I lied in my last chapter. This is a DOUBLE UPDATE, because they're both so short. I'll delete this later, but for now, people who are here because they received an alert, please don't forget to read the chapter before this. It was fun to write.
Junko cackled wildly, hair whipping in the autumn breeze. She stood poised in front of a group of cowering reserve course students, long red nails brandishing a leaflet of incriminating pictures. A cruel and taunting smirk played across her face as she hungrily gazed at each of the terrified boys in turn.
"Naughty, naughty, naughty," she cooed. "What bad little reserve students you've been. Cheating on the entrance exam? Flirting with a teacher? Trespassing on the main course grounds? My my, you've been busy." She purred as she flicked through each photo one by one. The boys watched, mesmerised and silent in their terror. A pair of black glasses reflected maliciously in the sunlight, perched on the bridge of her nose for effect. "Breaking the rules like this could get you expelled, you know?" The four boys trembled, shrinking under her triumphant gaze.
"W-What do you want?" one asked bravely. Plain brown eyes betrayed the anxiety hidden behind his words. "We're just reserve students! We couldn't possibly have anything you want!"
Junko laughed softly, almost lovingly. "Oh, how wrong you are," Junko replied softly. She gazed them for a single moment more, before she ripped her glasses from her face and chucked them over her shoulder with a flourish. "Despair," she whispered roughly, moving forward and lifting one boy's chin with a single nail, "has no pre-requisites."
"D-despair?" one boy with a frankly atrocious bowl cut trembled.
"Despair," Junko repeated again with emphasis. "For example, I could give these photos to the staff, you know? I mean, you'll be expelled, of course. But that's so boring. I could make it so much more exciting. Imagine if someone leaked these horrible secrets to, perhaps, a mega-ultra popular magazine? Say, Top Gossip? I do have to wonder how Takayama is doing on his holiday," Junko sighed wistfully, twirling hr hair around one finger. "He's their main editor, by the way;" she added. "After my last issue broke sales, I thanked him by letting him stay at one of my properties in the Maldives. You'd be shocked to see how hard it is to a break in such a ruthless industry. Oh, I can see the headline!" she gasped. She reached out a hand, as if to grasp something beyond the horizon. "'Bad behaviour at Hope's Peak; Entitled Students a Blemish on a Pristine Reputation!' The outrage! The backlash! The fallout!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "Expulsion, social condemnation, perhaps even disowned, outcast by your own family!" She swooned. "I can barely imagine what the consequences would be; oh, it makes me shiver with excitement!" she sighed, wrapping her arms around herself. "After all," she mused, suddenly serious. "The tuition fee for the reserve course is so high, you all come from suuuper wealthy families right? You're probably here to form profitable connections, maybe even leach off of Hope's Peak's famous reputation. All on mummy and daddy's dollar, of course. I can't imagine how'd they react, knowing their precious little heirs went and jeopardised all their industrial connections for the next twenty years." She smirked, poison dripping from every word.
The boys looked on in horror. One looked as if he was going to throw up. Slowly, one raised his head and stared her in the eye. "There's no way," he said, voice quivering. "There's no way you'd do that just for – just to see us in despair. That's, that's ridiculous! You're lying!" he accused.
"Ridiculous?" she questioned, face blank. It was unnerving as it all emotion was wiped clean. The trembling of her milky finger hanging by her sides was the only giveaway of her internal excitement.
Fight, fight, fight! She urged silently. She watched eagerly as the boy tried to pick themselves up, reaching out for some kind of hope.
"I suppose from your point of view, it is a little out of this world, isn't it?" she mused. "But what of it?" she smiled predatorily. "Is it really that hard to believe? That I wouldn't be able to enjoy watching you crash and burn? You've done all this:" she gestured to the photos still clutched in one hand, "and now you're willing to believe in the good of humans? What a joke!"
The students stared at her, as one by one, they began to break. Eyes fixed on the sheaf of paper in her hands, some would glance behind her, where her sweet little sister Mukuro was standing guard.
That's right, she thought sweetly. Violence can't save you here. You can't bargain with me, either. Now your little appeal has failed, what will you do now?
Three of the four were frozen in place, despair tainting their features. Junko felt a rush, the little buzz that came with watching despair blossom; it made her gut twist with guilt and gratification, knowing she had pushed these reserve students, these people this far.
The final boy, one with brown, messy hair, (so like Makoto) looked up with a look of defiance. Junko felt her breath catch as she waited for the student to speak.
"Yes," he said shakily.
"Yes?" she echoed.
"Yes, I'll take your bluff," he said lowly. "People can do the wrong thing sometimes; they're selfish, and that means they cross the line without thinking sometimes." He gulped. "B-But doesn't mean they're, they're evil. I mean, if you're just a sadist, there's gotta be a better way to get your kicks, right? There's a bazillion websites out there for that. We didn't even do anything to you. There's no reason to target us specifically."
Junko felt a thrill. Finally. Finally, someone willing to fight back without all that bluster and bravado, or the hissed threats and tears she had gotten so used to. This boy was scared, it showed in the way his hands shook, his pupils dilated, and his breathing caught in his throat. But he looked her in the eye as he spoke, a defiance she yearned for colouring his words.
It curdled in her gut as she listened with baited breath, her insides floating and twisting at the same time. Her own hands shook in excitement.
"So, no, I'm willing to bet you won't send those pictures away." He finished with a final smirk.
Junko stared him down silently. "Okay," she said simply. She fiddled with her phone with a moment, before snapping some pictures of the documents in one hand, shuffling them with skilled precision. She stuck her tongue out the corner of her mouth as she worked, a deceptively cutesy look as she continued to ruin the lives of the students cowering before her.
"W-What are you doing?" the boy whispered. His confident expression from earlier was long gone.
"Isn't it obvious?" Junko asked in a bored tone. "I'm doing exactly what I said I would." She paused, shooting him a shark-like grin. "After all, I'm many things; a model, a fashion icon, a jerk, a demon and the goddamn queen of despair; but I'm not a liar."
The boy visibly broke as she briskly finished off her message, curling into himself as he slumped, silent. She gave the group a quick glance at the message, laden with a hideous number of emoticons and love hearts, the incriminating documents clearly visible. With a flourish, she pressed send, and the boys sat silently as their lives flushed down the drain.
"Anything to say?" she chirped.
There was no reply. Every set of eyes were empty, fingers quivering and breathing light. She sighed. Broken. Disappointment clawed her insides as she gazed at the final student; the defiant boy who had given her – well hope was technically the correct term, as that's exactly what had happened, literally and metaphorically. For a moment, she had thought she might've met her match, or rather, Makoto's. But while he had jumped the first hurdle, he had stumbled at the second, and now she was left both bored and frustrated.
Junko was a woman of duality. She loved despair more than anything in this world; she loved the broken look that clung to people's faces, the chaotic and unpredictable choices that people would never had made under any other circumstances. She even loved feeling it herself; the way the guilt of causing said despair clawed at her gut and soul, of how the despair, however fleeting, seemed to physically strangle her throat, stopping the relentless churning in a mind that just went too fast too much-
But obtaining actual despair was hard. Unless she directly sabotaged herself and burnt herself to the ground, it wasn't just something that could happen naturally. She was too talented, too pretty, too smart. (And why do it on purpose? That would be so boooring) So her best option was to feed other students to her despair, and amuse herself in the meantime. There's only so many people to torment without getting caught, and only so many times tears can be entertaining. So of course, a rival was in order. Someone who could catch her in her machinations, who stood in her path at every turn; someone who would never falter beneath her cruel words and manipulations, and would stand strong even as the world crumpled around him. She imagined someone cool and dashing, with dark hair and a smirk set in stone.
Instead she found Makoto.
Makoto didn't catch her in every dastardly plan. He was never there as a challenger, staring her down with the grim determination found in a shonen battle scene. He stumbled into them far more often than he should have, considering how carefully she hid them, and more often than not it resulted in confused and disappointed stares, gentle chiding and the silent treatment for the next couple of hours.
Makoto never stood unaffected by her words as she threw them, sharp as swords and venomous as snake bites. He tensed and winced; he never fought back as much as he should have, that damned self-doubt didn't he know he was worth more than that, but she enjoyed pushing him til he broke, voice rising as he eventually defended some aspect of his self-worth. Just like her sister, she pushed and pushed and pushed and eventually he grew stronger (even if it awakened an unpleasant feeling in her gut, it was the right thing to do, right?)
But even as he grew worthy to be her rival, he continued to throw her off. Because this was not the cool, dark and dashing opponent she ordered, but a sweet, self-conscious brunette with a heart three sizes too big that she received.
And now he was gone.
(Not gone, she told herself. He'll be back.)
Makoto might not have been what she had expected, but he had always, always sprung back up, always found the most ridiculously small sliver of hope in any situation. He would appear of the blue, unpredictable, and bring insane perspectives far beyond Junko's worldview wherever he went. It kept her on her toes, brought a thrill to every plan, and made her days interesting. God, her life was interesting.
And now she was back to square one, no, square negative fifty for gods sake, as she chased a thrill as rare as hen's teeth.
As she walked away scrolling through her texts, and deleting the documents she had done nothing but send to her own phone, she realised something with a sinking heart.
She needed to fix this.
Hello, I lied about updating in a couple of days, and I decided to double update in case you didn't read above. As a note about the chapter, I would like to clarify that this story is not about a 'realistic healthy relationship'. Junko is a messed up character that impossible to have a healthy relationship without dialing her down to a level where she is no longer, well, Junko. She's sadistic, and has little trouble justifying her own behaviour. I will however, give these two the best outcome and happiest ending I can. Until I next update, or one you yells at me on tumblr, I am signing off. Stay alive.