mothystatic

Mondo gives up. Maybe he realised the game was up, and he had nowhere left to run; maybe he realised he couldn’t let everyone else die; maybe he finally found the courage to face what he’d done. Maybe seeing Taka fight for him hurt too much. Maybe all of the above. But he stops fighting, and he does the thing he’s been so afraid to do, for so long: he bares himself. He says, I’m a murderer. He shows everyone his weaknesses, all the worst parts of himself, all the things he hates about himself. The things he was sure everyone would hate.

And then Taka loves him anyway.

It doesn’t matter whether you read their bond as romantic or platonic; Taka loves him. And it’s not like Taka doesn’t care that Mondo killed someone – he’s devastated. But he does not hate Mondo. He begs for Mondo’s life, long after the point where Mondo has accepted his own death. When Monokuma mocks Mondo, Taka explodes in fury.

The thing Mondo always needed to learn was: he could show his weaknesses and his flaws to other people, and they would not turn away.

Mondo owned up to what he’d done. He took responsibility. He bared everything. And he found that Taka, his friend, loved him regardless. When it was already too late, Mondo finally found out that all the lies and all the hiding were never necessary. He could always have been loved, just as he was.