tws: mentions of bullying, blood, injury, self-loathing/depression
In the back of his mind, Junpei didn’t know if he’d made the right choice.
Telling everyone about his talent- he didn’t regret that, strangely enough. It was better than having to hide it, better than being constantly paranoid that someone would find out, and use it against him. Sure, it may mean people would stay away from him... but was that truly a bad thing?
He knew what people had said to him. That they didn’t blame him, that it wasn’t his fault... and while he appreciated the sentiments, it simply wasn’t true. He knew his luck. He knew what happened. People got hurt.
There was a reason he’d voted for himself.
It wasn’t like he’d wanted to get himself hurt, and he’d known that the class would vote correctly... but in the end, he couldn’t accept Cuphead as the killer. He couldn’t accept that horrible execution. He couldn’t accept Cuphead up and dying like that, leaving Mugman behind.
The world was cruel. It could be cold. He knew that- he’d learned that lesson far too well when he’d been twelve, an image of red stained into his mind and the pain of being beaten black and blue by some idiot sadist bullies still echoing at the back of his memory. But still, he wanted to believe in something good.... it was just that, those good things didn’t happen to him. There was a reason he’d moved to Hope’s Peak, despite being scouted on account of bad luck- it’d still been better than the other school. He’d wanted to lie, to pretend that he wasn’t unlucky... but then this game had happened. It must’ve been punishment from god, for thinking he could actually escape his luck... instead of a new school and a new start, he’d been thrown into a game of death.
And still, even still, Something as simple as Mugman hugging him and crying was enough to pull him back from the edge of despair, to give him a reason to want to hope.
He was unlucky, and he knew that. And yet, even accepting that, he was going to refuse to let that bad luck interfere now. If there was recoil, he’d deal with that later- he’d accept whatever was thrown back at him, even if that did mean death, so long as he could keep his promise. It didn’t matter who’d given him this luck; be it god, the devil, or something else entirely- he wouldn’t just lie down and accept this.
Mugman, Saturday, others too- they hadn’t hated him, even knowing his talent. They hadn’t blamed him, they’d accepted him. Even Rei, despite the fact that he couldn’t’ve known about Junpei’s talent- even then, he’d still been nice to him. If he let himself freeze up, if he stumbled, he’d only be letting all of them down, wouldn’t he?
He’d take on all the bad luck in the world, if he had to- he’d just make sure to keep his promise. He had to.
