#asakura ryoko | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

aparticularbandit · 5 months ago

Text

(Am I) More Than You Bargained For (Yet) (II)

Chapter Summary: She presses a thumb against Junko’s forehead, right where it hurts, and Junko flinches. “You hit your head,” Haruhi says, but it sounds like maybe that’s not the whole truth. “It’s all swollen, and the school nurse didn’t know what to do.”

“H-H-Haruhi,” Mikuru interrupts, “you didn’t take her to the school—”

“Hush.”

Brought to you by a discussion @tobiasdrake and I had about what it would look like if Junko and Haruhi ever met.

Chapter Rating: T. Fic Rating: M for Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault.

AO3

previous chapter | next chapter

Now, the school’s cultural festival is a big event. Some might suspect, based on events in another timeline, that Haruhi decided to make a movie purely out of boredom with her own class’s goings on. Those same people might also suspect that in the absence of a certain Ryoko Asakura, there would be no one who would pick up her slack or lead the class in one direction or the other, and then they might further suspect that as a result, her class will end up doing nothing more than a boring survey, which no one really wants or likes.

There are three things wrong with this assumption:

In a world where Junko and Haruhi are in the same class and the class representative, for some unexplained reason, suddenly and abruptly moved to Canada with no warning and no way of contacting her, Junko herself would take the lead and suggest something else for the cultural festival because Junko herself would be so bored with even the idea of a survey that she would lead the charge for something a little less boring.

In a world where Junko Enoshima, an internationally acclaimed model, is one of their classmates, her very existence itself would lead someone to suggest some sort of fashion show, even though it would likely require her to make all of their clothes on her own time with no real compensation. (This is feature, not a bug.)

Ryoko Asakura hasn’t disappeared or suddenly, abruptly, and with no explanation moved to Canada, and so there is no vacuum of leadership that leads to the aforementioned situation where a survey might even remotely be a possibility.

Unfortunately for Junko, Asakura herself suggests the fashion show, to the overwhelming support of their classmates.

Now, Junko doesn’t sleep on a good night. She can’t get herself to relax without going so hard that she knocks herself out from sheer exhaustion. This is a dream. With the workload of designing and making Mikuru’s general Brigade costumes plus designing a whole host of different outfits for the fashion show (most of them variations on themes she’s already played with, which just means she’s undoing and redoing and improving on clothes Junk Co. already has in production) plus the very brand new handcrafted original pieces that she and Haruhi will be wearing plus all of the costumes Mikuru and Koizumi and Yuki are meant to wear in Haruhi’s movie—

It’s a lot.

It’s more than a lot.

What is sleep when there is all this work to do?

One afternoon, Haruhi storms into the clubroom a little later than normal. “That idiot!” She slams the door behind her. “I don’t care!” Then she crosses her arms, expecting Junko to ask her what happened and not even noticing she doesn’t as she whirls around on one heel and continues, “Asakura wants to change our outfits for your fashion show! And she stopped me like—” She stops abruptly and stares at the sight in front of her.

Junko. Not paying attention. Not moving.

Which is the weirdest thing she’s ever seen.

Junko’s just sitting at the table with a needle just pulled through fabric in one hand, her other arm resting on the table like she could keep sewing any minute, except…except she isn’t. She’s just frozen, chin against her chest, swaying softly.

(Okay, it’s honestly not the weirdest thing Haruhi’s ever seen because she’s done a lot of things that people would probably call weird if they saw it—

It’s just not weird to her! It’s just the way that you draw actual weird things to you! She’s trying her hardest, thank you very much, and it’s not her fault that the supernatural is just too smart to fall into any of her carefully laid traps!

…other than that ghost girl that one time. But that was one time! And besides, that should probably be a lot weirder than this!)

Haruhi smacks Junko upside the back of her head with a flat palm.

This does nothing.

Haruhi’s brow furrows, and she tries again. Harder this time.

This still does nothing.

Haruhi scowls. Fortunately for her, Junko refuses to wear a normal school uniform; at first, she wore a modified version of the girls’, and then she wore a modified version of the boys’ one, with the occasional comment from Asakura, as student representative, that maybe she should stick to her normal uniform. This led to Junko questioning what she meant by normal, and now Junko mixes and matches pieces from each until there isn’t so much one solitary uniform for both genders, just Junko’s uniform.

The point of all this is that today, Junko is wearing a tie.

Haruhi grabs the tie around Junko’s neck and tugs her upward into a standing position. The needle and fabric drop from Junko’s lap – the needle with a clatter, the fabric without much of a sound at all – but the sharp yank seems to have done nothing to Junko, who just stands there, slightly swaying, eyes fluttering.

I don’t have time for this!

And yet.

Haruhi releases her grip on Junko’s tie, and Junko falls, slamming her forehead on the edge of the table. Still nothing. It would be so easy to be convinced she was dead, if she wasn’t clearly still breathing. She doesn’t even flinch! Instead, she grimaces and mutters something unintelligible under her breath before curling up on the ground with her head on her arms.

Mikuru is waiting. She’ll be absolutely no help for this sort of thing. (Strength – physical or emotional – is not one of Moe’s strong suits. That’s the entire point! Moe makes someone want to protect them! They can’t be strong!)

….

You know what, actually, Junko is kind of cute like that.

Haruhi shakes her head. Not the point! She needs Junko to be awake! They have things to do!

UGH.

Why does everything have to be like this today?

Junko yawns.

….

The world is moving.

….

Is it….

Is it supposed to be moving?

….

Okay, sure, yes, the world is technically supposed to be moving, that’s why the day/night cycle exists, that’s why the year exists, that’s why there are breezes and storms and…not tides, funnily enough, which has more to do with the moon and nothing to do with the movement of the world, but she’s not thinking about that kind of moving, she’s thinking about the kind of moving she can actually feel happening around her.

(Think about it. Have you ever felt the world move?)

(….)

(Earthquakes don’t count.)

Junko yawns, and Junko stretches her arms up above her head, and Junko hits something overhead, and Junko shifts in her seat, and Junko rubs up against someone next to her, and Junko thinks, you know what, if that is what this is, why not play with it? She cracks one eye open – just enough to note that she is, in fact, on a train (with no explanation for how she got there, except for her neck and her forehead both being very, very sore all of a sudden, and she doesn’t remember either being that sore before) and that Haruhi is, in fact, the person sitting next to her, back to her, focused on – she cranes her ears – a conversation she’s having with Mikuru about something to do with some mobile app that they both really like – and then closes her eyes again and leans heavily against Haruhi.

“It’s no good. I already know you’re—”

Junko ignores Haruhi, pretends to mumble something unintelligible, and leans even more heavily against her.

Haruhi shifts.

Junko falls forward, only for her head to land in Haruhi’s lap. When Haruhi puts a hand in her hair, she keeps herself from tensing, expecting Haruhi to twist her fingers through her locks and pull her upwards. (Tensing would be a good way to affirm what Haruhi already knows to be true, and that would break the ruse and be much less fun.)

But Haruhi doesn’t.

Instead, Haruhi brushes her hand through Junko’s hair. Rough, of course, because Haruhi wouldn’t understand how to be gentle if it slapped her upside the face, but she’s…something, maybe. She presses a thumb against Junko’s forehead, right where it hurts, and Junko flinches. “You hit your head,” Haruhi says, but it sounds like maybe that’s not the whole truth. “It’s all swollen, and the school nurse didn’t know what to do.”

“H-H-Haruhi,” Mikuru interrupts, “you didn’t take her to the school—”

“Hush.” (Haruhi is probably shooting Mikuru a glare, but Junko doesn’t open an eye to see that. She sees enough of it during Brigade activities that she knows the look without needing to see it.) “I could have taken her before I found you!”

Mikuru probably shifts her eyes, probably looks away, probably shifts her feet together. “B-b-but you didn’t—”

“You don’t know that!”

Junko laughs, a bright tinkling sound, and Haruhi’s fingers tighten in her hair. “Wake up!” She shoves her out of her lap, but Junko catches herself before she falls too far. When she looks up, Haruhi’s arms are crossed, her nose up in the air, scowl on her face. “I had to carry you all the way from the clubroom!”

“Good thing I’m a model!” Junko brushes off her arms. (There’s nothing there, but it’s the action that matters.) “I don’t weigh anything!” She grins at Haruhi, who just sniffs derisively. Then she glances over to Mikuru, whose honey brown eyes are wide. (This is normal. They are always wide. Except, sometimes, when they aren’t.) “So where are we going?” she asks her, straightening her skirt before sitting back down.

“I don’t know.” Mikuru looks away. “Haruh said something about needing…sponsors?”

“For the movie! We need a camera! And—”

Junko barely listens as she finds her bag under her seat. She raises an eyebrow. What a surprising amount of thought. “You don’t need sponsors. You have me.” Her eyes widen as she finds the project she last remembers working on, the needle neatly set through the fabric with the thread still attached. She glances up at Haruhi, who still isn’t even looking at her.

“You’re not going to pay for everything, so we still—”

“I’m an internationally renowned supermodel, Haruhi.” Junko closes her bag and runs her finger along Haruhi’s jaw. “Let me be your sugar momma for one movie.” She gently turns Haruhi’s chin so that she faces her and grins. “Just tell me what you need,” she croons, “and we can work out some sort of…payment plan.”

Haruhi just glares at her. “Mikuru,” she snaps, gaze flicking over to her just as Mikuru squeaks, “you’re going to do whatever Junko wants for the next—”

“?!” Mikuru’s gaze flicks from Haruhi to Junko and then back again. Then it drops, and her fingers fidget together in her lap, knees turned inward, shoulders hunched forward. She glances up one last time, furtively at Junko, just as Junko drops her fingertips from Haruhi’s chin.

And again, Junko ignores her.

If you can’t stand up to Haruhi, you can at least stand up to me.

Take care of it yourself.

#bandit fic #that faint green light with junko and haruhi #danganronpa #the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya #junko enoshima #haruhi suzumiya #mikuru asahina #ryoko asakura #enoshimiya

3 notes · View notes