Part 2: Girl-Girl Passion Fashion Magazine
Over the next several days, Mukuro caught frequent glimpses of the two girls together. Neither one of them really had the self-awareness to take a break, so their relationship was proceeding at a blinding pace.
In class, she would see Touko drooling over Junko from the back of the room, fixated to the exclusion of all else. Or she would see Junko making dovey eyes at Touko when the latter got called on and started to melt down over not knowing the answer.
At group meals or class events, they would hold hands and huddle tightly together, Touko smugly eyeing around for people to make jealous and growling and snapping at any challengers for Junko’s attention, while Junko chatted with their classmates casually and acted like this was normal.
They spent the evenings together in one room or the other; sometimes Junko would dress Touko up in beautifully embarrassing ensembles, or they would trade bleedingly passionate love poems, or sometimes play seemingly innocuous games like truth or dare.
On occasion, Mukuro would walk in on them apparently in the midst of an intimate moment, before realizing Touko had simply fainted from delight and/or stress and Junko was attempting to bring her back to reality.
And of course, Touko sometimes came to Junko’s room at night and sat against her door, quietly rocking back and forth, while Junko slept.
She fell asleep there one day, and in the morning Junko opened the door only to have Touko topple inward, and continue snoring on the rug.
Smiling fondly, Junko crouched down and gently pet Touko’s hair until she came awake. The girl’s eyes opened slowly, groggy from dreams.
“H...ah...AAAAAH!” As soon as she processed where she was, Touko screeched and flopped like a salmon trying to get up. “I - M-M-M-Master! I - I’m sorry -”
Junko giggled. “That’s okay, cutie pie. I know you just couldn’t wait to see me.”
“Th-th-thank you, Master!” Touko sparkled with joy. She finally managed to pick herself up, but ended up settling for a kneeling position at Junko’s feet.
“You’re such a sweet girl.” Junko reached out to pet Touko’s head again. The moment her fingers made contact, Touko’s mind shot into the stratosphere.
“M-M-Master,” Touko mumbled through the stars in her eyes, “D-do you th-think it would be okay... i-if I spent the night in your room?”
Junko blinked. That was moving a little fast, wasn’t it?
But, it’s not like they were going to do anything.
And it’s not like it was that weird, one way or another, for friends or girlfriends to have sleepovers.
“Yeah, cutie, sure.” Junko smiled. “I don’t know what could go wrong with that. Move your sleepover stuff in here sometime today, okay?”
“Okay!” Touko chirped back, wiggling with happiness.
When Junko returned that afternoon, her room had been completely wrecked.
Junko’s heart sped up immediately. Her first thought was of a violent struggle. Her sheets were tangled and ripped, pictures were smashed, papers were strewn, and furniture was toppled. But worse, several of the weapons she kept hidden in various places were now lying on the floor, with corresponding slashes and holes in the walls and in various broken objects.
Touko wasn’t here. Which meant she either wasn’t in the room at all, or she was in the shower room.
Junko stepped through the wreckage slowly. A horrible fear was spreading through her body at what she would find on the other side of that door, and she wanted to savor it for as long as she could.
Could Touko have been killed? Now?? In her room??? By who????
Junko reached for the doorknob, her heart thumping in her ears.
She threw open the door.
“Do you mind!?” shrieked the girl in the shower.
Junko jumped and instinctively slammed the door closed.
Welp. She had seen it.
It had been all the way out. And completely wet. And extremely pink.
A very long tongue had been lolling out of Touko’s mouth. It seemed that Genocider Syo had come out to play.
Syo slammed the door open a moment later, a towel fastened around her body using a pair of her scissors as the pin.
“Alright, what’s the big idea!?” she roared.
“Um... sorry about that,” answered Junko, from where she sat on her eviscerated bed. “Hey... mind telling me what you’ve done with my room, here?”
“Oh, that’s easy!” chirped Syo with a pleasant smile. “I woke up here. I didn’t know where I was. So I trashed the place!” She threw back her head and cackled. “Kyeeehahahahahaha!”
Junko waited patiently.
Genocider finished her laugh and wiped a tear from her eye. “So, uh... what is this place, anyway? Whose room is this?”
“It’s mine,” said Junko brightly.
“Huh?”
Junko watched the wires connect in Genocider’s mind, like a changing traffic light.
“WHAAAAAAT!?” Genocider shrieked, brandishing a second pair of scissors out of nowhere. “Her - and - you - in - ?”
Junko shrugged.
“Miss Gloomy Guts is that desperate, huh??” Syo sputtered, her eye twitching. “Even she’s messing around with girls now? Is it the new thing? The modern world is so slutty that even the biggest loser at least messes around with girls???”
The corner of Junko’s mouth quirked up in amusement. “Not how I’d describe it, but...”
“You bitch! I’LL KILL YOU!”
Genocider rushed at Junko with her razor-sharp scissors open.
“Not if I kill you first.”
Junko pushed off the bed and somersaulted over Syo’s head. She landed on one foot and with the other sent a backwards kick into Syo’s lower back, launching her over the bed to crash upside-down against the far wall.
Syo lay there for a moment, flabbergasted.
Internally, Junko rolled her eyes. She always talks about it being an art. But she’s never been challenged when it comes to the actual killing!
Collecting her wits, Syo rolled to her feet, her tongue flopping out of her mouth like a prehistoric slug. “Is that all you got!?” she shrieked with a manic grin. “Come show me what you’re made of, you cow!”
Okay.
Junko pulled out a handgun and fired thrice at Genocider’s head. Syo dashed to the side, in the same motion throwing her pair of scissors like a dart. It pierced straight into Junko’s hand, sending both the gun and a spurt of blood flying into the air. “Eeeagh!!”
Junko’s other hand went for the jackknife in her pocket, but Syo was rushing at her bare-knuckle, fists clenched to shatter her nose. Just in time, Junko threw up her hands to meet the grapple, grabbing Syo’s forearms and planting her feet against the girl’s wild momentum. Using all her weight, she reversed the charge and forced Genocider back until her back slammed against the wall and she had her arms pinned at her sides.
The two girls were still for a moment, breathing hard.
Then instantly they were making out, Junko’s hands cupping Genocider’s face, Syo’s fingers tangled in the back of Junko’s hair.
A little while later they separated with a pop. Junko had a dorky grin. Syo’s tongue was wiggling with excitement.
“Okay,” Syo decided. “I guess this is fine, then.”
One afternoon - nearly a month in, or at least three weeks - Touko and Junko were having a moment of downtime. Junko was sitting with legs folded on her bed, reading a book on amusement park accidents. Touko lay peacefully with her head in Junko's lap, struggling to keep still as all the blood rushed into her head.
Moments of stillness ticked by.
"Master..." Touko murmured, "I feel so calm when I'm with you."
Junko raised her eyebrows. "Really?"
Touko blinked, thinking about it. Then suddenly she burst out crying. It was unclear what emotion the tears held. "No!" she gasped. "Not at all!!"
Junko chuckled. "What do you feel?"
"I, I feel - th-this mean, thick storm. It takes away my breath whenever I'm near you. It makes the energy squeeze out of me. So - I feel - I feel love!" Touko concluded - indeed, breathlessly. She looked anxiously up, as if waiting for approval.
Junko stared down at her, expressionless. She was thinking.
Did she dare - ?
She looked at Touko’s stupid, stupid face. The girl was the opposite of a liability.
Of course she dared. She couldn’t keep the gift to herself.
Holding back a smile, Junko reached down and gently wiped a tear off Touko's cheek.
She held the tear up to Touko’s lips. "Taste it," she said.
Touko’s eyebrows shot up, and then she quickly poked out her tongue and licked.
“What does it taste like?” Junko asked.
"I - I don't know, Master," said Touko, eyes wide. "It's salty..."
"That taste is called despair," Junko concluded. "And that's what you're feeling inside. Despair is a feeling far greater than love, or happiness, or contentment. Despair is the best thing in the world, if only people could realize it."
"But... we're at Hope's Peak," Touko said with an uncertain half-smile.
Junko smiled. "Dark irony is a very good type of despair."
Touko stared at her, thinking about it.
“So... that’s why you like it when things go wrong?”
Junko started. Wait so she -
She knew - ??
“Yeah,” said Junko, blinking. “Because - and this is a secret - despair is how I live my life. So, no matter how sad I am - no matter how angry, or uncomfortable, or gut-wrenchingly self conscious, or lonely, or disappointed, or scared, or disgusted, or burning with self-hatred, or sleepy, or horribly sick, or anxious, or overloaded, or distracted by buzzing, tumbling thoughts, or jealous, or regretful, or homesick, or grieving, or delirious, or hungover, or just blacked-out overwhelmed, or in any kind of pain from the physical to the emotional to the mental... it’s a good thing. You see?” Junko grinned cheerfully.
Touko was staring at her raptly now, nodding. “I - I think so, Master.”
“Despair is so important, Touko. People couldn’t survive this world without it.” She brushed a loose strand of greasy hair out of Touko’s eyes. “And what’s more...” she said softly, “do you know what you are?”
"What??" asked Touko, her eyes widening in fear.
"You're good at it," Junko told her.
"Oh!" Touko gave a joyful little gasp. She giggled a little, and then the giggles turned over and she began crying in earnest. She hacked out strained messy sobs, lying uncomfortably in Junko's lap. "I - I - I - I am!" she gulped, covering her face with her shaking hands. "I - I - I'm s-so g-g-good at it!"
Junko was daydreaming in class.
She was daydreaming about her girlfriend.
Touko had always been a pretty awful person, but she’d never quite read as sadistic. But now?
It had started with Touko witnessing some misfortune - like Yamada making a mistake in his dating sim, or Hagakure getting sold lettuce - and turning to Junko, pointing and giggling, as cute as you please. Junko rewarded her with a special little smile. The kind non-Despairs aren’t supposed to see.
Touko had gotten bolder. She begun causing misfortunes - like pulling out the plug on Fukisaki’s computer when she hadn’t saved, or switching Oogami’s protein shakes for something else - before gleefully running off to tell Junko. Touko was pretty terrible at being subtle, and many of her exploits were not so much ‘pranks’ as they were ‘walking up to someone and doing something mean’. It worried Junko a little, but they could work on it.
“Th-th-this is amazing!” Touko told Junko, shivering and sweating a little. “People keep getting mad at me, and... i-it makes me feel horrible!”
Junko gave her a kiss on the forehead.
She curbed the worst of Touko’s pranks - the girl was getting too good at having fucked up ideas. It wasn’t time for those yet. What’s more, the masochistic element seemed to be almost second nature to her already, and Junko had to keep an eye out to make sure it went no further than drowning her meals in salt.
Once, going for a midnight snack, Junko had walked in on Touko in the darkened kitchen, standing at the knife drawer, taking one out and just looking at it. She gently made her put it back.
Touko was getting dark circles under her eyes. They had a little ‘makeover’ night where Junko helped her conceal them. Touko’s gaze started to go glassy from time to time, like she’d remembered something very urgent far away from here. Junko would give her a light touch to bring her attention back. Not only that, but Touko’s stutter was actually disappearing, and Junko didn’t know what to make of that.
All in all, Junko was incredibly happy with her relationship.
She hoped Mukuro was jealous.
Junko was startled from her reverie as a hand abruptly reached into her space and placed a note on her desk. She looked at its source - Makoto - with outrage, before smoothing her features out into laid-back surprise.
Hwoof. She was slipping.
Junko quickly picked up the note and read it.
Her stomach dropped.
Dear Junko,
We want to talk to you about
something personal. It’s about Touko.
Meet in the rec room at 5:00, okay?
Give me a thumbs up if you can.
Love,
Your friends
She gave Makoto a wooden thumbs up. He returned it with an encouraging smile.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
They knew, they must know, they had to know.
No way. No way. No way.
She couldn’t miss the summons. That would be really suspicious.
As soon as class let out, Junko dashed to her room to prepare, slamming and locking the door behind her.
“Hey!” said Genocider cheerfully, sitting on her bed.
“Close your eyes and don’t listen, please,” Junko said quickly.
“Okay!” Genocider did as she was told.
Junko rushed through all her hiding places, packing weapons, traps, smoke bombs, body armor, and a few antivenoms. Finally, she armed the dead man’s switch to immolate her room, with all her hidden plans and technology, if she wasn’t back within two hours. She slammed the hidden wall panel closed, letting out a breath.
“Alright, Touko. You’re good.”
Genocider Syo uncovered her ears and opened her eyes. “Okay!”
“Oh. By the way,” said Junko as she marched for the door. “If I’m not back in one hour and fifty-five minutes, you should probably leave the room.”
“You got it!” Syo chirped, her tongue sticking out cutely.
Junko didn’t notice. It was time to set out to meet her fate.
By the time 5 o’clock and her classmates came around, Junko had checked the rec room thoroughly for traps, armed several of her own, and was perched on one of the straw parlor chairs, waiting with a seemly amount of cautious curiosity.
The “friends” entered. Makoto looked relieved to see her there. Sayaka, Sakura, Taka, and Chihiro filed in after him, each taking a chair in the most forced-casual way possible. Junko analyzed her chances. She’d taken the chair closest to the door, but unfortunately that meant her back was to it. The only other exit was the secret passage in the storage locker, but that was on the opposite side of the room.
“So, Ms. Junko!” Taka broke the awkward silence. “Thank you for coming. You see, we, as concerned friends of yours... and, of Ms. Fukawa, of course... wished to ask you about something!”
Sakura was nodding.
“Yeah, um...” Makoto spoke up. “The thing is, we’ve all noticed she’s been acting kind of...”
“Out,” Chihiro said flatly.
“Sure,” Makoto frowned. “And -”
“We wanted to check with you,” Sayaka interrupted, “because...”
Okay. Junko had her revolver tucked into her shirt. She could take out four of them with four shots. Sakura would be the problem, but if Junko got out of the room first, and then triggered the spikes and the cyanide gas -
“...we’re worried she might be too much for you.”
“Huh?” said Junko intelligently.
“Listen,” Makoto said quickly. “Like - we don’t want to make any assumptions about your relationship. I mean, we’re really happy for you two.” Everyone nodded. “It’s only that - I mean...”
“Ms. Touko has been known to be a difficult person,” Taka said decisively.
“Especially lately,” Sayaka added.
“She unplugged my computer,” Chihiro said quietly.
“And so - we were just wondering -”
“If everything is alright, or if you would like advice or assistance,” Sakura said evenly.
Junko blinked.
“Um... no, no! Definitely not, I mean - I mean, Touko’s Touko!” She laughed. “But - I think I get her, you know? I think we really understand each other.” Junko metaphorically straightened her mask.
“Okay... well that’s great, great!” said Makoto, once again clearly relieved. Everyone nodded.
“Well then, thank you for meeting with us!” said Taka, holding out his hand to shake.
“Yes. Thank you.” rumbled Sakura.
Sayaka smiled prettily.
“Maybe next we should talk to Touko,” Chihiro mumbled. “About her behavior.”
They all made small talk for another several minutes, Junko smiling pleasantly as the adrenaline died down in her veins. Eventually, she was actually starting to feel something like relief.
Besides, she didn’t mind talking to these dummies. When she had to.
At the same time, she had her eye on the clock.
“Alright, I’d better go,” she said as the two-hour mark loomed. “I, uh - left my microwave on.” Junko said her goodbyes and hurried out of the room.
A few minutes later, she darted back in.
“Oh, hi again, Junko,” said Makoto, who was putting on his jacket. “Did you forget something?”
“Yep,” Junko said, disarming the motion-sensitive detonator she had set under the pool table. “My purse.”
When she got back to her room, she was startled to find Touko standing right inside the doorway, rocking back and forth as if very excited.
“Hi, Master!” Touko said exuberantly. “Guess what!?”
“Hold on just a second, darling,” Junko said fondly, making to weave past her. “I really need to -”
“Who’s this little guy?” asked Touko, holding out a cardboard cutout of Monobear.
Junko actually shrieked and jumped back. “What - !? But - how did you - ?”
“Y-You left a secret compartment open!” Touko crowed, beaming with pride. “So I s-started snooping! I looked through a-all your stuff! Even the really secret, really awful stuff!”
“Wh- Why?” Junko gasped.
“To be awful!” Touko squeaked. “And I found - I found - the machine!”
“The - the machine??”
Touko started crying, tears sliding over her exuberant smile. She dropped Monobear and ran to Junko and held onto her sleeves, so tightly. “D-Do you think - i-if I do something bad - something really bad - will I get used to this - and hurting will stop hurting so much??”
“Touko, just a moment!” said Junko, breaking out in a cold sweat. “What are you talking about? Tell me exactly.”
“If I -” Touko sniffed, tears leaking from her nose. “- d-did something horrible to... to the one I love?”
Then she slapped the chloroform pad over Junko’s face. Junko drew in one sharp, shocked breath, and it was over.
Junko flittered toward consciousness, awkwardly, like a butterfly whose wing got touched by a kid. She felt pain. She was lying on something hard. Her head seared, like it was clamped in a vise.
She struggled to pull herself out of sedation. Her vision swam, she could hardly see anything but it was obviously her room, or one of the other dorms. She was on the floor. Breathing like she had been chased, she got to her hands and knees, feeling a hanging tube flop against her back.
Oh, god.
There was something clamped on her head.
She reached up and felt the four plastic claws, leading to a stretchable tube of conductive bone matter.
This was, simply put, the machine she was going to use to wipe everyone’s memories of their time at school, their relationships with each other, and anything to do with The Tragedy or Ultimate Despair.
Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.
She tried to pull it off.
“No!” Touko cried, running forward. She funhouse-mirrored into Junko’s warped view. “Oh no, oh no!” She clamped her hands over Junko’s to stop them moving.
“Fukawa,” Junko croaked, her voice hoarse. An awful pain was growing in her gut. Awful, awful, she almost didn’t want it, she almost didn’t want it.
“We have to do this, okay?” Touko babbled. “Despair, like you said, okay? Put your hands down, okay? I’m gonna hurt you. I’m gonna destroy you as a person. It’s good, right? Good good good?”
“Touko.” Junko was actually crying. That shouldn’t be - that shouldn’t be - she had no reason to put on a crying act.
“See, you’re crying, right!” Touko gasped. “It’s good! It’s good! It’s -”
Junko effortlessly pulled her hands out of Touko’s grasp, and with a hard push, took the claws of the machine off her head. She pulled the contraption off, unsteadily getting to her feet as she did so.
“Master!?” Touko sobbed, still kneeling where Junko had been.
Touko, who knew everything. Who finally did know.
So Junko put the contraption on her.
Touko just looked at her, shocked, as Junko pushed the plastic claws down around her temples. Touko was staring at her calm roughness, at her absence of feeling.
I guess I never did really show you, huh? That there’s nothing inside this body. That it’s empty.
“N-No, Master!” Touko gulped, flapping her arms in a panic. “Don’t you love me? You don’t love me! You don’t love me!”
“FUCK LOVE!” cried Junko, looking away. “LOVE IS NOT DESPAIR!”
“TH-TH-THEN I DON’T KN-KNOW W-W-WHAT LOVE IS!” shrieked Touko, kneeling pathetically on the ground but getting red in the face and in danger of choking on spit.
Junko just whirled around, stomping toward the other end of the tube, the heavy medical machine that Touko had apparently wheeled out of its secret alcove in the wall.
And that’s when the dead man’s switch hit two hours, exactly.
Junko just heard the boom, like a gunshot by her ear - she felt a huge rush of air, it pushed her against the hard, white metal machine, which rolled slightly - sound was gone for a moment, there was ringing - there was heat - and she could see Touko flying, horribly ragdollish, past her to tumble near the opposite wall. Black burns on her skin.
She saw the fire race instantaneously along the walls to engulf them, licking onto the couch and her desk and Touko’s clothes, exploding the lightbulb. Touko stirred, weakly pulling herself up from the floor, and crying, a bizarrely innocent cry. For once, she just looked like a baby that lost its mommy. Despite the blast, the machine’s clamp was holding tight to her head, little blue lights flickering through it.
The idea of moving felt weirdly foreign to Junko, along with the idea of sound, but she forced herself to rediscover it, heaving herself up using the edge of the machine, and taking a step. There was a crackle from the machine that frizzed Junko’s arm hair up and she snatched her hand away as blue sparks spat from the connecting end of the tube.
A shape lunged at Junko and she shrieked, or a shriek that was mostly coughing. Touko fell at her and again grabbed onto her sleeves, sobbing disgustingly, her face sooted up with scorches like scars. The concealer for her eye bags was running.
“Master - Master, I hate you,” Touko blubbered.
“Touko -”
Touko shook her head, screwed up her face and screamed. A scream Junko had never heard, but which she had been hearing the warnings of every time Touko spoke. She screamed right in Junko’s face, and Junko wanted to die, or disappear, or something she couldn’t even think of.
“Wh-Wh-Why would you DO this to me!?” Touko screamed. She began hitting Junko with her weak little fists, and it hurt, somehow it hurt. Junko felt like nothing. “Wh-What’s WRONG with you? What’s WRONG with you? What’s WRONG with you? What’s WRONG with you?” She was beating bruises into Junko’s body. “Why am I like this? J-Junko, why am I like this!? Why a-am I like this!?” Junko felt dizzy, and then she found herself on the floor. Touko’s fists hammered down on her, hitting her shoulder and her cheek, like a very angry teddy bear. “I wanna D-DIE! M-M-Master, I w-wanna DIE! Wh-Why is this s-s-still happening? W-Why aren’t I-I-I dead?” Touko knelt down over Junko’s aching body, her unraveling, blackened braids hanging down over her face and its pouring tears. The contraption clung to the top of her head, nasty blue sparks running quicker, quicker along the swinging tube. “Masterrrr...” Touko whined. “I love you so much!”
Junko’s heart beat in some kind of terror. A frightening, fizzy glow was sliding down the tube to Touko’s head.
“P-P-Please l-let it be r-real,” Touko sobbed. “Please l-let it work. P-P-Please j-just let it w-work.”
Touko swooped down and shoved a kiss into Junko, pushing their lips desperately together, her hands clawed painfully around Junko’s cheeks. There was a crackling electrical blast, and Touko’s whole head lit up blue, her eyes went wide, and then everything else was blue as well.