Chapter Text
You have always been alone.
You're not complaining! That's just how it's always been. Nagito Komaeda, the loner, the weird kid, the freak. That's what you were. You didn't mind it! It stung, at first, until you realized that in reality, none of the people who avoided you were worth it.
After all, they were talentless.
It took you a while to realize this. To realize you were better than them—that they were the ones wrong. After all, they were so egotistical. You admit you don't have much going for you, but at least you knew your part to play. You knew you were inherently inferior to those with talent; that was why you were better than these people who ignored you, these self absorbed, self obsessed garbage. You, unlike them, knew your place.
That's why it didn't matter that they ignored you. They weren't even worth your time in the first place; no, the only ones worth your time were those who served hope. Those with talent, and maybe, to a lesser extent, those who realized how inferior they were, just like you, and dedicated their life to propping up those worthy. Unfortunately, those seemed to be few and far in between.
You hated the people who shunned you. Not because they shunned you! But because they didn't realize. Yes, you were garbage, and you didn't mind being treated like such, after all, it was the natural order—but you hated how they didn't seem to realize that they were also inferior.
Ah, how audacious of them! How foolish, and blind! They were nothing more but pigs, fucking swine, and honestly, you were probably better off without their company. Why would you want to hang around people who didn't know the first thing of how this world worked?
(you were lonely)
They were worthless! Of course, so were you. More than worthless, you were cursed! Cursed to doom those all around you. Even if someone got close, they would surely just die anyways. Really, it wasn't worth it. It took a while for you to understand that, but you truly understood now! You were someone meant to be alone.
It was proven, time and time again, after all, that anyone who got close to you were doomed the longer they stuck around.
It was proven most effectively when your parents died right in front of you.
Ah, that's just how it was, though! No need to cry over it. It was just how things were. There was no use fighting; after all, who could truly fight fate? Yes, it was just your destiny to be alone forever. That's what you believed.
It was okay! Sure, when you were younger, questioning why you of all people were cursed like this, you cried countless tears over your fate. But that was before you realized!
Before you realized you deserved this.
Oh, it was quite simple really. This was punishment! Punishment for your inherent uselessness, your atrocity! It was fine if you thought about it like that. It wasn't really something you could change, so eventually, you just learned to stop crying about it!
(someone help me. i don't want this)
It was suprising when you got the letters in the mail. Not a lot surprises you, but this did! After all, anyone would be surprised that you got the two letters you had.
One made you feel so much bliss! For something as stupid and fickle as your luck, the curse you bore, you got accepted into somewhere as grand as Hope's Peak Acadamy! To be honest, besides the instinctive euphoria you felt, you weren't sure what else you should feel! For a moment, fantasies of meeting the Ultimates flashed in your head, of helping them shine, helping them reach their full potential!
Then you realized how arrogant that sounded. You? Help the Ultimates? They probably didn't need you at all! How audacious, Nagito Komaeda! You scolded yourself. You really are the lowest of the low! What could you even do for people so radiant?
Besides, you would never deserve to enter! Actually, how dare you even think for a moment you could! To stand on their level, and shine with them... How dare you? How dare you even think of doing such a thing!? Garbage! Trash! Fucking scum!
You sent a letter back declining your entry to Hope's Peak Academy.
The school sent a letter begging you to reconsider, because, when they did the lottery again after you declined, your name was chosen once more.
They tried this three times before they gave up and sent you another letter.
Luck is a talent we don't even understand, they said, neatly typed on the paper. Please, please reconsider. We want to advance our research into talent, and you might be key in our studies!
And, well. How could you say no to that? Hope's Peak Academy needed you! Oh, you knew it was truly disgusting to hope that what they said was true, but it had to be, didn't it!? It was Hope's Peak saying it! Surely they couldn't be wrong!
You felt so giddy at the news. Finally, you would finally be of use to those you admired! Finally, useless, trash Nagito Komaeda was going to mean something!
(you just wanted to mean something)
You felt so ecstatic, and that's why, in the back of your mind, you felt dread. You knew what this meant. Things were going too well. This was too much good luck. Something awful must be waiting just around the bend! But even with that thought, you were so incandescently happy, that in that moment, nothing else mattered. You were going to matter! You were going to be of use!
(please, please. it can't all be for nothing. please don't let my suffering all be for nothing. let it mean something. let me mean something. please)
(it hurts so much to be alone.)
And then you opened the other letter, and felt your entire being freeze at the words.
Ah.
It seemed you were doing to die.
You supposed it was a fair trade. A few, blissful years in the best high school there is, a few years where life would surely be heaven on earth, and then, finally, rest. You supposed it was fair. Your life for Hope's Peak Academy. Your sanity, too. Though now that you think about it, that might have already been going.
After all, according to this, the frontal temporal lobe dementia was pretty far along. That, with the cancer, will surely kill you in a few years. If you're lucky, at least, according to the doctors. Most other people wouldn't even last that long. It was a bit overboard to have both dementia and cancer in your opinion, but you supposed your luck was at play. The cancer would kill you first, and it would be a mercy. The way people die from dementia was far worse, after all, or so you've heard.
Oh well. Nothing to it. You supposed you just had to try extra hard at Hope's Peak, to make yourself useful before you died.
Such was the fate of life's favorite chewtoy.
(oh god oh god oh god)
(you were so scared)
(you didn't want to die alone.)