#danganronpa udg x reader | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yandere-toons · 2 years

Note

Since you said you were into Danganronpa, what about a platonic scenerio or HCs with the warriors of hope ?

Nagisa Shingetsu, Jataro Kemuri, Masaru Daimon, Kotoko Utsugi, Monaca Towa (Platonic Scenario - "The Good Teacher")

WARNING: references to child abuse, home invasion, implied desecration of corpses, fantasy violence, blood, implied non-consensual drug use.

A.N. - Excuse me while I sleep for a week.

THE NIBBLING OF A SANDWICH being eaten was the loudest noise in the serene classroom, interrupted only by the ticktock of a round clock perched high on the wall above the door.

It took five minutes before Nagisa Shingetsu touched the food you had given him.

His eyes, blue as his horned hair, were lined with dark circles that contrasted with his pallid skin. He had spoken at length about how inappropriate it was for him to eat at his desk when you first presented the meal, but if one looked at him now, they saw nothing but a hungry boy eating his fill.

“It's nice to eat something that doesn't burn my throat,” Nagisa had thought upon tasting the fresh food with nothing hidden inside.

On your desk was a thick folder, the contents of which were so dreadful that you had avoided opening it for the past hour. A part of you wished for it to disappear by the time you looked near it again.

The door creaked open with a cautious slowness, and a young boy by the name of Jataro Kemuri poked his head through the crack to make sure there was no danger waiting to ambush him. The mask that wrapped around his head was a patchwork of leather flaps, obscuring every part of his face but his grey eyes and the straight line of his mouth.

Those same eyes raked the classroom as if worried that he had taken the path he walked every day and somehow ended up in the wrong room.

His mother liked to alternate between rushing to be rid of him for the day and forgetting to drive him here until the last minute. Judging from the half-hour still waiting to tick on the clock, it was one of the former days.

You considered calling out to Jataro but held your tongue at the memory of his dislike for loud and sudden noises, choosing to wave at him instead.

The gesture gave him the courage he needed to nudge the door open wider with his shoulder and step inside. His gaze never lifted higher than the floor until he had shambled up to your desk, but even then, it rose only to the cup of pens and pencils sitting on the corner.

Jataro kept his arms extended outwards from the front of his chest. He had pulled at the sleeves and stretched them until they were longer than his arms, falling over his hands and acting as a buffer from anything that sought to touch him.

Around his shoulders were the straps of a white backpack, the muffled rattles within it suggesting a heavy load.

“You told Kotoko she could bring her own clothes, so I thought maybe I could bring some of my art supplies.” Jataro pointed the top of his head at you when he suggested this, rocking slightly and perhaps hoping to soften the blow he expected from across the desk if he looked you in the eye.

You motioned to the adjacent wall running along the left side of the room, for it faced the outside and had a long window that poured sunlight onto the space below it. “You're welcome to draw all over these walls. The floors, too. Even the ceiling if you have a ladder.”

His head jerked up. “What?!” Jataro draped his arms over his mask, speaking in a combination of a whimper and a groan. “Are you messing with me? Figures you'd pick on me.”

You lightly shook your head. “No!” After peeking at a few of the walls in the classroom, you squinted in exaggerated disgust. “Look at this place. It's all grey and hopeless.” In addition to shrivelling your nose, you curled your lips to form a comical grimace. “We could use some colour.”

A tiny smile graced Jataro's face, and he ambled to the wall you had first suggested. “I'll give it some colour,” he mumbled. The bag slipped off his back, rode down his arm, and landed with a clunk on the floor beside the window.

The zipper on his backpack hummed as it was pulled to the opposite end, followed by the clatter of various tools spilling out around him.

A sawing noise alerted you to the sight of Jataro dragging a chisel across the wall. Chips of paint were bending away from the tool before falling to the ground, and you prepared a lie to tell if any of the other teachers or the principal asked.

Hanging from a clasp around his neck was a knee-length apron, its brown fabric splattered with dry paint and chalk powder.

You delivered a box of crayons and markers to the side of his backpack while he was engrossed in drawing humanoid figures. When you glanced in his direction several minutes later, the drawings had all been outfitted with streaks of crayon and the pungent scent of a fresh marker.

“Hey, teach! Heads up!” shouted an energetic voice.

Your eyes spun from Jataro to a basketball hurtling towards you, and your hands flew off the desk to catch it just before it would have smashed into your nose. You held the ball there for a moment then slowly lowered it with mild amusement.

The competitive smile of Masaru Daimon greeted you from the entrance as the door swung shut behind him, his hands coming up to lay a pair of headphones on his spiky, red hair.

“Gotta be faster,” you chided him in a way that was more playful than it was serious.

Masaru jumped to catch the ball when you tossed it back to him. He winced upon touching the ground, and the gravity of the fall revealed a bruise on his upper arm. Its purple and black colouration was hidden under the black hem of his short-sleeve shirt, its irregular contour matching the size of an adult fist.

You pushed your chair back as you stood.

Masaru was panting and bouncing the ball off the floor into his hands.

It was a common suspicion of yours that he ran to school, one that grew on the days when he arrived hours late with a limp or busted lip. Those days fed into your mental image of the person who gave him the injuries, but an angry excuse was all you got out of him when you raised a question.

His eyes were concentrated on the motion of the ball until you crouched in front of him. In your hand was a small bandage, which you extended to him with an open palm. The smile on his face shrank, but Masaru took the bandage.

“Gotta keep your throws strong, right?” The calm mix of sincerity and encouragement in your voice brought some of the joy back to his smile.

He bared his teeth in a bigger smile and dashed to his chair in the front row as if in a race, but he chose to dribble the ball next to his desk instead of sitting down.

You watched him with a frown that was lost in thought, eventually sighing and taking a seat at your desk.

The door thudded open as it was wrenched out of its frame and pushed to the wall, and in stepped a young girl with pink hair as long as she was tall. Her hands were clutching the strap of a duffle bag, which was decorated with heart and flower stickers.

“Kotoko!” came your pleased greeting. She whipped her head around at your call, a smile of excitement and relief overtaking any impatience when you beckoned her to your desk with a wave of your hand.

Kotoko Utsugi dashed forward and hopped onto the edge of the desk with her side facing you. She allowed her legs to dangle, for her attention was devoted to hugging the duffle bag and looking it up and down with the desire to bring its contents into the morning light.

“Some hall monitor tried to make me open my bag,” she grumbled, rolling her eyes and fiddling with the zipper. Like a candle flickering between light and dark, Kotoko wiped the discontent from her face and turned to you with a joyful laugh. “So I just told him it was girl stuff! That sent him running!”

Joining her amusement with a chuckle and a mental note to find her a more discreet method, you stood up and walked to the door. The hinges squeaked as it opened, but there were no footsteps or voices to fill the corridor. A quick scan of both directions proved it to be empty save for a couple of posters on the walls.

You nodded at Kotoko and held the door open for her, causing her to sprint across the hall to the bathroom.

You leaned back into the classroom to observe the hubbub unfolding in the third row, where Masaru had grasped fistfuls of Jataro's mask and was pulling him out of his seat. Jataro was flailing his arms in helpless defiance.

“Jataro's head is not a ball, Masaru!”

Masaru sounded a disappointed and exaggerated “aw” under the din of Jataro's protests, the amusement in his voice hinting that he had yet to let go. “But it's huge and round like one!”

His fun was brought to an end when Nagisa stepped in front of the desk with his arms crossed. Nagisa wore a stern frown that looked too much like that of a disapproving parent for Masaru's taste, and he gave Nagisa an equally scathing look in return.

“Our teacher asked you to stop.”

While you were focused on the staring contest between Masaru and Nagisa, Kotoko dashed back into the classroom with a twirl and a deep breath of excitement. “I am ready to perform!” She thrust her leg into the air and pulled her arms up in an improvised dance move.

On her legs were long socks with pink and white stripes, atop her head was a horned headband, and she had ditched the slip-on shoes for high heel boots.

From the way Kotoko was patting her hair and reaching out to nothing in pretend monologues, it was like she was wearing new, much more comfortable skin.

Masaru, with a groan of frustration, released Jataro and resumed his throwing the basketball at the wall and catching it when it bounced back.

Jataro sunk into his chair, letting out soft whines and scribbling on his desk with a marker. He trudged to his wall of drawings and slumped to his knees in front of it after a minute or two, and Nagisa watched him go with an inkling of sympathy.

You applauded Kotoko as she bowed for an imagined performance. A chorus of “thank you, thank you” came from her, the fake seriousness of her tone descending into laughter when you called for an encore.

“This actor is taking a break!” declared Kotoko, and she climbed onto her desk to stretch her arms above her head. It evolved into a vocal exercise of lowering and raising her pitch to test her control and lung capacity.

The folder on your desk reemerged as an eyesore as soon as you sat down, and you pulled it open to glower at the curriculum looking back at you.

Nagisa peered in your direction before turning and advancing to your desk. His steps were rigid and deliberate as if he were following a list of rules for how to properly approach you.

When he first reached your desk, Nagisa refrained from making eye contact with you. His arms were folded across his chest, the look in his eyes ranging from caution to curiosity. “Teacher, if I may ask a question.”

He addressed you with the reserved confidence of someone who believed themselves to be in the presence of a superior. You nodded, so he took a breath and held your gaze. “It's nearing the end of the school year. Should we not be taking a test right now?”

Casting a glance around the room, you leaned forward and whispered, “Just between the two of us, our tests are different than the ones they're passing around in the other classes.”

Nagisa looked down and narrowed his eyes, raising a finger to his chin. Still, a smile began to appear on his face at receiving what you had treated as confidential information.

You tapped the thick folder lying on your hand and reclined in your chair.

Nagisa returned to his desk, sitting a bit taller.

After minutes of sifting the endless pages and losing more energy with each word, you craved a break. Your gaze drifted to the chisel and crayons weaving shapes on the wall.

The way your shadow fell over his much smaller body caused him to drop the chisel, the tool bouncing like a seesaw in motion before ending its clatter by his feet. Jataro turned in an instant, and he kicked his legs against the floorboards in a vain attempt to scurry backwards. The resulting thwacks of his shoes on the wood were joined by the flaps of his sleeves as he swung his arms wildly.

With the look of a boy fearing for his life, he drew his arms across his face in a sloppy 'X' position. “I'm sorry!” He said the apology so fast that each one of his words bled into the next as if he were fighting the clock. “I'll get rid of it! I'm sorry!”

The mental fog of reading something horrible was still weighing on you, and you sat beside Jataro with a sigh. “Your art makes the room a lot better.”

Jataro slowly lowered his arms and peeked at you over the top of his sleeves. He turned back to the wall, hugging his legs and pulling them to his chest. “Are you gonna tell me to put it away?”

“No.”

The door opened a final time to mark the arrival of Monaca Towa, her green hair dishevelled and her green eyes puffy. Instead of walking into the classroom hand-in-hand with Kotoko, she was alone and in a wheelchair. The wheelchair, with its silver joints of pristine quality, was lined with a red cushion designed for utmost comfort.

The rest of the class flocked to her side and began to bombard her with questions, while you took a slower approach and glanced at the telephone on the wall beside the door.

“What happened? Have you been crying?” Nagisa had raised his hands in front of his chest out of panic and kept asking variations of the same questions.

“Your hair looks like rats live in it!” cried Kotoko. She balled her fists and squeezed her eyes shut to avoid seeing the ragged hair any longer, turning to the bag she had dropped at her desk. “That's so not adorbs! I'll get my brush!”

Masaru was kneeling with one hand on his knee and leaning from side to side to inspect the wheels, but he soon jumped to a fighting stance. “Yeah! Do I need to beat someone up?”

Jataro was struck by awe at the mobile chair and gazed at it with eyes as wide as saucers. “Why are you wearing a car?” he shouted.

As you reached the back of the group, Monaca looked between her classmates with a pitiful mien but perked up at the sight of you.

Her face brightened for a moment before twisting with sobs as she raised her knuckles to wipe away the tears wetting her eyes. “I,” whimpered Monaca, choking so hard on her cries that she repeated the word several times and panted after each attempt. “I had an accident at home.”

“My brother,” was all she managed to say for an explanation. Its effect ripped through the other kids in a silent wave of fury as though she had given a lifelike description of the event.

You had half a mind to report your suspicions to the principal, but his last meeting with you had ended with him saying, “Don't stick your nose in something you aren't willing to lose your job over.”

* * *

MASARU WAS THE FIRST to jump up and yell, “Done!”

He held the drawing as far up as his arm would stretch, his tight grip wrinkling the paper somewhat. The look on his face was one of pride, and he sprinted to you with the enthusiasm of a runner nearing the finish line. Masaru slammed the paper onto your desk and strutted back to his seat, arms crossed behind his head.

Just as you were preparing to examine his work, the screech of a chair's feet sliding across the floorboards echoed in the classroom.

Kotoko was skipping to your desk while hugging her drawing to her chest, and on her face was a bright smile that grew with each step. She stopped at the front of the desk and clicked the heels of her boots together. Leaning forward on her toes, Kotoko placed the drawing between your hands and covered most of Masaru's drawing with her own.

She bent her knees and twirled her hands in a playful curtsy before returning to her seat. Kotoko proceeded to stick her tongue out at Masaru, which earned a look of surprise and irritation from him.

When Nagisa rose from his chair, he stacked his paper despite it having but one layer. He kept his gaze fixed on the drawing as he made rigid turns around other desks, scanning it for errors and then scanning it again to confirm that he saw what he had seen the last time.

The shame in Nagisa's face grew more apparent the closer he hauled himself to your desk. He held the drawing at a precise distance from his body, and he made sure to drop it onto your collection in a straight line rather than at an angle. “It's not my best work,” explained Nagisa, keeping his voice at a mutter, “but I assure you, I did all I could in the allotted time.”

You lowered the drawing from where you had lifted it to see his work, meaning to remind him that the assignment was not for a grade. It was intended as a fun way of passing the time until the bell rang. Nagisa had heard you when you announced this to the class, however, so your slight concern eased into understanding.

He sat down with frustration and self-doubt gnawing on his face, creasing his forehead and whitening his knuckles.

“Teacher,” sniffled Monaca before you could say anything to him.

Stretching her lips into a deep frown and putting the gleam of a sad puppy in her eyes was a look she wore comfortably, even dilating her pupils for extra effect. Monaca tugged at the wheels of her chair in an apparent inability to make them turn.

As you walked over to help, she stopped fighting with the wheelchair and watched your approach like a helpless infant awaiting rescue. “Monaca finished her drawing, and she just wanted to give it to you,” sobbed Monaca, adding a tearful whimper at the end for emphasis. “But the wheels on her chair won't move!”

You went to retrieve her drawing, but as soon as your hands came near it, the wheels lurched forward so that she could rush the paper into your grasp.

The tears that were threatening to fall had vanished from Monaca's eyes. “You fixed them!” she exclaimed with a happy gasp, clasping her hands together in front of her chest.

The look on your face was a flash of puzzlement mixed with an iota of suspicion, and you shook your head both in denial of her statement and as an expression of confusion about how the sudden recovery came to pass.

During the brief journey to your desk, your head was brimming with thoughts about whether and why Monaca had just tricked you. It muddied your concentration a bit, but the end of the school day was closing in on you.

“Speaking of that,” you remembered, counting the number of drawings on your desk. Just as you were going to probe the classroom for the missing assignment, the scratches of a pencil on paper wormed their way into your ears.

The constant scribbling was the work of Jataro, who was hunched over his drawing as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist. A backpack full of art supplies had spilled its contents onto his desk and the floor. In his hands were a ruler and a colouring pencil, but the excessive length of his sleeves caused him to hold the tools through the fabric.

An array of black and grey colouring pencils surrounded the drawing, their various shades tracing the underside of an eye and looping around the curve of the lips to perfect the shading. The usual wandering of his hands and mind was absent, replaced by the smooth twirls of pencils across a torso. His eyes never blinked as he dropped each tool in a unique place and retrieved one when needed without even glancing in its direction.

You debated whether to disturb him or not, but the ticking clock on your right pushed you to approach his desk. “Jataro? How's it going?”

He stopped the movement of his tools and looked away from the paper for the first time in half an hour. “I'm probably taking too long,” he started to reply, only to fall silent after realising that you were standing over him. The colouring pencil he had tucked into the fold of his sleeve was slowly pulled closer to him as his entire body tensed as if it were doused in icy water.

Jataro was fidgeting in his seat and keeping his eyes fixed on the ground, so you crouched and redirected your attention to his drawing.

It was a sketch of a sculpture the likes of which were fit to hang on the walls of museums and be the subject of crowds and analysis for centuries. The image of a tall figure locked in thought came together among the elements of Michelangelo's David, which were blended with Jataro's macabre twist on anatomy to form limbs that extended beyond human limits and rested at unnatural angles.

The indentations of another drawing were visible on this side of the paper, so you flipped it and beheld a mirror image of the sketch on the front of the paper. The arms were outstretched in a way that suggested they would overlap with the arms of the first sketch if placed next to each other.

Jataro took one look at the surprise blooming on your face and drooped. “I wasn't supposed to draw on the back, was I? I'm sorry,” he mumbled, eyes turning downcast.

The mirror image had all the skill and grace of the original sketch. A part of you imagined the grand sculptures standing side by side, not as pieces of paper but as monoliths carved out of marble and stone.

After giving the room a cursory scan to ensure that none of the other kids was watching, you lowered your voice to a whisper. “No one else thought to draw on the back.”

From his parallel desk on the opposite side of the classroom, Nagisa's head spun around to look at you with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth. He then turned away and bowed his head in shame.

Jataro placed one hand on top of the other, watching you from his peripheral vision when you began to rise.

“I need to look this over at my desk, okay?” You grabbed the corner of Jataro's drawing, but you waited a few seconds before taking it to give him a chance to voice any complaints.

The long sleeves of his uniform were ruffled as he rubbed them together and focused his gaze on the repetitive motion of the cloth. “When you're done, can I have it back?” Under the light cascading down his masked head, you caught a glimpse of a smile finding its way onto his lips. “I wanna sculpt it later.”

With all five of the drawings collected, you spread them out across your desk in a semicircle formation.

It took several seconds of blinking and moving your head around to process all the varied images that had been shoved together in Kotoko's drawing. Among the teddy bears with sparkling fur and frilly dresses of bubblegum pink was you, a sight that caused your eyes to crinkle in bewilderment before earning a slight smile.

You glanced at Kotoko to find her looking at you, and she waved excitedly as soon as you met her gaze.

The lines in Masaru's drawing were hasty and lacked detail in many areas, jumping from one idea to the next without bothering to finish the previous ideas. Each corner was filled with crude images of different sports and exercise equipment, such as a dumbbell in the bottom left corner and a soccer ball in the top right corner. In the middle of the paper was the largest picture of them all: Masaru scoring a slam dunk.

Nagisa had depicted a series of books, with a smaller but more detailed image of himself and his classmates occupying the bottom right corner. The spacing of his drawing was methodical, evenly distributed, and careful not to have anything overlap. Eraser markings darkened and dirtied much of the paper, and a big portion of them appeared to have come from perfecting the smiles worn by his classmates.

Upon lifting Monaca's drawing off the desk to minimise the glare from the overhead lights, you saw how she was standing and holding hands with someone who bore no family resemblance to her. The person holding her hand was a blonde woman with thick pigtails that reached down to her elbows.

On either side of them were black and white bears who stood on their hind legs, their open mouths brimming with fangs arched in a permanent grin.

While your eyes attempted to unfold the mysteries of the drawings, a rumble of thunder crashed outside the Academy. The light pouring in from the window dimmed, and a grey veil fell over the grass and sidewalk outside the classroom.

The patter of rain began as soft plops, growing within a minute to heavier and speedier thumps on the glass. A gust of wind joined the cacophony of nature and swept the leaves of tall trees into a constant sway.

A few of the leaves were torn asunder and slapped the glass, which ripped Kotoko and Masaru out of their seats and to the window in a burst of excitable chatter.

Jataro raised his head to watch the light above his desk flicker like a twitchy eye. “If the power goes out, does that mean we get to stay here?”

Every other head in the room turned to you in anticipation of your answer. Kotoko and Masaru pulled their hands off the glass as they turned to you, leaving faint handprints that evaporated within seconds.

A swell of thunder rumbled as you looked away from the drawings and scanned the faces of the children, which held looks ranging from cautious optimism to intense curiosity.

You set the pen down beside the array of papers and considered many responses before settling on a neutral one. “If the storm's bad enough to cause a blackout, then it wouldn't be safe to send you home in it.”

Kotoko pressed her forehead and palms to the window. Like a preacher, she shouted, “Oh, please get worse, O Mighty Storm! Throw all the leaves and branches your rainy heart desires!”

“Maybe if we all hope for it, it'll happen!” chirped Monaca. Noticing his silence and blank expression, she eyed Jataro with a smile that pushed him in a certain direction. “Don't you hope for the storm to get worse too, Jataro?”

He rubbed his sleeves against the sides of his head, gaze turning downcast and focusing on the imperfections in the surface of his desk. “If I hope for the storm to get worse, the universe will probably do the opposite of whatever I want.”

The smile on Kotoko's face brightened, and she turned around to snap her fingers at him. “You're right! Hope for it to get better.”

Despite Jataro's best efforts to channel a supernatural ability and warp nature, the kids were sent home that day under the pitter-patter of flowing rain and the dim glow of school lights clinging to life.

* * *

THE NIGHT SKY was blackened with puffy clouds that roared and rumbled like distant beasts locked in combat, their shrieks building until a great tension was released in the form of a lightning bolt.

One had singed the stop sign outside your kitchen window half a dozen times in the past two hours. The once cherry-red gleam of the tall sign was stricken with a charred coating, and you peeked through the glass after every hit to see if it had finally snapped in twain.

Beats on your door, a sound you had dismissed as rain or the echo of thunder, were now reverberating through the walls of the house every minute. It led you to reconsider your theory about the source and leave your nighttime drink on the kitchen counter.

Instead of taking another sip, you crept to the entrance and peeked through the peephole.

A flash of lightning illuminated pink hair and a polka dot bow sitting atop it.

The pounding on your door ceased when you opened it inward, stepping back and allowing the door to swing to the side.

Kotoko stood on the doorstep in a white nightgown, her bright hair matted and sticking to her face like a wet mop. She unrolled her fists and retracted her arms from where they had been raised to strike the door. The storm had cast a shadow over the night, but enough silvery light broke through the clouds for you not to miss the small rips in her clothes.

Draped around her shoulders was a dark brown jacket, its soggy fabric appearing black under the relentless pour of the rain. The sleeves hung empty at her side, for Kotoko was hugging it to herself as if it were a blanket rather than an article of clothing. With knuckles buried and turning white from the pressure of her grip, she clutched the jacket with hands that trembled from the bite of the frigid wind.

An unending shiver was forcing itself across her body. The chatter of her teeth was halted by the fact that she clenched them as though suppressing a wail that had been climbing her throat and screaming to get out. The corners of her eyes were crinkled in pain and protest against the tears spilling over her cheeks, and Kotoko ducked her head at the sight of you.

She wore only one boot, the lack of the other leaving her left foot exposed to the cold water rushing through the streets. The lower half of the sock on her left leg was darkened and drenched in a failed attempt to shield her skin. Kotoko lifted her wet foot off the ground and winced as she bent her shaky knee to keep it in the air, holding that pose for a few seconds before lowering only her toes to the cold concrete.

You were careful not to touch her as you moved out of the doorway and ushered her into the house. A brief examination of the street proved that it was empty of all but the waves of rain blowing in the wind, many streetlights having lost their glow. The door was then pulled shut and locked to stop the growing puddle from draining into the floorboards.

Digging her fingers into her hair, Kotoko tore at the bow and hurled it against the wall after seconds of pulling out strands of hair with it. She then collapsed onto the floor and tucked her knees into her chest. Sobs came from her in uneven volumes as she hid her face in her hands, curling up into the smallest shape she could be.

It was a sound both muffled and unrestrained as if Kotoko were unsure whether it was safe to cry or not. Her willingness to weep grew with each second she was undisturbed, and the arms covering her mouth fell so that she could breathe out the full extent of her distress.

After shedding tears until no more came and inhaling until her chest twinged, the breaths rolling out from her were hoarse and parched. Kotoko was free of the desperate outpouring of wails, although a heavy sadness had taken its place.

She looked askance to find you returning from the darkness of the kitchen with a glass of water. You kneeled on the floor beside her and extended the glass, which Kotoko accepted with shaking hands and trembling lips.

Lifting a finger, you pointed down the hall. “My shower is in the first door on the right.”

Kotoko sniffled and glanced at where you had pointed. She drank more of the water, a shudder causing her to remember the soaked clothes freezing her the same way drinking a dozen milkshakes would have.

You slunk into your bedroom and had begun to ransack your dresser in search of a dry outfit for Kotoko. Some of the floorboards behind you creaked, and you turned to find Kotoko following your steps.

A crackling boom from the sky drowned the room in white light. Although the brightness vanished within half a second, the echo of the thunder fed into the constant patter of the rain for many moments after. You peered out the window and witnessed the sideways tilt of the rain as it pelted your home and others across the street, the fat droplets hitting so much like rocks that you worried about the possible coming of hail.

Reaching farther into the dresser, you presented Kotoko with one of your nightshirts. “Are you comfortable staying here for the night?” was your question, and you kneeled to her eye level when you asked it.

Kotoko accepted the nightshirt with quieting whimpers. The shaking of her hands calmed to a rare twitch, and she steadied her rapid inhaling until the occasional sniffle was all that interrupted her breathing. The tears had stopped flowing, their existence remembered by the dark lines tracing the length of her cheeks and chin.

She unclenched her jaw and with it came a sigh of despair about which she was not ready to talk. Her shoulders slumped from an untold weight, but relief poked through as she embraced the nightshirt. “I couldn't be more comfortable.”

* * *

THE LIGHTNESS of your eyelids as they opened without stinging pain or difficulty was jarring. Not having to resist the urge to fall asleep imbued you with confusion, and the lack of an alarm clock blaring in your ears allowed a cautious peace to fall over you.

Just as you were sitting up, a pair of footsteps thundered down the hall and a blur of red and white dashed into the room. The proud face of Masaru jumped onto the end of the bed. “Kotoko said you had eyebags last night, so I destroyed your clock!” The bed bounced as he shouted this, his fist rising.

You looked askance at the bedside table and confirmed that the alarm clock had been reduced to a jumble of torn wires and mangled plastic.

The question of how Masaru had entered your house slammed into you like a brick, and it was forming on your tongue when he sprinted away towards the kitchen.

The buzz of running water came from behind the closed door to the bathroom, followed by melodic humming.

The raps of an active and full washing machine shook the hall, which would have been inconspicuous if not for the curious mumbles that accompanied the noise.

Once in the corridor, the smell of freshly baked cookies wafted up your nose.

You paused and retraced your steps until the laundry room was visible again, losing another piece of calm at the sight of Jataro standing in the middle of the room. His side faced you, but his attention was directed at the washing machine running with a pile of clothes tumbling around inside it.

Jataro observed its spins with wide eyes, moving his head in an endless circle and mimicking the sounds of the thuds. His mouth was slightly open as if he were awestruck by the appliance.

The scent of baked goods was emanating from the oven and the kitchen counter, where a batch of cookies decorated a tray. Monaca, having rummaged through a drawer to slip mittens onto her hands, was pouring the contents of the tray into a green bowl.

Nagisa was standing beside her with his arms crossed. “We shouldn't still be here. We're imposing.”

Monaca tilted her head and straightened the tray before the last cookie had fallen, eyeing him with a smile that held no joy. “Imposing. That's quite an adult word, Nagisa.”

He held up his palms in surrender and gained the shocked look of someone who had been accused of a terrible crime. “You know I didn't mean it that way!”

After a few moments of silence, Nagisa turned away and resumed speaking with a quieter voice. “It's just if the school calls back with questions-” the thought he had been airing died on his tongue, as did his will to discuss it.

You slowed to a stop at the entrance to the kitchen, with Masaru sprinting past you to the counter.

Nagisa looked back at you with a facade of composure that failed to hide the way his fingers dug into his sleeves. The longer you held his gaze the more sweat gathered along his forehead, but he exhaled in silent thanks when Monaca's greeting distracted you from his crumbling mask.

“Good morning! You're up late.” Monaca closed her eyes and chuckled at her comment as though it had a special meaning known only to her. As Masaru lurched over the counter and reached for the bowl, Monaca grabbed it and raised it above her head. “You have to share, Masaru! These cookies were made for all of us.”

A groan of annoyance escaped Masaru, his smile falling. He leaned back to an upright position and crossed his arms behind his head. “Fine.” The word was drawn out in childish dissatisfaction, and he turned his gaze away from the cookies to quell his hunger for sugar.

Opening her mouth to give her smile a more endearing appearance, Monaca balled her hands into fists and raised them in a gesture of cheer. “Monaca baked cookies for you as a way of saying thank you for letting us stay!”

Nagisa glanced at her in a mixture of surprise and puzzlement, while Masaru threw his arms down in outrage and yelled, “Hang on! You said they were for all of us!”

Monaca pressed her index finger to her lower lip and turned her head slightly, looking up at the ceiling with a clueless frown. “Well, it's a gift for our teacher, so it's their choice who gets to eat it.”

Masaru whirled around and narrowed his eyes at you as if telepathically commanding you to grant him the entire bowl.

Nagisa alternated between looking out the window and peeking at you, his gaze darting to the cookies for a split second.

Monaca clasped her hands together and rested them on her lap, and the pleased look on her face was that of someone confident she would be among the chosen.

“Can I have a cookie?” asked Jataro. He had appeared next to you like a ghost from the mist and caused you to jump, your eyes racing to see him looking up at you with earnest curiosity.

On the right side of the hall, a door burst open and carried echoing laughter through the corridor. Kotoko hugged you from behind, the force of the hit as she ran into you knocking you forward a couple of steps.

You regained your balance and struggled to create a way to both diffuse the situation and remove yourself from it. “As great as a bowl of cookies for breakfast sounds, I need to go to work.” There was an unspoken “and you need to come with me” lingering at the end, a request that was understood by Nagisa and cast a look of guilt across his face.

The kitchen exploded in an uproar so potent that every voice was overlapping the others and fighting for vocal dominance.

Kotoko had yet to break the hug, and her fear of returning to a place with other adults prompted her to tighten the grip she had on you. “Anything you need to teach us -- you can teach it right here!”

Jataro began rocking back and forth on his heels, his words squeezing out of his mouth with great distress. “The janitor lady washed my drawings off the wall!”

Masaru stamped his foot on the tile floor, clenching his fists and baring his teeth in a scowl. “No way! That place is for wimps!”

While the other children spoke of personal grievances with Hope's Peak Elementary School, Monaca's yells were shrill and demanding. “Monaca! Wants! You! To! Stay! Home!” She swung her arms and shook her head in a mess of tears and fists.

At once, the desperation flooding the kitchen was redirected to Monaca in the form of complete silence from the others. This reprieve lasted but a moment and soon descended into a series of panicked shouts as her classmates surrounded Monaca, spewing apologies and assurances that her wish would be granted.

You peered at the digital clock on the microwave, and the knowledge that several hours of the school day had passed was your key to the deal compiling itself in a hurry. “If you come to school with me today, I'll buy you all ice cream before we go.”

* * *

CARRIED ON THE SPRING BREEZE were the shrill chirps of Brown-eared Bulbuls and the hoarser calls of Oriental Turtle Doves. From farther in the distance came the raps of a Japanese pygmy woodpecker, its short beak jabbing a twig again and again until it split open to reveal a caterpillar.

The sun hung unobstructed in the blue sky and shone its brilliant light across the lush grass in the park, for all the clouds had decided to hover elsewhere in the city.

A respite from the heat bearing down on them was offered when you returned from under the awning of a truck with a giant ice cream cone on its roof, each of your hands wrapped around a brown cone full of multi-flavoured ice cream. Despite having been lifted from a freezer no longer than a minute earlier, the dessert had begun to melt and drip over the edges of the cones.

Masaru and Kotoko accepted the treats like hungry travellers and splattered the ice cream on their lips in ravenous bites.

By the trees and thickets, under the shade of their lush brambles and leaves, was Jataro. He eyed a bright berry that was dangling from the jaws of a squirrel running up one of the trees. “Does that taste good, Mr Squirrel? Is it like fruity candy?”

The squirrel chittered and flicked its tail, darting into the cover of the leaves once you stepped on the corner of the swaying shadow provided by its tree.

This prompted Jataro to turn around and sneak a peek at the ice cream cone before looking away. “Is that for me? It probably isn't.”

You squinted at the leather mask he wore, and it was then, on this steaming spring day, that your distaste for his mother, who had never shown her face to you, swelled. “You must be sweating under there.”

Jataro nodded and began playing with his sleeves. “Oh, yeah. It feels like my skin is bubbling and popping like a big stew.”

Moving to the heart of the shadow, you exhaled in relief at the immediate wave of coolness that washed over your neck. “You could always take it off.”

Jataro looked as if you had told him art was outlawed around the world. “No way!” He waved his arms back and forth and jumped from foot to foot as though the grass was lava. “If you see me without my mask, your eyes will explode in your head and melt your brain!”

A groan of worry slipped out of him as he lifted his hands to his head, dropping his gaze to his shoes. “And I don't want you to die!”

His foretelling of the apocalypse that would unfold if his face saw the sun was giving him more reason to sweat, so you relented. “Okay, okay!” Still, you mustered a smile at his last comment and offered the cone to him. “At least take the ice cream.”

Jataro wrapped his sleeves around the cone with a quiet “okay” and a timid smile, not caring when the ice cream trickled onto the fabric.

“Teacher!” called Monaca, and you turned to see her waving at you from the middle of the park. She slumped in her wheelchair as soon as you spotted her to appear exhausted.

A third trip to the ice cream truck yielded the fourth and fifth cones.

No sooner than she tasted the ice cream had she pulled back and lowered the cone to just above her lap. With unfocused eyes and a lifeless frown, Monaca turned her head down and stared at the ice cream. “Monaca's favourite flavour?”

There was a quality of disbelief and slight confusion in her voice, but it was then replaced by a tone of hollow emptiness. “Whenever Big Bro Haiji gets me ice cream, he always picks the one he knows I don't like. Then I'm the bad guy for not wanting to eat it.”

The malevolence radiating from her green eyes vanished as soon as she raised her head to flash a pleased smile at you. “But you remembered my favourite flavour!” A laugh burst out of her, one so airy and joyful that it would have tricked a stranger into believing she had never housed a negative thought in her life. “You're the best teacher ever!”

Nagisa had been observing the handout of ice cream cones, but when you presented him with one, he merely blinked a few times. “Who is this for?” he asked, looking around to see if any of his classmates were empty-handed.

“It's yours.”

His eyes returned to you in an instant. Nagisa waited as if certain that he had misheard you, but the hand that was extending the ice cream cone to him did not waver.

On the rare occasions when his father allowed him to eat something that did not prevent him from sleeping, desserts were not an option because, in his father's opinion, they were a distraction from his work.

“Are you sure it's okay for me to have this?” mumbled Nagisa, his tone a combination of anxiety and doubt. “Sugar weakens your ability to concentrate, and if we take a test later, I need to be as focused as possible.” Those were his father's words, although he said them with his own voice.

You kept the ice cream cone within his reach. “No tests today. You deserve a break.”

He gripped the cone with both hands and slowly moved it closer to himself, eyes wide and brows damp with sweat.

Nagisa watched the ice cream glisten and seep as if he did not know what it was or what he was supposed to do with it. A quick look at the way Monaca bit into hers gave him the strength to adjust his hold on the cone, and he squeezed his eyes shut upon biting the dessert.

Holding a hand to your sweat-soaked forehead, you collapsed on a park bench. The breaths sailed out of you in haggard puffs, your arms coming to lay on the back of the seat.

Kotoko and Masaru clambered headlong onto the bench and flung ice cream on themselves and each other in the process.

A whine exploded out of Kotoko at the splash of ice cream that landed in her hair, which drew gales of mocking laughter from Masaru. After pouting at him for a moment, Kotoko smacked the bottom of his cone and caused it to fly upwards into his face.

Monaca parked her wheelchair next to the bench, while Nagisa volunteered to stand so that Jataro could sit beside you.

Nagisa stopped eating his ice cream and gazed at the rapid heaving of your chest. “You didn't buy one for yourself?”

It took a few seconds before you processed his question, and your answer came slurred through a disoriented breath. “My pockets are empty.”

A man shouted your name from across the park. It was the principal of Hope's Peak Elementary School, and his tired appearance sparked unrest among the children.

“Aw, man! He's here to make us go to school!” groaned Masaru, throwing his head back and clacking his headphones against the top of the bench.

Monaca and Nagisa noticed the calculating frown on your face. There was no surprise to it, nor was there any uncertainty in the speed at which you stood up.

“Wait!” yelled Kotoko, pouncing on your arm and clutching it after you took your first step in the principal's direction. “Don't go over to that old creep! Just ignore him.”

Jataro was gazing at his ice cream cone and chuckling to himself. “His face looks like a spider sucked on it.”

The principal called for you again, and his voice was elevated to a harsher shout by a degree of impatience. He would not come any closer to you and your class, however.

You kneeled to Kotoko's level and eased her hand off you while promising, “I just need to talk to him for a minute. We won't go far.”

Kotoko fixed the principal with a scowl as you walked away, raising her cone to her mouth and biting off a chunk of it.

Monaca observed your greeting to the principal with a fake smile. She pondered many a way to ruin his career and sink his reputation until his life was forfeit, but for the time being, she stayed a spectator who enjoyed her ice cream.

Stepping away from the group, Nagisa saw how your head lowered as the principal's lips continued to move. The principal glanced at the kids throughout the conversation, but his frown deepened every time he looked at you.

Just as you were turning to peek at your class, he grasped your shoulder and whispered something in your ear. The message prompted you to droop and let your attention fall to the ground.

Nagisa narrowed his eyes and clenched his ice cream cone, not realising how much force he was exerting until the cone splintered and oozed a dollop of ice cream onto his hand.

A regretful understanding crossed your face, and you nodded before trudging to the group.

When you were close enough for him to hear the grass crunching beneath your feet, Nagisa caught your eye and offered you a look of concern. “Wait with the others,” you said to him in scarcely more than a murmur, trying and failing to hide the way your mood had deflated.

The other children ceased their chatter at your arrival and turned to you.

Your gaze passed from one kid to the next until you had looked at all of them, and their unassuming smiles made the words impossible to speak without great strain. You almost failed to finish the sentence, wishing for a reason to delay it but finding none.

“I can't be your teacher anymore.”

* * *

PEEKING THROUGH the overcast sky, streaks of sunlight painted the road in splashes of red and orange. The cracked asphalt was stained pink from the people lying face down on it.

Most of your body was draped in a tattered blanket that you had pulled over your head like a cloak. The light of the evening sun caught the metal lids of cans huddled in a topless box, which you held to your chest and draped in the corners of the blanket.

The speed of your steps grew to uncoordinated staggers when you reached the edge of your property, and the clatter of the cans was greeted by all the Monokumas on the street turning their heads at you.

Every robot was frozen mid-walk as dozens of red eyes monitored your trek to the door, their round heads swivelling with the flexibility and haste of an owl. The robotic gaze was lifted once you shuffled into the house.

Notes drawn with crayons and markers were taped to the outer walls of the building, and the papers were adorned with childish illustrations of kids stabbing adults. “Stay out!” one demanded in rainbow ink. “No demons allowed!” said another, the first and final letters of the word “demons” having been written as a goat horn and a spiked tail.

While searching for a can opener in the tangle of utensils cluttering your kitchen, the rattle of a doorknob battling its lock brought your mission to a premature end.

On the opposite side of the door was a pair of teenage girls grappling with the doorknob. The brown-haired girl was armed with a megaphone that had been outfitted with an EMP generator, and she was dressed in the sailor-like uniform worn by students of St. Koa Girls Academy. Its white and blue colour scheme was in stark contrast to the dark uniform worn by the other girl, whose deep purple hair matched the purple fabric of her uniform.

The fearful chatter each girl was throwing in the air ceased when their heads lifted to meet your gaze, the dishevelled sight of you peeking through a crack in the door causing them to step back.

A flood of relief then unwound the veins bulging in the neck and arms of the brown-haired girl. The tears in her eyes started to dry, and the desperate grimace that had contorted her face fell to a hopeful smile. “You're not a kid!” she panted as if that fact was the greatest discovery of her life.

The purple-haired girl looked askance at you with her thumbnail between her teeth, biting it slightly.

You looked at their wrists and eyed the bracelets that flashed red like bombs waiting to go off. The black and white face of a Monokuma was stamped on the accessory, and its grinning fangs were all the evidence you needed to begin shutting the door before the girls could explain. “I'm not allowed to help anyone.”

A hand latched onto the edge of the door and pulled against you, digging its fingernails into the wood and struggling to wrench it open. The brown-haired girl stuck her face in the crack and focused her tearful, green eyes on you in a frantic appeal to the kindness she was hoping to reach. “Please!”

She swallowed a lump of panic lodged in her throat and steadied her voice a bit, but her hand continued to shake on the end of the door. “My name is Komaru Naegi. My brother is with the Future Foundation!” After minutes of straining her voice and tiring the muscles in her hands, Komaru rejoiced when your grip on the door loosened slightly.

Komaru took the opportunity to breathe out some of her tension and relaxed her grip as a show of trust. “He can get us out of here, but we need a place to hide.”

With a conflicted sweep of your gaze across the door and what little bit of the street was visible to you, the door opened. The rays of daylight that spilled into the entryway were poison to your sun-fearing eyes.

“Thank you! Thank you!” repeated Komaru, eyes fogging as though she might cry again.

You turned away from the direct sunlight and hobbled to the kitchen. The shadowy areas of the room were colder, and your absence from the doorway allowed the sun to illuminate the many dust particles floating in the air.

“Let's go in already. This street is crawling with Monokumas,” grumbled a low voice.

Komaru nodded with a hasty “right” and rushed to get under the roof. She glanced at her travelling companion then looked at you with wide eyes, lifting her hands to her chest and tapping her fingers together. “Oh! This is my friend Toko.”

Toko was peering around the unclean room with its raggedy couch and chipped paint as if expecting to see bloodstains on the walls and meat hooks dangling from the ceiling.

Komaru's gaze travelled to your wrist when you reached up to open a cabinet, her eyes widening. “You don't have a bracelet!”

“I never really liked jewellery.” After raising your shoulders for a shrug, you lowered them with a sigh. “Couldn't afford it.”

Toko pinched her nose as she walked deeper into the house, rearing her shoulders and crinkling her eyes at the tingle in her nostrils.

The mantel was barren except for a framed picture and a thin layer of dust rolling over it and the rest of the mantel like water. Cobwebs and dust bunnies dangled from the ceiling above the fireplace, dropping specks of grey to float down through the air and draw the occasional cough.

Nothing in the room had felt the touch of a brush or a rag in months, and the musty odour flowing through the halls was so prevalent that Komaru would not have been surprised to learn of mould in the walls.

From the sunken skin to the way you dragged yourself into the kitchen, it was as if you were undead and roaming the confines of your mausoleum.

Komaru found her eyes drawn to the picture on the mantel once again. The people in it were familiar yet different as if she were looking at a childhood photograph of a grandparent. Squinting, Komaru stepped closer to the picture.

The children who had threatened her life were all dressed in the elementary edition of the Hope's Peak Academy uniform, and they were gathered around a much cleaner and livelier version of you. A blackboard was visible in the background, its wide surface covered with drawings and crayon markings.

“Those are the same kids,” she murmured, although it took many more seconds of examining the picture to confirm it. Disbelief weighed heavier on her tongue and mind the longer she beheld their sincere happiness.

These smiles were not born in malice like those the kids threw at her. “What changed?” Komaru asked herself, and the answer came from behind.

“Someone gave them what I couldn't.”

Toko muttered an inaudible name, turning her head away from the mantel and glaring at the floor.

When she heard your footsteps returning, Komaru whipped around and pulled her arms against her body in alarm. She half expected you to scold her for snooping, but your steps were sluggish and unconcerned. You barely looked at her as you trudged past and grabbed the picture from the mantel.

Komaru watched in a mixture of confusion and curiosity as you tilted the photograph from side to side. There was an absentminded dullness to your face as if your mind was off wandering in distant fields, but when the memory came, it lifted the glaze that had fallen over your eyes.

Kotoko had looped her arms around your neck as you held her the way she said princesses were carried in all her favourite storybooks.

Jataro was hugging your left leg and looking away from the camera, a position which had taken several minutes of reassuring him that you would not break out in buboes from his touch.

Masaru had raced around the camera's view in a struggle to find the best and most awe-inspiring pose, and the winning choice was to launch himself off a desk and jump onto your back.

Monaca was sitting in front of you with her wheelchair situated in the bottom middle of the photo. This brought her the closest to the camera, which helped it capture the brightness of her smile devoid of everything but real joy.

Nagisa stood beside Monaca, and for once, he was not crossing his arms. He let them hang at his side and allowed his shoulders to relax from the rigid line he often forced them to make.

After the camera flashed, the kids' laughter was so genuine and carefree that, for one moment, all the bad in their lives had been forgotten. You had collapsed under the combined weight of Kotoko and Masaru seconds later, and the kids dogpiled you in response. “The back pain is worth it,” you had thought at the time.

Looking at it from the depths of your unkempt home with bodies littering the street and robots patrolling outside like prison guards, you could not imagine anyone in the picture laughing the same way again.

A sudden burst of knocks on the door caused you to slam the picture onto the mantel and whirl around in a rush of adrenaline. Komaru jumped and gasped, only to slap a hand across her mouth a moment later.

“Teacher?” droned a monotone voice. The knocks were soft as though something was cushioning what struck the door, and the repetition of the slow thuds brought your anxious stare down to a mindful frown.

“Get behind the couch,” was your instructions for Komaru and Toko, delivered after a quiet sigh of acceptance. You began marching to the door with no intention of stopping, which led to the duo sharing looks of alarm before diving behind the couch.

Komaru and Toko peeked over the top of the couch to gape at how you patted the dust and crumbs off your outfit and straightened your slouchy posture with the swiftness of someone removing a wig.

Toko ducked and pressed her back against the couch, sticking her thumbnail between her teeth. “I knew it! They're working for those brats!” She started to rise, but Komaru clutched her forearm and yanked her down. “Komaru! We need to get out of here!” sputtered Toko, her voice creeping up to a yell.

Even though dread and uncertainty were beginning to crumple her face and sprinkle it with sweat, Komaru clung to the bit of hope still wrestling with her queasy stomach. “We can trust them,” she said with narrowed eyes and such determination that Toko ceased her squirming and glanced at the door. “They won't give us up.”

Your hand was on the doorknob, so the two girls lowered themselves completely behind the couch.

“At least we can surprise the brat if they sell us out,” thought Toko, kneading a few strands of her hair and biting her lip.

Jataro Kemuri was rubbing the ends of his sleeves together in an up-and-down motion like someone rubbing a stick to spark a fire. He looked up at you when the hinges on the door creaked, and the attentive smile on your face was the same one you had always directed at him in the classroom.

You leaned forward slightly, making sure not to glance at the string of corpses and broken Monokumas decorating the street. “How's my favourite artist?”

From the folds of his oversized sleeves emerged a man of odd proportion and funny design. This miniature man was made of twigs, his one-too-many arms and legs sprawled at rigid angles that imitated the Vitruvian Man. The hands and feet were separate pieces of finger and toe bones that had been fastened to the arms and legs by way of string to give the illusion of movement when it was rocked.

The bones appeared unnaturally large on the much smaller body, and their smooth texture hinted that they had been polished by the careful licks of a paintbrush. Their smoothness was so different from the rough bark of the twigs that it was as if two worlds had been smashed together. The memory of life extinguished was there, although it took a far more discerning eye than yours to find it.

The head of the twig man was adorned with clumps of multicoloured hair, which had been glued to the wood with an adhesive that was still damp. It smudged your fingertips with a sooty black as if you had dabbed them in the hearth of a fireplace, and streaks of clotted red dripped from the hair and dotted your palm.

As you lowered the man to look upon his creator, Jataro gazed up at you with the hopeful, starry-eyed face only a child could give. Months of commending the uncanny brought a practised smile to your lips. “Any art gallery would be lucky to have this,” you said with a warm sincerity that concealed the twisting of your stomach.

Jataro dipped his head and tapped his sleeves together, but then a cruel sneer began to spread and infect his voice with a gleeful kind of malice. “I made a demon-sized one,” he started to say, glancing over his shoulder as if about to ask you to follow him somewhere. “But it was too heavy to bring with me.”

A part of you was grateful for this as you inwardly winced at the fleshy display it must have been, stinking of death and decay to someone whose nose was covered by a leather flap.

Listening to you chat with someone who had killed and mutilated dozens of people if not more was jarring for Komaru and Toko, the words shared by you and Jataro coming out like a pair of friends on a stroll.

Toko lowered her hand from the strands of hair she had twirled and raised her head to the edge of the couch. A coppery scent was stinging her nostrils and turning her stomach, prompting her mind to compensate for its lack of a view by filling her inner eye with grotesque images.

This allowed a particle of dust to tickle the inside of her nose like a feather.

The sneeze that followed had the shrill squeak of a kitten's wail, and it was the sole warning you had to lurch out of the doorway.

A blur of purple leapt over the top of the couch with shrieking laughter and a handful of industrial scissors.

Jataro flung his arms in the air and yelped, scurrying behind you to peek out and watch, trembling, as Komaru jumped after the blur and restrained the swinging blades by hugging both arms like a human straitjacket.

“Let me kill him! Let me kill him!” shouted the girl in Toko's clothes, her voice frantic and raspy. She squirmed and howled in protest when Komaru rushed her out the door, and the combination of grunts and grumbles spilled into the street.

You stumbled to the doorway in a hurry to see if any Monokumas were flocking to the noise. A fresh batch of robots swept over the remains of their comrades and streamed out of the darkness of alleys in every direction, eyes glowing the same colour as the proximity sensors lighting up on the outside of your property.

The purple-haired girl, “Genocider Jack” she had shouted as a reason for Komaru to release her, lunged into the heart of the horde and began slicing the mechanical bears in half like a gardener chopping a weed with shears.

Komaru brandished her megaphone and fired waves of blue light out of it, which caused the affected Monokumas to explode in a shower of frayed wires and sparking motherboards.

Recalling Komaru's promise that her brother would come to rescue survivors, you found yourself standing taller every time she destroyed a robot and slumping every time a robot dodged or scratched her. It must have shown more than you meant for it to show because you peered over your shoulder to find Jataro staring at you.

With the confusion and shock of someone witnessing the incomprehensible, he tilted his head and asked, “What are you doing?”

It was then that you looked down and realised you were still holding the twig man. “They broke in,” you blurted, disguising the tension in your voice as fear of the supposed invaders rather than fear of being exposed as a traitor.

Jataro lifted his hands to the sides of his head and looked at the dirty shoe prints on the floor. “Oh no, the demons got to you. Monaca said this might happen.”

Your eyes narrowed at the last part, but you struggled to hide the suspicion from your face when he shambled to the centre of the room. “I'll have to bless your house to send all the demon energy away!”

As Jataro began waving his arms and outstretching his right leg in a series of bizarre movements resembling someone's first attempt at a jiu-jitsu attack, you glanced at the street and noticed the dwindling number of functional Monokumas.

“Oh, Heaven! Change my words to life. Cleanse the home of its demons,” he chanted, stretching the vowels and exaggerating the consonants as if talking funny would grant him divine power.

The street was wrapped in the corpses of fallen Monokumas. Genocider Jack and Komaru had retreated to a neighbouring street with the few remaining units on their tail, and the urge to sprint for the city limits was tugging you closer and closer to the door.

Living on the outskirts of Towa City, a fact that had landed you in the middle of harsh traffic and cumbersome journeys to the grocery store for years, was now a source of immense gratitude. Just as you turned and passed through the doorway, Jataro's footsteps came thumping forward.

He hugged the arm that held his art project and matched your pace as much as his smaller stature could allow. “Getting out of here is probably a good idea,” he nodded, looking down at the rubble crunching beneath his shoes. “Who knows what kind of terrible effects my blessing will have on the world? Probably destroy it, fill it with diseases.”

The mumbles about his breath smelling foul enough to create a fungus tumbled out of him until you reached the end of your property. Here, Jataro let go of you and walked ahead for a step or two before turning back.

A gasp came from him as though he had just solved the greatest mystery of his time, and he flapped his arms with each word of astonishment. “You should come live with us in the sky palace!”

The old spot in your back ached.

Do anything you want with my work, but never make me boring!

590 notes · View notes

goddess-of-green · 2 years

Text

ꜰʀɪᴇɴᴅꜱ ɪɴ ᴜɴᴇxᴘᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴘʟᴀᴄᴇꜱ | 𝐍. 𝐊𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐞𝐝𝐚

(Synopsis: Servant comes back home to reader injured after looking for necessities. Reader patches him up and shows him the care that he deserves.)

this has been in the works for like. weeks because i spent way too long on the set up and then got into jdvn the day after i started writing it

Warnings: GN!Reader, MAJOR SDR2/MILD UDG Spoilers, takes place during UDG, it's a little angsty at first but it gets fluffy I promise, slightly graphic depictions of injury, use of nicknames/pet names (honey, hun), suggestive themes

You sighed, cleaning up for the third time that day. No matter what you did, the apartment still felt dirty. You supposed it couldn't be helped, given it was the apocalypse.

You'd been lucky to find such a large and secure shelter, but you still couldn't help but be dissatisfied with your current living conditions.

You wished Servant would come back. He made it much easier to take your mind off these things, even if he was a walking reminder of the tragedy. Being with him filled a void that you otherwise wouldn't be able to fill while the world was in such a state.

You had found him not long after the tragedy struck, and remembered him as an underclassman from Hope's Peak. He was much different now, but you couldn't help but seek some familiarity—some form of companionship at a time like this.

You pulled him from the kids that put a terrible collar and leash on him and treated him like a slave, but for some reason he still refused to give you his name, insisting that he was only a lowly servant and deserved to be addressed as such.

You also couldn't figure out how to get the collar off, to your dismay, but you tried your best to loosen it for him. You weren't very effective, but he appreciated the effort. More than you knew.

Most of your other classmates were either dead or missing, and your family was far out of the picture at this point. You truly had no one other than Servant left in the world.

Even for a maniac, Servant was weird. He had episodes often, and would zone out and get into hope and despair nearly every time you had a conversation with him, but he also had strangely lucid moments—moments where he seemed even more sane than you were.

Not that that was saying much, these days. This kind of lifestyle chips away at you. It's not really something you can ever acclimate to. Not after having lived "normally" for so long.

Servant was very intelligent, but his logic and philosophies had so many twists and idiosyncrasies that trying to understand it was like trying to untangle a wadded up ball of yarn.

Even if you managed to mostly untangle it, and straighten it out, it would be frayed and fuzzy and altered from what it once was. You believed the only one who could truly understand Servant, was Servant himself.

But you tried. For heaven's sake, you tried. You did your best to keep up with each twist and turn and curve ball he threw your way.

Because even if he was crazy, he was all you had.

And you didn't want to lose him.

He heavily insisted that you stay in the apartment at all times, he didn't even want you roaming around the complex. You'd been a bit indignant at first, telling him that you could protect yourself, and you knew what you were dealing with, but it didn't take much convincing in the end.

You quickly came to learn about Servant's ruthless luck cycle. It was highly active, which you assumed was in part due to the state of the world. Everyday something extremely odd and unexplainable happened to Servant—and usually you too, due to your proximity to him—either for better or for worse, and it wasn't something you could deny at this point.

Because of this, simply being involved with him was dangerous, and leaving the safety of the apartment could lead to injury or worse for you. Servant was also much more effective at foraging than you were, since his luck tended to grant him unique and useful finds.

You sometimes wished you could go with him anyway, just to make sure he was okay, but from what you'd observed, his luck seems to go to any length other than killing him. You knew about his illness, but he'd outlived his life expectancy by far, and while he wasn't in the greatest shape, he was certainly still up and running with tenacity.

There were times when Servant would have an episode so bad he'd become completely unaware of his surroundings, and be left extremely exhausted by the time he came out of it. You were worried something like that would happen to him, and leave him vulnerable while he was out on his own.

You had to remind yourself that he was a remnant, and he was much stronger than he looked.

Still, your mind could only run in circles as you sat alone in the apartment, completely stir crazy.

You tried your best to keep things as tidy and clean as possible, but there was only so much you could do.

Cooking was pretty much a fabled activity at this point. Though there was still food you were able to prepare, which you always tried to do for Servant.

From your understanding, he was meant to serve the children that had previously been holding him captive, but he was very poor at caring for them. Specifically, in food preparation.

Servant would spend the majority of the day exploring Towa City, trying to find anything that could help you two survive longer, or more comfortably, and you felt like you had to contribute something, given that you were stuck inside all day.

You almost felt like a little house spouse, in some fucked up, post-apocalyptic way.

It could have been your loneliness speaking, but you felt genuine care for Servant, and you wanted to do your best to make sure he was doing okay.

If it weren't for him, you probably wouldn't have lasted this long into the tragedy. Which was ironic, given that he was partially the cause for it.

Making your way through your tiny kitchen, you opened the cabinets and grabbed some non-perishable food.

Some dried fruit and vegetables, along with canned meat. It was by no means high dining, but it was certainly better than the scraps many others had to live off of.

Just before you cracked the first can open, the door burst open, making you flinch.

You knew in your mind, Servant was the only one that could make it this far into the complex without being caught or killed by the swarming Monokuma's, but the way the door slammed open worried you nonetheless.

Making your way over to the door, you gasped at the state you found him in.

He dropped a few bags on the floor, presumably things he'd gathered while he was out, but what you were more focused on was the red bleeding down his face as he lowered himself to the ground, looking close to passing out.

He smiled as you cupped his cheeks, looking over him quickly and trying to find where the blood was coming from.

"Heh, happy to see me? I really am lucky to have someone like you to come home to." He smiled casually.

You had pretty much gotten used to his nonchalant behavior towards tense situations, or sustaining serious injuries, but you didn't play into it.

"What happened?" Your search ceased as you found the gash on the top of his head, a bit past his forehead, turning his starch white hair red.

You hurried to pull him into the kitchen, pressing a cloth to his head and trying to stop the bleeding.

"Ah... I'm not sure I recall." Servant smiled, but grunted as you pressed against his wound.

Had he lost awareness like you feared? Or was he just being elusive? You wouldn't put it past him to think he was unworthy of talking about his troubles, or something.

Not that his answer particularly mattered to you. What you were worried about at the present time was treating him.

You grabbed his wrist, guiding him to hold the cloth against his head so you could step away to rummage through the cabinets.

You weren't lucky enough to have rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide on hand, but you found a nearly empty bottle of nail polish remover in one of the bottom cabinets.

It would have to do.

You grabbed the bottle and made your way back to Servant, sitting him down on a chair and sitting next to him. You took the cloth from his head and folded it over, pouring the light purple substance onto the clean side of cloth and pressing it back to his head.

Servant hissed at the burn of chemicals against the open wound, and you bit your lip.

"Sorry... I'm sorry, honey." You murmured, the term of endearment falling from your lips subconsciously. "It'll be over soon, you're doing so good."

His shoulders untensed as you spoke soft words of encouragement, and brought your other hand up to rub his shoulder distractingly.

His skin was cold underneath his red and green sweater, and the collar of it was stretched enough that you were mostly touching his bare skin as you rubbed his shoulder.

Servant shuddered. (Knowing him, there was no real way to tell what caused him to do so.)

The bleeding was starting to stop, but you frowned at the streaks of blood that still ran down his face.

Servant looked pretty rough, which was normal, all things considered, but at times you couldn't help but look at him and think of how beautiful he was. How beautiful he must have been, before everything.

How his porcelain skin looked before it was tainted with blood, dirt and soot. How his fluffy hair looked before it was matted and bleach white.

How his smile looked before it was riddled with insanity.

You felt bad for Servant, and maybe that was what made you feel so attached to him. Maybe that was why you felt such an intense need to take care of him.

You sometimes found yourself wondering what things would've been like if you grew close with him under different circumstances. Or if you would have grown close at all.

Maybe you would have walked to class together, and ate lunch with each other, and had silly little sleepovers like teenagers do.

And maybe, if not for the tragedy, around this time you would have been living with him, attending a nice university and starting your lives together.

But there wasn't much use in thinking about things like that, was there? Because it was too late for something like that.

You couldn't help but wish you had cared a little more about the riots, and you found yourself wishing you'd paid that fluffy haired underclassmen a little more attention. Maybe things would be different if you had.

But hindsight was always 20/20.

You hadn't realized that you zoned out, and now the rag was completely red and Servant was staring at you curiously.

You pulled it from his head, standing up with a frown as you inspected the wound. "Sorry."

Servant smiled carelessly as your fingers brushed through his hair, trying to get a good look at the injury. "It's no problem at all, please don't waste your worries on a lowly Servant like myself."

Even after adjusting to staying with you, he never did let go of his role as a "servant". He insisted on doing his best to be of service to you.

In fact, you were sure the only reason he didn't object to you helping him was because he'd come to know how stubborn you could be.

There was no way you'd let him clean and dress his own wound when you were around, especially considering he looked a half a second from passing out when he came through the door.

You found it rather difficult to sift your fingers through his hair with how tangled and matted it was. His hair had always been wild and messy, but it seemed much worse than usual.

In fact, taking another look at him you found several things worse than usual. His sweater had new holes, he was littered with bruises and scratches, and he seemed to be faintly trembling-- though unsure shaking was somewhat normal for Servant.

You frowned, and Servant just watched your face contort as the gears in your mind turned, unbothered, but perhaps interested in your train of thought.

"What happened, honey?" You sighed finally, cupping his cheek. "You really don't remember?"

Servant nearly flinched at the contact, a shaky smile making its way onto his face as his cheeks bloomed red.

He leaned in, basking in your touch and closing his eyes, but he didn't answer.

You frowned, but simply went back to checking his wound.

You didn't have a very clear view of the gash, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. However, you couldn't exactly dress it with all his matted hair in the way, and you doubted he'd let you cut it--if you even had the means to do so.

Well, I think the best I can do at the moment is to clean his hair so he doesn't infect the open wound, and then go from there.

"Alright, Servant. Can I wash your hair?" You asked, standing up.

He looked up at you for a moment, eyes round as coins, and you started to wonder if he'd heard you.

He smiled just before you could repeat yourself however, and jumped up with a pink face. "Of course! You can do anything you want to me. I am your servant, after all." He stared at you with lidded eyes.

You weren't sure you liked the way he said that, but you just grabbed his hand gently and led him to the apartment's one small bathroom.

It was a little narrow, so you had Servant sit down on the toilet while you attempted to run a bath.

The water pressure was funky, and it wasn't exactly clear, but it was clean enough for bathing. You didn't have enough disinfectant for all of his little cuts and abrasions, and you didn't want to risk leaving them untended when he was so careless--even with his luck ensuring his life would remain intact.

He sat relatively straight with his hands folded in his lap as he watched you fill the tub and mess with the temperature (warm wasn't really an option, but you did your best for something less than cold) and as you glanced back at him you thought he looked more put together than he had in quite some time.

Even in his more lucid moments, Servant never seemed like he was all the way there, but as he gazed at you with focused eyes, you found you wouldn't think him anything other than a normal boy if not for his wretched appearance.

Maybe it was some kind of psychotic reverse, you considered. A crazy person gets a bonk on the head and suddenly they can think straight.

That was more of just a silly thought, though. You sincerely doubted a severe head wound would even be enough to make Servant normal.

Turning away from the bath as you let it fill up, you helped Servant by pushing his leather jacket off his shoulders and tugging the ripped sweater up over his head. He shivered a bit as his torso was met with the cool air, but made no comment.

You wordlessly left the room to look for soap. You were fairly certain there weren't any skincare products or conditioner lying around, but maybe if you were lucky you'd find some body wash and shampoo.

You found some antibacterial hand soap after a little digging, which you supposed was better than nothing. The soap would be good for his injuries, at least. You grabbed a large cup from the kitchen and made your way back to Servant.

When you reentered the bathroom, you found that Servant had shucked off his pants and slid into the tub while you were gone. Modesty wasn't really a big deal anymore, but you still found yourself slightly relieved that he'd fully undressed on his own.

Noting that the bath had filled to an acceptable volume, you turned off the faucet and set the soap on the edge of the tub.

"Okay, can I wash your hair for you?" You asked, just to be sure.

Servant nodded slowly, but his expression was very eager. "Anything you'd like to do to me, as I said before, you may. Wash me, hold me, hit me, kill me..." He started to stare off into space, and if you didn't know any better you'd think he was fantasizing.

You sighed, scooping up some water with the cup and pouring it over Servant's head. "I'd never hurt you or kill you, hun. Not if I could help it."

Servant smiled, face red and something suspiciously akin to drool running down his chin, but you told yourself it was just water as you poured more over his head.

"Even in such despairing times as these, you're able to show kindness and benevolence. You don't resort to violence and despair when the world is running on it. You're so, so beautiful." He gazed at you with loving eyes, and against your better judgement, your heart fluttered.

You knew he was talking about your "hope" and not your outward appearance when he called you beautiful, but he'd made it clear on multiple occasions that he didn't find you unattractive.

Sometimes you felt like the only thing that kept you from falling in love with Servant was your sanity.

But that didn't mean you didn't care for him.

When you determined his hair was adequately wet and flat, you pumped some of the hand soap into your hand and started to scrub at his scalp.

Servant's eyes fluttered closed in what appeared to be relaxation at the feeling, and you realized he was probably extremely exhausted from his trip. You did your best to avoid catching tangles in his hair and clean him quickly so that he wouldn't fall asleep in the tub.

If there was one thing more troublesome than Servant, it was an incapacitated Servant.

You were gentle around the open wound, but still made sure to get it clean, feeling bad as Servant's brows furrowed in discomfort.

Once you'd finished lathering his hair, you picked up the cup once more and poured the water over his head. You had him tilt his head back so as not to get any soap, water, or blood in his eyes.

Running your hands through his hair, you smiled a little as it wasn't dirty and oily like before. It was still fairly tangled, but at least it was (relatively) clean now.

You leaned back and nudged the bottle of hand soap so it would enter Servant's field of vision. "Would you like to do the rest on your own?" You asked.

Servant's eyes opened sluggishly and the soft shade of red on his cheeks seemed to fade a little as he eyed the bottle. A brief frown tugged at his lips, but he didn't object.

"Of course, I have troubled you quite enough." He smiled.

You shook your head, exasperated as you pressed a kiss to his wet cheek. "You haven't. Call for me when you're done, okay?"

He blushed, nodding and watching you as you picked up his sweater and left the bathroom.

You examined his sweater more thoroughly once you entered the living room. Somehow it was his only article of clothing to sustain damage, but it happened so often it was just as troubling as if all his clothes were being shredded.

You did your best to patch up the holes in the fabric with a little sewing kit, but the sweater was definitely on its last legs. You needed to find something else for him to wear, lest he have to go out in nothing but his ill-fitting leather jacket.

Regretfully, you blushed at the thought, but put it out of your mind immediately. Not only was it impractical, but it was unsafe.

Still, you didn't have a fresh wardrobe of clothes in his size conveniently around. The sweater would have to do until you or him came across a suitable replacement.

Once you finished, you figured Servant was nearly done bathing. You picked up the sweater and one of the few towels in the apartment before going to the bathroom.

You knocked, but were met with no response, so you pushed open the door to find Servant staring vacantly at the ceiling.

As you approached the tub, he slowly turned to look at you. It seemed to take him a moment to process that you were there.

"Ah, Y/N! You came back!" He smiled, seemingly excited.

You looked down at him. "Are you done? You didn't call."

"Hm? What do you mean?" He looked up at you with a pleasant smile.

You sighed. There was something wrong with him.

"Alright, well come on. It's time to get out." You felt more like his mother than anything.

Oblivious to your thoughts, he nodded and unclogged the drain before standing up.

You handed him the towel and turned away politely, folding his clothes on the counter and setting the sweater with them.

"Once you finish getting dressed, come to the bedroom, okay? I'm going to put a bandage over your wound and brush your hair out."

You looked to him for confirmation and he smiled, drying his body with the towel. "Okay."

Leaving, you searched around for some bandages that would cover the whole injury. Luckily, you had a decent amount of dressings. At least Servant's luck was good for something.

Grabbing the box, you headed back to your shared room and grabbed the hairbrush off the dresser.

Within a few minutes, Servant pushed open the door to the bedroom and shuffled in. Sitting down next to you on the bed, he leaned in to hug you.

"Huh? What's this for?" You asked in surprise. Despite his apparent liking for affection, it was rare for Servant to actually initiate physical contact.

"You fixed my sweater." He smiled.

"You're so corny." You gave him a look, but wrapped your arms around him anyway.

After a moment, you realized Servant was content to stay in your arms until you told him otherwise, so you patted his back. "Come on, sit up. I need to put this bandage on you."

With what sounded like a mild noise of protest, he slowly sat up and faced you.

Brushing and lifting his tangled hair out of the way as best you could, you pressed the bandage over his wound.

Once you were sure it was affixed, you let go of his hair and leaned back. "Okay. Now turn around."

Obediently, Servant moved to readjust himself on the bed so that he was facing away from you.

Picking up the hairbrush, you grabbed the ends of his tangled--but now clean--hair and gently started to run the brush through it. You took care to make sure you didn't tug on his scalp, or pull out any of his hair.

Despite your carefulness, you noticed a lot of hair shedding into the brush, but it seems that Servant isn't in pain, at least.

Quite the opposite, in fact. As you run the brush through his hair as gently as possible, he seems rather relaxed. He's quiet, and he leans his body back against yours.

What you can't see is that his eyes are closed and his face is pink, but maybe that's for the better.

It takes quite a while to ease the brush through every little tangle and all the angry knots, and you notice Servant's hair gaining a lot of volume as you brush it out, but you persevere. Even though you're pretty sure his hair will be big enough to cover his entire face by the time you're done.

You've been brushing his hair for well past 20 minutes at this point, and he's been quiet practically the whole time, you're even starting to wonder if he fell asleep.

You wouldn't be very surprised if he had, he seemed to have a rough go of it when he was out foraging, and he was probably exhausted.

As you finish brushing through the last section of his hair, you run the brush through it to make sure you really got out all the tangles, and sit back.

Your back hurts from the odd posture you kept the whole time you were brushing his hair, but before you lay down to ease the discomfort, you want to put on the finishing touches.

You attempt to tuck his hair behind his ear, but it just falls back out.

Humming, you think for a moment, before standing up suddenly.

Servants grunts a bit as you get up, sitting up to right himself as he'd been leaning most of his weight on you the whole time.

It seems he hadn't quite been asleep, but very close to it; in that relaxing half-conscious period as you begin to doze off.

You grabbed some cutesy little barrets of the dresser, clearly meant for little kids, but they'd do their job.

You pin the little rainbow glitter barrettes to the three sections of his hair that fall into his face, effectively pinning them back.

You didn't want his now extremely fluffy hair to obscure his vision, and maybe having his hair back would prevent it from getting tangled again so fast.

Satisfied with your work, you smiled at the girly little hair clips and Servant's sleepy face. Usually he'd be running his mouth endlessly at such attentions, but it seems he could barely keep himself up right at the moment.

You felt similarly, tired not just from taking care of Servant, but the world around you, and taking a nap sounded like the best thing right now.

"Come on, you should get some rest now, Servant." Lightly, you pushed his shoulders so that he'd lay down, which he did so without protest, snuggling his face into the flat pillow at the head of the bed and letting his eyes finally drift shut completely.

Laying down next to him, you got comfortable as well, sighing at the feeling of weight being lifted off your back as you laid against the soft (well, soft by today's standards,) mattress.

Feeling you settle in next to him, Servant wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you in towards him and pressing his face into you.

Usually, such close contact would have embarrassed you, but you were too tired at the moment to do anything other than appreciate it.

You wrapped your arms around him in turn, and felt genuinely at peace as you drifted off.

Thanks for reading! I don't usually do notes at the end of a oneshot but I had some stuff to say about this one.

The whole fic is meant to kind of have a looming sense of dysphoria due to the dystopian setting, since it takes place after the tragedy and while class 77-b is essentially insane. However, I also did my best to make the soft moments outshine that.

What Reader said about Komaeda being the only one to understand himself is true to an extent I believe, but the reader is unaware of Izuru Kamukura's existence. I think Kamukura definitely has the capacity to truly understand Komaeda. Ordinarily though, Komaeda is so contradictory and strange that anyone would have trouble psychoanalyzing him.

Also, I know that Komaeda was with the Warriors of Hope for his own reasons, but for plot purposes it's just more convenient that he was forced to be their Servant.

#danganronpa x reader #super danganronpa 2 x reader #ultra despair girls x reader #dr x reader #sdr2 x reader #udg x reader #danganronpa 2 x reader #dr 2 x reader #nagito komaeda x reader #nagito x reader #komaeda x reader #the servant

291 notes · View notes