As the sun shone down on the playground, signs of a typical carefree summer afternoon were clearly observable – cicadas chirping in the trees, children going up and down slides, jungle gyms, and everything in between. To any passerby, seeing such innocence could only cause a smile to break out across their face. But not this face. With her signature pink-blonde pigtails with contrasting black and white bear hair clips, Junko Enoshima caroused down the neighborhood wearing a stoic expression. Flipping through the pages of a pocket notepad, she cranked through her aptly named "Super High School Level List of Things to Do Before The Biggest and Most Despair Inducing Incident in All of Hope's Peak Academy's History,"
"Convince Super High School Level Good Luck, Chef, and Manager to join Despair. Check."
She drew a line across the page with her eyeliner.
"Call up big sis. Check. Observe the daily loss of someone's innocence…"
The high pitched sounds of laughter and screaming quickly caught Enoshima's attention. As quickly as she started towards a park bench, one of the kids playing tag slips on a loose piece of gravel. As he stared at his knee in disbelief and shock, Enoshima held her breath and her face began to quiver in anticipation. Regardless of her daily chores to prep for her role as Super High School Level Despair, this was always one event she always made time for. Yesterday, it was a girl dropping her ice cream, and the day before it was a boy dropping his toy robot. Truly a sick individual. After what seemed like an eternity, the boy finally let out his painful cry and Enoshima exhaled deeply, with her stoic face turning into a minor grin.
"Check. Test out the latest Monokuma build…"
Now this was the main course for the day. Several revision to the original prototype had been made, and she felt that this one could be deemed worthy enough to show to the world. After all, in this town animals mingle with humans, and nobody questioned it at all. Down the block Enoshima was walking on lied a café owned and ran by a polar bear, aptly named Polar Bear's Café.
"How poetically fitting," she thought to herself, "When news outlets cover the biggest and most despair inducing incident, it will all be traced to the day when Monokuma met Shirokuma! Did I just come up the bear version of When Harry Met Sally? Oh, I crack myself up!"
Enoshima let out a hearty, piercing laugh as she walked past the scene of the fallen boy. Though concerned parents shot glances her way for her ill-timed laugh, she gave no heed, for a scraped knee would pale in comparison to blood to be shed at Hope's Peak.
Arriving at Polar Bear's Café, she took residence under the bus stop across the street and flipped open her phone. A few keystrokes later, a half-white-half-black bear materialized in front of her.
"Upupupu… showtime," she spoke into her phone.
"Upupupu… showtime," Monokuma reverberated as he began to cross the street.
It was a normal day for Polar Bear's Café. The building was at half capacity and the usual buzz filled the air; Sasako was running around, taking and delivering orders, and Penguin sat at the counter sipping on his second café mocha, chatting away with Shirokuma.
"Hey, Shirokuma-kun, tell me something I don't know about the world," Penguin inquired.
"Okay. About fifteen or so hours into Final Fantasy VI, the world gets ruined by Kef—"
"SPOILERS! Come on, you know I haven't gotten that far into the game yet."
Penguin let out an exasperated sigh. Finishing his mocha he retorts, "Tell me something else I don't know, unrelated to that game."
"Okay. Did you know, that all the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players?"
"That's deep. Did you think of that yourself?"
"Shakespeare."
Penguin's expression dropped, "Just get me another café mocha."
"Right away."
Shirokuma turned away to make Penguin's go-to drink. It was around 5:00 in the afternoon, and Panda would be coming in soon after his surely exhausting shift at the zoo. Realizing this, Shirokuma sent for Sasako to prep an order of bamboo leaves; as he did this, the door opened and the chimes rang.
"Like clockwork," Shirokuma whispered, his back still turned, "Irashaimase! You know the drill, take a seat anywhere."
The sound of an accordion followed Monokuma through the door. . . wah wah wah wah waaaaaaah—bzzt! . . .though it quickly shorted out.
A warning indicator flashed on Enoshima's screen.
"What? Corrupted track? Ooooh, someone's dead when I get back to the academy," she vowed. Knowing Enoshima, this was not merely a figure of speech. But death had to wait, the Monokuma trials came first. She pressed the talk button on her phone.
"Don't mind if I do Shirokuma-san!"
Monokuma jumped over to a table of girls a few feet over. He put his hands on his belly and lightly tilted his head.
"Hello ladies! Where did you just come from?"
The table of four collectively giggled momentarily until one spoke up, "Our teacher cancelled our cram school classes for today, so now we're here!"
"Ah? High schoolers? Monokuma's all about fishing, but jailbait's definitely not my lure of choice!"
He quickly warped to the next table of ladies that were this time more easily discernible to be over eighteen. Changing poses, he put his right hand behind his head, extended his left arm out, and leaned back in the air.
"Hello definitely out of school ladies! Okay, okay, okay, let's get down to business, who agrees with me that I'm cute? Ha ha ha ha ha!"
"Panda-kun," Penguin, his back still to him, addressed to Monokuma, "We all know you're cute, just sit down and wait for your bamboo to come out."
"'Bamboo to come out?' Was that a double entendre? Ha ha ha ha, I like you already!"
Wasting no time, Monokuma this time walked to an empty table and picked up a menu.