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Mukuro didn’t know how she ended up here.
Rather, she technically did. She could trace back the steps that lead her to be standing in front of Despair Bar, and identify that her sister was at the root of the situation. Like every situation, to be frank; it would do Mukuro well to remember that. She couldn’t deduce what came before that, though. If there was anything preceding Junko’s madness, her way of making Mukuro follow her like a little puppy, she couldn’t remember it. Why was her sister so determined to drink herself away every night, at this specific bar, at this specific place? Didn’t she have better things to do?
Mukuro was here to make sure her sister didn’t fuck up too bad. That’s it. That, and the fact that she grew more bored and more lost whenever she was left on her own, alone in a broken house they crashed into, stepping over dead bodies and sliding half-filled soda cans into their backpacks. There was nothing to do anymore. It was boring. So Mukuro decided to follow her sister, because even though it was unpleasant, it was better than mindless boredom. That was why.
She hardly had time to take in the place when she entered before gagging on the thick smell of alcohol and sex. There was a crowd of people, laughing and gambling and taking shots, and a surprising amount of people making out. Nobody noticed her presence as she walked in, a large majority listening to a drunk man twist a bunch of lies into a story. One guy punched him in the shoulder, and he laughed heartily - but Mukuro could see a dangerous glint in his eye, something that went unnoticed by the crowd. She stumbled over to where the bar stools were, taking the seat farthest from everyone else in the bar. She wasn’t planning on socializing, not in this place. Maybe before despair set in, she would have liked talking to people in bars. Not now, though. She’d never get the chance.
Mukuro beckoned the bartender over as she made herself comfortable on the red-cushioned seat. All things considered, including the horrid aroma and the bad company, this was a fairly nice-- well, expensive-- place to drink at. Well funded, clearly, a shocking contrast against the dilapidated (or, in some cases, burning) buildings surrounding it. Drinking had become a priority in people’s lives, it seemed, enough for stolen money to go into it. Drinking, along with the other stuff this place condoned.
The bartender moved over to face her. Mukuro noticed that he had green hair tumbling into his face, concealing irises the color of poison. He had bags under his eyes and various marks on his neck (hickeys?) that he didn’t bother to cover up. He didn’t smile at her, instead saying in a tired and apathetic voice, “Welcome to Despair Bar, where we serve the best drinks before the establishment’s imminent destruction. Today’s special is a Bloody Mary, made with the blood of the guy who died last week. What can I get you?”
Mukuro was taken aback by the introduction, but what was she expecting? Of course this was the kind of place Junko would spend her nights at. Of-fucking-course. “I’ll have water.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Spiked?”
“No?” It came out more like a question. How would someone even spike water?
“Poisoned?”
“Don’t fuck with me.” He stared at her blankly. She rolled her eyes and threw her hands up. “I’m the one drinking it, why the hell would I want it poisoned?”
He shrugged. “Despair Bar has a record of three suicides in the past month from ordering poisoned drinks willingly. Something about the adrenaline of knowing you’re about to die, I don’t know.” He sounded exasperated by the end of his sentence.
“Well, I just want water. Normal water.”
His smile was twisted. “Let’s see if we actually have that.”
He disappeared into a room in the back, and Mukuro took the time to observe the people in the bar. In the corner, there was an arm wrestle between a fuschia-haired boy with a hyena laugh and neon tattoos and a short boy with an eyepatch and a permanent scowl. The girl beside the latter had an insane smile and clapped giddily, her matted silver hair flying everywhere. Supporting the tattooed man was a girl with dyed hair (the blue and magenta streaks were fading) and many piercings. The knives she had along her black leggings betrayed that she wasn’t as innocent as she seemed.
In the corner, two people were making out feverishly, hands under skirts and loose shirts. Next to them, a group of five people— no, kids — laughed and cheered them on. One was Towa Monaka, definitely. The longer she looked at the scene, the more Mukuro noticed the age of the couple, how they seemed only a bit older than Towa. She averted her eyesight back to the bar. It was too much.
The bartender returned, doing a quick scan for other customers before handing her the drink, “Here ya go.”
“Payment?”
He smirked. “It’s water. You don’t have to pay.”
“Isn’t pure water expensive these days?”
“Sure, sure. But seriously, you’re fine.”
“Alright.” She sipped the water. It tasted a little like metal, but her parched throat was grateful for the cool liquid; she drank it all at once, wiping her mouth when she was done. She looked up at the man in front of her, who was now cleaning the bar with a washcloth, and watched him with interest. There was something about him that seemed different from the other occupants in the bar, something that Mukuro likely shared. He seemed really tired, fed up with the antics and insanity filling the bar. She could be wrong, but maybe he wasn’t in that much despair. Not yet. “Hey, what’s your name?”
He blinked slowly, looking confused, but answered regardless. “...Amami.”
“Amami…” She prompted.
“Amami Rantaro.”
“I’m Ikusaba Mukuro.”
“I’m aware. Could recognize you miles away.” He gestured to his left. When Mukuro followed his gaze, she saw her sister sitting in someone else’s lap, clearly drunk. Her outfit was more risque than Mukuro remembered, and it took a moment to deduce that Junko had taken off the hot pink top she was previously wearing, leaving behind lingerie. Jesus. Amami looked at her pitifully, if not also darkly entertained. “That your sister?”
“Yeah.”
“Ms. Spreader of Despair herself.” He gave Mukuro a look, something she equated with a wild, feral animal. “Makes my blood boil. Would love to treat her to my speciality. I can mix a lethal poison is approximately 41 seconds.”
The threats hardly phased her, even with their intimidating delivery. “Not surprised. I doubt you’d praise her; you don’t seem to be despairing.”
Amami shook his head. “There are ways to despair without being homicidal and delusional.”
“Really?” She scoffed. “When I think of despair, I think of mass murder. Blood everywhere. People constantly kissing my sister’s ass.” She spit those words out like they were rotten, like they burned to taste. “If there are ways to despair and not be a masochistic sadist, I haven’t found it anywhere, and I’ve been everywhere.”
He chuckled. “Damn straight.”
“If you aren’t… all that… why are you working here? In a bar like this ? Are you secretly tempted by the sheer hysteria this place reeks? You a tiny bit of a masochist? Or, hah, maybe you’d have to be a sadist to stay here. So why are you here?”
“Far from all that.” He smiled grimly. “My boyfriend had a job in this area, and I wanted to keep us financially stable just in case. Because, y’know, amidst anarchy there is still the need to not be deprived of your basic needs. Figured being a bartender was easy enough. Could smuggle some alcohol on the long nights. But… well, things change. My job hasn’t, clearly. I don’t have anywhere else to go except straight to hell where most people belong. So I’m here.”
“Your boyfriend…?”
“Dead. Murdered. Mutilated. Stabbed 76 times. Died after the 12th; went straight through his palpitating heart. Came home to his corpse waiting for me in bed. You can thank your sister for all that, by the way.” His face remained stoic and apathetic, but there was something shimmering in his eyes.
Mukuro’s eyes widened slightly. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, you weren’t the one who killed him. So it’s fine. Whatever.” He scrubbed at the bar more vigorously, muttering under his breath. “Should have expected it. Should be thankful for it. After all, the world was too shitty for him to live in. Everyone gone, saved a man’s life. The crazies, crackheads, people who don’t care -” He threw the cloth down suddenly and made eye contact with Mukuro. The look in his eye was intense and intimidating, like an unkempt fire. “Do you know the name Saihara Shuichi?”
“... No.” She admitted.
“Yeah. Thought so. Not like he mattered to her . Just. Another. Fucking. Day.” Mukuro was half expecting him to pull something on her and attack her, but nothing came. She almost wish it did; it would be better than seeing his pained expression, watching what felt like a slow burn breakdown.
She chewed her lip, feeling like every question was akin to poking a sleeping bear, but she persisted. “What was he like?”
He leaned on the bar to stabilize himself, his shoulders trembling slightly as he spoke. “I get a feeling you’d would like him. Beautiful guy, honest, supportive, with me through everything. Always too willing to get hurt to find the truth, y’know? That’s what got him killed. One of his damned cases.” He laughed at himself sardonically. “He never fell to despair. He kept me from going mad. It’s like an affliction— despair, that is. Every night I’d be sitting on our bed, shaking and holding a knife or a gun, and he had to coax me into putting it away, into sleeping off the shittiness and paranoia. He said I’d helped him through too much to die on him; he said it would get better. And he fucking died still believing it.” The green in his eyes began to swirl. “If there was any mercy in this world, it died when it decided to kill him instead of me. That’s not survival of the fittest. That’s the world turning its bruised and bloody back on us.”
Mukuro didn’t know how to reply to that, so she asked instead, “Why did you get a feeling I’d like him? You don’t know me. At all.”
“I don’t know, Ikusaba. I just figured, hey, this chick doesn’t seem nearly as enraptured with despair as everyone else, because who the hell orders water at a bar? Figured she probably has a shitty situation with her sister. Probably wants to be good. Probably isn’t anyway. Probably killed more people than she’s ever known, but probably cried more about it than everyone in this bar combined.”
“Including you?”
“I don’t cry,” he said immediately, “‘just drink till I die.”
She let out a bitter, breathy laugh. “Well, your assumptions about me were pretty damn spot on.”
“You get good at reading people after a while.”
“Fair.”
They were silent again. Mukuro tapped her fingernails against her glass, fixating on the sound of keratin and hollow echoes. Her hands stilled when she heard a loud yell. She spun around on her chair to see two people in a fist fight. One was a tall girl with skimpy clothes, her hair flying around wildly as she pushed the other to the ground and beat her face in. The girl being pinned only looked about 17, with a small, petite frame, but she twisted the other’s arm painfully and jumped to her feet, shouting, “GOD IS DEAD, AND ALL THE ANGELS ARE HERE!” She was grinning like the cheshire cat, white hair plastered to her face by sweat. Her golden skin was red from exertion, barely concealed with her bralette and torn skirt.
“You crazy motherfucker! You get off on this?! Getting beat up makes you wet , don’t it, you pious, crazy son of a BITCH!” the other girl yelled, enraged, pulling the shrieking girl’s hair. She giggled loudly, even as white strands were torn out. Mukuro looked at Amami, expecting him to react, but he was frozen in place. His eyes followed the white-haired girl with something somber on his face. After what felt like years, the fight finally quelled, the tall and strong girl escaping with busted knuckles and a sprained arm, probably; the other girl had a bloody nose, cracked lips, a hell of a concussion, and red marks littering her skin. She limped out of the bar, screaming once more with her arms open like an embrace:
“GOD IS DEAD! THE ANGELS ARE HERE!”
Amami watched her leave, his chartreuse irises gazing out the window. He flinched as the door to the bar slammed shut, a little bell ringing with off-putting cheeriness. He sighed, mumbling to himself, “Angie, what happened to you?” His fingers drummed on the counter as he spoke, and Mukuro wondered if his mind had wandered to a different location, in a different time.
“What?” Mukuro questioned, knowing it wasn’t really her place but still wanting some explanation. “You knew that Shakespeare-reciting crazy bitch?”
“None of your damn business,” he snapped, pushing his hair back. He looked out the window again briefly, then shifted his gaze to address Mukuro. “Hey, I’ve got a question for you.”
She huffed. “Go ahead. I don’t have shit to hide.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right. People like you-,” He stopped himself. “Oh, whatever. What’s your job? Y’know, economy’s dead and all that bullshit, but you probably still work for something. What other reason is there to live? Do you just kill people, or are you unemployed?”
She rested her elbows on the table. “I’m my sister’s bodyguard, in all technicality. She can defend herself just fine, ‘s just a reason for her to drag me around.”
“Hah. Does she pay you?”
“Yeah. Amount varies. Type of payment... varies.” Mukuro swallowed back the lump in her throat, surprised that it was still there. After all the years she spent working for her sister and suffering from her wrath, her pride, her lust — Mukuro shouldn’t be shocked anymore. Even when her sister pulled her into a bedroom, reminding her that despair is disgusting and so was this, even if Mukuro already knew that. She knew the second that her sister, her goddamn sister , marked up her neck, reveling in the nauseating feeling of fucking her fucking sister . It was horrible. Worse than the abuse or neglect. It was sickening .
“Ikusaba?” Mukuro flinched at the feeling of Amami’s arm against her shoulder. His expression was shockingly caring, and he looked like an older brother, though slightly restrained and a bit distant. “You alright?”
“Yeah. Don’t worry about it.” She shook her head as if it could clear the thoughts from her mind. He removed his hand from her arm, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “How do you get paid?”
“Money. People buy drinks for me. People have sex with me.” He shrugged, acting way too nonchalant for the damage he had inflicted on him, for the pain he kept inside. “I usually don’t deal with the latter, though. Tsumiki— short girl, wanton, usually high— is off a lot, y’know, murdering people, but she’s more of a promiscuous stripper than a bartender when she shows up. She takes what she can get; it’s fine by me. She really likes your sister, apparently. Part of the Enoshima fan club. Alas, she’s gone right now, so Komaeda is the one your sister is probably fucking. Chain collar, disturbed pyromaniac, one of those damn Remnants. Tsumiki, too. He’s never happy about it— the sex, that is— but a job’s a job and it’s a great way to cope with trauma.” He laughed cynically. “Poor fucker. Pining desperately for that Kamukura Izuru guy, but always getting hurt instead. In love with the sequel, abused by the prequel. I pity the bastard.”
“That’s really fucked up.”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s despair, Ikusaba. You know better than anybody that this is only a sliver of what that means. You should see the shit I have to clean up after closing hours, when the despair is s’posed to stop. People like you have a semblance of respect, but there’s a lot of blood and other bodily fluids all over the damn bar, even in the staff room when Akamatsu went at it with some chick and a guy. It’s fucking despairing, the state of this place.”
Mukuro’s shoulders slumped, something in his words setting off her deepest, darkest thoughts. “You know, I wish I could despair, leave this place all fucked up and shit. I don’t want to see all this and pretend like I adore it. My sister could look at some dead carcass and think it’s a pinata or something. Eat minced roadkill like it’s fine dining. Wish I didn’t have to overthink shit and see it all as it really is.”
“... Yeah. As I said, I can despair without being mad as a hatter. Some might call that depression .” He said that word with extra emphasis, his voice filled with enough satire that Mukuro let out a rough laugh. He smirked a little at that. “I wish I could do what your sister does, though. Power trip or something. Watching everything with rose colored lenses, making all this blood hot pink. I wish I could do that. But all I can really do is serve drinks, make poisoned cocktails, get hickeys, and wait for the day me and Shuichi can meet again.” He laughed abruptly and loudly, making Mukuro flinch. “As if me and Shuichi would be in the same place. If there’s a heaven up there, that’s where he is. I’m going straight to hell.”
Mukuro reached out and took Amami’s hand. His eyes widened and he inhaled sharply in response, but didn’t let go. She was rarely this bold, but there was something about all of this that felt wrong, and it made the pressure in her chest grow and she had to stop that. “If it’s reassuring at all, I think you’re going to heaven. Or at least purgatory. You’re as good of a person as you can be in this world. Even if you are fifty shades of fucked up.”
He’s probably suffered more here than he could in hell, anyways.
“Also, uh... you said this earlier but… I don’t think you should have died. In place of your boyfriend, I mean. I don’t think either of you should have died.”
“...Heh. Thanks, Ikusaba.” His lip turned upward, just enough for Mukuro to relax in relief. “I just want to see Shuichi again. Funny, because I don’t believe in God. How could I? I doubt there’s an afterlife. I just want to see Shuichi, and fucking… apologize to him. For losing my mind and becoming this .” He threw his arms up, exasperated. “Who the hell am I? Telling a stranger all this shit when I should hate her for what she caused, going from calm to crazy to crazy to crazy -”
“I believe in God,” Mukuro said abruptly, cutting him off.
He looked at her in disbelief. “ Really ? Ikusaba Mukuro, believing in God?” He laughed, almost hysterically. His voice was sardonic, set in something akin to hatred. “What, did you find God in your victims? Wrote a bloodstained Bible with your sister, preached to the patrons? Where the fuck in this godforsaken world of damnation did you find God ?”
Did you find God in your victims?
“I think He hates me, of course He would. But… I still think He exists. And He’s really fucking mad. And He just watches the world fall apart and His creations fail, but people say that God always forgives. Maybe that’s why I want Him to exist. But would He forgive me? What’s the line between sinning and trying?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m not the believer. I mean, technically, you did something good just now. Comforting me and telling me I don’t deserve to die even though I’m an asshole with no remorse. That must mean something good for you.”
“Maybe.”
He blew a strand of hair away from his face. “I still think God is dead. Not sure if all good is dead as a result.”
“The only good I can think of is Naegi Makoto, and he’s dead.”
“Hah, and I envy him. But… I still think there’s something out there. Reason for my cognitive dissonance. Am I a heavy-hearted, nihilistic piece of shit who loathes the human race, or am I trying to protect everyone despite my failures with faith that there’s something good? Who decides that shit? There’s probably something out there, beaten and battered but still going like a heartbeat to prove us wrong. Maybe we aren’t beyond saving.”
Mukuro fell quiet at that. She wanted to believe it, that there was something good out there for them. She really liked the concept, that there was some end destination other than death or falling into a dark abyss of despair. Something like a heartbeat. Huh. Like the earth was beating itself, something going on in its molten core that encouraged those who heard it to find it, to find something to hold on to. And she used to be a soldier, so maybe she could be a fighter, too. Maybe she could find it. Or maybe she was going crazy, hoping mindlessly, trying to cling to something that wasn’t there. She wasn’t sure.
It took her a moment to notice that she had started holding Amami’s hand again.
“When do you have to leave?” Mukuro stilled at how nervous he sounded. “It’s one am, I’m guessing you have to leave soon.”
“I leave whenever Junko does.”
“Enoshima will be here all night, believe me.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“She’s only had six shots, after all. Is it really Despair Bar if Enoshima doesn’t wander in here ordering ten?”
Mukuro mirthlessly laughed. “You aren’t wrong.”
“Never am. So you’ll be here all night?”
“Yeah, guess so. Might walk around the nearby ghost town a bit. Take in some fresh polluted air, rob a couple stores. Y’know?”
He sighed for a moment. Mukuro noted something shifting in his eyes: something more sad. Something more desperate. Something more human , like the heartbeat that may exist somewhere. Maybe… maybe he was- “Can you stay?”
She startled at the abrupt request. “What? Why?”
“I… I… oh, fuck it. I need someone to talk to.” He looked like he was pleading, almost. Mukuro never asked for his age, but underneath the etches of stress and sadness, he looked young. Maybe eighteen. God. “You’re the only person that seems sane. Aside from Shuichi. But he’s gone. Fuck.” He laughed. “I know I look pathetic and weak right now, and I’m probably going to get killed for saying this, if anybody even cares , but I need someone right now who hasn’t gone off the deep end. Because… ‘cause I’m going off the deep end. And I need someone to stop me from doing that, because I’m seconds away from killing everyone in this goddamn bar and making a cocktail of poisons and just offing myself too. 41 seconds, Ikusaba. I have a pistol in a thigh holster; I’ve been prepared since he died. I wake up every day wondering if it’ll be the day when I fucking snap, and it’s terrifying that there’s nothing to stop me except cowardice. And… and it’s fine if you don’t care, because I don’t care about anything and I never showed you an ounce of human decency, but I just need you to humor me here.”
Mukuro hesitated. “Don’t you hate me? I’m sisters with the person who killed your boyfriend. I caused half of this shit, whether I meant to or not. I caused something I’m not even part of. How can you stand me?”
“I don’t know if I can claim I like you, Ikusaba, but I know that I don’t hate you. You seem... okay? It’s like fucking codependency. Or something. What’s the word for it? The word for like… not being someone’s friend, but needing them anyway because everything is shit and flipped upside down and I’m going to lose my mind. Maybe we could be friends. Somehow. I’d be fine with that. I don’t know. I. Don’t. Know. I’m fucking desperate, Ikusaba,” he rambled breathlessly, his voice getting more high pitched as he goes on.
Is he going to cry?
As her thoughts predicted, a single tear fell down his cheek. Maybe Amami did cry, but he didn’t want to admit it. He’s just a kid. “I need someone here because I’m fucking lonely. And even if it’s just one night or something, I don’t know, I need something to be okay. Nothing is okay anymore; nothing is fucking worth surviving. I’m fucking sick, I must be crazy, I’m-”
“Hey. Amami, hey. Breathe.” Mukuro felt on the verge of panic too from listening to him. “I’m staying. I’m a little crazy too, kinda really crazy, and you seem nicer than you give yourself credit for. Can I make a few guesses, like you did earlier?” He nodded. “You’re an altruistic person who turned to apathy once the world fell apart. You care about people even when they do horrible things, and it makes you mad. You probably lost a lot of people to despair. You probably blamed yourself.” Her guesses were less confident than Amami’s, shaky and hesitant, but when she finished she felt a pang in her chest, like that was the whole truth despite nobody wanting it to be.
“You’re perceptive. Consider me-” a shaky inhale “-impressed. I’m not a good person, Ikusaba, but I… I trust you. It’s dumb, because why would I? How could I trust you? But I do. I really fucking do.”
“I trust you too. Don’t… don’t lose yourself to the despair. Don’t let it get to your head.”
“Never. Has it gotten to you?”
“Not yet,” she said, heaving in a breath like a survivor. “Not. Yet.”
For a moment, they just stared at each other, clinging to each other in the middle of a bar where another fight was breaking out and what sounded like a stripper was moaning loudly. It was so loud, but they stared at each other, like collateral damage but also like catalysts to the destruction. They only understood each other, and it’s the saddest thing Mukuro had ever seen-- a broken man with emotions flicking like a lightswitch, trauma lurking in his mind, and one half of despair’s mother, who abandoned her work on the same battered doorstep where she was born. It was so fucking sad .
The silence was broken by Amami. “Can I get you something else to drink? Night’s still high.”
“Just water, Rantaro.”
“Rantaro…?” He trailed off.
“We could die at any moment, fuck the formalities.”
“Yeah. It feels… nice to hear that. It’s been too fucking long since someone… yeah... anyways, I’ll grab me a liquor and get you water, Mukuro. Not poisoned, not spiked, just its God-honest truth.” He smiled, and it was genuine. It made something lighter in Mukuro’s chest. “Be right back.”
Maybe there was something good out there after all. Even if it could only be found in a complete stranger, depressed and exhausted, carrying shot glasses and a tired, tired smile, but still a smile . Maybe there was something good, pumping like a heartbeat, open like an embrace.
And for the first time in years-- Mukuro prayed.