the way he treated her, joined her and lied to her and cheated her and practically cheated on her lovely sweet despair with ugly disgusting hope?

At least the sex was good.

Their relationship was... odd before. She couldn't deny that. But she was the only thing he had, someone like him couldn't get anything else. He wanted insults, and she could give them. She wanted someone to obey, and he would obey happily. She gave orders, and he was more than happy to take them. She was able to say kneel, and he would kneel. They worked together in an odd yin and yang, both of them full of hate and love and disgust and sexual attraction and it was just a mess. Both of them both hated and loved at the same time.

Her usual posture failed itself, her spine now curled into herself as if she was trying to protect herself from Komaeda. Her head turned away from Komaeda, her lip quivering, implying tears that would never come. "So you don't remember me after all...? After all we have been through..." Carefully as to not ruin her makeup, she rubbed away a few nonexistent tears from her eyes. Backing up against the wall, she placed her right hand against it and sighed. "And to think, with you in such a familiar position as this..." She took a step forward, still keeping her other hand on the wall, and brought her other hand to his cheek. "You can't remember any of it, huh? Our fun we had, you know..." An overconfident smile appeared on her face as she brought her hand on the wall to her hip, her back straightening out. She looked nearly regal, sneering down at Komaeda like the trash he was. She bent down slightly, keeping her back straight but still allowing herself to enter Komaeda's personal space again.