Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Persona series and any of its character, story, time, and place. Because if I did, this would be canon instead of a fanfiction.
Chapter 1: Hi
"RISETTE! RISETTE! RISETTE!" The booming sound of the crowd screaming for one name: "Risette". She is a singer, dancer, and actress, all in one package. A holy grail of talent and charm, it doesn't take long for her to become one of the top rising stars. But… that was 3 months ago.
Right now, she is just Rise Kujikawa, a girl working in her grandma's tofu shop, in a small home town of Inaba. Sure, this life wasn't as glamorous as her previous life, but certainly it has gained her more friends. Well, real friends.
Speaking of friends, she had one a long time ago. He appears out of nowhere one day in her class, and for an odd reason she doesn't quite understand until now, he decided to become her friend.
Her friend.
To put it simply, he was the first person who would befriend her for no reason at all. He never sees the Risette, the ex-idol, or the persona user. Just Rise Kujikawa, a girl that happened to share the same class with him.
To think about it, he was the reason she even get to this point. To know their story, maybe we need to look back, 2 years before now.
-2 years before the game-
It was a quiet morning in the small town of Inaba. The birds are sitting on the branches of the tree and the cats just began their morning walk. The people of Inaba are pretty traditional when it comes to the morning routine. They would wake up in the morning, have breakfast with the whole family, say hi to the people they met on their way to the station, and ride the first train that will take them to wherever they work. Except… this morning, there are certain people that do not follow this routine.
"Sora, wake up! You don't want to miss your first day at your new school!" come the voice of a middle aged woman calling her teenage son from down stair.
The boy in question is still half asleep and stretching his body on the bed. As if he's waiting for his soul to return to his body after a whole night journey in the dream world.
"Sora, eat your breakfast and go to school!" She yelled again.
"School doesn't start for another hour Mom." The boy quietly replied.
Though seemingly not fitting for Inaba's peaceful routine, for the boy this is just the kind of routine he experiences every 1 or 2 years. Due to his father's job as a businessman, he and his family would move to a different city every so often. He would then go attend a new school, try to fit into a new environment, rinse, and repeat.
Today, the new environment would be the "Yasogami Middle School", where he will continue his 3rd year of middle school.
Fitting into a new environment will surely be hard for most people, especially teenagers. Most teenagers would most certainly start to think about all the worst possible scenario, how you're going to fit in, and what kind of teachers and classmates are you going to meet. But for Sora, it's just another day in life. He has most of his life to train himself to fit easily in a new environment.
"I'm off mom!" He said as he gets out of the house and start walking his way to school. He had made the right decision to check the school on the previous day, so today he wouldn't have any trouble finding his way there. And that's just one of the many tips from his personal "1st day in a new city 101" handbook.
The school assembly feels like taking centuries for him. Not like he cares that much about the school in the very first place. After one agonizing hour had passed, Mr. Eguchi who's his homeroom teacher takes him to his class.
"Hi guys! My name is Sora Ichinose, I just moved here from Tokyo, I hope I can be friend with all of you." He introduced himself to the whole class with his best generic-disguised-as-genuine smile.
Mr. Eguchi then proceeds to have him seated on one of the empty seats, ones that near the window. The words that the teachers said in front of the class seems to blurs every second as he looked out of the window and thought to himself, "So here comes another year…."
The time for lunch break has finally come after a long hours of lectures from the teacher. Sora tried to recall what the teacher was talking about, something about Arachnida. He pulled out his red lunch box and starts to commence the next step in his handbook. A strategy he made for himself to get a friend on the first day of school.
Which begs the question, 'who he wants to be friend with'. It is crucial in your first day of school that you made your first conversation with the right person, you failed to make a friend today, and it will be harder for you to make one tomorrow. Be friend with the wrong person, and you might stick with a weirdo for the rest of your school year. His option is simple, chose the person who is sitting the closest one to him. So it is either the guy with glasses sitting in front of him, or the girl with curly hair behind him. He decided to choose the latter.
He turned his head to face her and said "Hi, do you mind if I have lunch with you?".
He was expecting a simple reply from this girl, could be a "yes" or a "no". But instead she just gave him a blank expression.
"Okay… this is unusual." He thought to himself, still holding his small smile.
"Y-yes! I mean, of course, sure" The girl finally answered with a stutter.
"Thank you, what's your name?" He asked her again.
This was again followed by a few second of pause.
"Excuse me, you were saying?" She asked back after coming out of her trance.
The awkwardness of the situation should be a red alert for anyone's first day in a new school. But Sora can't help but laughs at the funny situation. First day at school and it's already turned out to be quite different than the years before. But it seems like his laugh just makes the girl face reddens in embarrassment.
"Haha… Sorry about that, I was asking about your name" He said to her apologetically.
"N-no, I'm the one who should be sorry, I was spacing out just then. Uh… My name is Rise Kujikawa" The girl finally answered, her face is staring down at her lunch box.
"Pleasure Kujikawa-San. So I was wondering, do you have any advice for me on how to fit in in this place? Like what sport is popular here, what are teenagers here usually do in their free time, or where do people usually hang out…" He asked her.
"Um… sorry, I stayed at home most of the time so…. I usually don't hang out with people that much" She answered quietly, still have her face looking down at her box of lunch.
Sora glanced at Rise's boxed lunch and found a set of meal that are arranged into a cartoon character. It's just like the ones elementary schoolers would bring to school.
"Hey, that's a cute lunch you have there, did you make it yourself?" He asked her again. This seems to make the girl even more flustered than before, probably trying to find a way to justify her childish lunch box.
"No, my mom made it… I know it looks childish" she said almost whispering, her face turned even redder.
"Hey, hey, no need to be embarrassed… it makes eating it more fun right? My mom also made my lunch, and I kid you not, it's the spiciest food you'll ever try" He proudly says. True enough, his whole family seems to have an abnormal appetite for insanely spicy food.
The girl giggled at that, but the conversation soon died down and they proceed to eat their own food quietly. Little did Sora know, the rest of his new classmates gave him strange looks.
"S-s-so do your family move a lot?" That sentence broke out the silence. Sora looked up to see Rise staring at him. He was quite surprised with the fact that she struck a conversation first, by the 15 minutes they share together, Sora had assumed that she is a shy girl.
"Yeah, my family moves a lot. It's due to my father's job you see. How about you, have you ever moved to another city?" He said.
"No, I've lived here my whole life, but I wish I can move to another city though…" answered Rise.
"Why is that? You don't like to live here?" I asked her again
"No, it's just… I'm not good at making friend, so I don't have any friend here and…." She said while looking down again. This made Sora raised his eyebrow. He cut her sentence before she could finish it.
"Is that so? Well, it doesn't seem like that to me, you just made a new friend right here" he said pointing at himself.
Rise looked at him with a surprised look, her eyes widen hearing what she just heard.
"You… want to be friend with me?" She asked still in disbelief.
"Of course I do! Look, I'll be your first friend, and you'll be mine, how's that sound?" he said while holding out his arm.
She continues to just stare at him for a second. After a few seconds, her gaping mouth turned into a big smile, and Sora could swear, that was the prettiest smile he had ever seen.
She held his hand for a handshake and say "That's… sounds good, friend".
"You have a great smile you know, you should use that more often" His sentence just made the girl's face turns even redder than before.
-after school-
School's finally over for today, Sora and Rise are on their way to the school gate. Sharing small talks with each other on their way. Well, it's mostly Sora that does the talking since apparently his new friend is not much of a talker.
They bid each other goodbye once they reached the school gate, and went to their separate ways to home.
On that afternoon, both of them walk with a smile on their face. But little did the boy know, He just made a major change in someone's life.
To be continued