AN: Sorry for late updates here. More of an Ao3 publisher truth be told, and given everything adding up to my schedule some erratic behavior is to be expected. That said, I'll try my best to mitigate that to the best of my capability.
The Ultimate Gambler had planted herself on the tufted, silk-upholstered luxury armchair, skirted knees pressing together and hands gracefully rested on her lap. Apposite the lovely persona she'd painstakingly crafted and maintained with all the due diligence it deserved. One that had frayed and nearly unraveled over the most impulsive of emotions - rage. It was pathetic for Celeste Ludenberg. It was unbecoming of Celeste Ludenberg. And Celeste Ludenberg would not permit herself to engage in the folly of something as asinine as unabashed rage. Celeste Ludenberg would adapt or perish - any other alternative was unthinkable.
Celeste Ludenberg. Her name - her true name, one borne of more than a mere carnal joining between individuals, lofty and musical. One with purpose and promise and power. She'd repeat the name, for as long as it took, until no one dared forget it. With the hair came beauty. With the eyes came playful determination. Unchallenged. Unbeatable.
That bitch Sayaka probably figured it out before the trial. Daring - DARING! - to taunt her with the knowledge of her most invasive secret.
That Celeste Ludenberg was merely an ensemble Taeko Yasuhiro draped herself in every day. Faker. Irregardless, she wore it well.
Gone were the hair drills Celeste Ludenberg had never been a day without, now resting in the meaty grip of her portly, D-ranked servant.
"Be careful with that." She cautioned, eyes transfixed within the mirror to stare at her true hair. "It's worth more than your life."
A chuckle from a man that probably didn't take her warning with the gravitas it deserved. "Of course, m'lady."
Her new servant had the odd habit of addressing her as lady, which she'd always yearned for but never truly experienced genuinely. A lady... prim and proper, with an air of distinguished regality that brought men and women to their knees in awe. Staring at the world from a castle befitting her status, waited upon and and foot for her every need.
A dream she'd borrowed from a past long since left to rot.
"I'll handle this holy reliquary with only the utmost care." He promised, thick fingers gingerly seeking purchase atop her head for clipping.
She resisted the urge to flinch at his touch. Only just, in merit of his spotless record.
And he did, with surprising deftness. D+, she briefly considered, given time and better circumstances. It was a pity about his looks - he'd have made a fine addition to her dream otherwise. Alas, her standards would never yield. Must never yield. Truly a burdensome existence.
Moments later, she'd found herself face to face with Celestia Ludenberg, Queen of Liars. Red eyes glinted back, and a coy smile mirrored her own expression exactly how she'd imagined it to. Impeccable. Pristine. Oh so very her, in every sense that mattered.
"You've done well." The Gambler acknowledged, nodding at the mirror before addressing Hifumi. "Now onto the rest of them."
She gently tugged a drawer open, revealing no less than half a dozen identical extensions. Slightly disarrayed, according to most other users, but a single stray hair out of place was already a dozen too many. Celeste Ludenberg produced two fine-toothed combs from another cabinet, handed one to her helper, and rested on her chair to work out the almost imperceptible tangles in the fiber.
Yamada had sat himself on the floor to do the same, holding an extension vertically aloft to better run the plastic teeth through.
Good. He wasn't irredeemably presumptuous enough to perch his rear atop her bed or the glossy black coffin across. Perhaps a reevaluation was in order.
They sat there in relative silence, punctuated by the soft sound of rustling hair - hers - and his heaved, lifestyle-induced breathing.
"Are you well, Miss Celeste?" Hifumi inquired, breaking the clinical silence.
"Of course." She said, still focused on smoothing out particularly belligerent tangles. "Do you believe something as trivial as that would affect me so?"
"No..." he replied, expression deep in suffused doubt. He was a terrible liar.
The bastard.
"Your response was rather... spirited is all." The Fanfic Creator clarified, nodding at his own statement - another tell she'd have to remember.
"It was a moment of weakness." Celeste admitted, pouring dignity into her response despite the overwhelming urge she had to emulate Sayaka's actions during the trial itself. "Even someone as versed in emotions as me has them on occasion. And that moment has passed a long time ago. I've adapted to that particular weakness."
"I... see..." said Hifumi, far too tentative for her liking. But he was doing her a service, so she'd stifle her irritation for the time being.
"If anything, I've only benefited from her actions." She lied smoothly. "Now I may openly ask for assistance regarding the matter of my hair. I ought to thank her, really."
He made to reply but stopped himself, and she'd allowed the silence to permeate again until curiosity got the better of her. A remnant of her own past that was as entitled as it was determined to be sated. Perhaps the one true fragment she'd allowed to survive past her metamorphosis.
"I've an inquiry, Yamada." She stated, carefully maintaining measured detachment she couldn't quite feel. "Indulge me on it."
"Of course, m'lady." Hifumi responded, having worked through two locks at a remarkable pace for someone who'd likely never cared about hair - especially his own. Perhaps he had a sister to learn such from... a brief shudder racked her body at the thought of a female Hifumi, which was quickly brushed aside for more pressing concerns.
Celeste paused and pondered at what she had to say. Words were decisions, every single syllable. Deliberate and measured.
"Why do you choose to serve me?"
The thought had lurked in the back of her mind, through the scant days they'd shared together. It wasn't that she didn't deserve it - Celeste Ludenberg deserved the world and more, obviously - but it was a matter of knowing other people didn't often believe that. The few that did had other concerns that rendered them unfit for service.
And he'd made her tea. Despite her spilling his work out of... what? A need to assert her standards? And he'd continued to do so despite that, over a handful of days, until it became uncharacteristically difficult to repeat the dismissive action. And he was here, helping her maintain her grooming despite his own plans for the day.
Why did he help her? Why would he shed his own plans for her sake? When had she started noticing his own routine? Why did she even care to know?
"I don't compensate you for your service in any way." And she'd react decisively if he ever asked for such, which simply compounded the point. "I don't understand."
Glinting glasses, comb lazily drifting over the reflective lens. "Would you believe it if I said love?"
Stunned silence.
Then laughter - raucous and unfiltered and most miraculously of all, shared.
"I don't believe I've been struck in the head nearly enough times to consider that." The Gambler replied earnestly, in the final throes of a giggle. "Though I believe you might have, to even consider such an audaciously entertaining response."
Yamada chuckled - he'd moved on to the fourth and final extension by now. "I suppose so. I jest, of course - the likes of the flesh has never interested me: far too many dimensions for my liking. But In truth you already compensate me, m'lady."
Celeste's gaze finally drifted from her task, settling into an expression of piqued interest. "Really? I'd never noticed such. How so, then?"
"Your presence is all." He answered unabashedly. "I find you fascinating."
"Flattery will get you nowhere." Celeste replied automatically, who still enjoyed the compliment more than most others would.
"I've no interest in travel." The creator clarified, setting the final lock of faux hair on the dresser. "I'm perfectly content observing you."
"You sound rather... disconcerting, currently."
"I mean nothing so blase as what you're envisioning, my lady. You simply make an excellent muse for my talent to thrive." He insisted, now slumped - still on the floor, but back resting on the frame of her bed. She would chastise him on such uncouth behavior later - this conversation took precedence.
"Your talent..." A moment of thought, followed by widening red eyes and subdued recognition. "Fanfiction, was it?"
"Indeed, it is. Fanworks, fanart, cosplay... but in fanfiction lay my true ability as an Ultimate!"
"But where exactly do I come into play?" She'd finished her chore and stared at the fat student with rapt attention, gradually turning affronted. "Am I just amusement to you?"
"No! No such thing, I assure you." Hifumi assuaged, shaking his hands to dispel the self-inflicted misunderstanding. "You make an excellent muse, you see? For my literature."
The Gambler considered for a moment, and admittedly found she wasn't averse to the idea of serving as inspiration. Celeste Ludenberg did work hard on herself, after all. She deserved some measure of pride for her own creation. "A muse, you say?"
"Indeed, you are. It's staggering how much nuance you carry yourself with - the dissonance, the depth, the determination. You'd perhaps make an excellent protagonist, and a compelling original character for drafting."
You've no idea how close you are to that.
Celeste Ludenberg. Queen of Liars. Finally acknowledged in its - her - entirety, for everything she always knew she was worth.
"You carry yourself with such cultivated charm, it's astounding to observe." The Fanfic Creator noted, smiling with pudgy cheeks. "And you sew your own clothing, despite your own prodigious wealth. You maintain your own territory, despite your dream to own others to do so for you - or perhaps because of that? And so much, much more we haven't even begun to scratch past the surface. Every action, calculated and conscious, methodical but whimsical, in it's own odd, endearing manner. It's simply, utterly arresting."
"Oh, how astute and intriguing..." she returned, choosing not to feign disinterest in favor of unbridled curiosity. "I ought to be flattered by that, shouldn't I?"
"I'm merely an observer." Hifumi retorted quietly. "Driven by curiosity, heedless of price. My opinion shan't matter if you don't permit it to."
"Saying that merely implores me to abuse your kindness further." Celeste warned, though her voice carried a playful mirth that wasn't fully forged. "Or is the proper word compulsion, at this rate. I can't decide, for the life of me..."
"I'm free for you to do with as you wish, my lady. So long as I get to use what I discern for myself." Hifumi reminded, nodding along again.
"You're permitted to do so." Celeste Ludenberg granted her servant, enjoying the rare feeling of devotion in her life, conditional as it was - at the least, the closest she'd ever gotten. "You've done an admirable job cultivating your own value, servant. Perhaps a promotion may be in order... in due time, of course."
It was simply too late to regret. The world had hushed over once more.
It was easy to be hated by the world - familiar, in ways it shouldn't but beneficial in key ways most took for granted. Everyone, privately, loathed themselves. Not entirely, of course. Not to their knowledge, a lot of the time. But everyone did, to some extent, have a finite amount of hatred reserved solely for their being. Almost like an allowance granted by the world, that could go no further. People who thought otherwise simply experienced new depths, not unlike people occasionally finding spare change on their person from unexpected places.
Sayaka Maizono had been hated, envied, and loathed in equal measure whilst walking her path, succeeding in the blinding, cutthroat industry she dedicated herself to.
Hate was simple to deal with. Other people hating you was liberating in a complicated way. They took the burden from her, shunning and shaming and dedicating their filthiest thoughts on her body and character. Terrible for most - she'd lost old idol friends to the miasma of human-machinated darkness, including some members of her original group. She was a rare breed to find strength in it, though not in the way most others did.
There was no spite. No projection. No righteous fury, or indignation. No miraculous support system that buffered her from the worst of it. Her mind had compartmentalized and composed of its own accord, for once in her favor - it had, unconsciously, decided that hate was finite for every person. So her millions upon millions of acerbic critics, ill-wishers, and enemies had freed her the burden of hate. She didn't loathe herself, for they did such on her behalf. And it had come almost naturally, and stayed long enough for her to endure in an industry with an absurd turnover rate along with a substantial mortality rate. The Ultimate Idol existed and she prospered, and the burning pangs of negativity and all the sleepless nights were paid by other people's time and attention and attention.
But now they were gone, and she'd done terrible things yet again. And she might have had her last conversation with the one person who'd let her feel things like the human being she often forgot herself to be. And he might die terribly, like the person she'd harbored deep within the layers of gloss and stardom.
The eggs were scrambled poorly, discolored and overdone. The curdles were ungainly and salt clumped in ridges near the center. The orange juice had turned warm with time.
It was still more than she deserved. But that hadn't stopped her before, and Sayaka Maizono was nothing but entitled. The meal went down in minutes, swallowed by the void she swore she'd developed. Or maybe simply revealed - it didn't matter all that much to her, personally.
Her "execution" had been mind-wracking at the time, seeing the macabre display escalate into something straight out of a horror movie. Now it simply existed as plain, untarnished fact. As jarring as hearing her own name now. That likely said more about her than it did Monokuma, she decided, making nothing else of it.
The Ultimate Idol forced herself up out of numbed necessity more than anything. She was a coward - she'd like to think self-admittedly but that would be a disservice to the fourth person she'd hurt- but that didn't mean she had to be like that for now. And he deserved better than that, at the bare minimum of decency.
Her clothing clumped in areas, draping her lean figure a day longer than it should have. She made for her shower - wondering why she hadn't used it before she first tried to visit her friend. It would have made everything so much simpler... no, regrets were for other people who deserved better.
She decided she simply hadn't felt safe in the dorm showers. Erratic, intrusive images flashed in her mind - her, slumped on a wall. Knife - the one she'd stolen - impaled in her belly, fingernails caked in her own lifeblood, scrawling a dying message she couldn't see from the angle granted within her mind's eye. A warning, most likely. Or just the jumped up thoughts of a girl scared to her wit's end.
It didn't matter. She felt just as dead as her depiction in the flash - they had the same eyes, she morbidly noted once the still image began to blink at her. Glazed over, haunted, suffering from regret. She couldn't imagine what she'd done to warrant that, and the dying girl she'd seen likely wondered the very same in her final moments.
But she wasn't dead. What she felt was irrelevant. The Ultimate Idol forced herself into the shower, fighting back bile and impulsiveness at the clean room that belonged to her. The water settings ranged only between the intolerable: scorching heat or shuddering cold. Probably a deliberate design choice from the bear thing forcing them to play.
Sayaka left the shower flushed and pinked - idly, she realized, she must have chosen to scald herself. She began to change into her uniform, choosing one at random among the many duplicates lining her dresser. Finally, she ran her broken nails through her long, blue hair. Bitter reminders that had lost their edge since the verdict had passed.
Her limbs moved off their own accord, weakly at first from neglect, eventually forcing a steady pace just barely shy of uncomfortable. She was greeted by Leon, who she chose to ignore. She ran into Kirigiri, who'd instinctively turned away and rubbed at her tie-wrapped neck. She'd run into plenty of others, just as unremarkable as those two, all their responses falling somewhere in that makeshift spectrum.
Eventually she'd reached her destination, staring at the imposing door standing before her. The Idol's heart hopped into her throat and hammered away, robbing her of breath. Her hands clutched at each other for support she couldn't offer herself.
No. No. No.
I don't deserve to ask. I don't deserve the chance. I don't deserve forgiveness, or closure, or whatever it is I came for.
But that had never stopped her before. After all, Sayaka Maizono was nothing if not entitled. No matter the circumstances.
I'm disgusting.
And she forced the door open with hands that no longer trembled.
Junko Enoshima stared back through the opened door, her previously neutral countenance turned darkly guarded.
"It's you." She stated coldly, twisting her body to give the Idol her undivided attention.
He's so small.
"It's me." Sayaka acknowledged, just as distant.
He looks healthier now. More color to him.
"You've got some nerve, doing what you did." The Fashionista chastised, crossing her arms over her chest. Her right hand was clutched over something, the knuckle whitening from the effort. Sayaka pushed the odd observation from her mind - focus!
"Kirigiri didn't deserve what I did." And she wanted to say that honestly. Her head may have stopped swirling, but Sayaka's thoughts were still anything but clear.
"She didn't." Junko agreed. "But I'm not talking about that."
"What?"
"Forget it." She brushed off, unwilling to broach whatever subject on her mind. "What the hell are you here for."
Moment of truth. Coward.
"I'm here to see Makoto." she answered, anxious over the response, fingers fidgeting of their own cursed accord.
"There he is." She tilted her head towards him. Sayaka's eye darted to the needle in his vein, traced to a tube of clear fluid in a drip bag. "Now fuck off."
It would be so easy...
"No. I need to talk to him." The Idol insisted, her determination met with loathing. Good. It was familiar, and some of her internalized hate abated at the display.
"And I need to get the fuck out of this school." She sneered. "But clearly this hasn't been either of our days, now, has it?"
"I need to talk to him." She continued, unable to respond to the biting retort.
"So do I." Junko informed, trading her determined indignation for a sadness almost serene. It faded near-immediately, once she'd remembered she wasn't alone. "You're ruining the vibe or the Feng Shui or whatever the shit. Makes it hard for him to breath and stuff. Leave now."
"I need to talk to him." She repeated again, fully planning on doing so for as long as it took for something to change. "I'm not leaving until I can."
"And I'm not letting you. And you probably won't stop me when I eventually lose my goddamn patience with your bullheadedness."
The Fashionista had never looked so... combative before. Like she was going to start pulling hair or clawing faces, and it was unnerving how natural the look suited her.
But the Ultimate Idol - no matter how broken she was rendered - remained unafraid of shallow intimidation. At her best and at her worst, threats were just as irrelevant.
She took a striding step forward, and was met with a seething glare. Junko Enoshima, Fashionista extraordinaire and paper tiger.
Invigorated, Sayaka Maizono took another towards the bedside. The pink pig tailed girl seemed to growl - hallucinations were not out of the question for the Idol.
And a third on-
Only to find her right arm was wrenched against her back, wrist forced up painfully. She made to scream when a manicured hand clamped over her mouth, strongly enough to leave her neck craning uncomfortably an inch off the floor. She attempted to struggle off when a knee planted itself on her back, joint digging at her body excruciatingly.
"I warned you." Junko said, sounding more resigned than anything. "You just had to fucking push..."
Sayaka repeated her struggle in vain, ungracefully trying to flop and shut down by the vice that seemed to tighten.
"Try to bite me and I knock your teeth out." Junko promised, and fear had yet again become part of the Idol's life. "Nod if you understand me."
She nodded. Frantically. Unashamedly. The grip seemed to slacken.
"Good. I'm going to let go of your mouth." Junko continued. "If you attempt anything - say, screaming for help - I promise that whoever shows up won't make a difference. Assuming they even give a shit about you anymore."
She nodded again, and pooling spittle dribbled out of her cracked lips repulsively. A hand rubbed her back - not out of comfort, but simply to wipe the disgusting trickle off.
"Now I'll be letting you go - despite my better judgement and a whole lot of pent up rage. And you'll leave. Quietly."
She shook her head. Pain lanced in her taken arm, feeling like it had been ringed out of its socket.
"I need to talk to Makoto." The Idol repeated, like a mantra.
"He's a bit indisposed right now." Junko deadpanned, though if anything her aura seemed to radiate more anger at her own words.
"Then I need to say things to him!" Sayaka pleaded. "Things I never got to when I was scared."
"Is this some deathbed confession crap!?" Junko asked incredulously, taking her hand of the Idol's wrist. The blue-haired wreck tried to raise, failing when the knee reasserted its cruel, pointed pressure. "Now's not the time for this. And you had your chance and royally screwed the pooch."
"It-It's not!" Sayaka agreed, hating her own weakness, then hating how she had just pretended it hadn't driven her so far. "But what else is there? What else can I do?"
"Not my problem, now is it?"
"But it's mine!" She yelled, and a pair of hands clutched her throat. The Idol choked and spluttered for the scant moments she was suffocated.
"Voice." Junko reminded, raising the knee that had pinned her down. Sayaka scrambled off before she could change her mind, breathy and rubbing at her neck.
"I don't trust you, is all. Nothing personal..." Junko assured, immediately undercutting it with her next sentence. "but your face is really starting to piss me off."
Join the damn club.
"Why won't you let me do this one thing that might make a difference for me?" The shaken Idol muttered, soft enough to not be heard.
At least, she thought so. "Because no one stopped you before, and you chose not to. Chose. And it upsets me seeing you believe you still deserve that. After everything."
I know. I know. I know. IknowIknowIknowIknow-
"I KNOW! I DON'T! AND THERE I WAS! AND IT KEPT GOING! AND I DON'T WANT THIS! I DON'T WANT TO KEEP LIVING LIKE THIS! AND I CAN'T DIE! BECAUSE I COULDN'T FACE HIM! AND IT NEVER SET IN UNTIL THAT DAMN BEAR LET ME GO! AND I JUST WANT IT TO STOP HURTING! WITH THE THOUGHTS! THE WHISPERS! THE TRUTHS! IT WON'T LET ME REST."
"Do you really think you deserve that kind of rest, seriously? After everything you put us through. For all the nothing you've done while the girl you attacked and I fumbled like the frantic, fake medics we were? Scrambling to save his life while you mopped and whined and cried your eyes puffy? Watching over him all through four fucking nights, because people wouldn't show up to their shifts. Or worse, people who weren't on the damn shifts, showing up and trying to 'graduate' off him. Living on catnaps when I could sneak one in, whenever I thought was the best time I could risk him having a complication or a convulsion or something I probably couldn't even do a damn thing about. Knowing that fucking bear could have me tried the moment he died for some bullshit reasons like 'malpractice' or 'assisted suicide' without even being able to deny it. But yeah. It must be so difficult to be you - having all the choices that mattered and still managing to royally screw them up!"
. . .
. . .
"It hurts. Because of me. Because of what I did. Because of what I didn't. I don't want it. I don't want it."
"You're damn pathetic."
". . . Yes . . ."
"You don't deserve another chance."
". . . Yes . . ."
"But you're still asking for one?"
". . . . . . yes."
Uncomfortable silence, periodically interrupted by shallow breathing. At this point, the Idol didn't know whose it was.
Junko, weighing her options, mouth set rigidly. Gnawing at her lower lip, troubled. Shuffling foot, up and down on the tiled floor, staccato.
Sayaka, hoping the choice wouldn't crush her. She couldn't hope to stop the other girl, short of breaking a limb at her.
"Five minutes." Junko settled, face wretched in revulsion she wasn't certain was directed at her. "And I'm not leaving the room. I'll do my best not to overhear anything I shouldn't, but that's all you're getting from me."
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
"But why...?" A small voice interrupted before she could. It took a moment to realize it was her own.
"Because I've got the choice to right now. And I might turn out like you if I didn't take it." Junko bluntly explained, a final scathing condemnation.
But the Idol could talk to her Luckster. That was all that mattered - even if he couldn't hear her.
"Y...ve... z...ed...out, trash...ost in... ow...spai...gain?" The accusing voice interrupted, yanking the boy out of his stupor.
"What?"
"I said you've zoned out, like the hopeless trash you're living up to be by the moment." He repeated, tone venomous but devoid of malice. It was strange how impersonal insults could sound, with the right tone and the wrong person.
"Uh... yeah," Makoto replied, no longer bothering to correct the insults levied against him. "I guess I did. Must have."
"Typical-" he coughed a globule of clotted blood, the gory remnant clinging to hot cement disgustingly. "apologies, I really shouldn't be alive right now."
"Yeah... some other people might agree with you." It was simply easier to allow the older boy to wallow in his self-loathing, as wrong as it was. Neutrality worked best - which was to say it was allowed to, in very specific instances. Now was fortunately one of them.
The pale-haired boy unfurled his limbs, stretching them idly. It almost looked alien seeing such a human gesture coming from this very, very questionable... person, he chose to say. Makoto was firm in the belief that he wouldn't dismiss someone's worth because he disliked them, even if he couldn't ever match the other Luckster's ludicrous self-loathing.
"My doctors were among them, you know?" He continued casually, in a way Makoto knew only he could.
"Six months - perhaps a year. 'If I were lucky.' they said." He laughed bitterly. "I managed to outlast most of them - terrible luck they had. Malpractice suits, career sabotage... one of them even turned into a bargain bin angel of mercy, around two months after insisting patients deserved the right to live. Shame I didn't stay there long enough for him us to help each other. That actually would have been good luck I'd welcome."
"It's..." What could one say to that? "Almost cartoonish."
The worlds felt wrong to say, but the other Luckster smiled amiably with the lips he'd been given. The gesture seemed forced and was likely the most honest he'd been so far.
"In a manner. Of course trash would get stomped on, spited, and sundered by seemingly the world itself. Or actually, actually." He continued. "I imagine my life must be entertaining for the observers. Surviving a hijacking via meteor... released by a serial killer, only to win the lottery... yes, it must be enjoyable to see."
He paused for a moment, hacking a cough out of his lungs. Probably taking said lungs with it, from the wet pops and squelching dribbles alone.
"You're hopeless, Makoto Naegi. Like me, in the worst ways that mattered. A void that engulf's the worlds dreams, taunting and terrorizing through its own unearned success."
He just listened. One of them had to, no matter how hard it got.
"Just a nameless Luckster who happened to be next in line. Ready to be forgotten as they robbed the world's people of their dreams."
Name, name, name.
An entire afternoon and it'd never even occurred to him to ask. It might have been rude, but there was very little courtesy to draw from in his presence.
So he did.
"I'm nothing, I'm trash." He responded, brushing it off with odd amiability.
He was unsatisfied. So he asked again.
"I'm a servant. Nothing more."
And again.
"I'm a Slave."
And again. And again. As if something else had come over him, wriggling into his brain and burrowing into his thoughts until the answer changed.
"I am Makoto Naegi."
"What is your name?"
"I am Makoto Naegi."
"What is your name?"
"I just said. I Am Makoto Naegi. Hopeless and Afraid. Trash in a skin suit, rotting away in every sense of the word. Afraid to wake up. Afraid to try. Afraid to die. Afraid to live. Undeserving. Undeserving. Undeserving."
"No, that's wrong." Embers, but burning nonetheless. The boy who took his name had went too far now. "I'm afraid of not getting to try. Not getting to wake up. Not getting to make a difference. Not creating something beautiful, because I'll become someone like you. Something like you, husked and withered and clinging onto unhealthy memories."
Not Makoto Naegi scoffed. "Yet here you are in one, while whatever outside happens. Must have happened. Might be happening. And you're waiting it out, like trash waiting to be disposed off, lacking the decency to do anything about itself beyond perishing."
"But I'm alive, and I want to be. And I'll go beyond this luck that's hurt people like you and people around you." It felt good to admit it. It was all warm, and his heart pumped and heady bass thundered into his ears.
"No, you're hopeless. Your dreams are hopeless. You should feel hopeless."
"I wasn't asking you. Heck, I wasn't asking me. I'm just doing it because it feels right." Makoto countered, assured by his own sense of waxing confidence. "And these aren't my dreams. They're someone else's, taken from them by people like us. So I'm carrying it for them, wherever it leads, and maybe that's wonderful enough a difference to make."
"And you sincerely believe you can? Through all the rot and refuse in the world of warped design?"
"I sincerely believe I'll try and never give up. And I sincerely believe that matters most for the people Hope's Peak sets examples for."
"Good. Great. Wonderful!" The pale-haired boy celebrated, which was rather charming in an unnerving sort of way. Far too quickly, as if he'd been waiting for this all along. "I look forward to seeing where this new hope takes you, and the world as you say. Success empowers. Failure rallies. Whatever happens, hope springs eternal! Perfection at it's absolute primordial - I've longed for this. So. Much. You. Cannot. Imagine."
And he took Makoto's hand in his own, not caring for how the boy flinched and failed to pull away. Manic - euphoric, maybe? - grey eyes met his own, transfixed and enraptured. "You've made me happy! So happy again! And I want to share in your sense of hope, wherever it takes you. And to do that I need you to close your eyes... please? It's very important that you do exactly as I say. Close your eyes, hard as you can. Now open them. Done? Now open them again..."