[The compulsion to be honest with his thoughts yanks the words out of him. No, he won't be forgetting. Hasn't, in fact, forgotten each growl and threat before this one.
Mondo doesn't finish his aborted sentence and Ryuji doesn't ask, because the truth of the matter is, Ryuji would be wary of him and what he's capable of no matter how the protest ended. Much as he is a fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread, he doesn't underestimate the very real possibility of danger--danger of what Mondo could do in a temper.
And yet.
Every new facet he hears about Hope's Peak and whatever had gone on there is worse than the one before it. A gang on its own wouldn't warrant sympathy, but the obvious machinations around their lives--reducing them to leverage to motivate Mondo to kill to protect them--is nauseating.
There's no justification for murder, none, but this game master had done everything he could to compel people to believe it was the only choice. Kill, or be killed and have those you care for killed.
He can't forgive the end result, but goddamn. He can understand the pressure. It's a slippery slope when you're pushed, pushed, pushed and have to make a decision that affects lives. Even Ryuji, who likes to think "commit a crime or don't commit a crime" is the easiest choice to make, isn't so blind that he can't see that.
For a while after Mondo finishes describing his blackout (and it makes a hideous sort of sense now, an application of character motivation to the two players acting out their parts in that slice of memory before), Ryuji can find nothing to say. It's not a purposeful, sardonic silence this time around, but one born of the same weariness that settles over Mondo now. It's not for the faint of heart, going down this grotesquely fucked up rabbit hole and into a world where robot bears torment high school students to their breaking points and beyond.
He almost regrets standing up; he feels like he needs to sit down and put his head between his knees.]
You didn't kill anyone before Fujisaki.
[This, finally, is muttered out as Ryuji collects himself, head down and voice faint. It's not nearly enough, not even what needs saying, but it's all that initially comes out.
Then he looks up and that anger Mondo had sparked is visibly reduced to ash in his pale, drawn face, lips pressed to a thin line.]
Happy? Nah. Ready to hurl on your floor is the better way to put it. Why'd it take you so long to say this, Oowada? Would you have if Wonderland wasn't makin' ya?
When I asked you before, you made it sound like you did it just 'cause.
[And maybe that had partly been Ryuji's anger assigning reasons that Mondo had refused to give. It doesn't change the how and the what, but it does change the why.]
no subject
[The compulsion to be honest with his thoughts yanks the words out of him. No, he won't be forgetting. Hasn't, in fact, forgotten each growl and threat before this one.
Mondo doesn't finish his aborted sentence and Ryuji doesn't ask, because the truth of the matter is, Ryuji would be wary of him and what he's capable of no matter how the protest ended. Much as he is a fool who rushes in where angels fear to tread, he doesn't underestimate the very real possibility of danger--danger of what Mondo could do in a temper.
And yet.
Every new facet he hears about Hope's Peak and whatever had gone on there is worse than the one before it. A gang on its own wouldn't warrant sympathy, but the obvious machinations around their lives--reducing them to leverage to motivate Mondo to kill to protect them--is nauseating.
There's no justification for murder, none, but this game master had done everything he could to compel people to believe it was the only choice. Kill, or be killed and have those you care for killed.
He can't forgive the end result, but goddamn. He can understand the pressure. It's a slippery slope when you're pushed, pushed, pushed and have to make a decision that affects lives. Even Ryuji, who likes to think "commit a crime or don't commit a crime" is the easiest choice to make, isn't so blind that he can't see that.
For a while after Mondo finishes describing his blackout (and it makes a hideous sort of sense now, an application of character motivation to the two players acting out their parts in that slice of memory before), Ryuji can find nothing to say. It's not a purposeful, sardonic silence this time around, but one born of the same weariness that settles over Mondo now. It's not for the faint of heart, going down this grotesquely fucked up rabbit hole and into a world where robot bears torment high school students to their breaking points and beyond.
He almost regrets standing up; he feels like he needs to sit down and put his head between his knees.]
You didn't kill anyone before Fujisaki.
[This, finally, is muttered out as Ryuji collects himself, head down and voice faint. It's not nearly enough, not even what needs saying, but it's all that initially comes out.
Then he looks up and that anger Mondo had sparked is visibly reduced to ash in his pale, drawn face, lips pressed to a thin line.]
Happy? Nah. Ready to hurl on your floor is the better way to put it. Why'd it take you so long to say this, Oowada? Would you have if Wonderland wasn't makin' ya?
When I asked you before, you made it sound like you did it just 'cause.
[And maybe that had partly been Ryuji's anger assigning reasons that Mondo had refused to give. It doesn't change the how and the what, but it does change the why.]