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“My beloved,” you call aloud. “Why are you still here?”
There’s not a response. There never is, even when you scream and wail at the top of your lungs and beg her to come back, to say something, for her to not leave you here in this lonely, pathetic world all by yourself.
You’re not alone, though. Not really. She doesn’t respond with words, no, but with her presence. It was enough before, and it’s enough for you now. Her forgiveness was her love, and her presence was her forgiveness. All she needed to do was stay by your side, and that reminded you that it was okay. It was okay for you to be a horrible, sick person, because Junko didn’t leave you for it.
She was by your side when you killed Nanami-san, after all.
You know she’s still there—maybe you’ll return home (if you can even call this dump a “home”) to find your bedsheets in a different position than you left them, or maybe you’ll shower and come out to find steam on the mirror in the shape of a heart. Little gestures like that—little reminders of her presence, her love—are what have kept you going.
It’s been a few months, you think, since everything happened. Since she was taken from you. You haven’t been counting down the days or anything, (not like you’ve seen a calendar recently, anyways) but you can tell that much. And...well, nothing has happened, which begs the question.
“Why are you still here, Junko?” You repeat the question, addressing her by name this time. It used to feel foreign on your tongue, but now it may as well be the only word you remember how to say correctly.
The days are getting shorter, and you’re growing more tired (and yet, more restless) with them. It’s her, and you know it. She always loved to hurt you, to take from you—she'd take everything you had to give, and then she’d take some more and fill in the cracks with pieces of herself. With her love, her forgiveness.
You always knew, deep down, that someday she’d take your life. You just didn’t expect it to be like this—for her to rot you from the inside out. It’s a fitting end, though, isn’t it? To die with a piece of her inside you, to become eternally hers at a biological level—oh, someone normal could never have dreamed of such a thing. But you aren’t normal, are you? You’re sick, and Junko loved you for it.
So why is she still here?
The site of the procedure became infected, and your (stupid, garbage) body rejected her. Leaving it inside was a death sentence, but losing Junko would be a fate worse than death. You made your choice a long time ago: a slow suicide, with your beloved holding your hand every step of the way. Spiritually, at least.
You should’ve been dead a long time ago, is the issue. It’s been more than several weeks, longer than you’ve seen any patient fight off an infection for, and you weren’t even particularly healthy to begin with.
Junko is killing you. You placed your life into her hands, and she chose to squeeze it out of you in the most excruciating manner possible. You spend more time sleeping than awake, now, and when you are awake, you just find food and return to bed. You don’t see the other Remnants, nor do you go out to spread any of the “despair” that Junko so dearly adored.
You’re worthless to her like this, so...
Why is she still here with you? Why does she continue to torture you like this, when it would be so easy to let go, to let you join her, to finally be free of the Earth that is so miserable without her?
You know the answer, but you won’t admit it to yourself.
You won’t admit that she loved despair more than you.
You won’t admit that you spent the last months of your life clinging to a girl who abandoned you for the sake of her own despair. Her own selfish fucking whims.
You won’t admit that she was never really there.
And you’ll die thinking that you and Junko Enoshima knew anything about love.