Monaca Towa gets adopted by the Naegi family!

Makoto Naegi never truly believed that his luck was good.

Sure, his luck had got him to attend one of the most prestigious schools in all Japan – Hope's Peak Academy – where he was almost guaranteed success in life upon graduation. But, he did have to go through a whole string of unlucky events on a day that he would consider "the worst day of his life". For every good event to happen to him there would always be a hundred more bad events following close behind.

And when he looked back on that day – that beautiful sunny day - when his life turned upside down due to a certain person, he wondered what he had done wrong in life to deserve such a punishment.

Makoto woke up to the sight of the morning sun glaring through the blinds of his window. Rubbing his eyes, he removed himself from his bed. There was no need for him to dress himself up, since he always sleeps in his green hoodie and black jeans. In fact, apart from his school uniform, his wardrobe seemingly only consists of green hoodies and black jeans.

As he was heading towards the bathroom, out of nowhere he was jumped by his little sister - Komaru Naegi. She was in high spirits, for what reason Makoto didn't know yet.

"Awk! K-Komaru?!" Makoto grunted.

"M-Makoto! You must come to the front door immediately! "said Komaru, who was breathing quite fast that Makoto was worried she would pass out any second now.

"Eh? But I haven't even–"

"No Buts! You have to see the surprise! "Komaru pouted.

A surprise? Now he was curious as to what this surprise could be, since it got his little sister this riled up in the early morning. He was totally unaware that today his life was about to change for the worse.

"Okay, okay, Komaru," Makoto said, a small smile appearing on his face. "I'll go to the front door with you."

"Yeah! That's the spirit big brother," Komaru replied before dragging Makoto towards the front entrance of the house. Makoto saw his parents standing by the doorway, who smiled at the duo as they walked towards them.

"Ah, Makoto! Good morning!" replied his mother.

"Good morning mum," replied Makoto. "So um, what's the big surprise?"

His mother chuckled before saying, "Why don't you see for yourself." She turned her head towards the door and said, "You can come out now! Don't be shy!"

The door opened, and Makoto saw…

A girl in a wheelchair?

"Hello! Monaca is called Monaca! Nice to meet you big bro Makoto!" the girl said.

Big bro?

"This may seem like it came out of nowhere," his father said, "but starting from today Monaca will be living with us!"

Living with them?!

"What!" Makoto exclaimed. Now this was definitely a huge surprise for him, who knew his parents had gone off and adopted a kid without telling them. But in hindsight their behaviour in the last weeks, installing ramps on all of their doors, removing all of their carpets, reading articles about adopting a disabled child, should have tipped him off that something was up.

"Isn't she so cute!" said Komaru, who walked right up to Monaca and gave her a massive hug.

"Awww, you're so kind big sis Komaru!" responded Monaca. "Although… Big bro Makoto doesn't look so happy."

"Huh?" said Makoto, who was still recovering from this new revelation. "Well this is a bi–"

"Does big bro Makoto already hate Monaca?" interrupted Monaca, her eyes on the verge of tears. "Does big bro want Monaca to leave?"

"Wait! Wait! I don't hate you! I was just surprised that's all!" said Makoto as he tried to calm Monaca down. "In fact I think this is a wonderful surprise!"

"Y-You do?"

"Yeah! I'll admit that I was surprised to see you, but in time I'm sure you'll be a wonderful little sister! So please don't cry."

He would later come to regret saying this.

Monaca became happy, despite looking like she was on the verge of tears just a second ago. "Yayyyy! Big bro likes Monaca!" she exclaimed, and did a little twirl on the spot.

How is she doing that without using her hands?

"Now that Monaca has introduced herself," said his mother, "why don't we have a huge celebration to welcome her into our family?"

"That's a great idea!" pitched in Komaru.

"Well it's settled," said his father. "Let's celebrate our newest addition to our family, Monaca Naegi!"

His parents and sister departed to the living room to prepare the party, leaving just him and Monaca standing near the doorway. Now that it was just the two of them, Makoto felt a sudden dread of despair that seemingly came from nowhere.

What's with this feeling? Instead of feeling happy I feel… really scared? Like my whole life is suddenly going to take a turn for the worse from now on.

Monaca strolled over to his side and clasped her left hand onto his right. With a warm smile, she said, "I hope we can become best friends forever my new big brother."

Makoto's worry about his future was evaporated at the sight of her smile. How could such an innocent child such as Monaca possibly make his life worse? With a warm smile of his own, he replied, "I have no doubt that we would become great friends Monaca."

With their hands clasped together, Makoto lead Monaca to the living room, unaware of the small smirk that Monaca was sprouting to his side.

"This'll be fun…" Monaca whispered under her breath.

After the celebration, Monaca moved her stuff into Komaru's room, where she'll be sleeping from now on. The days after Monaca's arrival were peaceful, and were in fact quite fun with their newest member of the family. With no effort Monaca had integrated herself into the Naegi family, and had won over their hearts with her jokes and smiles. Makoto was relieved at this, and was about to dismiss that sudden feeling of despair as mere paranoia.

That is until one day…

Makoto was sitting in front of his computer, trying to finish up the last bit of his assignment from school. Just as he was about to save his hard work…

A sudden scream coming from his sister's room surprised Makoto, causing his mouse to just move a bit towards the do not save button, deleting all of his hard work in a single moment. Makoto can only sigh at this, attributing this event as another case of his bad luck.

And it took me five hours to complete it… But I'll worry about that later; right now my sister's in trouble!

He rushed to the door of her room and slammed it open.

"Komaru! What's wrong?!"

"I-It's… m-missing," Komaru replied. To say her room was a mess would be an understatement. It would be perfectly fine to say that her room looked like a hurricane had come in, followed by a tsunami, and then they both came back for another round.

Komaru was in the middle of turning her bed into an art piece, and before she could further her career in interior decoration, Makoto shouted, "What's missing?!"

"The latest album from Sayaka!" Komaru cried. "It was right here on my desk and now it just disappeared!"

"Oh," Makoto replied. To be honest, from the scream he heard he had expected something a bit more horrible, like she had seen a ghost or something.

"This is so bad," Komaru said, dropping down on what's left of her bed. "I spent so much of my allowance on that album! And I even had to wait in a long line to get it signed by Sayaka herself! How can I even call myself a Sayaker…"

Makoto was thinking of something to say to cheer his sister up, but then their parents came in.

"Komaru! Makoto! What happened here?!" said his mother. "We heard a scream and thought something horrible had happened!"

"I-I lost the latest album from Sayaka…" Komaru whimpered.

"Oh," his parents replied. They were honestly expecting something really horrible, like she had seen a ghost or something.

"Where did you last put it?" said his father.

Komaru pointed to her desk, well what's left of it from her frantic search.

"Are you sure you didn't just leave it somewhere else?" Makoto asked.

"No! I am absolutely positive that I left it right there!" said Komaru. "I went to the bathroom for five minutes and when I came back it vanished!"

At this moment, Monaca came into the room and noticed Komaru tearing up a little bit. "Big sis, why are you crying?"

"Komaru lost an important item of hers," answered his mother. "It was an album that she had bought from the store."

Makoto grew a little suspicious of Monaca, who appeared to be quite… indifferent at Komaru's situation. He decided to question her a bit.

"Monaca… do you know where the album might be?"

"Huhhh? Is big bro Makoto trying to accuse Monaca of theft?" Monaca replied, looking hurt from Makoto's question. "That's so meannn big bro."

"Well I wasn't trying to sa–"

"After all, big bro Makoto was the one who asked Monaca to take it."

What?

"What?!"

"Makoto, is this true?" his father asked.

"Of course no–"

"Big bro asked Monaca to give him the album," Monaca interrupted in a matter of fact tone. "He said he only wanted to have a listen to it, so Monaca took it when big sis wasn't looking and gave it to him."

Monaca looked down at the ground, tears starting to form in her eyes, "Monaca is realllly sorry for making big sis cry. If Monaca had known this would happen she wouldn't have listened to big bro… "

"You don't have to apologise," Komaru replied, wiping away the tears that were forming from her eyes. "Thanks for telling the truth Monaca!"

The tears in her eyes evaporated as Monaca giggled at this. Makoto can only stare at her in shock. Monaca… was lying to his family by saying he took the album!

"Y-You got that wrong!" Makoto shouted towards Monaca. Everyone in the room turned towards him.

"I-I never told Monaca to give me the album I swear!" said Makoto. "Besides, even if I did have the album, I would have given it back right away!"

"Well, why didn't you big bro?" asked Monaca, placing a finger on her face as if she were deep in thought.

"Because I don't have it!" answered Makoto.

"Then why don't we take a look in big bro's room?"

"Huh?"

"If big bro realllly doesn't have the album," said Monaca, "then we shouldn't find it, riiight?"

I got a really bad feeling about this.

"Well, I guess that makes sense…" replied his mother. "We should check Makoto's room."

The family and Monaca headed to Makoto's room. Once they were standing near the doorway of his room, Monaca pointed at his wardrobe.

"I saw big bro place the album inside his wardrobe," she said.

Makoto's father headed towards the wardrobe. He opened it and just as Monaca said the album was there, hidden in the back of the top shelf.

"T-There's my album!" Komaru shouted, pointing at the item of interest. She dashed toward the wardrobe and grabbed the album away from the shelf.

"See. Monaca didn't lie at all," Monaca said to Makoto, perhaps a bit too eager at him.

Makoto can only stand there looking dumbfounded. He was almost positive that the album wasn't there before he left the room. Unless…

"You must have placed it there when I had left the room!" accused Makoto.

"Now, now, Makoto," said his mother. "No need to shout at Monaca."

"Yes mum…"

"Jeez, big bro really wants to place the blame on poor me," Monaca said, her head downcast. "If Monaca really was the one who placed it in the room, how did she manage to place the album on the top shelf?"

Now that was a good question. How did she place the album on the top shelf? She could have reached the top shelf by standing on a chair, but the problem with that theory was Monaca was bound to a wheelchair. Makoto was almost certain Monaca placed the album there, but unless she could magically walk again it was impossible to prove it was her.

An even better question would be why would Monaca even do this? For the whole time that Monaca was living with them she had done nothing like this before, so why did she do it?

"Now that the album has been found," said his father, "everything should be fine now right?"

Makoto looked at his sister, who was… standing still as a statue for some reason. For some reason she had remained quiet during the conversation. It was unnerving him.

"Umm, K-Komaru?" Makoto said. "Is everything all right?"

Komaru turned around to face Makoto. In her hands was the CD – snapped in half.

"Yeah…" Komaru answered, her eyes dull with despair. "Everything is all right…"

"You don't look okay…"

"I'm fine, really," Komaru said, still in that monotone voice. "I'm just going to rest a bit in my room…"

Komaru moved past everyone towards her room, shambling all the way. Once she had shut the door to her room, his parents looked at him with disappointment.

"Makoto, I hope you can explain why the CD is snapped in half," said his mother, shaking her head at him.

"I don't know!" Makoto answered. "I really didn't take the album!"

"Well Komaru is really upset right now," said his father. "So I hope you'll buy her another copy."

"B-But I–"

"No buts!" interrupted Makoto's mum. "You're just going to have to buy Komaru another album!"

Seeing that he can't persuade his parents, Makoto gave up trying to defend himself. He'll just have to question Monaca for why she framed him. When he asked his parents how much the album costed, the answer nearly made him faint from shock.

"I-It costs that much?!" Makoto exclaimed. "B-But that'll leave me with almost no allowance at all!"

"Well I guess it's a small price to pay," said his mother. "Next time, please ask Komaru if you want to borrow her stuff instead of making Monaca take it." And with that, his parents left the room, shutting the door and leaving Makoto and a cheerful Monaca behind. Neither of them spoke for a while, until Makoto decided to break the silence.

"How did you do it?" asked Makoto.

"Do what?" answered Monaca, who was still acting all innocent. "Big bro has to be a bit more specific than that."

"How did you place the album on the top shelf?"

"Oh that? Don't you know that a magician never reveals his secrets? A better question would be why I did it."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because I wanted to see what kind of reaction big sis would have!" answered Monaca, beaming at him with a smile.

"B-But why?!" questioned Makoto, shocked at such an answer. "What would even make you do such a thing?!"

"Because! I! Was! Bored!" Monaca shouted. It was a miracle that his parents didn't enter the room again due to the volume of her shouts. "I! Was! Bored! So! I! Decided! To! Have! Some! Fun!"

Makoto staggered back a bit from the sudden outburst. He had never seen this side of Monaca before. She had always acted so cheerful and kind when she was around him and his family. But maybe he was starting to get a little glimpse at the mischievous personality she hid underneath.

"Is something wrong Makoto?" Monaca asked after her little tantrum. "It's just a prank big bro, no one got hurt."

"You made Komaru cry though!" refuted Makoto.

"She'll get over it. Besides you're going to get her another copy anyway, so why get angry at poor little Monaca?"

"Because you framed me for it!"

Monaca looked sad upon hearing Makoto's statement. "Please don't be mad… Monaca realised she did a horrible thing, so let's forgive each other okay?"

Tears were starting to fall from Monaca's eyes, and Makoto can't help but feel a little guilty at his outburst, justified or not. He guessed it was just part of his kind nature.

"Fine…" Makoto said. "I forgive you… But promise me you'll never do something like this again."

"I promise!" Monaca exclaimed, and raised her pinky in front of Makoto. "See! I'll even make a pinky promise with big bro!"

Makoto was a little touched at this small gesture. I guess she's still a good child at heart, Makoto thought, although a bit mischievous.

Her personality reminded him of a certain classmate. He shudders to think of what would happen if Monaca met her.

"Fine then," said Makoto as he returned the gesture. "Do you promise to never do something like this ever again?"

"I do! Cross my heart and hope to die!"

"Then I forgive you," And with that, Makoto interlocked his pinky around Monaca's little finger. "I'll go tell Komaru that I'll buy her another album, hopefully it'll calm her down." Makoto left his room to tell Komaru the news. If there was one good thing to come out of this event, he at least doesn't have to pay for the damage done to his sister's room.

Unfortunately for him, he did not see the unnerving smile on Monaca's face after leaving the room.

After all, every child knows that a promise is invalid by crossing your fingers behind your back.