Chapter Text
Kiyotaka Ishimaru could never really say that he was stable. Ever since he was young, his whole life was rocky. His grandfather had left the family with debt and shame that was near nationwide. Of what he could remember of his childhood, he spent it alone. He isolated himself from everyone, even occasionally from his family, so they all couldn't isolate him on their own will. He pushed himself just about as far as he could, determined to restore his family's honour despite how impossible of a task that would be. He dedicated his entire life to being a perfect student, sacrificing any sort of a social life or attempt at hobbies for his studies. That's what got him into Hope's Peak, and that's what gave him his reputation for, as Mondo so kindly put it, "Having a major stick up his ass."
God, Mondo... When Kiyotaka was with Mondo, he was at the happiest he had been in all of his life. They'd started off on the wrong foot, certainly, but Mondo was the first and closest friend he'd ever had. Despite Mondo's chaotic nature, Kiyotaka cared for him greatly. And despite their situation, they were happy when they had each other.
Then everything came crashing down, just like it always did.
Because of the wretched killing game, Kiyotaka's "bro" had been ripped away from him. The heavy pressure of Monokuma's threats had pushed him, and he killed. There was nothing Kiyotaka could do to stop the inevitable. He tried to vote for himself instead of Mondo, he pleaded with the others, he did everything he could. His attempts were in vain, though, and he was still pushed along by his classmates to watch his only friend be brutally executed.
He had been hoping that, if he worked hard enough, he could fix himself and the damage his grandfather had done. But after Mondo was taken from him, he was shattered. There was no repairing him.
Kiyotaka spent a good while sobbing. He'd never cried so hard in front of others, though there were rarely others for him to cry around. He could tell that the others didn't really care how he was feeling, that some were even annoyed by his agony over the death of his closest companion. He took a break from his pain to explore, then retreated to his bedroom to be alone with his thoughts and the feelings that he'd never felt so strongly before.
He could tell he was on a downward spiral, but it was like he was watching himself from the opposite side of a pane of glass. He could see everything going downhill, but he could do nothing to prevent it.
He laid in bed, in and out of awareness. There was a voice in his mind that felt close and far all at once, and he didn’t like the familiarity of the feeling. It seemed like most of the memories that he could only vaguely remember from his youth carried the same feeling, and it made him feel even more out of it than he already was.
Something was wrong within Kiyotaka’s head. He was sure of it, and he had been sure of it for a long time. His father never had the money to get him diagnosed, though. Even if he had been, however, that couldn’t have prevented the inevitable. It couldn’t have kept him from getting worse.
Mondo’s death made him feel like he’d lost a part of himself. And, in a way, he had. Even though that part of him hadn’t shown itself yet completely, Kiyotaka was aware of it. And he was just about ready to give that part of him full control.