- KNOCK 'EM DEAD !

maybe that’s what god wrote on my heart: monster.

what do you know about trauma?

but, listen, i care about you. i care what happens to you.

this is the thing: life has not been kind to us.

i’m bringing you in from the cold.

will you stay? until i fall asleep again?

you’ve had it rough.

i’m stuck with all my bad dreams.

it’s not bad to love someone so much that it hurts.

fucking fascinating.

it was only a bad dream.

i don’t feel anything. i hate feeling.

you’re here. you’re alive. you’ve survived all the bad things already.

it can be, you know, a part of this trauma thing?

you don’t even know enough to come in from the rain. 

there’s blood in my dreams. all of them.

it’s not good to keep all those things inside you.

you don’t want to know or you’re afraid to know?

this would explain her infatuating with b/yakuya, in part, because he isn’t kind to her. in a very backwards, and incredibly toxic manner, toko takes his insults and spite towards her as something genuine. but more especially, and this is smth i’ll explore in more depth in a b/yakuya-specific post, his interest and discovery of her identity as syo is also smth that stokes her obsession. but, moving on, bc that’s not what this post is abt ,,

this trend of hating guys who are nice to her and liking guys who are cruel changes, however, as we see her development in despair girls, which is set directly after her high school experience / the mutual killing game. and it’s largely in part to k/omaru’s influence which is overwhelmingly healthy for toko. she changes dramatically in personality by the end of that game. throughout, she begins to come to understand her own worth and the fact that she has yet to experience a real friendship, which is smth k/omaru offers her.