Chapter Text
The end of the world is messy.
It’s chaotic and bloody and terrifying. The common man mourning and howling only to pick up a bat and swear revenge. Mothers weeping as they place a bullet between their babies eyes and then their own. Children suffering and warping and exalting in the streets with fire in their hearts and at their feet. Society bows like metal turned soft over flame, twisted and stretched like taffy into an unrecognizable lump of gristle. A wad of putrid flesh ready to be crushed beneath a designer heel.
You hope it’s interesting enough.
Because all you’ve known since you stepped out of those catacombs is pure, scalding agony. You’re a coward who’s done nothing but flee, flee, flee. Never stalling, never faltering; lest guilt swallow you alive and leave nothing but bones. Ghosts trailing at your heels in an endless echo of your fault! your fault! your fault! that never fades. A clashing orchestral medley of accusations and failures that pile up and crush you beneath their weight. Endless ‘what ifs’ that taunt you from the cosmos like the stars winking out light years too late.
Because The Biggest, Most Awful, Most Tragic Event in Human History is undeniably, irrevocably your fault.
It was a toppling of dominoes. A delicate click click click that quickly got out of hand, everything tumbling down as you scrambled to pick up the pieces. To stop the chain you set in motion. The chain you set in motion the moment you handed Hinata that damned pen.
It all circles back to Hinata with you.
But Hinata is dead now, long dead. And you’ve come to terms with that in the past year or so, you think. A year of isolation; a year of marinating in your thoughts, your regrets. A year spent alone, grieving for a singular boy amongst the chaos of the apocalypse. Missing another all the while.
Because you foolishly decided to catch feelings for the Ultimate Hope.
Like most things in your life, it started slowly. Then it grabbed you by the hair and dragged you into the depths to drown. Left to rot amongst the silt, chest caving in like a collapsing house. An ache you’ve gotten used to, an ache that never fades. An ache you only realized was there once he walked out the door and left you alone. But agonizing over one's past never does anyone good, so it’s best just to leave it at that. The past.
For the present is far more pressing.
Tension is thick in the air as you lean over the building's edge. The railing creaking beneath your weight as you feel the screws begin to give way. Only the very tips of your toes touching the ground as you lord over the chaos in the streets below. A writhing mass of black and white and speckled red as Monokuma masks surge forward in a brainless hivemind. A spiralling, flexing mob of distant specks like a horde of ants. The constant shifting reminding you morbidly of a twitching amoeba. Fleshy thumps and screeches echoing below as blood and viscera stains the pockmarked pavement.
And for a moment, you entertain the idea of tipping over the edge and falling to the ground. A weightless plummet that sends tingles up your spine. Imagining yourself sprawled out on the concrete, limbs bent at awkward angles and mouth agape, staring up at the smoke filled sky with empty eyes. Beautifully tragic as your body is smashed underfoot and torn asunder.
“How predictable, that I’d find you like this.”
You startle out of that fantasy with a full body shudder. Reeling back and settling on solid ground as your head whips to the side. Jaw clenched tight as you stare at the ghost standing in front of you. Pressing down the ache in your heart like a thumb against a cavity filled tooth. A tight coil loosening traitorously in your chest as you choke on your next inhale.
“Kamukura,” you nod, voice rusty from disuse, “it’s a pleasure to see you.”
He doesn’t answer, and the silence is both so familiar and cloying that it hurts to breathe. His shadow stretching across the ground and touching your toes, accentuating the distance between you. Distance you’re not entirely sure you want to cross.
“And it seems we almost missed each other,” he says monotonously, eyes flicking meaningfully to the edge of the building before returning to you, “what a disappointing way to end things.”
A rueful smile twists your lips as you rest your hand atop the warped railing. One firm push enough to send the section listing off the edge. The metal frame hanging off the side of the building like a bandaid dangling on someone’s wrist. Screws snapping off and falling to the crowd below, dinging against metal helmets as they disappear amongst the horde.
“Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on it,” you swear, taking a pointed step away from the ledge, “just lost in thought.”
“Suicidal ideation, an expected mindset for the end of the world,” he comments impassively, stepping closer until you’re forced to stray further from the edge, “stop it.”
Your lips twist upwards, “that’s not how it works."
He blinks, hair brushing at his feet where he’s allowed it to grow out. “I’d prefer not to find you dead in the street. It would be...anticlimactic. A boring conclusion to an already dull story.”
“You haven’t changed,” you almost chuckle, the noise breathier than you’d intended. Scraping against your throat like knives against whetstone, “I’m still debating on whether that’s a good thing.”
The small uptick of your lips—you wouldn’t exactly call it a smile—remains even as you soak in his appearance. It’s like you’ve plucked him straight out of your memories and set him in front of you. Static and unchanging even as the world tilts on its axis and smashes against the floor like a china plate. Only the length of his hair and the harsher cut of his cheekbones enough to distinguish this Kamukura and the one of the past.
“You’re upset,” he observes, the mannequin-esque gloss of his eyes still the same as ever.
Your mouth twists and your smile cuts into your cheeks as it slides off your face. Hurt flaring up in your chest like a candle sparking in the breeze.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” your voice dips almost to a whisper, pleasantries dropped like a handful of shattered glass, “for all I knew you were dead .”
“Irrational,” he says simply, “foolish, inane, stupid ; I would not die so easily, to think so means you were merely blinded by emotion.”
“So what if I was?” you huff, drawing yourself up as if you could actually stand to intimidate him, “I am not you, Kamukura. I feel things without hindrance.”
His expression shifts minutely, and you can’t help but feel as if you gave something away.
“Even now, you care,” his head cocks slightly to the left as his eyes bore into yours, “I had anticipated this but still...it’s almost surprising.”
“Kamukura, I sacrificed everything just for you to find interest in the world. Arguably, I ended the world for you. Of course I still care.”
“Hm, so that is why you’re up here. Guilt,” he takes another step closer and this time you don’t move away. Something fragile and almost hopeful in a sense clutched in your hands, moments away from shattering, “a useless emotion, considering you have no need for it.”
A pause.
“Are you trying to say it’s not my fault? How reassuring,” you hum, heart giving a half flutter even as you hear the crunch of bones just below, “you’re being uncharacteristically kind today.”
Seconds tick by without an answer, not that you were really expecting one. But with the way Kamukura is backlit by the smoky red of the sky, you can’t help the ominous chill that creeps up your back. Gooseflesh prickling your skin as he moves to cradle your face. Not to comfort, but to hold. A clinical detachment that sends warning bells ringing as his thumb presses against your forehead. A heavy feeling sweeping through you as if his touch was of Midas himself, turning you into a statue of frozen gold.
“You say you’ve sacrificed everything,” he muses, more to himself than anything, “but your memories, your memories still live on within you.” Your stomach sinks like an anchor to the ocean floor. “With memory comes familiarity, and with familiarity comes boredom,” his fingers brush your cheek and you can almost convince yourself it’s affectionate, “I trust you understand where I’m going with this.”
“No...” your words are stumbling, tripping over themselves like a newborn fawn. Terror striking through you as you realize what he’s insinuating. Ultimate Hypnotist, Ultimate Manipulator, Ultimate Neuroscientist; it’d be child’s play for him to reach inside your head and pluck out your memories. Hang them out like laundry and tug them off the line.
“I have done this before, fifteen times to be exact,” he continues unbothered, the rhythmic back and forth of his fingers on your cheek soothing you into a lull, “I don’t remember who and I don’t remember where, for I erased my memories of them as well. But I know we’ll meet again, just as I know I’ll see you again. Regardless of whether or not we remember each other.”
With a monumental effort, your arm lifts and you close your fingers around his wrist. Every movement slow and stilted as if you’re swimming through concrete. Heavy weights pulling down on your eyelids as you fight to keep them open. “Our history is...what gives you interest,” you whisper, words slurring and bleeding into one another, “if you erase that...there will be nothing, and I’ll just be...just be a face in the crowd.”
He doesn’t falter, not even as your fingers wrinkle the cuff of his suit. “I’ve calculated every course of action, this is the best option.”
“You can’t...you can’t…” you protest, cursing yourself for falling for someone as uncertain as Kamukura. A ray of sunlight you can never catch in your mortal palm, “Kamukura, please. ”
You’re not sure what convinces him. But one way or another, his hands pull away from your face and clarity rushes in like a barrage of ice water. Leaving you gasping for air and trembling like a half drowned kitten.
“Hm, I almost didn’t expect you to beg,” he comments, something somber in his expression that you can’t quite name, “though it was for naught, as I wasn’t actually planning on continuing.”
It’s a crude, but necessary wake up call. That you’re nothing but a marionette made to dance for Kamukura’s amusement. The ups and lows of your turbulent life something for him to observe and toss aside when he sees fit. It hurts, yet it’s comforting. To be easily slotted into place with no expectations but to entertain. And maybe it’s because you’re so lonely, maybe it’s because you’re desperate to avoid the slippery slope that leads to despair; but the reservations you had a year ago mean nothing to you now. And selfishly, selfishly, all you want is to feel. To feel him. Even if just for a moment.
“Go to hell,” you say oh-so eloquently, surging forward with both anger and purpose. And as if he predicted it—which, of course, he has—he meets you halfway. Lips connecting to yours almost painfully as your hands move to cup his jaw. Fingers threading through his hair and tracing the scar across the base of his skull. The incision you yourself had mapped out a lifetime ago.
He pushes you away but doesn’t break the hold. Hands falling to your waist as his eyes bore into yours and his gaze goes lidded, “I didn’t anticipate this, at least not so soon.” A pause. “This says more about you than anything else.”
“Just kiss me, I’m not in the mood for mind games,” you interrupt, triumph singing through you as he shockingly obliges. A hot press of mouths that leaves something fluttering in your stomach. Stumbling over your feet as he backs you up and presses you against a wall you hadn’t even realized was there. Not once disconnecting your lips as he pins you with perfect precision.
“How unfortunate, to know just how to ruin you despite never having touched you before,” he murmurs, only the underlying roughness of his voice betraying what you’ve been doing, “it should be boring, yet...”
You jerk as his leg pushes up between your thighs. The discordant chaos of the world around you fading away as he grips your jaw and forces your head up. Kissing a trail down your neck with an eagerness you may just be projecting.
“Ah, so that’s why society is so fixated on sex. So simple and banel in theory, but much more—” he tugs down the neckline of your shirt and sinks his teeth into your collarbone, “ —intoxicating in practice.”
“It can be addicting,” you hum distantly, feeling something coil low in your gut as your hips grind against his thigh, “especially in a world as despondent as this.” Your brain sparks and short circuits, words tumbling from your lips as his tongue drags across your skin, “hey, let me suck you off.”
“Hm, I suppose that would be pleasurable,” he thinks for a moment, “fine.”
Your positions switch in a blink. With you dropping to your knees and shifting forward until you’re situated between Kamukura’s legs. The man himself backed against the wall as he blinks down at you with empty eyes. Nervously, you fumble with the loops of his belt and tug his pants down over his thighs. Fishing his half hard cock out of his boxers and gaping open mouthed as you take it in. You’re fairly certain dicks aren’t meant to be pretty , but you’d say his meets the criteria. Flushed red at the tip and scaldingly warm in your palm.
Tentatively, you open your mouth and let your tongue loll out past the pout of your lips. Licking a flat trail from base to head in an effort to bring him to full hardness. It’s a strange thing to be doing, but it feels right somewhere in the deep, primal recesses of your brain to lave your tongue over his cock and bring the tip into your mouth. A pleasant weight against your tongue that makes you shift your thighs together. You may have no clue what you’re doing, but you make up for it with a burning eagerness and a sharp learning curve. Saliva welling up in your mouth as you move to swallow him deeper, fighting back the intrinsic urge to gag.
You start as you feel him grip the back of your skull. Making a gruff noise in the back of his throat as he pushes you further down on his cock, clearly impatient with the pace you’ve set. He’s silent other than a few sparse huffs and sighs, no encouragement to be sure you’re doing something right. No guidance except the hand at the back of your head and the pulse of his now stiff erection.
It’s exactly as you imagined.
Your throat spasms as his cock bumps against the back of your tongue. Swallowing him down to the root and breathing out harshly through your nose, nestled uncomfortably amongst the springy thatch of his pubic hair. He gives no sign, no warning, only a twitch of his hips and a grunt as he comes down your throat. Leaving you coughing and sputtering as you reel back and heave onto the concrete. Tongue lolling out as you taste the salty bitterness of his come.
“Calm yourself,” he orders, tucking himself away as he lowers down to a crouch. Hair fanning out in a cloak that shrouds the two of you from the world, “I believe this is when I’m expected to return the favor.”
The end of the world is messy. The end of the world is dark and terrifying and despairing .
But now, now that your head is fuzzy and overtaken with the thought of a single man. Now that you’re not so dreadfully, awfully alone (if only for a moment). Now that you’re not doomed to die despondent and forgotten.
You can almost bear it.