Just finished Danganronpa. Have no choice but to dump my feels here.
This is an AU where none of my cuties die, and instead all go to school happily ever after BECAUSE NONE OF THEM DESERVED THAT SHIT.
A Walk to Never Forget
Hope's Peak Academy.
The school made specifically for the purpose of harboring and encouraging the world's "rays of hope".
Unfortunately for whoever founded the school, the Ultimate students of this generation who formed Class 78 of this prestigious school was full of gigantic idiots.
"...was a very important period in history. During the..."
Naegi Makoto was sitting in a very boring lecture in the equally boring class of History, with all his friends, listening to the teacher drone on and on about the Sengoku Era. Sighing in complete and utter despair at his current situation of boredom, Naegi rested his chin on his arm and looked out the window.
Immediately his thoughts drifted to his current situation here at Hope's Peak. Naegi had never been very... special. At all. In fact, it was somewhat special how not special he was. So it was very odd to be around people as amazing as his classmates. Well, it was less odd and more extraordinarily saddening. To be among such talented people, like the Ultimate Swimmer or the Ultimate Programmer, or even the Ultimate Detective...
There it was. He was thinking about her again. Her. In all her perfectly smooth skin, endlessly beautiful lavender hair, piercingly violet eyes, which could see even the smallest clue or hint in a case... Was there anything about her that wasn't perfect?
Naegi sighed again, but this time, he sighed in admiration of this... this goddess. A goddess that for some reason... seemed to take an interest in him...
Flashback
"No way! The murderer had to have been in the garden by 12 PM, where the rest of the characters were at! So the murder had to have happened before 11:30!"
"Not necessarily. If you look at the bloodstains, the murderer had to have killed her within 15 minutes of Mikado finding the body." Kirigiri accentuated her rebuttal with a flip of her hair, allowing Naegi, who was seated behind her, to catch a whiff of the lavender conditioner she used, leaving him a little dazed and incapable of following the conversation.
Class 78 had been reading a murder mystery novel together, assigned by their Classic Literature teacher, and now the entire class was in debate on who the murderer of the novel was. Naegi opened his mouth to add something but was cut off by Togami.
"But the sprinklers had gone off right before all the characters had found the body. The blood would had to have been washed away if the murder had occurred here."
Maizono raised her hand. "I think Naegi-kun wanted to say something!" She smiled hugely as everyone turned towards the Ultimate Luckster in an attempt to look away from the blinding brightness of the Ultimate Idol's grin.
"N-No, that's wrong... If the murderer had covered the body in a tarp and then placed the tarp with the rest of the tarp that covers the dirt in the garden, then the body would have been fine."
Everybody seemed stunned by Naegi's insight. He had just transferred into the class last week, and all of his classmates had figured he was nothing special.
Kirigiri let a small smile play upon her lips as she touched her chin with the back of her left hand. "Quite right, Naegi-san."
Ever since then, Naegi and Kirigiri had been the go-to team to solve mysteries. While Kirigiri alone would have been perfectly fine taking care of these mysteries herself, she was... well, unapproachable. Her cold demeanor, mixed with her expressionless voice and generally blunt manner made people a bit afraid of her. Naegi was the exact opposite, a cheerful, friendly guy who just wanted to shed a little light on everybody's day.
With that in mind, it made perfect sense that Asahina had asked him to find her misplaced notebook instead of the lavender beauty, and that Hagakure had chosen him as the "official" finder of his tarot cards whenever they went missing. Unfortunately, Naegi wasn't actually very good at finding these things, leading him to swallow his fear and nervousness to ask Kirigiri for help.
What kind of mysteries did they solve? Well, since this was a perfectly normal school, where nobody died, ever, they mostly solved cases of missing items or lost pets.
Because of this constant interaction, the two spent much more time together than they would have otherwise. And as a result, the two had gotten... Naegi wouldn't say they were close, but he was certain that he was closer to her than any of their other classmates.
"Togami! When was the end of the Ashikaga shogunate?"
The blond heir pushed his glasses back up his nose. "1536."
Naegi's ears instantly perked up. Leon, who was behind him, groaned audibly.
"For the love of God..." Owada complained. The entire class echoed Naegi's next words.
"No, that's wrong!"
"Naegi-san, for the last time, you don't have to yell every time that happens!"
"S-sorry, sensei, I couldn't stop myself." Naegi hung his head in shame.
The teacher sighed, "Alright, well, if you know Togami's wrong, what's the correct answer?"
"H-hai!" Naegi stood up to answer the teacher. "The Ashikaga shogunate ended in 1573 when the daimyo increasingly feuded among themselves in the pursuit of power..."
Maizono giggled from her seat on the far left of the classroom, one column over from the windows. She leaned over to Kirigiri on her left.
"Even if it's troublesome, Naegi-kun's interruptions are quite cute, aren't they, Kirigiri-san?"
The detective looked away from the blue haired girl with a huff, hiding her coloring cheeks by pretending to stare out the window. Maizono laughed to herself again. She should get an award for best wingwoman, really...
After class, the bell rang for the students to begin their lunch break. Naegi's friends, Maizono and Hagakure, joined him at his seat as he prepared to go to the cafeteria to buy some bread for himself.
"Makoto-kun, you might not want to go down to the cafeteria yet." Maizono grinned mysteriously at the shorter boy.
"Wha- B-but... I'm really hungry." Naegi's stomach grumbled to emphasize his point.
"Does being irritatingly bothersome bring hunger to you, Naegi?" Togami's sharp words made Ikusaba kick the back of his chair, only to look away when the others noticed her action.
"I think Kirigiri-san might need to speak with you." The blue haired idol pulled a chair in front of Naegi's desk, bringing out her packed lunch while doing so, seemingly ignoring the boys' incredulous stare.
"Kirigiri-san?!"
"Whoa. Okay, man. The first thing you need to do now is not freak out. But holy shit, Kirigiri?!"
"I don't know why you two are so surprised. Kirigiri-san is perfectly normal. She just wants to talk, it's not a big deal."
"W-well, Kirigiri-san... doesn't really even talk to anybody, so this is... surprising." Naegi just leaned back in his chair and deeply inhaled.
"Alright, just be smooth, man. Keep the conversation focused around her. Girls love to talk about themselves." Maizono huffed at this, but let Hagakure continue. "And if she starts taking off her clothes-"
"Makoto."
Hagakure yelped in fear as he realized Kirigiri had been approaching the trio while the fortune teller had been giving his kouhai advice.
"M-Ma-Makoto?" Naegi meanwhile, was reeling with the familiarity that Kirigiri addressed him with.
"Of course. We've put trust in each other enough to at least be friendly with each other, haven't we? Anyway... shall we go on a walk?"
"Wha- aah... sure, Kirigiri-san..." Naegi stood up from his chair, following the Ultimate Detective outside the classroom door. He ignored the thumbs up Hagakure sent him.
Once the pair were outside, Kirigiri started down a path that would take them all around the perimeter of the campus.
"S-so... Kirigiri-san-"
"Please, call me Kyoko." Naegi gulped audibly as he received permission from his crush to call her by her first name.
"Ah- well... Kyoko... what did you need to talk to me about? Is there a new case? Now that I think about it, we haven't had to find Yamada-san's puppy in a while, huh? Oh dear, if that's the case, I'll go get the oranges..."
Kirigiri stopped walking, Naegi stopping a second later once he realized she wasn't next to him. The Ultimate Luckster cursed himself. What did he do wrong? Reluctantly, he turned back, only to see Kirigiri trying to stifle her giggles with one hand.
"Kyoko?"
Suddenly, the girl burst out laughing, shoulders shaking with the power of her chortles, face turning red from the exertion of laughing. Naegi now was trying to figure out what he said or did that could've been funny. Why were girls so complicated?
"I-I'm- hahaha... I'm sorry, but... hehe- you're just..." Her laughter trailed off as she slowly regained composure, wiping tears of laughter out of her eyes with a massive grin on her face.
"You're... really cute."
Naegi was at a loss for words. What did she just say? Did his crush just say he was... cute?
"Like a puppy, kind of." She grinned at him again (Naegi had never even known Kirigiri could smile), then continued walking past him.
She froze a couple steps in front of Naegi, then turned swiftly. Very, very quickly she walked back towards Naegi and took his hand in hers. The boy could've sworn that, in the few moments he could see her face before she turned away to continue walking, the detective was blushing bright red (Though there was no way she could be as red as he was). A tug on his hand reminded Naegi to walk with Kirigiri.
They walked in silence for a few minutes before it was broken by the lavender haired girl. "Makoto... No, I shouldn't call you that. It was presumptuous of me to even do so in the first place. I haven't even been given permission yet..."
Naegi shook his head firmly, splashes of a blush remaining in his cheek. "I don't mind at all. If anything... " He scratched his cheek bashfully. "I... kinda like it."
The Ultimate Detective's blush came back in full force. She cursed herself internally for being so... open. "Am I a detective or a schoolgirl?" She proceeded to realize she was both.
She coughed, mostly to resettle her thoughts on the boy next to her. "Ah... so, Makoto... We've been spending a lot of time together recently and, uh..." Why couldn't she say what she needed to?
Kirigiri took a deep breath to steady herself, and stopped walking. Naegi stopped with her, and noticed the place they had decided to stop. Right in front of a bench surrounded by cherry blossom trees. The pretty flower petals floated down gracefully in the wind, much like how Kirigiri's hair fluttered and danced happily with the breeze. It was a sharp contrast from Kirigiri herself, who was nervously rubbing her forehead and biting her lip.
If there was a more perfect time to confess his feelings, Naegi would never encounter it. "Kirig- Kyoko... I-"
"I think I really like you, Makoto."
"...really like- Wait, what?!"
The purple eyed girl coughed again, red coloring her cheeks prettily. "I... really like you."
Well, this was a stunning turn of events. Naegi, naturally, didn't know what to say.
"Or, well. It's more accurate to say that I could like you. I'm... not entirely sure yet." Naegi's heart, previously flying, crashed down into the Earth.
Kirigiri could feel her cheeks reddening again, and she put her gloved hands over her cheeks to hide the color from Naegi. "What I mean is that I want to get to know you better. I really want to get to know you."
Seeing Naegi's crestfallen face, she had to move her hand from her cheeks to her mouth in order to hide the giggle that was inevitably bubbling up. "Don't worry, Makoto. You'd have to really, really mess up for me to not like you."
It was a small consolation, but still, knowing that he had at least some amount of wiggle room made him feel a lot better. Kirigiri took his hand again, this time intertwining their fingers. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips.
"Come. We should return to class. The lunch period should be over soon." The brown haired boy agreed without question, walking with the lavender haired girl back towards the classroom. But something was bugging him, somewhere in the back of his mind.
"K-Kyoko, how did you know I had feelings for you?"
The girl in question simply smiled, "Did you forget, Makoto? I'm the Ultimate Detective." She turned to wink at him. A piece of the Luckster's soul died and went up to heaven.
"Also, Maizono-san told me."
"Ah, that makes sense."
I think I made Kirigiri too schoolgirly. Also the perspective switches way too much I think. But I feel like it helps the narrative a little? Whatevs. Hope y'all enjoyed it!