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acacia-may · 11 months

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Across the Universe Chapter 1: Have We Met Before

(Written for Momoharu Week 2023 Day 1: Trust)

Story Description: The most interesting thing "Kaito Momota" had ever done in his life was stupidly sign up for a death game as an impulsive teen. With his ridiculous and life-threatening choices behind him and completely forgotten, however, he tries his best to live a normal life--keeping up with his university classes and his part-time job as a waiter at a sushi restaurant across the street from the planetarium. When he meets and befriends the strangely familiar Maki Harukawa, a quiet and standoffish education major who is shouldering a painful secret, however, he starts to unravel the truth of his past and begins to wonder if love can exist across the universe.

Written for Momoharu Week 2023. Each chapter corresponds to a different day's prompt, but the story is cohesive.

Chapter 1 Excerpt: Every so often with no real rhyme or reason to it, she’d appear—walking on the opposite side of the street either coming or going from the planetarium. That whole summer I was waiting the outside tables at the sushi restaurant, so I got a front row seat to “Planetarium Girl” as I began to call her—never quite being able to call to mind her actual name.

Written for Momoharu Week 2023. Day 1: Trust.

Fandom: Danganronpa V3

Genre: Romance, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Alternate Universe, Fix-It(?), Everyone Lives AU, Retrograde Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Multi-Chapter

Relationships: Momoharu (Maki Harukwawa/Kaito Momota Romantic Relationship). Minor relationships: Maki Harukawa & Shuichi Saihara & Himiko Yumeno Friendship and Kaito Momota & Shuichi Saihara & Himiko Yumeno Friendship

Characters: Kaito Momota (POV Character) and Maki Harukawa. Shuichi Saihara and Himiko Yumeno also make some appearances.

Rating: T for Thematic Elements and Some Language (Please see "Warnings" below for more details)

Warnings: Heavy themes (i.e. grief, emotional trauma, & survivor guilt), mentions of (non-depicted) past deaths and death games. SPOILERS for Danganronpa V3.

Chapter 1 Word Count: 2775

Link to original post on AO3. Please do not repost to another site.

Link to chapter 2 coming soon...

Chapter 1 below the cut. Thank you for reading! 💜

I’ll never forget the first time I saw “Planetarium Girl.” I was wiping down one of the outdoor tables at the sushi restaurant where I worked when I saw a wave of dark hair and heard the clip-clopping sound of her shoes on the pavement. She turned and glanced over at me, and when I met her eyes, I could have sworn I knew her—had known her all my life. It was one of those cosmic experiences they talk about in the movies…or maybe she was just a former classmate of mine I had forgotten or I had seen her at the park or the supermarket. The whole experience was giving me déjà vu, and I couldn’t do anything but stare at her and no, not just because she was pretty—though I admit I noticed that too. It was impossible not to. But I swear I’m not some kind of creep—I really was just wracking my brain trying to figure out where we had met before. I couldn’t call to mind her name, her hobbies, her favorite color, if we were friends, coworkers, classmates or just strangers who bumped into each other running errands. But I knew her face and that sadness that passed over her eyes when she looked at me made my chest ache.

She turned away quickly and disappeared into the planetarium across the street. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed. I was hoping she would stop by the restaurant, maybe even get seated in my section by a stroke of luck and I’d get a little more time to figure out how I knew her. Instead, she vanished, and it wasn’t long before my manager walked by and quipped, “Stop making goo goo eyes and get back to work.”

I tried to shake off that weird sense of déjà vu and forget the whole thing. I figured that I’d probably never see her again, but I was wrong. Every so often with no real rhyme or reason to it, she’d appear—walking on the opposite side of the street either coming or going from the planetarium. That whole summer I was waiting the outside tables at the sushi restaurant, so I got a front row seat to “Planetarium Girl” as I began to call her—never quite being able to call to mind her actual name. I began to wonder if she worked there or maybe she was just really into space or something. A science student, perhaps—future rocket scientist and ultra-intelligent. It made me question even more how I could know someone like that. I got by in school and was somehow muddling through my university classes—juggling them and my part-time job. I was never particularly ambitious and only enrolled in university in the first place since I felt like I owed it to my grandparents after what I put them through as a rebellious teenager.

Most teens rebelled by partying, dying their hair or getting a tattoo, but I took out my teen angst by signing over my bodily autonomy to a reality tv show death game. Not the best decision I had ever made in my life. To be honest, I didn’t remember a thing about it. The doctor said it was retrograde amnesia. Baba, my grandmother, said it was a blessing.

We never really discussed the death game beyond teary-eyed Baba spluttering about how awful it was to have to watch some version of me fight for my life—whatever that means. I figured it was probably for the best that I didn’t remember something so horrible, but still it was hard not to feel like I had missed out on a whole chunk of my life even if it was traumatic. I tried not to think about it, but it had been on my mind a bit since the company who ran the thing was in the middle of a huge, highly publicized lawsuit at the moment. You would have thought a couple of bigwig executives would realize you can’t facilitate the deaths of minors on international tv without repercussions, but apparently not.

Having promised Baba that I’d turn over a new leaf and move forward, I didn’t want anything to do with the lawsuit—that didn’t stop the lawyers from sending a bunch of materials over though. I just shoved them in a box somewhere, not that it mattered. The way I saw it, everyone makes stupid choices sometimes, and even if my choices were way more stupid (and life threatening) than most, it didn’t help me or anyone to sit around wallowing in regret over them, so I moved forward and tried to live as decent and as normal a life as I could now—muddling my way through classes and waiting tables and wondering how in the world I knew “Planetarium Girl.” I didn’t know what it was about her that had me so focused on trying to figure out why she looked so familiar to me. It bothered me for months until finally, one evening in the late summer after an extra shift I picked up for someone else, I decided to check out the planetarium for myself. No, I wasn’t following her there. I just wanted to see what the big deal was—it had to be a pretty amazing place if “Planetarium Girl” kept visiting it over and over. So I bought a ticket. What could it hurt?

The kid running the ticket booth had thick rimmed glasses too big for his baby face and was way too excited about this new planetarium show about the moon they were showing just for the summer. He said I was lucky that I decided to come in before they retired it since it was only a limited engagement and pointed me in the direction of some practically abandoned exhibits about the stars and planets. I perused them—mainly just looking at the pictures and skimming over the accompanying text—until it was almost time for the final planetarium show of the night.

As soon as I walked through the door, my breath hitched. There was Planetarium Girl sitting a few seats into a row midway down the aisle. I took a deep breath—feeling a little nervous all of sudden. What if she thought I was some sort of creep who had followed her here? I tried to remind myself to calm down and play it cool, as I casually made my way down the aisle to her row.

“Can I sit here?” I asked with a slight shrug of my shoulders. She turned and blinked at me with wide, dark eyes. Whether she recognized me or not didn’t show on her face in the slightest. She quirked an eyebrow at me and glanced around at the practically empty planetarium—deserted aside from an older couple about thirty rows over. I fidgeted. Of course she was about to call me out for asking to sit near her when the place was empty.

I chuckled awkwardly, ready to cut my losses and forget the whole thing, when she finally shrugged and muttered, “Okay.” Her voice was monotone—didn’t inspire much confidence that she didn’t mind me sitting near her, but she didn’t say “no” so that was at least something.

As I took my seat, I tried not to stare at her—wracking my brain about where I had seen that wave of dark hair and those thoughtful dark eyes before. Still nothing. I couldn’t for the life of me place her, though she looked extremely familiar to me.

“Do you come to the planetarium often?” I asked. She blinked at me—a bit icy as if she didn’t want to be disturbed. I swallowed hard, but she shrugged curtly.

“Sometimes.”

“I’ve never been before. I work at a restaurant across the street so I’ve been seeing people coming and going from the planetarium all summer and was kind of curious about what all the fuss is about”—I chuckled lightly—”The guy at the ticket counter seems to think this is an amazing show about the moon—a must see, but I guess he’s probably paid to say that…what do you think?”

A pause. “It’s alright.”

“Are you a…rocket scientist or you want to be an astronaut or something or do you just really like space?” The words were awkward. I was mentally kicking myself as soon as they tumbled out of my mouth. What was wrong with me?

Something flickered across Planetarium Girl’s eyes and the expression of her face softened. “No…not me. You?”

I laughed. “Oh heck no. I’m not smart enough for that. I’m barely making it through my classes as it is—there’s no way I’d be able to be a rocket man.”

“Rocket man?” her brow furrowed in confusion but there was something undeniably sad in her eyes.

“Oh no—just like the song, you know? There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s actually pretty cool—it’s just I’m not smart enough for rocket science,” I panicked—words racing and stumbling as I tripped over them. Gosh, I was bad at this. “But it’s totally fine if you are—or if someone is. It’s—it’s actually really cool.”

She blinked but didn’t say anything, and before I could further put my foot in my mouth the lights of the planetarium dimmed marking the beginning of the show. I wasn’t sure if I should be relieved or disappointed.

I had to admit the ticket guy was right—it was a pretty cool planetarium show about the moon though I probably would have enjoyed it more if I wasn’t so busy mentally kicking myself for my awkward conversation with Planetarium Girl. I didn’t even learn her name, and knowing that I would probably forever regret it if I didn’t at least try to introduce myself, I resolved that I’d try to talk to her one last time as soon as the show was over.

“That was pretty good,” I said, turning to her with a slight, lopsided grin when the lights came back on in the planetarium. She shrugged her shoulders. “I can see why you want to come to see it over and over.”

Her dark eyes narrowed, and I cleared my throat—my face growing suddenly warm. “I mean…you…like not you personally but just you as in a person, anyone—someone…” The silence which followed was deafening and I started to panic. I wasn’t sure what to do so I just started rambling, hoping something I said would help salvage the situation. “I’m not a stalker, I promise. I just work across the street and wait the outside tables and so I see people coming and going a lot and you seem to come and go a lot sometimes from the planetarium and you looked really familiar to me so…I would notice sometimes when you passed by because I was trying to figure out…have we met before?”

I managed to cut myself off before I dug the hole any deeper. Planetarium Girl blinked at me, and I could’ve sworn she was going to storm off but she repeated, “I…look familiar to you…?”

Though this was quickly one of the most awkward moments of my life, I somehow managed a quick nod and admitted, “I’m sorry, I don’t know where I know you from, but you do look familiar—I…have we ever met somewhere before?”

There was a long, heavy pause. The dark tile floor was looking more and more inviting to me—maybe if I wished hard enough, I could sink into it.

“No, we haven’t.”

“Oh…” I tripped over my words. Was this whole awkward situation really all for nothing? “Well I feel pretty stupid now...” I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” she mumbled turning away abruptly from me to gather up her things.

“Have you ever been to the restaurant across the street? I…work there sometimes so maybe—”

“No,” she cut me off.

“Oh okay…well…maybe we just saw each other on the train or something…”

“Maybe.” Bag in hand she stood in front of me blinking—as if waiting for me to move out of her way so she could go.

“Listen, uh…I’m really sorry. I don’t think we got off on the right foot. Can …can we start over?”

There was no response, but I continued anyway—introducing myself properly, mentioning I was a university student and a part-time waiter at the restaurant across the street. I said it was nice to meet her and thanked her for letting me sit next to her, and I asked her name. To be honest, I didn’t really expect her to tell it to me, but she sighed and though she wouldn’t look at me, she replied, “It’s Maki Harukawa.”

“Maki—like a maki roll?” I teased, and she froze—her shoulders stiffening, but she didn’t say anything. Chuckling a little, I continued just to fill the awkward silence. “It’s my favorite kind of sushi. You like sushi, Maki-roll?”

I chuckled teasingly, though instantly regretted it when her eyes widened with something stormy and pained. I may have been overreacting a little, but I could have sworn she looked like she was about to cry. Something twisted in my chest. I had no idea where those words even came from or why I thought they were remotely okay. “Sorry…” I scrambled. “That was just a stupid joke—a bad pun…I…I get into this sushi mode when I’m at work and I—” I stopped. “Sorry, that was really rude of me. I don’t even know why I said that. I—”

“It’s okay,” she interrupted quietly. “I just never thought I’d get to—” She stopped abruptly and turned her whole body away from me—twisting her hair. There was something soft in her eyes—something gentle and kind, almost embarrassed and…bittersweet. “I’ve…I’ve never really been to a sushi restaurant before.”

“Seriously?” I blurted without thinking. Then, cleared my throat. “Well uh…I know you probably hate me now since I’ve been nothing but rude and awkward to you”—I chuckled awkwardly—”But if you don’t completely hate my guts, would you let me buy you a meal across the street? It’s the least I could do.” I shrugged my shoulders and offered her a lopsided grin. “No pressure or anything—just a friendly dinner and an apology for making things awkward…”

Maki sighed. “I don’t know…I…”

I tilted my head and smiled at her—my expression softening. “It’s really good—one of the best sushi places in the city, trust me.”

As I met her eyes, her cheeks flushed pink. Shrugging my shoulders, I held out my hand to her. In a movie or something, this would be the part where I’d say something cheesy like “Do you trust me?” even though I had given her every reason not to trust me. Of course, I knew I was a trustworthy guy, but she didn’t know that.

My fingers twitched as I began to recoil my hand, but Maki took a deep breath and averted her eyes to the ground. “Okay,” she said. My smile widened, but I tried not to look too giddy as she reached out and gave my hand a firm shake. She had killer grip—I really wasn’t expecting that. “But just a few sushi rolls, nothing more.”

“Of course,” I replied with a nod and a smile—blissfully unaware that this one decision would set in motion a chain of events which would lead me here, to this moment where years later, I’m standing in front of her door armed only with my feelings and the truth, remembering how naïve I was, how clueless, how stupid I was back when she was only “Planetarium Girl”, back when I only wanted to get to know her and learn why it was I had this unshakable sense of déjà vu whenever I saw her, back when I didn’t know the truth and didn’t trust my own feelings.

I know the truth now—know I should have trusted my gut instinct, should have known that we had met before…because now, I’m here, staring at the brass doorknob and the dark wood of her front door, wondering how I’m going to tell her that I finally know everything and how I’m going to convince her that it doesn’t change anything. Now, I can only trust that she will believe me when I finally tell her that whether we’re in that world or this one or any universe at all, I love her.

#momoharu week 2023 #momoharuweek2023 #momoharu #kaimaki #harukaito #part 1 of 7

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