A.N: Hello, everyone! Here is my entry for Day One of Saimatsu Week 2022! The prompt I chose to work with for today is Pregame. I hope you enjoy reading it!


Day One: Not a Prince Charming

"It should be somewhere around here... Why the hell did that nerd have to live in the middle of fucking nowhere...?"

Kaede walked on the sidewalk, listening to music with her earbuds and chewing a mint-flavored piece of gum. She absentmindedly fiddled with a strand of her blonde hair, grinning when the boys walking in the other direction stared at her.

Heck yeah, if you losers knew a beauty like me is going on her date with a stinky dude who plays Danganronpa all day, you'd have murder on your mind!

Why had she agreed to this...? To be honest, Kaede didn't really know. Part of it was boredom, but it wasn't all of it. After all, if she wanted dates, she just needed to go to a random bar and wait for the boys to start drooling over her boobs.

The girl knew how attractive she was and that she could date any boy out there. So why choose him? Why give Shuichi Saihara, of all people, a chance? Thinking about it more, Kaede realized she liked his mentality, strangely enough.

He's a friendless nutcase – and considering how he smells, I'm guessing he doesn't shower a lot – but there's something about how weird he is that drew me in... The blonde thought, popping a bubble with her gum. And well, if I pinch my nose and squint my eyes, he does look a tiny bit cute, I guess...

She could recall how nervous he had been when asking her out. Usually, the handsome ones gave her long and tedious speeches about how she deserved only the very best, the ones with the biggest tent inside their boxers, blah blah blah.

They'd be fine for a hook-up, but nothing more. Most of those guys were getting rejected, anyway. If they were desperate for sex, Kaede would do them a favor and send them to Miu.

Frankly, to have someone as awkward as Shuichi ask if she wanted to study and play Danganronpa at his house was surprising. He could barely speak two coherent words in a row, which Kaede had found ridiculous and a little amusing. But, well, after some pondering, she had decided to give it a shot.

Poor guy had a crush on her so blatant he almost had 'I like Kaede Akamatsu' written on his forehead at all times. Kaede knew half the school wanted to date her, but he was definitely the one who made it the most obvious.

Let's just hope it's not some sort of trap to lock me up in his basement or something... Kaede thought, rolling her eyes. After another minute of walking, Kaede finally reached the address he had given him. It was a pretty normal house for a guy as not normal as him. Well, the girl knew better than to judge a book by its cover.

His room would probably be disgusting and smelly.

Well, let's ring and hope for the best... Hopefully, he'll have dressed up a bit... I did, after all...

In fact, Kaede was way overdressed. She was dressed in all black, wearing her prettiest skirt and shirt, high-heel boots, and a great deal of makeup. Oh, and also some nice underwear.

Just in case.

*driiiiiiiiing*

She waited for a moment until the door finally opened, revealing Shuichi on the other side. "O-Oh, Kaede... Y-You came."

"Well, yeah, course I did," she said with a roll of her eyes. She peered inside, noticing the house as a whole appeared relatively clean. Seeing he was standing in the entry, staring at her, she waved in front of his face. "Earth to Shuichi Saihara? May I come in, or do you plan on barring me from entering all day? What, you're already staring at my boobs?"

Kaede let out a hollow chuckle, unaware that it was precisely what the boy was doing. Well, at least he looked somewhat okay today. He was not overdressed by any stretch of the imagination, but he at least had half-decent clothes on. Seemed like he had also bothered to take a shower.

Damn, the young woman realized this was her lucky day.

"S-Sorry, please come in..." the young man muttered, stepping aside and letting his date enter the house. "N-No one's home but me this afternoon, so we s-shouldn't be bothered..."

What's there to bother, anyway? We're going to play Danganronpa and study... The blonde thought, pondering reminding him of that fact. She didn't want him getting any false hopes. "'kay. So, where's your room?"

Shuichi's cheeks reddened. "T-This way," he stuttered, heading up the stairs first, with Kaede in tow (knowing how she had worded her question had pleased him). Once upstairs, he pointed at a door at the end of the hallway. "I-It's there."

"Yeah, I figured..." Kaede muttered under her breath. The smell gave it away.

They went in, and the blonde immediately felt like puking. Kaede would be surprised if the freaking window had been opened even once in the last five years! It felt like there wasn't even enough oxygen to breathe!

"Fuck, you coulda warned me your room was a dump," she said, opening the window and taking a well-needed breath of fresh air. "You got on bad terms with cleaning or what?"

There were bags everywhere, uneaten potato chips, dried pools of sweat and... other bodily fluids on his bedsheets, dust in just about every corner, and his desk was a real mess. No wonder he couldn't study properly.

"A-Ah, um... I-I just don't really have time to do it often..." Shuichi admitted timidly. Well, 'lied' would be a better word. He honestly didn't care. Now, though, he realized it could probably have been wiser to tidy a bit before his date.

"You should take a few minutes to do it from time to time instead of staining your bedsheets," Kaede advised, chuckling at the end. "Sure I could get pregnant just by sitting on your bed."

Shuichi made himself very little as Kaede carefully folded his blanket to cover the sheets and sat on his bed. His cheeks were burning red. The mere fact that Kaede Akamatsu, his school's most popular student, was at his house was enough to make him weak in the knees.

"So, you want to play or what?" the young woman asked, seeing him frozen in place again. "I know I'm pretty and all, but I'm not there just to be stared at, you know?" she told him, finding herself smiling. It was strange, but how he looked at her was actually rather sweet. He looked happy, at least. More than at school.

Sure, that wasn't the most challenging feat.

"Y-Yeah, sorry!" Suddenly all fired up, Shuichi grabbed a handheld on his desk before sitting next to Kaede on the bed. "I-I thought we could replay the original... I-It's a little old now, but it's a classic..."

Oh, yeah, the posters. Even before noticing how much the boy's room stank, Kaede saw the posters pasted on literally every wall of the room. No wonder he wanted to play the first Danganronpa game.

"Damn, I'm slightly offended I'm not number one in your heart," Kaede joked, giving a fake pout. "It sure doesn't seem like I'm your favorite jerking material! Call me disappointed, Shuichi!" She laughed. "You sure like that Kiri-booty!"

Shuichi blushed hard, trying to hide his face with his dark bangs. "T-That's not it..." he muttered embarrassedly. Kaede saw right through him. "L-Let's just play...!" He forcibly turned on the console, watching as the screen lit up.

Kaede chuckled. "I bet you loved that scene of Naegi and Kirigiri going up the ladder, didn't you?" she teased, gently elbowing him in the hip. "Dirty Shuichi! I like it!" She giggled to herself as her date of the day grabbed the console from her hands, starting a new save file. "You don't need to hide it, Shuichi! We all had our Danganronpa crush, you know!"

"I-I'm telling you, that's not it!"


"So instead of forgetting them... you're choosing the hard road. Well, I have high expectations for you."

Kaede watched amusingly as Shuichi stared at the screen, drooling with admiration. She rolled her eyes, waiting for him to skip the dialogue. The girl didn't know if she was supposed to be freaked out or laugh.

"You have an erection, Shuichi," she pointed out. "A pretty big erection."

"N-No, I don't- O-Okay, maybe I do..."

She shook her head. "What do you love so much about her? They made her a total cliché character at the end! Would have been much better had she stayed mysterious and cryptic all the way to the end! Also, they gave us the most bullshit reason for her to come back in Hope Arc!"

Shuichi smirked. "A-And I'm supposed to be the Kirigiri kinnie...?"

"O-Oh, shut up! The only thing I like about her is her voice and only because it sounds like mine," Kaede jokingly admonished, a soft blush appearing on her cheeks. "I don't get hard at the sight of a fictional character!" She pondered adding something else. She debated and debated, ultimately deciding the mood was probably right. "I mean... you could get hard at the sight of someone else..."

Frankly, Kaede had not expected her date with Shuichi to go that well. Sure, he was a complete weirdo with a weird adoration for a digital girl, but his passion was something Kaede liked! Most people were boring to her, and she lacked faith in most of mankind.

However, he wasn't like most people. He was weird, a social outcast, a loser. No one wanted to talk to him. His room was dirty. Kaede liked none of these things, but Shuichi's person fascinated her. He wasn't a guy like the others.

He crushed on her like everyone else, but it was clear she wasn't the center of his world. He was obsessed with Kyoko Kirigiri, and if she talked trash about her, Kaede was sure Shuichi would get mad, even at her.

Still, that last statement had made him blush. Well, Kaede had not meant it so seriously. It was the first date, and it was more to mess with him than anything. She wasn't totally opposed to the idea anymore, but not now, anyway.

"Let's go study! I need to get my grades up if I don't wanna get held back a year," Kaede said, standing up from the bed. "And you better help me! If I get held up, no more staring at my boobs for you!"

"R-Right..." he said, probably unaware of the admission he had just inadvertently made. "I, um... I'm not a genius, though..."

Kaede smiled. Why did his voice have to be so sweet? He never bragged, either. This was something else she liked about him. "You don't need to be a genius to be better than me, believe me," she assured him, sitting at his desk casually. "Grab a chair and sit here! We better get going soon if you want me to understand anything."

Shuichi nodded, standing up and grabbing a second chair to sit next to his date. He was still embarrassed, although not as much as earlier. He had been a sweaty mess without stop since Kaede had told him she'd come to his house. He figured she would probably mock or insult him for wasting his time.

But none of that had happened. Instead, Shuichi had discovered a new side to the young woman. There was more to her than the arrogant girl he saw at school. She was understanding in a way that made Shuichi's heart beat almost as fast as his favorite character's voice.

"W-What do you want to start with...?" he asked timidly, taking out a couple of textbooks. "M-Math, maybe...?"

Kaede brought her hand to her chin, appearing deep in thought. Surprises did happen in life. Who could have thought the antisocial, friendless Shuichi Saihara would be her best date in months? Kaede knew he himself wouldn't have thought so.

"I wanna start with this," she said. She kissed him on the cheek, instantly making his face red.

Wherever this led, the girl felt something in him. He was no prince charming. It was probably better this way.

The End.


A.N: I hope you liked it! I won't be able to post on all days for this event, as I didn't have enough time and my priorities were on other stories, but I hope you'll like the entries I was able to get done! Anyhow, please leave a review, and I hope you all have a nice day!