* happy birthday claire! this is the first in a series of three.
dangan ronpa : mondo oowada / leon kuwata. pale porn / jam session.
warning for some depictions of violence, death, and trauma.
Back when they were alive, Kiyotaka was the guy to keep everyone on task. He'd bark out the times and the obligations without so much as glancing at a clock or at a phone, "Oowada-kun, Kuwata-kun, it is now noon and you have places to be!". Classes to attend, practices and recitals and meetings to get to. It even got to the point that he'd send texts to make sure the problem students in his class would get where they needed to be.
A team is only as strong as its weakest member, Kuwata-kun.
He said that a lot.
Now, though, the life has been snuffed out of them by the girls who join them all at breakfast. They're trapped in the fucking school, still unable to leave. No obligations anymore, never again. No sense of time. The clocks don't move, and the windows are bolted over so they can't see what's out there in the first place.
Leon doesn't get out of bed, some days. What's the fucking point? No matter where he goes, he sees Junko in his head or maybe by a water fountain and he screams and falls to his knees and feels the repeated impact on his skin, baseballs crushing his bones and shattering his teeth. This is nothing compared to the guilt and the panic - "I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I'M FUCKING SORRY". He screams this in a soundproof room, but no one else out there needs to hear the screaming to know its happening. They're screaming, too.
Out of all the other killers, he likes Mondo the most. He always had. Celes is terrifying and Hifumi is all right but a little strange, and the sisters Despair are out of the question. Leon likes Mondo even more, lately, because he understands the way that everyone else looks at them a little sad or angry or disappointed or scared.
Sometimes Mondo gets dizzy and falls to his knees and shakes and they have to move him to his room. He'll come to and sprint to the nearest trashcan to throw up and he rinses his mouth and sits down. He gets it. Leon wishes, sometimes, that he didn't get it, but its comforting to know he's not alone.
Its one day ( or maybe night or evening ) when Mondo opens Leon's door and lets himself in. Leon pulls an earbud out of his ear and turns the device off. Mondo's pompadour is down and messy.
"Hey, Kuwata." his voice is usually gruff, but now he's just tired.
"What's up, man?" Leon asks, sitting up on his bed, wrapping the cord around the iPod. The gang leader takes a seat on the bed, folding his legs there and clamping his hands on his calves. He manages to look absolutely wiped and determined at the same time.
"Fujisaki still isn't lookin' at me, and I told Aniki how much it bothers me." Mondo shrugs, here, "He told me I'm rushing shit and I kinda deserve it in the first place."
He lowers his voice in a startlingly spot - on impression of Daiya, "'You got anywhere to be, kyoudai? Forgiveness doesn't happen when you want it to.'"
Leon had talked to Daiya a few times. He had been here when they all started waking up. Daiya is scary and sometimes he bleeds from his forehead or his mouth, and bruises bloom across his collarbones and chest, but he never screams.
Leon doesn't say anything because Daiya is right. He knows this, and knows that Mondo knows it too.
"Guess I'm just fuckin' ... Ansty, dude. I mean you're all right with Maizono, huh?"
"Only 'cause she tried to kill me first. She's a lay it out kinda chick." he draws his knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them, hunching into himself, "And I dunno if all right is the word for it. I'm uncomfortable around her."
"Sometimes I think it would have been better if Maizono had killed me. You know, put all those stares and whispers on her. And then I ... I kinda ... Hate that I think that way." he continues.
Mondo's eyes seem to unfocus and he's deep in thought, but he nods. Yeah, that's the kind of shit that wears down his sleep - eight hours, four, one, none. What if he had kept himself in check?
Well, given that even Naegi and Kirigiri and Enoshima are dead ... He'd be dead anyway. Mondo's hands curl into fists and he wants to throttle himself or Daiya or Enoshima and Ikusaba or ...
Leon is sitting up, reaching out a hand to pat his cheek. He keeps it there, squints at him with those strange eyes.
"Hey, none of that. Calm down, man."
He lets out an exhale he didn't know he was holding in and focuses his gaze back on Leon. The smaller of the two shifts even closer, mimicking Mondo's posture. Their legs touch, and Leon puts his hand on Mondo's. Its platonically intimate, if such a thing were to exist.
"Your brother is right - we got time. Who knows how much time? We're not gonna wake up one hundred percent fuckin' frosty with one another, but its gonna happen. You want to forgive yourself and I know Fujisaki still likes you, that your kyoudai and aniki got a lot of love in 'em for you.
"Bottom line is, we fucked up, even if Enoshima and Ikusaba were pulling the strings. But ... If we're at the bottom now, all we got to do is go up, yeah?"
Mondo kind of gapes at Leon for a moment, but closes his mouth and nods. He sits forward and bumps his forehead against his friend's, suddenly looking very serious.
"You been talking to Naegi?"
Leon has to laugh. "You caught me. Little dude knows what's up, sometimes. Makes me feel better."
The gang leader shuts his eyes and Leon does too, like maybe they're praying silently for forgiveness. Murder mates.
Some of the fire is back, and he doesn't sound so exhausted anymore, "You an' me, Leon. We're gonna be all right. We all are."
"Yeah, Mondo. We are."













