Whiter Shade of(K)night I - Danganronpa

His upbringing, contrary to common belief, had been everything but a bed of roses.

He was born under the premise of great expectations for his future. A heavy burden was placed in his shoulders when he was barely an infant in his shaky knees, struggling to stand up.

He was raised to be an heir, and not just any heir. The presumptive heir of the most conspicuous conglomerate in the world. His surname was not just a surname. It was the surname that sent the CEO's of the biggest companies in the world cowering in a corner.

And of course, his name would not be just a mere name. It would be the name. The most powerful man in the world was in the making. Just you wait, world.

There was nothing ordinary, in fact, there will never be something ordinary about this baby boy in the ornate, golden cot.

Since he was old enough to hold a pencil, he had been learning about stock exchanges, claims, taxes, how to fill a check, not in a singsong, playful way, but in a cold, business-like fashion.

And he was familiar with bonds and values. Not human bonds and values, but the volatile business kind of bonds and values.

He was barely six years old when he was able to place a Bering oil barrel shipment bid on the stock market, and not just that, make profit from it. Some of the elders in the family brushed it off as a case of beginner's luck, but the child could felt their rather haughty eyes, usually filled with contempt, shift to him with something akin to praise. They knew fully well that the feat he had accomplished wasn't something they could only accomplish with luck. It had to be – it just had to be – pure raw talent.

He learned to despise luck, as a result. Luck negated his efforts. It wasn't a byproduct of his high and noble status, but a sheer traiteveryone was supposed to possess, even the most insignificant unicellular being had some. Something that was for everyone just wasn't something he aimed to apply to himself.

He also learned quite easily to replicate that stare, practicing in front of the mirror until he was satisfied. Contemptuous, mirthless laughter came as easily, too. His daily lessons included speech classes to learn to control his voice pitch and intonation, which soon came to match his cold, arrogant demeanor. His whole body posture and face expression morphed to that of an accomplished poker player, his voice never rose over a freezing, slurred monotone speech, so mean, it was reputed to dry off plants if addressed.

Servants knew better than to interfere with their young charges' education, and his bragged about their progresses in the business field to rival servants, yet still they displayed open concern when away from his vicinity. His life was bare of human warmth and relationships. His infancy was likewise void of toys and games. The stockmarket was his playground, and bonds were his toys. Literally. The boy learned soon enough that bonds – the market ones and the human ones alike – could be bent to his will, and he quickly learned how to make them both work for his advantage.

He had learned to worship his family, to feel honored he was a part of such a conglomerate, to take pride in his family name. Yet still he didn't love his kin in the traditional sense. He understood well enough he was in a sea of sharks, that displaying feelings for others could spell disaster for his plans. That, when the moment came, it would be dog eat dog, and he'd be the dog who came up on top.

For all the pride he felt on being a prospect for leadership, he learned to despise those whose upbringing was below his own. He began taunting others as a way to test his limits and theirs, and was delighted with the results. He sent others reeling from self-confidence to the realization of being no more than a worthless worm.

Omoshiroi… omoshiroi desu ne…

Taunting was the way to go. One could even break someone's self-esteem with that! From flying on the skies as butterflies, to learning they were at the very best moths, to snivelling to the floor as slugs. Only by telling them the pure naked truthfair and square!

He was sure of his worth, and even surer of the unworthiness of everyone around him. Deemed as heartless, manipulative, contemptuous, he shrugged off those adjectives as what they were: the product of worthless tongues and lips. He could speak as he chose, for he was one among the chosen. The pick of the litter. A superior species in the evolution track. Greatness come alive.

Not a problem to him if others felt envious or edgy, they will never become like him, and they will never claw their way up to or grasp the heights he lived in, even with their words.

When the moment came for him to pick everyday clothes, his taste drove him inmediatly to business suits. It was something automatic, of course, pretty much an extension of his education. Jeans and informal clothes didn't seem to project the image of himself he desired to convey. Leave that to the commoners. He was a patrician, and you are treated based on how you look.

If only that was all there was to it!

But he wasn't only talented or bitchy or contemptuous, not only business driven, cold-hearted and tauntful, not only elegant, scheming and resourceful… he was also handsome, though his haughty manners gave him the overall fascination of a drift-away iceberg…

That, of course, was intended. Beauty comes side-by-side with success, just natural. Not only successful, but envy-attracting. That should be the profile of the scion of a family like his.

Someone everybody would aim to imitate, but none could actually reach.
Many girls who hasd attempted to close in -of course, knowing he was a potential scion - were shovelled away, some of them as lucky as to retreat with some self-esteem left...

Considering the ways of his family business, the icyness of his interactions with girls would only mean good. After all, the heir would have not one, not two or six or ten children, but as many as he could, not one or two or six or ten wives, but as many as he deemed worthy of mixing his chosen blood with. Feelings or becoming too familiar with any of them would ruin the principle for continued success that has driven his family so far. Love was but a thorn in the side of business.

When the awaited fated day came, fifteen of the chosen ones gathered in the entrance of the family manor. The culmination of an education based in encouraging gaining and avoiding losing had finally come. Clad in expensive business clothes, sober as men and women twice their age, the youngsters stared at each other with the mere corner of the eye. Each of them a well of wealth, backed with the best education and upbringing possible, but now mere pawns in the big board of life.

Only one king or queen would achieve a checkmate.
Every one of them a potential king or queen.

Thirty eyes, belonging to both male and female, beautiful as they were cold, in young faces old as the world itself, looked into one another. Lives lived in distant countries, their upbringing, however, trimmed exactly the same. Opal gems of green and grey and almond and blue and violet, crystal clear and devoid of human emotion, expressions that echoed the long years of preparation and asserted their self-worth in so many levels.

Yet his own, ice on ice and stone on stone, did not even blink as he swept his pupils around like a winter blizzard, unsettling the others, who flinched. It was slight, yet the boy, the youngest of them all, didn't miss it.

They didn't think much of him, given that his life had run for less years than theirs? Well, then he'd show them what he thought of them…

Omoshiroi… omoshiroi desu ne…

A sadistic, self-amused smirk lit his face with an icy, eerie light of mirthless joy.

Younger doesn't equal unexperienced. At the very least, younger means I have more time than you to succeed.

Let me see how you like, my dear fellow, what I, the younger one whom you hold in contempt, have in store for you…