Chapter Text
Sight- Grimy concrete walls and ceiling. A sturdy metal door on the other side of the dark room. A limp human body shaking slightly while lying curled up in one corner of the room.
Sound- Eerie silence, besides his own shaky breathing and the quiet, distant sound of moving water emitting from behind the metal door.
Touch- Freezing concrete floors. Aching limbs. Stiff, dirty clothes rubbing against his skin.
Smell- Damp cement. Sweat. Blood.
Taste- Metallic yet bitter, despite no food touching his tongue for days.
These were Shota Ito's five senses. He had a feeling the boy in the other corner of the room was feeling the same way.
Shota slowly moved his left arm into his view. Counting the circular scars on his arm felt like nothing compared to the other injuries he'd received now. This was his only distraction from his aching body at this point, even though it hurt to even lift it that long.
A cough from the boy across the room made him shift his gaze towards him.
It wasn't uncommon for Junpei to cough, yet Shota always found himself looking at him whenever he did, as if he could actually do anything to help if something was fatally wrong. Junpei probably wouldn't let him help anyway. Whether it was because he hated Shota or wanted to die, he wouldn't know.
The the metal door slowly creaking open followed by the almost just as grating sound of that monster's voice playfully calling out to them broke Shota straight out of his thoughts.
He instinctively sat up, eyes going wide and body stiff. Whereas Junpei stayed concerningly still.
The imminent pain Shota knew he was about to feel began crawling up his body as if it was already there. His stomach twisted into a violent knot. He somehow managed not to throw up.
How had they even gotten here? What went wrong? Why was this even happening?
Just why?
~~~~~~
The day it all happened was a bit of a blur.
Shota remembered his school had been holding a small celebration for him because he'd won the National Book Report contest with a book report he'd forced someone else to write for him.
He'd glanced out at all the other students around him, noticing Junpei wasn't there. For whatever reason, he always looked for him and felt disappointed when he wasn't around.
Suddenly, everyone in the room fell unconscious. And right then, Shota locked eyes with the now present Junpei Yoshino.
He was wearing a black jacket and a soulless look Shota had never seen before. He started asking him questions he didn't understand. Something about putting a- finger? in his home.
Shota answered truthfully, saying he didn't know what he was talking about.
Apparently, that wasn't what Junpei wanted to hear.
Multiple circular burns started forming on the left side of Shota's body, quickly spreading up his arm and to his face. It hurt like hell. Before Shota could properly panic, Junpei punched him.
That's when things got fuzzy.
Junpei continued beating him. Shota apologized weakly, but Junpei didn't care. He thought he was gonna die. What a dumb way to go out. Killed by the person he'd tormented for so long.
Someone yelling and fighting Junpei caused him to drop Shota to the ground, turning his attention to this other boy instead.
With the sound of yelling and fighting in the distance, Shota, unable to cling to consciousness any longer, passed out.
When he woke up, he expected to be in the hospital or, in the worst case scenario, dead. So when he looked around, he was shocked to see neither were the case. Instead, he was in the same grimy room that would become his prison cell.
A loud banging and yelling from across the room got him to slowly sit up, pushing through his pain. His eyes adjusted to the darkness as he looked at the person causing all the noise. He soon realized it was Junpei.
He was banging on a metal door and yelling for someone Shota had never heard of to please open it. He sounded and looked extremely desperate.
“Wh-what the hell is going on?” Shota asked, his voice coming out weak.
Either Junpei didn't hear him or just didn't care, because he continued what he was doing.
Shota was trying to figure out what was going on for himself when the door slowly started to open.
Junpei backed away, allowing a tall man with long, dusty blue hair and stitches running all over his face and arms to step into the room. Something about his long smile made Shota very uncomfortable. His discomfort only grew when the man's multicolored eyes fixed on him for a second before focusing back on Junpei.
“Mahito! Wh-what's going on?! I don't understand!” Junpei cried, speaking very fast.
The man- Mahito reacted to this by laughing. Like really laughing. As if Junpei had just told some joke. Once his laughter died down, he grinned down at Junpei, who had backed away a little more out of fear.
“Oh, Junpei. You're even stupider than I thought! How foolish can one human be? Did you really think I brought you here to 'save' you? Even after all that back at your school, you're still clinging to our 'friendship?!'” Mahito moved closer to Junpei as he talked while Junpei kept moving away from him.
Now Shota was even more scared and confused. They clearly knew each other, but how?
But Mahito wasn't finished yet. “Since you're apparently too stupid to figure it out, I'll spell it out for you. You and that brat are only alive because I thought you could be a good form of entertainment for me. And...” he reached out and put his hand on Junpei's shoulder. “I needed some new experiments.”
Junpei stared at him, body starting to shake. “Wh-why? Then why would you help me? Why'd you... you were there when- my mom!” He sounded like his entire world was crumbling all around him.
“Oh, right! That.” Mahito leaned in closer to the boy like he would whisper in his ear, but Shota could hear exactly what he said next.
“I was the one who put that finger in your home.”
Junpei's eyes went wide. If Shota hadn't known any better, he would've thought Junpei died right then. He looked like a corpse.
Mahito laughed once again, but he somehow sounded even more insane this time. “Such despair! How much worse can I make it?!”
With that as his only warning, he grabbed Junpei by the throat and tackled him to the ground. His other hand pressed against Junpei's stomach and started morphing it in strange ways while Junpei cried, punched, kicked, and screamed all at the same time.
Shota had no idea what was happening, but Junpei had just levitated him earlier, so he figured he was witnessing some type of- magic? he didn't know existed. What he did know was that if he didn't move now he'd be next.
Mahito seemed completely distracted with Junpei, and the door was still open. Shota figured he could escape if he got a head start. He was scared. He didn't want to die. He had to go now.
His gaze fell on Junpei, and all of a sudden, he couldn't move. His eyes darted between Junpei and the door.
Shota was a selfish person. He knew it. All he wanted to think about was saving his own skin. That's what he told himself he should do.
But Shota Ito was human. And even though he was a selfish one, he wasn't above falling victim to the human urge to protect another.
Before he could stop himself, Shota picked up a piece of concrete and threw it at Mahito.
Shota had played some baseball before, and he had a pretty good arm, even when injured. That's why he was shocked to see Mahito look completely unscathed.
He let go of an exhausted Junpei and moved off him, turning his attention to Shota, who was really regretting his decision.
Mahito's blue and gray eyes pierced into Shota's soul. A wide grin spread onto his face. “Well, well, well, looks like I have a pair of little lovers here. I think we'll have a lot of fun together.”
With that, Mahito walked out of the room, shutting and locking the door behind him.
~~~~~~
Shota had honestly lost track of how long him and Junpei had both been trapped here.
The two had been dragged out of the room and tortured ever since, their bodies beaten, bruised, slashed, and twisted in unnatural ways due to Mahito's abnormal abilities.
The dread setting into his stomach whenever he was dragged out of the room would be a feeling Shota would never forget. The sensation of Mahito's power was indescribable. Even though it morphed flesh, it always felt like it was really twisting something deeper inside. The very soul within him.
Shota wasn't sure what Mahito was, but he knew he wasn't human. Junpei wouldn't tell him anything.
In fact, he'd hardly spoken since the first day they arrived. Shota tried to hold onto some hope of escaping and still reacted like a normal human when tortured. But Junpei was different.
He never moved from the corner besides when Mahito forced him to. His body would shake sometimes, but other times, he was so still Shota would wonder if he'd died.
Shota thought this was just a regular day. He was slumped against the back wall, but he was planning on lying back down soon. Junpei was lying in the corner like usual. He'd been thrown back into the room by Mahito not long ago.
Shota had grown tired of counting all the gunk on the ceiling, and even though he thought it was pointless, decided to say something to Junpei. “What was the whole finger thing about?”
To his surprise, Junpei spoke. “What?”
“When we first got here, you both said something about a finger. What was that about?”
Junpei went silent again, so Shota thought he was done talking. But he was surprised yet again. “It was a cursed object. Brings things like Mahito to it.”
That kinda made sense. “Okay.” Shota didn't know how long it would be before Junpei would be willing to speak to him again, so he attempted to continue the conversation. “Why'd you think I did that?”
“Because you hate me.”
Shota's chest tightened. Now he felt even more uncomfortable. “What happened with it?”
“A curse killed my mom.”
That answer was enough for Shota to understand his anger. He knew Junpei's dad wasn't in the picture and that he had no siblings, so his mother was his only family. Shota was a bit embarrassed to admit it, but he kinda knew more about Junpei than the other students attending his school. He knew Junpei loved his mother. Losing her must've broke him.
“Oh...”
“I thought you killed her, but...” Junpei's grip around his arms tightened. “I did.”
Shota felt like he should say something but chose not to. So their conversation ended, both going silent. Well, almost. Junpei could be heard quietly crying in his corner.
Hours passed by with no words spoken between them. Shota sighed and glanced at Junpei.
He jumped a little, not expecting Junpei to be staring right at him. That's when Shota realized he hadn't seen Junpei's face in a while. He was always turned away from him whether he was in the corner or going in and out of the room.
He looked gaunt. His one green eye uncovered by his dark brown hair had dark eye bags underneath. His visible eye was wide for a second, having not meant for Shota to see him, before it gradually glazed over. He looked exhausted, depressed, and roughed up, but Shota still thought he looked-
A trickle of blood from under the piece of hair covering Junpei's right eye instantly distracted Shota.
“What did he do to you?”
Junpei moved his bang out of his face, revealing his unrecognizable eye socket. It appeared to be sealed shut and dried blood was stuck all around it. A tiny trickle of fresh blood dripped onto the concrete floor.
The words caught in Shota's throat. He was used to violence. He was responsible for the cluster of circular cigarette burns above Junpei's bloody eye socket. He'd been the main contributor to Junpei's suffering in life, and he'd enjoyed it. But the sight of something “that” brutal shocked and disturbed him.
“He ripped my eye out, but he sealed it so I wouldn't bleed out. Did a pretty crappy job, though. What about you?” He spoke in a soulless manner, but there was a tinge of the true pain anyone would've been feeling in his voice.
“I... got some scars and lost a few fingers last time.” Shota held up his left hand, showing off three fingers and morphed flesh where the other two once were.
They obviously hadn't been keeping track of each other's injuries. Junpei barely looked at him. But Shota had caught a glance of Junpei's face when he came back today. Even though it would've been near impossible to see, the fact hours went by before he realized Junpei lost an eye really bugged him. He just wasn't sure why.
But that wasn't the only thing bugging him. He couldn't help noticing that Mahito clearly favored experimenting on one of them over the other. Junpei was taken out more often and, on closer inspection, seemed to come back with worse injuries. Mahito and Junpei knew each other before this. Maybe things were just more personal? He shouldn't be so curious. Better Junpei than him. But still, Junpei was finally talking to him. No better time to try asking about it, right?
“So, what's the story between you and that monster?”
Junpei's eye widened for a minute and darted to the side. “We... I thought he was my friend. But he was just using me. He said he'd teach me how to kill like him. But he never cared about me. I was stupid, and I got my mother killed and lost my one true friend because of it.”
Tears started to well up in his eye as he bit his lip. He turned around, staring at the corner again like always. “Go ahead. Make fun of me.”
But Shota didn't laugh. Instead, he asked about the main thing that caught his attention. “You had a friend? You mean, an actual friend, not that monster, right?”
Junpei sniffed. He was obviously crying again. “Yeah. His name was Yuji Itadori. He liked movies. He...” His crying picked up. “He was so kind. I-I don't know what happened to him. Mahito won't tell me.”
Shota never knew Junpei had a friend. Guess it made sense, because he hadn't been attending school for a while. He could've met anybody within that time he hadn't seen him. And apparently he did. “Oh.”
Shota went silent again, Junpei's crying the only sound to be heard now. He'd heard Junpei cry before. He knew what it sounded like. He'd even enjoyed it. But something was different this time. His eyes still locked on Junpei's shivering form, he tried to think of something to say.
The creak of the door forced Shota's attention to snap towards it.
Mahito popped his head into the room, a small tray with rice and two cups of water in his hands. A smile spread onto his face. “Aww, look at the lovers!” He carelessly set the tray down, sending grains of rice and drops of water flying to the ground.
Junpei curled up a bit more, not wanting Mahito to see him cry. But Mahito walked right over to him, pulling his hair so he was forced to face him.
“Ah- Hey!” Without thinking, Shota rushed over to him and attempted to stop him, only to be shoved to the ground. Before he could react, Mahito pushed Junpei right on top of him.
“Go ahead. Kiss! Don't be shy.” He mocked, pushing Junpei's face closer to Shota's.
Shota froze up, his face turning red and body heating up. Junpei looked like he didn't know what to do, and for a second, he froze up too. But he quickly came to his senses and rolled off Shota.
Mahito pouted. “Aww, how sad. I sure hope you two aren't breaking up!” He started to cackle like he'd just heard the funniest thing ever. “Well, eat your food. Or don't. I don't care!”
With that, he left, locking the door behind him like usual.
An awkward minute of them both catching their breath while occasionally glancing at each other passed by before Junpei scowled at nothing in particular and went back to his corner.
Shota inspected the items on the tray. The rice looked edible, thank goodness. No utensils provided, though. Shota hadn't expected any, considering they weren't present any of the other times they were fed. The water in the paper cups looked fine too. He was just glad Mahito wasn't giving them sewer water.
He looked back at Junpei. “You gonna eat?”
“No.”
He'd expected that answer. Junpei hadn't been eating, and it showed. He was always pretty skinny, but now he was concerningly so, his once tighter looking black jacket now appearing a bit big on him.
Shota moved over to the tray to eat the food like he'd done before. Well, at least, that's what he knew he should've done. But instead, he dragged the tray over to Junpei.
The sound of the tray scraping against the concrete floor got Junpei to look over his shoulder.
“Here.”
“I don't want any.”
Why was he so focused on Junpei's health? If he didn't want anything that just meant more food for him, right? “At least drink some water.”
Junpei gave him a weird look but did sit up and grab a cup of water off the tray. He took a light sip, eyeing Shota. “What's up with you?”
To be honest, Shota wasn't sure. “If you die, I'll be stuck here all by myself.” That explained why he cared. So why didn't he feel like that was true?
“Mm,” Junpei took another small sip from his water but didn't make any attempt to take any food.
Shota groaned. “Ugh...just eat!” He pushed the tray closer to Junpei until one of its ends was pressed against his leg.
Junpei looked at him with an expression of anger mixed with confusion. “Only cause my empty stomach is getting annoying.” He put some rice in the palm of his hand while using the other to grab and eat each cluster.
Oddly satisfied that he got Junpei to eat, Shota scooped up a little bit of rice for himself.
They still had an awful relationship, but no matter how much they hated it, they were stuck with each other. They were the only one the other had now. And no matter how hard it was to accept, they would most likely die together.
But deep down, Shota felt like he wouldn't mind Junpei being the one he'd die with.
~~~~~~