* headcanon + junpei’s alive. as it says on the tin, this is my take on versions wherein junpei survived. as reference, i am currently going with anime-manga fusion of him, though i have yet to catch up with manga fully ( i’m at the star plasma vessel arc ), and have only just finished season one. for a quick summarisation, i’ve written his biography over here.
# default version of survival: i have a few versions of how junpei could’ve survived, which again feel free to check the summarisation on his biography under “interpretation”, but unless discussed otherwise, i would go with the version wherein junpei did manage summon moon dregs, last-minute, to avoid mahito’s touch to his soul. the distraction helped when junpei then ran and dragged itadori to free-fall from the window.
# the fall actually had him impaled on a large shard of glass around the area of his torso, which he thought he will die from. using his last breath, he thanked yuuji for still wanting to put his faith in him and blacked out. this is mostly to respect the manga’s narration wherein yuuji snapped, thinking junpei had died, and changed his intention from “exorcising” to wanting to “kill” mahito.
# of course, later, nanami - upon checking junpei - said that he wasn’t yet dead, though his pulse was weak. junpei woke up to dr. ieiri overseeing him, and realised he is at tokyo jujutsu high. a few days later, junpei is enrolled.
# schooling and adjustment: okay, so, to be quick, this kid doesn’t like school. and i feel like, without yuuji there as a mediator or buffer, he had a really rough time adjusting; but he mostly held on, because yuuji had told him that he’ll be coming back to school soon, so he believed him. but outside of that faith, junpei is quiet, sullen almost, and he’s way under-experienced than the peers at the jujutsu tech which really kicked at his self-esteem - not that i think he had time to dwell on much, considering i know he’ll be trained like crazy.
# i would say that junpei even hated it - the environment and the inferiority that he must’ve faced at jujutsu tech - but at the same time, i feel like a lot of it were mostly born because he didn’t really have the proper time to mourn after his mother’s death, and his bad experiences from his past school time made him see the world in such a pessimistic way. he’s also continuously exhibiting symptoms of depression: erratic sleeping schedules, lost of interest, unstable cognitive ability wherein his attention lags or disappears. on top of it, he’s guilty - for having been played by mahito, for hurting yuuji (the first friend he’s had in a while).
# i would say things do get better because eventually junpei’s need to want to “pay yuuji back” gave him the strength to slowly get in shape; he would jog every morning, and eventually seek out to train with the second years, especially zenin. he started seeing his lite and skinny stature as something that can be quick - and that can be reliable to support, to help.
# on that note, i think junpei would maybe want to stay as a first year with yuuji ( remember - junpei is canonically a second year ) , but eventually i can see he finds more compatibility with the second years in terms of being able to communicate, sharing positive feedbacks, and seeing them - who are already advanced - as something that’s expected, when among the first years, he might feel like he’s only burdening itadori, fushiguro and kugisaki especially after the three of them are recommended to grade 1. although again, this is up to respective rp partner(s) i’ll be writing with!!!
tbc; i’ll add more as i read the manga, but yeah. this is the general overview i’ll be writing junpei with.