a/n: all your author wants is for mukuro to be happy but they can't even write that because they are trash
disclaimer: i don't own danganronpa, surprisingly
warning: complete spoilers for the first and last chapter and like the base plot so i wouldn't recommend reading until you've finished and p much all characters are referred to using their first names not that its a spoiler but yeah
(just pretend sayaka didn't die within three days and these psychopathic murdering losers actually have some self control long enough to get to know each other)
Mukuro could feel it happening again. The tightness in her stomach, the irregular pound in her heart that let her know she was very sick.
She was supposed to be Junko now, and Junko didn't care for these emotions, much less feel them. All she cares for is despair.
And her, she wants to add, but she knows it to be untrue.
It starts when they "first" meet, and he thinks she's Junko, and he gives her a warm smile and holds out a hand saying, "Makoto Naegi, nice to meet you."
It's the same smile he gave her their first year, the one without any prompt other than the fact she had unwittingly caught his eye, even though he barely knew her, not realising it was the first real smile she had ever been given.
She feels her stomach drop, but doesn't let it affect her performance. She is her little sister now. Mukuro Ikusaba is no more.
She uses Junko's model-persona, friendly on the surface but slightly condescending in a way that sounds like it's accidental, which had already been planned, considering there was the off chance some of them may have seen her interviews or cover pages before coming to the school and the charade had to be as believable as possible.
After a short conversation he leaves, and she watches him as he gives the same introduction, same smile, same awkward hand held out to shake which is only refused by Togami, until he reaches Kirigiri and looks on as his face twists in confusion for a split second, eyebrows furrowing and lips pursing, like he's trying to remember something, and panic alarms go off in her head because no Junko didn't think of this what if he remembers her what if the plan is up before it even starts he'll recognise her and then his memory will come back and then he'll realise she isn't Junko and then her little sister's life's work will be ruined and she can't let that happen because although she'd despair and she knows thats what she wants she also knows she wants to cause this despair and wants everyone to feel its grasp and if it fails now it won't be Junko's fault but her own and she'll always be the failure of an older sister who could never give her beloved -
His face falls back into its neutral expression and he walks over to Kirigiri and gives pretty much the exact same introduction, though it's more one sided because she refuses to talk more than is needed.
Mukuro lets out a relieved sigh.
She stays in the school shop a majority of the time, since she can talk to her sister there, because no one goes in and she can warn Junko when someone's coming their way, partly because the footsteps echo in the eerie halls louder than anywhere else and partly because her senses are heightened to a point she can hear a revolver click in the middle of warfare and see a bullet from a mile away. It wasn't luck that kept her unscathed while in Fenrir.
So she hurries Monokuma away as she hears footsteps heading towards the door and watches as Naegi steps in, eyes scanning the room before they land on her, and he gives another wide smile, raising a hand as greeting.
"Hey, Junko," he says and though her panic over him recognising Kirigiri was real, she kind of wants him to recognise her as herself, rather than her sister.
"Hi," she replies, and pretends to look at her nails, like she cares about their state.
"Sorry, just exploring," he says, rubbing the back of his neck, like he needed to explain why he entered the room. "Anything interesting in here?"
She looks up at him again, and he's still smiling, looking hopeful, and she knows Junko would physically vomit at the expression.
"There's like, I don't know, prizes or something? There's that coin machine there," she says, pointing to the monomono machine, "and theres like sweets and toys and stuff round back behind the counter."
His face lights up. "Ooh, what kind?"
She fumbles a bit at his expression. "I don't know, I don't eat stuff like that."
"You don't?" he asks, confused, his thin brows pulling into a slight frown under his thick bangs. She thinks it's almost slightly cute.
"I'm a model, Naegi. Not that I expect you to understand, but it's hard to keep in perfect shape when you gorge on unhealthy stuff." She's quite proud of herself, thinking that her speech sounded exactly like something her sister would say, just the right amount of condesention to not sound offensive, but enough to sound contempt.
"Oh, sorry," he apologises. "That's gotta be hard! I couldn't imagine not eating sweets," he says, picking one out of a packet on the second shelf and popping it in his mouth.
She shrugs because she doesn't know how to answer, because its like her attitude didn't phase him at all and he's still trying to be her friend.
He takes another and holds it out to her, a kind of smirk at his lips. "Go ahead, just this once, I won't tell."
He comes back the next morning and has a go at the monomono machine, throwing in several coins and watching the prizes tumble out.
He opens one and in it is a hair clip with a cute 3D kitten face stuck on the side. He studies it for a second before holding it out to Mukuro, much like the candy the day before, smile on his face, saying "it looks like something you might like, Junko. Do you want it?"
She takes the present with what she thinks is a smile and carefully slides it in to pin back the left side of her bangs, being careful not to disturb the wig, even though the thing is practically sown to her head and not even an explosion could pull it off.
He gives her a double thumbs up and says "lookin' good!" before waving and leaving the room.
She wonders if this is what having the object of your affections return your feelings feels like.
Only shes not Mukuro, but Junko, and Junko doesn't have these feelings.
That night, while she's hanging around the dorms, it's like a punch in the gut when she sees Naegi handing Kirigiri something, his face a lot more flustered than it had been when he was handing her the hair clip, her face surprised and her cheeks dusted pink. He grins widely after she accepts it, and it's nothing like the closed lip smile he gives her because he looks genuinely happy - ecstatic, more so - that she had accepted whatever it is he had won and thought she would like.
She goes to bed early.
She sees him go for a run around the school with Aoi the next morning after they all met in the cafeteria, and figures their little morning meet up isn't going to happen today. She ignores the little pit in her stomach and talks to her sister, who is scolding her for not putting on a believable enough performance and is complaining about the lack of murder occurring.
He comes in a while later, hair wet like he had just gotten out of the shower, Aoi in tow, and points to the back of the shop, saying "I told you! Sweets!" and her face lights up and she throws her arms around him and thanks him over and over, like he had just got her out of this place rather than show her where the sugary snacks where. He laughs, and waves at Mukuro as Aoi lets go and heads for the back of the shop, eyes scanning the shelves.
"Morning!" he says, then pauses. "It is still morning, right?"
"Don't worry, you still have an hour left."
"Ah okay, good. So how're you?" he asks, as he heads over to the prize machine.
"I'm okay," she replies.
"Just okay?"
She wants to ask how anyone can be okay when being locked up like this because she knows that's what Junko wants her to do, to stir up the distrust and feed the panic, but she can't bring herself to say more than "bit tired, joints feel achy." She knows the reason to be that she hadn't slept at all last night despite her turning in early, too busy replaying the scene of him and Kirigiri in her mind, wondering what it meant. She had never felt more ridiculous.
"Oooh! Sakura gives great massages if you feel achy anywhere!" Aoi says, turning around from her hunt and nodding. "I'm sure she'd be happy to help!"
"Thanks," she replies, "but I doubt its anything serious. If it continues I'll like, go and see her or whatever."
"Okay, if you say so!" she says.
Naegi turns to Aoi then, holding two inflatable rings with an odd pattern on them, having just gotten them out of the monomono machine. "Aoi, I've got something for ya!"
She flips around and rushes over chanting "whatwhatwhatwhatwhat?"
He hands her one inflatable ring and tells her to blow.
Soon, they are both holding a doughnut looking inflatable, and Aoi's face lights up, quickly plugging the stopper and holding it out in front of her. "Doughnut life preservers!" she cheers. "Now all we need is a pool!"
"Thought you might like them," he says, plugging the stopper too, and handing it to her. "And instead of waiting for a pool, we need to keep searching and hoping we can get out of here so we can use them, yeah?"
"Mm!" she says, nodding, wide smile on her face.
Mukuro decides that this is more what it feels like to know the object of your affections is just a really nice guy.
That evening in the cafeteria, after most had left to go about their business, take showers or whatever it was they wanted to do, Mukuro hung around, sipping at a cup of tea, watching as Aoi stuck her tongue out in concentration while she painted Naegi's nails, carefully colouring them so they were all evenly coated and perfect.
"Junko, do you want your nails painted?" she asks as she finishes adding a second coat of the deep, foresty green to Naegi's nails, and tells him to blow on them so they dry quicker.
"Already done," she says, holding out her hands to show the long, red fake nails her sister had insisted on her wearing.
"Aww," she says, pouting.
"I'll do yours, Aoi," Naegi says, holding up a bottle of aqua blue and shaking it.
She grins and tells him "you better do them as perfectly as I did your's or else I'm never speaking to you again!" and he pretends to cry at the empty threat.
She knows she should join in the fun they're having, she could definitely do Aoi's nails better than Naegi currently is, because that's what Junko would do and what shes doing now is what Mukuro would do, but she can't help herself when all she wants to do is curl up and hide when Naegi is around.
Junko is fuming when Mukuro speaks to her the next morning. She had left breakfast early after Aoi had begun to break out her stash of nail paint that she had somehow found in the schools store, seemingly on a mission to colour everyone's nails, not wanting a repeat of the feeling of loneliness she had come across the night before. She can't remember the last time before then she had ever felt loneliness.
"Why aren't they killing each other?" she screeches in her Monokuma persona voice. "The little bastards should be at each others throats! Why aren't they more desperate to get out? They're just acting all buddy buddy! It's disgusting!"
"Maybe they don't want to get out as much as they did before," she suggests.
"What the fuck do you mean by that?"
"I meant, maybe they need a reminder of some sort of why they want to get out."
Monokuma's angry snarl changes to a creepy sort of grin. "That's my big sis! She knows what to say! Thaaaanks Muku, loooooooove yoooooooou!" she says, and then the black and white bear disappears.
Mukuro wonders just what idea she had planted into her sisters head.
It's far, far worse than she had imagined. She forgot just how ruthless her sister was sometimes.
The faces of her classmates were all pale and sickly looking, terror evident on everyone's face.
She couldn't help but blame herself.
"Are you okay, Junko?" Naegi asks, looking no better himself after watching his video.
She wanted to break something, because it was her fault this terror and despair was spreading through the group, and she hadn't even seen anything that would make her despair on the screen, she had just seen Junko laughing quietly and winking at her, holding a finger to her lips in a "shh" motion.
She wondered if maybe that was the most terrifying thing of all, though.
She nods lightly. "Yeah, like, there isn't much for me back home anyway, so there isn't much for me to be threatened with," she says. She wasn't lying, if anything.
"Oh," he says, looking a bit surprised, and a bit upset, she thought. "Well, if you need anyone to talk to, I'm here! Oh, and I don't mean that in a nosy way, I just don't want anyone to take those videos to heart and do something silly. Not that I think you would, but..."
Mukuro was starting to grasp just how much the video had affected him.
"They've gotta be fake, right?" he asks, more like he was trying to assure himself than her.
"Yeah," she agrees, knowing the case was the complete opposite.
Naegi passes out as he sees Sayaka dead in the shower. Hagakure screams. Chihiro cries. Mukuro doesn't feel anything at all.
She knows what's coming for them all now. The class trial, one of Junko's finer designs. She also knew that she wouldn't be participating, in case they actually did pick an incorrect suspect and all got the slaughter.
She tried not to think about how awful a human being she was at present.
It all goes to plan.
Junko calls them to the gym, Sakura and Mondo carry an unconscious Naegi, and after he comes to, Monokuma pops up out of seemingly nowhere and begins to explain the class trial.
It all goes to plan.
Mukuro kicks up a fuss about not participating, Monokuma threatens to lock her away, she stomps on him and -
It doesn't all go to plan.
a/n: why do i replay danganronpa it just hurts me
naegi is a big nerd pass it on
