luckless | [RYSLIG] IC Inbox

[Oh.]

[It's . . . a lot to take in. Overwhelming enough that it's fortunate she's sitting on the couch with her feet up, because by the time she's finished reading all of this her laptop has fallen through her legs. She picks it up and puts it on the coffee table instead, and reads the whole message over.]

[The thing is, she didn't know he hadn't told anyone else about the dreams. That's new information. And nobody's ever said that to her, that they wanted her to know them. Back home, you don't say that to anybody, and you certainly don't expect it. So it's disorienting, but not . . . bad.]

[She doesn't tell him it's true for her too, that she feels less lonely with him. She can't do that yet. Maybe she won't ever be able to. The impulse is there, but if she thinks about actually doing it, she feels like she's being strangled. She just has to hope he knows already. She's pretty sure he does, given all the shit he said when they were high.]

[No, she's putting that away. Okay—]

i think guys who get followed around by bad luck follow me around. you're the least annoying so far, though. you haven't done anything awful to me or whatever. [Mm, no, that's not right either.] i don't really care about bad luck anyway. definitely not worth avoiding you over.

. . . all i know is what you told me there and what you told me just now. so i guess the game happened first, and then things went bad — worse — and you killed yourself after. when we were in the other place and you were telling me about it, you said you felt good. confident i think is the word you used. but i don't know why, and i don't know what happened before.

i honestly don't know that much about you except how you've been around me. i don't usually ask people a lot of questions.

[It's definitely a lot to unpack, and Komaeda isn't really sure where to start even if he did. So maybe it'll be easier to just... start at the beginning. Or at least the beginning of what he told her in that other world.]

When we were trapped within the killing game, a lot of things happened. Before, during, and even after I died. First... our memories were wiped before the game started, so we didn't even know each other entering the game, despite having been classmates for years beforehand.

[It's kind of fucked up, and he doesn't even know if that makes sense to Lila, but he continues.]

I... found out the reason behind the killing game. I found out who we were, who I was, before that game took place. And with that information, I decided to create an unsolvable mystery to stop the game.

The game worked on a system of murders followed by murder trials. If the killer survived the trial, well, everyone else would die. But if the killer was discovered, they would be executed.

So, I devised a plan where I would use my Ultimate Luck to get someone to unknowingly kill me. I suppose it was more of an assisted suicide, but it worked. It worked too well, and my plan actually failed, because my classmates were able to figure out how my luck works, and guessed the killer correctly.

[She reads two sentences of this calmly, and then the lights go out.]

[Which is actually probably a really bad way of describing it. Maybe it's more like: the second she reads our memories were wiped, an arc of static shoots from every pulse point into the closest available socket. Something pops, there's a bright light behind her, and then dark.]

[She blinks in it, steaming mad and now inconvenienced on top of it. There's a bland humming noise, and the power cuts back on.]

[Uhhhh.]

hey you still there

sorry, i think i did that. reading the rest of this now

[??????? the fuck]

[The lights go out, and suddenly, Komaeda's heart rate shoots up. He remembers to breathe, because he's not on Jabberwock island anymore. He's not in the simulation right now. He's alone, in his room, with Mukuro and Celeste asleep in the next one over. They likely didn't even notice the power outage.

But then the lights flicker back on, and Komaeda exhales the breath he hadn't realized he held.]

I didn't know shades could do that.

Are you okay?

[Something he asks, instead of thinking about his own past memories.]

i didn't either. it's been a while since i got that mad, so, surprise.

[It sounds curt, but if anything that's just because she's trying to get her own heart rate down. If she pretends she's just angry it's easier, because that means she doesn't have to think about the possibility of someone like Barron on the other side of the wall taking his gloves off. That's not real, it's not here, and she's going to find out who did it and take them apart.]

okay. i think i'm following. two questions. you wanted everybody to die — is that because of what you found out about before?

second question. tell me who fucked with your memory.

[That's not a question, Lila.]

[Lila is mad. Got mad. It worries him, and for a moment, his kneejerk reaction is to return to the age old just kidding and isn't that a funny story I just made up?

But then he realizes that she's not mad at him... she's mad for him—and that's different. That isn't expected. He expects misunderstanding and insult for being confusing.

Lila never gives it to him, though.]

Yes.

And...

The person who did it was Junko Enoshima.

[Was because she isn't around, she's—]

She's already dead, so you don't have to worry about her.

[Junko Enoshima.]

[She gets up. Gets a pad of paper. Writes it down on the first sheet. Hesitates, then under that writes "MW — Ko". Flips to the next sheet. Writes the same thing. A third sheet, the same again. Peels them all off, folds them up small, and stalks around her apartment, jamming the folded paper into crevices. Behind her bed, between the microwave and the wall, at the bottom of the cheese drawer. Stomps back to the laptop and sits down again.]

[She wasn't lying when she told that guy on the network she didn't think it would help. She still doesn't. But he was right, too, that it's better than doing nothing.]

don't tell me what i have to worry about. i'm a big girl. i can handle myself.

what happened before that sucked so bad nobody could come out of the game alive?

[Objectively speaking, Komaeda feels guilt. Retroactively. But not over what he's done—no—he feels guilty for stooping to the levels Junko wanted him to. For muddying his quest for hope and succumbing to the thought that perpetuating despair would bring it, and—

No, he needs to just tell her, rather than run these mental circles like an exhausted rat on a wheel.]

Junko Enoshima murdered our friend in front of all of us, between being forced to watch and manipulation, we all became her envoys of despair.

The short of it is that we essentially turned the world into the kind of dystopian you would only read about in books.

We were terrorists who burned entire cities. Incited wars between countries. Murdered millions...

We deserved to die.

Edited 2021-04-30 07:40 (UTC)

[As she waits for his response, she pulls the pad of paper onto her lap and starts furiously scribbling nothing. Little tornadoes between the college-ruled lines that spiral out across the page the more frustrated she gets. The words he sends her are difficult to read, but not for the reason he expects.]

okay
don't freak out, i'm still here. just thinking a sec

[Deserved to die. Deserved to die. What does that mean? She can see it, sort of, if she puts it up on the mantle and stares at it long enough that her eyes start to water. That's the kind of thing that a certain kind of person would say warranted a penalty of death. Like Daneca — no. Not like Daneca, but someone with Daneca's mindset minus the mercy. Some weird merger of her and Daneca, maybe. She believes in the death penalty if it's her finger on the trigger.]

[The thing is she doesn't care. She doesn't care about entire cities, or countries, or millions. She cares about Lila. This . . . this isn't meaningful to her. And that's why she's frustrated, because she doesn't know hot to explain that. Not when he's so firmly dug into his position.]

[Her head is starting to hurt. She shakes it fiercely and reaches for the laptop again.]

can you explain it? why you did all that. was it just because nothing mattered anymore so fuck it all? did she make you that crazy? or am i missing something?

[This is the hard part, Komaeda thinks, it's the part where he feels like he's explained himself well but apparently he hasn't. It's the confusion of others that feeds his own confusion. It's how Junko made him feel like he was less alone, because even if she didn't fight for hope she understood him. Their motivations were the same but opposite. Order versus entropy, order built from entropy.

He has to take a breath just to not fall into his usual rhetoric. He has to force himself to remember his conversations with Souda and how his eyes opened with them. He has to remember that Lila... Lila wasn't there, so that adds an extra difficulty to all of this.]

It was for hope.

Hope and despair are like opposites. If you destroy despair, then hope will flourish. Think of it like black and white, or, yin and yang. They work off of each other, and need each other. I know now that you can't completely destroy despair. But before when I was in that game, I thought that if I killed all of us emissaries of despair, then the world would heal.

We were a disease that needed to be destroyed but... that isn't the case now. We're atoning for what we did by helping to rebuild the world instead of continuing to destroy it. Or at least, the rest of my classmates are. The ones here with me... well, this place is basically like a jail cell for us, but that isn't a bad thing.

At least here in Ryslig, we can't hurt the world more than it already is.

[He pauses, but then he continues.]

Honestly, I was one of the few people that Junko didn't need to manipulate. She... saw me. My loneliness. She gave me what I wanted the most: a purpose.

So, I guess... I've always been like this.

[It's still confusing. With most people, she'd already have given up. She gets the sense that he would have, too. That bolsters her, although only about halfway because she's honored by it or anything like that. She's just too stubborn to fail to understand when he's led her this far.]

[She's on the verge of asking another question when the last part comes through, and that . . . that does clarify some things. What she really wants to know isn't about hope or despair or saving the world from destruction, it's about Komaeda. Why did he cause all that damage? Now she knows.]

[He was lonely. He wanted a purpose, something to throw his whole life into. Even if it's not something she can entirely identify with . . . yeah. It's very human. She can see parts of herself in it, like patchworks of skin overlaid on her mental image of Komaeda.]

[She reads the whole thing over again with the image of a lonely kid adrift at the front of her mind, hand still moving absently on the paper. When she looks down, it's a small, messy drawing of a cat. With a sigh, she puts it aside.]

i think i get what you're saying. most of it, anyway.

i don't really know what to say, though. like, i think you're expecting me to condemn you or something, but i'm not going to. maybe that's fucked up of me. it's objectively bad that you did all that, but i don't really care about that. i'm pissed somebody used you and i'm pissed that you killed yourself and it sucks that you still think you're better off here than somewhere better, but that's

i mean, that's it.

[Is he going to hate her for that? She doesn't even think of it until she's sent it. A dull resignation settles heavy in her chest like an infection. He would have found out eventually anyway. There's no point stopping.]

maybe it's because i don't really believe in hope. or trust it, or something. and i don't care about most people. i care

it just sucks that you thought you had to die to fix things for everybody and i wouldn't give a shit if millions of people died but i'd care if you did.

[Komaeda reads her words, and then he reads them again, and then he reads them a third time. They stick in his mind, unyielding. He's remembers Junko using his loneliness as a weapon. He remembers Hinata getting angry at him for being confusing. He remembers too many times where people have taken his pain and separated him from it. Dehumanized him for their own benefit.

But Lila doesn't. She sees it, she sees him. He doesn't even realize he's begun to tear up until they're already streaming down his cheeks and he has to push his laptop off of his lap to rub at his eyes. It's different this time. It feels different, and warm, and perfect like when they kissed on her sofa.

He never knew how badly he wanted to be seen like this, for no reason other than just being known.

It takes a few minutes before Komaeda can compose himself enough to reply, and when he does, his fingers tremble across the keys.]

For a long time, hope was all I had. My Ultimate Luck is... extreme. It's like a super power. But it cycles. Extreme bad luck and extreme good luck.

When I was in elementary school, I boarded a plane with my parents at San Cristóbal Airport. The same plane ended up being hijacked, which was the worst luck... but then, a meteorite fell from the sky and pierced the plane, instantly killing the hijackers. Which would be good luck... but it also killed my parents too, which is bad luck. Afterwards though, I was orphaned with a huge inheritance. I gained my freedom and enough money to do whatever I wanted... so in the end, the whole thing ended with good luck.

Things in my life have always happened in this cycle. Getting kidnapped, winning the lottery, being diagnosed with a deadly disease, and getting into the elite Hope's Peak academy... Whenever bad things happen to me, good things surely follow.

So... if I hold onto my hope, I know everything will be okay.

[It's a lot to take in. Not the luck stuff; that actually makes sense, is close enough to the rules of work that she knows to feel easy to grasp. No, what's overwhelming is having years of life events pushed at her at once, great and terrible yanking her in one direction or another. For someone who deliberately distances herself from almost everyone, empathizing this hard all at once is exhausting. It was exhausting even reaching out. Now she wants to sleep or scream or go find him or hide or something.]

[But when she pushes through, she gets it. Finally. She sees the difference. Closes her eyes and feels herself ease, tip to toe, with the relief of a problem solved.]

i get it. i get it now. why this didn't make sense to me. it's because i've never had anything bad happen to me because of bad luck. when bad things happen to me it's because somebody decides to do them. when good things or neutral things happen it's because i got out of the way, or decided to do something myself. that's why.

but if things happen to you like that, it makes sense that hope matters. because it's a cycle. you can just outlast the bad shit. right?

Edited 2021-04-30 20:23 (UTC)

[Relief washes over him, and once more that familiar warmth unfurls itself through his chest as his eyes comb her words and finds those kernels of understanding within them. His heart races, quickens his fingers across the keyboard and makes him ache to have this conversation in person—but he stays seated beneath his laptop, glued to his bed.]

Right.

[He exhales a held breath. His pulse thunders in his ears.]

You understand me... see, to me, hope is... it's an absolute power. Nothing can stop it. No matter all the horrible things that happen, good will always follow it. Just like coming to Ryslig and being forced to endure becoming a monster... you would say it's bad luck but, I got to meet you because of this place.

So I think that I'm still... really lucky... and happy that I woke up here.

[He doesn't hate her for being cold. She hates herself a little for caring what he thinks. She's relieved, gratified, horrified by what he says next. Because of this place—]

[You will laugh while others weep. Your heart will be a riddle. A girl with golden hair and no fear.]

[—he got to meet her. Meeting her was worth it. And she fights herself, the huddled child denying it, the bloodhanded princess with no fear reveling in it, and the cat in its cage lashing out through the bars, screaming to catch his flesh and tear-shred-destroy. It's harder than usual, after all of this, to pull the mask back down. Suddenly it feels like it doesn't fit, awkwardly tight in some areas, loose in others, just wrong, made for someone else.]

[She's reading the message still, over and over. The last two sentences. Happy. Happy that he woke up here. Happy that he met her. Happy because of her. Nobody's happy because of her. She bites down on the edge of her thumb and her teeth go through, clamp down on nothing. She's happy. She's other things. She wants to go find him. She wants to run away.]

doesn't that mean

[She knows.]

that i bring bad luck, too?

[She knows it does. She wants to be lied to.]

Didn't you just acknowledge yourself that my luck isn't caused by people?

[He's confused, because he doesn't know what he said wrong to make her... respond that way. He doesn't want Lila to think she's bad for him, because if she does, she might distance herself.

Nonono—he doesn't want that, they just got here.]

If anyone is bad luck, it's me. I cause it wherever I go. And I can't guarantee that it won't hurt you, too. It always hurts the people I care the most about.

[But he's selfish, for one of the few times in his life he wants to be selfish and keep her anyways. Because if he doesn't... if Lila leaves...

He'll be alone again.]

If you want to keep your distance I understand.

NO

[The response comes immediately. She doesn't want to be part of the cycle of bad and good luck, doesn't want her presence in his life to herald the inevitable downturn into pain, but the thing is: Komaeda tries not to be selfish and sometimes fails. She is always selfish, even though she sometimes tries not to be. This is default. Selfish is easy.]

[There wasn't ever an alternate option. She's already made her decision.]

no way. no. i already told you. you're always going to remember me. remember?

[Breathless. He was smiling when she told him, the weird loopy smile that felt so comfortable. Now her chest hurts.]

i'm not scared of your luck. it can come at me, i don't give a shit, komaeda, you're mine now. you're mine. you have to stay.

[He's taken aback, not because of how selfish Lila's demand is but because it... it feels right, and it feels good, and he's glad she said it. Because if she didn't, if she had just been selfless, then he would've faded from her life like he had never been a part of it.]

That's stupid. Why would you willingly put your life at risk for me?

[Why, why, why? He's happy, but if his luck kills her—it always kills the ones he loves most—what will he do? Will he just rely on this place to bring her back every time?

He swallows.]

I'm broken... and you still want me?

[She says he belongs to her. It feels good, it's nice to belong to someone. To live for someone. To have a purpose again. But he's scared, because what if she changes her mind?]

[She's so shit at reassuring people. Absolutely trash at it. She's had literally zero practice. But if she can't say this part right, she's gonna get mad all over again.]

why do you get happy when good things happen, even though you know bad things are going to follow?

illogical question. you're not that broken, either, but it wouldn't matter either way because i've never met somebody who's not wrong somehow. your kind of broken is nice to me and doesn't lie and cares if i feel like shit and laughs when i do something funny. so yeah.

i'm pretty broken too, komaeda. we're all fucked up.

[. . . She shouldn't ask. She shouldn't. But.]

did you really mean that? that you're glad you met me

[It's definitely not the worst pep talk he's ever received, and it makes him laugh a bit, makes him forget the wetness of his cheeks for a moment.

In a way, it's exactly like her. And maybe it's because of that, that it actually works.]

I did mean it. I like your kind of broken too.

You tell me to shut up when I need to, but you also make sure I'm okay. I don't know. It's hard to explain why I like it. I just do.

[She didn't judge him, even after all the crazy stuff he's told her. She just... believed him. He's never had someone believe him like that.]

You're special. I'm glad you were the person I woke up to in that cabin.

[She believes him about the big things because she believes him about the little things. The little things, for her, are the most important. For someone so unwilling to trust, it's a shock every time she recognizes her own effortless belief in Komaeda's honesty.]

[She believes that he's telling her the truth now. But it's a painful truth to hold, new and raw and sensitive. Nobody's ever told her she was special before. Not . . . just the words. The simple words mean more, she learns, because it doesn't feel like a con. The truth at its most stripped-down and basic is the truth she can most easily trust. No meaningful glances or important words hidden in sentences hidden in paragraphs hidden in speeches. Clumsy truth, and that's it.]

[Maybe it's okay for her to be a little clumsy, too. Even if she hates not being perfect.]

yeah. me too. i'm glad i met you too.

[Mm. She can't . . . talk about all of it. She's tired and sad and still kind of scared. She thinks he probably is too. But there's this one thing.]

can i tell you something kind of weird?

[She's glad to have met him. It's weird, and small, and he should feel like it's Just Something someone says when they're being grateful you said it first—but it feels genuine.

If she wasn't glad to have met him then she wouldn't wander into his apartment like a specter and silently beg for company. She wouldn't message him this late at night. She wouldn't be so conscious of what makes him comfortable or not, especially when she's usually so. Lila.

Behind his laptop screen, Komaeda smiles.]

You can tell me anything, Lila-san.

[Man. She's really going to have to talk to him about not calling her Lila-san after she's had her tongue in his mouth.]

[She wants to tell him everything, as much as she's ever wanted to tell anyone everything. It occurs to her that it might actually be easier if he'd seen Cassel before, even if she would have hated it too. It would be a starting point. But — no, this is okay. Maybe better. She can make her own starting point now, the way she decides to, centered around what's most important to her right now. Something she can't articulate without explaining the big picture.]

you remember i was wearing gloves when you met me? and i kept wearing them until after the first fog, when it got hard to like. stay solid.

everybody wears those where i come from. there's magic where i come from, magic that can destroy people, but somebody has to touch you with their hands to do it, so everybody covers them, even people who don't work — have magic. not wearing gloves can get you arrested. it's like walking down the street naked but worse. big taboo.

nobody here does that or even seems to have heard of it. it really freaked me out at first. i — there was a protest i went to once where people had their gloves off but besides that i've never seen that happen. you were the first person i saw other than that crazy cult guy, and your hands weren't covered either. so i should have been freaked out and i was a little but

[She's holding her breath, as though she's saying all of this out loud and just needs to get it out as quickly as possible.]

i still touched your hand.

i still don't know why i did that. it was really stupid. but it felt like i should and you needed it so i just didn't think.

and i wanted to tell you. i wanted you to know. and just

thank you. for not proving me wrong.

[Again.]

[A part of him wants to remind her that he actually was wearing a glove, just not on the hand she grabbed. It wasn't even on a hand that was functioning.

But he can kind of understand where she's coming from. It took him awhile to understand that ultimate talents aren't really a thing here in Ryslig either, but most ultimate talents don't kill people either (unless you're Mukuro, or him). It's weird, like she said, but he gets it. He can wrap his head around it.

She trusted that he wouldn't hurt her, and she had no intention of hurting him either.]

Is that why you don't like it when I touch you?

[Maybe that's not the right way to phrase it, or maybe that's something else entirely... but if he could touch her more freely, would he?

She didn't seem to shy away from it the last time they talked but, it was also always on her terms (understandably).]

Or, just... you know. With my hands. I don't have to, but it's nice. I like feeling close to you.

[Stupid, stupid— he's focusing on the wrong thing.]

You're welcome though! The last thing I want to do is hurt you. Thank you for sharing that with me.

[Communication sucks, but he's at least trying.]

oh my god

[Her first instinct is to be exasperated, but again, it's Komaeda. She doesn't immediately bite his head off, because it's Komaeda. What she does is lean back and stare at the ceiling for a minute until she realizes that . . . this is actually hilarious. This might be the most normal thing Komaeda has ever said to her. This is him just running facefirst into his own impulsivity and having to backpedal when he realizes he's shoving his foot in his mouth. Boy shit.]

[Crazy that he's backpedaling. Crazy that it's not even bad backpedaling. Crazy that it's taken this long, and somehow she's not even mad. Although it probably is time for a tactical strike.]

you're lucky you're cute.

[Ah.]

just ask first. don't just grab me. it's not that i don't like it, but don't surprise me with it. got it?

and don't, like, manhandle me.

[A pause. She's thinking.]

unless i change my mind. i'll let you know.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, NAGITO KOMAEDA. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 004.28.777.00 * MrBrightside has joined 004.28.777.00 <MrBrightside> Hello there! This is Komaeda. <MrBrightside>** I'm grateful that you want to talk to me.

cw suicide (again)

cw: memory loss mention, manipulation, assisted suicide mention

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cw: murder, kinda brainwashing, terrorism mentions

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