Koichi yawns as he steps inside the office. He rubs his eyes; his eyelids are drooping somewhat and there are light bags over them. Still, even though his morning state isn't the best, he isn't that surprised when he sees a certain teacher inside.

"You look a lot more pumped than usual." He remarks as he took a seat right beside her.

The newbie turns her head towards him. "That's because I am." Yukizome cheerfully hums in reply to him. From what he can see on his spot, he could see that she marked down another day off the calendar with a pen. "I can't believe it's been over a month already since I got here!"

He leans his head back onto one of his hands, letting one of his tired eyes close just for a moment there. "In that case, congratulations; you just survived your first month here. Not bad for someone who's only been a teacher for the first time."

To his nonexistent surprise, she didn't so much as even flinch at the backhanded comment. "Oh, thanks, Kizakura." She turns back to face him, eyes closed, and with a smile on her face.

The scout coughs, "Okay, that wasn't supposed to be a compliment, but alright."

"Speaking of," Yukizome begins, changing the topic. "Everyone's starting to get along with each other so well. I can't help but feel so proud of them. It's like they're growing on me so fast." She looks at him with a slightly concerned face. "Well, sure, I've only been with them for such a short time, but, don't you think it's normal to feel that way?"

Koichi opens his mouth to answer, only to close it just a second later afterward. 'Exactly how am I going to reply to this? They're good kids, I know that because I scouted them myself, but I never talked with them that much.' The silence is starting to look bad for him, and so, he solves it the best way he can; bullshitting his way out.

"Sure, it is. Oh, and by the way," He mentally pats himself on the back for the nice save as he effortlessly changes the subject, "Now that you've mentioned those kids, shouldn't you be heading off to your class by now? It'll start pretty soon, you know that?"

Yukizome puts a finger over her lips in thought. She crosses her arms and nodded. "I can understand your concerns about it, but it's fine. I was going to give everyone a small head start today anyway. At least, just by a few minutes or so."

"Uh-huh," He blankly replies, having already gotten himself used to the newbie's penchant for weirdness. "Sure, if you say so." He stretches his arms as he yawns.

Koichi supposes he should have little more faith for the newbie. She did make it this far. It won't be a stretch to believe that she was better suited as those kids' homeroom teacher instead of him. Maybe.

To be fair, anyone would've made a better teacher than him.

Call it culture shock, but it feels weird to know that Hope's Peak didn't have a morning bells like any other normal high school. At the same time, it makes sense; there's no need to worry about getting late for class when there are no mandatory classes in the first place.

'I can't believe it's been a month already.' Hajime glumly thought to himself.

So predictably, the relative peace in their class poofs faster than a bubble by two distinct noises; the first noise is from the door that was shoved away in an undignified manner, and then the second noise is the awfully cheery tone that came from the equally as awfully cheerful teacher they've been with.

"Good morning everyone!" Ms. Yukizome exclaims. An impossibly inhuman-like smile plasters over her face even as she throttles an innocent bystander (that is, the door he just noted before) without any remorse whatsoever.

He pitifully shakes his head towards the door, or at least, whatever condition it's been left in. 'Oh well, at least the school got that covered.'

And then just for today, a third noise joins up. Rapid footsteps came up behind the class' entrance and somehow, the newcomer manages to surprise their teacher. That's a rare achievement of itself since it's hard to surprise a former boxer like that.

As soon as Hajime sees the blur of light brownish cottony fluff, he immediately knows who it is.

"Sorry, I'm late!" Komaeda shortly announces, catching his breath as he gets himself in, along with a passed out Tsumiki over his shoulder in tow.

It's a bit hard to make it from his distance, but from what Hajime could make out there, he somehow notices that the lucky student's bandages over her arms, the same ones that were usually hidden by her loose and baggy jacket's long sleeves, didn't look like they were clumsily tacked and wrapped over her pale skin.

Ms. Yukizome lets out a thoughtful "Hmm," Her attention goes over to Komaeda and pretty much scans him from head-to-toe with her eyes, and then moves over to Tsumiki. "You did come here a few seconds after I did, so, for now," Her usual demeanor comes back. "I'll give it a pass. But please do remember I won't be as lenient next time, okay?"

"Sure, sure." He nods earnestly, and weirdly enough, didn't have a sign of fear towards their teacher. Taking the kind of talent Komaeda had, it's probably to be expected; he might've been used to dealing with all sorts of people.

Hajime knows that feeling all too well. He's been there himself, after all.

Anyways, back on the topic at hand. He did a mental headcount; everyone's here, all fifteen students including him plus their wacky teacher. Business as usual.

He's expecting this day to go the same as any other day, maybe with another activity or two that'll help, in their teacher's words, quote-unquote 'strengthen their bonds' better. It would work well, if everyone here were preschoolers, that is.

Speaking of their teacher…

"Oh, by the way," Ms. Yukizome lightly taps on one hand with the other. "I know that this is almost a month late for me to ask this, and yeah, I'm sure it's a bit awkward for you all, but do you have a class representative here? Mr. Kizakura hadn't mentioned anything about it to me before, so, if not, maybe we can start on that."

Everyone began to chatter among themselves about that topic. Because most of them weren't even present at the class right before Mr. Kizakura got replaced, it's not a stretch to assume that they don't have an idea on whether a class rep already got elected or not.

While almost everyone did just that, the last person he expected to speak up, did just that.

"We've already got a class rep two months ago," Kuzuryu interjects. Only someone like her would speak up without raising a hand first. Disregarding everyone's bewilderment, she jabs a thumb towards Hajime. "And obviously, candidates were very limited at that time."

'M-Me?' The counselor rears his head, "Wait, I never said—", He helplessly sputters, doubling back against that classmate's claim.

From across the room, Kuzuryu narrows her eyes to make a subtle glare, forcing him to stop himself from saying any more. It's the kind of look that'd say, 'Go ahead, try and call my bluff out. You'll only dig yourself to your grave even deeper.' To amp the effect up, she even slowly made her lips curl up into a psychotic smirk and somehow shaded the area where her eyes were.

He gulps. 'This is vengeance for that one time, isn't it? She's never going to let me live it down.'

"Woah, that's so cool!" Souda adds, rather unhelpfully, if he may comment on that. "Then again, I'm not surprised why that happened. I mean, you're pretty much the most reliable guy I've ever known!" And that shark-toothed bastard dares to stupidly grin at him. "You'll do great out there, class rep!"

'You're not helping my case, you hopeless idiot!' He wants to scream at that guy so bad, but unfortunately for him, he can't make a scene like that without consequences. Instead, he settles that out by doing the same thing on the inside instead, like any civilized member of society would do.

And then Komaeda just had to jump into the conversation, in the figurative sense, that is; then again, he wouldn't put it past him if he did it literally. "If that's true," He then adds with a so-not conspicuous smile, "I don't mind having him as our class representative, then. It's probably not much, but I've heard so many good things about him."

'Not you too!'

It didn't help that a few others began to talk to themselves about that, as if they're considering that as well.

"Wait a minute," Koizumi abruptly stands from her seat. "I don't remember anything close to that happened. In fact, I don't remember Mr. Kizakura assigning a representative even from back then." Turning to focus her ire onto a certain someone, she adds, "Are you all seriously going take everything at face value, especially when that came from someone as shady as her?"

'Thank you, Koizumi.' Hajime silently cheers for her, despite whatever hostilities she gave him in the past. 'Finally, there's still someone with sense here!'

"Well, it's not my fault someone like you happened to have shitty memory about a few things. It's kind of a pity when you think about it, especially for someone with a talent like yours." Kuzuryu shrugs, still with the shit-eating grin. "Just admit it. I mean, come on, even I can see that you don't want Hinata as our class rep for one petty reason. It's all because he's a guy and everyone knows how much you hate them—"

Another skid; another noise of wood scraping against cement. Another classmate stands up from her seat, and this time, this is one of the last people Hajime wanted to ever deal with. "Hey! Take that back, you cu—"

The two bratty blondes' bickering, plus the redhead's sad attempts to try and break them out, tunes out into background noise. Weirdly enough, their teacher left them to their own devices.

Turning her attention back to class and the topic at hand, Ms. Yukizome continues where the important part of the conversation left off before it got derailed into that. "Whatever the case is, then it looks like Hinata is gonna be our class rep. If there aren't any more objections, then," She pumps a fist up and exclaimed, "Say aye!"

Around ten hands shoot up almost immediately. "AYE!" It's really concerning to know that.

Hajime slumps onto his desk, face first. Long overdue steam sizzles out of him. 'Why me? '

"Hey, it's probably not that bad." Souda, in his own somewhat endearing way, tries his best to placate him. The animal breeder gently pats his hand over the counselor's back.

Said counselor has yet to lift his head from his desk. A moment passes. Hajime lazily rolls one side of his face to look at that guy in the eye. He mumbles, "Maybe to you, it isn't." Once that was said, he rolls that same side back onto his desk.

…

*Tick* *Tock*

*Tick* *Tock*

*Tick* *Tock*

…

Painful hours went and crashed by.

At the moment, both he and a certain classmate were outside to go and pick up some drinks for everyone. It feels like a small déjà vu only that this time, it wasn't a punishment per se. Instead, that certain classmate was the one who volunteered them out. And he did it all with a smile that hinted his hidden agenda.

'He's never going to let go of that, isn't he?' To Hajime, it almost feels like sighing on the inside is his new way of breathing normally in his everyday life. He already stopped with the 'lunch break stomach ache' shtick because it was getting old. It wouldn't make a good running gag anyway.

And then, any further moping, er, self-reflection he might've had is interrupted when that classmate turns to him and out of nowhere, points out, "You know, since we've known each other for a month now, we should totally start going on first-name basis, right?"

Hajime mulls over it for a moment and then replies, "You have a point there, Souda."

That classmate waves him off as protests, "Hey, hey, no more of that 'Souda' stuff, we're friends here. That's my old man's name." He stretches his shoulders. "You can start calling me 'Kazuichi' now, you know."

"In that case," He briefly thinks about that part. "I think it's only fair you start calling me by my first name too."

Souda—no, Kazuichi chuckles heartily at that. "Alright, if ya say so, Hajime! Oh, but," His brows furrow about something. "Then again, won't 'Kazuichi' be a bit too long?"

The counselor can only shrug about that. "I don't think so. I mean, it's only four syllables long—"

Kazuichi interrupts him again, exclaiming, "Then, if you want to, you can call me 'Kaz' too! Either way you want works for me." He lets out a big laugh alongside that.

"Sure. If you say so, Kaz."

Almost immediately after he says that, the other boy's face goes red. To make matters even worse, he twiddles his index fingers together like a shy, hormonal high school girl.

"Hey, this was your suggestion." He snaps at him. "Don't you dare act so bashful now of all times!"

Kazuichi mumbles something in reply but it's so soft and full of so much stutter, he wasn't able to clearly hear it. Hajime decided to drop that conversation right then and there. Even he can see how awkward this whole affair is going to be for both of them.

Once they got the drinks for everyone including themselves, it looked like Kazuichi's back to his normal self. It's pretty evident when that wacky friend places a hand over his shoulder and shamelessly tells him, "Knock her out," He then holds a thumb up for him. "You lucky bastard."

The counselor blinks. "Huh?" He blinks again for clarity.

Kazuichi either a) thought he was faking it or b) genuinely couldn't tell that he was. Whichever the case it was didn't matter because either way, it'd end the same. That is, it ended with that classmate giggling to himself as if he wasn't obvious about the malicious thing he's hinting at all.

When Hajime looked back on the situation he got himself it, it's better to play the oblivious card than to try and correct him for the hundredth time.

As always, they meet up near the public bench right by the fountain.

Though they're both in the middle of an in-game match against each other, Hajime couldn't help but blurt one particular thought out while his hands are busy mashing down buttons, "I guess in a way, I'm in charge of everyone now."

"Just like that?" Nanami is just as engrossed in the game as usual as she replies.

He nods. "Yeah, just like that." He's pretty amazed that she could manage to focus on her game and also being able to hear him out at the same time.

"When you put it that way, it sounds like that decision came out of nowhere," After saying that, a realization comes to her and she briefly turns to him with an apologetic look. "Uh, no offense."

"None taken," Hajime replies with a light chuckle. "To be honest, it does sound exactly like that."

By the end of their match, he stares back at the blue console's screen, the one that's showing him his (probably) tenth or so defeat. Knowing his gaming skills, and by that, he meant the lack of them, it feels more like a hundredth.

Still, it didn't bother him that much. With a good-natured tone, he tells her, "You're really good at this, you know."

"It's nothing special, really." She brushes that compliment off.

"I don't know, I don't think I can agree with that. I mean, you managed to beat me so many times in a row," He explains, not caring if he'll go on a ramble about that, "And that's all without even letting me get a single hit in. That takes a lot of skills to do that, gaming-related or not."

He hears her sigh.

"I can see where you're coming from, but it's not really a 'real' talent, if that's what you're implying."

"Even if it wasn't, it's still a real one in my book. No one can tell me otherwise, not even Hope's Peak can."

She lightly turns her head to the side, hiding her face away as red tints her cheeks. "You mean it?"

"Every last word of it." He reaffirms with a small smile. A few seconds of idleness went by before he thought back on those words, and immediately became just as red when he thought about it. "Oh man, you're probably thinking that sounded so cringey of me to say."

A soft snicker comes out of her. "Not really." She shakes her head fondly. "I've heard even cheesier lines in visual novels. Your line is super tame by their standards."

"Hah, yeah. I guess so."

At the end of their moments of laughter with each other, Nanami faces him again as she asks, "So, now that you're your class' representative, what are you planning to do now?"

Hajime pauses to consider his answer. Sighing to himself, he replies, "Honestly, I don't know either. I mean, it is a big honor when I looked back on it, but, I don't feel like I deserved it in any way."

"Why not?"

Those two words stung more than anything; the fact that it wasn't out of malice but from sincerity made it even more so. "To be honest with you, that's what I've been feeling ever since I came to Hope's Peak; being chosen as the class rep was just another layer on top of that.

Nanami chooses not to say a single word, and so, Hajime went on with what he was saying.

"In fact," He swallows a lump in his throat. "Sometimes, I feel like I've stolen the ultimate title from someone who deserves it a lot more than I do. You get what I mean?"

When he didn't hear her say anything in return, he stumbles upon himself as he retracts those words. "Sorry, that was rather insensitive of me to say."

To his surprise, she shakes her head and says, "No, it's okay. I think I can get what you mean by that. Although, I'm going to be honest with this as much as I can; I don't know if I can give you any solid advice about that."

"You don't have to. I didn't mean to burden you with my baggage." He closes his eyes, exhaling. "Still, thanks for hearing me out. That was more than enough for me."

A familiar bell rings from the reserve course's building; unlike the Ultimates', students from the reserve course still have the regular school bell's schedule. Lunch break is over for them.

"I have to get going now." Before Hajime can get up and leave in a hurry, it's when he felt something in his grip that he immediately remembers. "Oh, here's your blue GGA back. Thanks for today."

He gently places the item into her palms. Just as he was about to rush back to his class, he feels a tug at his sleeve. He stops himself and looks back.

"It's alright." Nanami pushes the blue console back into his palms. She raises her head to look at him in the eye. "Please keep it."

It was so sudden; he might've nearly dropped the precious item out of shock. He holds it tightly to prevent that from happening. "Uh, are you sure?"

"Yeah, it's fine." She nods. "I mean, I still have this one." She presents her pink console to prove it. "Besides, you can think of it as a gift or something like that."

"You really sure?"

"Yeah. No more take backs and that's final."

"In that case," He bows his head; the console still nestled in between his hands. "Thank you. It means so much to me."

"You're welcome."

He looks at her one more time and waves at her. He nearly sprints off until he hears her say,

"See you tomorrow, Hajime."

He pauses right on his tracks. Eyes wide in surprise, he glances back at her. Nanami's face was that of amusement, until a second went by and shame went over her. She must've thought she crossed a line.

His lips curl up into a welcoming smile, directly addressing her as he said, "Then see you later too, Chiaki."

Hajime ends up hurrying so much, he hasn't noticed her going still after he said that. Then again, he never notices her glowing even redder than earlier.

The blue console remained carefully hidden under his desk's empty space. He's going to keep it somewhere safe once he makes it back to his dorms; he'll make sure of that. For now, it's staying there until he finds a way to smuggle it out without anyone seeing it, especially certain people.

About some things, there's some good news and some bad news. To start with the good news, even though he was late in going back to class by fifteen minutes or so, Ms. Yukizome had been in a good mood, and so, decided not to comment about that.

As for the bad news…

If Hajime were to ever look back on something, then it's this: it's around four PM or even past that, and that's when the unthinkable, explicit thing happened. In hindsight, that kind of thing was the last thing that everyone expected to ever happen during the first day. Also, it's a pretty embarrassing event.

It started as a normal 'dinnertime' assembly. Student desks have been put away to make more space and now, everyone's sitting on the floor. Then there's the smell of Nidai's freshly-made cooking; no matter how many times Hajime's tasted it, even he can admit that he'd never get tired out of it. It's pretty good, once you get used to its weird effects of pumping your energy up.

Owari, if he's remembering her name right, isn't around at the moment. For obvious reasons, she's been sent off on an errand to get something. It's one of those vitamins or enhancements meant to be mixed in with the food.

Anyways, remember when he said that Ms. Yukizome decided not to comment about him being late? Well ha-ha that was a big fat lie. She still ended up doing that anyway, except it's decidedly a late lecture.

"Hinata, you know that just won't do." Ms. Yukizome waggles her finger in front of him. "If you're going to be the class rep starting now, you can't just keep letting yourself stay tardy, especially when it comes to important times like these. You of all people should take care to remember it."

From her side, Hajime groans. "I know that, Ms. Yukizome." He thought that this lecture would drag on further, that is until he hears Owari's voice just right across the room.

"Hey, old man, this is the one, right?" She holds out a bottle of suspicious pink liquid. "The thingy you asked from An—something?"

Nidai carefully takes the bottle and turns it over a few times. Once he's satisfied with it, he looks back at her and says with a hearty grin, "That's exactly the one. Thanks a bunch, Owari!" And just like that, he pours the entire content into the soup; it's all gone in a flash.

"Thanks for the food!" Everyone says in unison before they dig themselves in. Almost everyone, that is.

Saionji's glare is so intense; its heat alone would be enough to melt the already hot soup. She grumbles, "I don't trust this at all."

"Aren't you at the wrong age to start being picky about food?" Kuzuryu comments, halfway done with her share. She lets out a teasing laugh as she implies, "Or maybe you're trying to match your age with your looks?"

Koizumi butts in the conversation before it gets any worse. "What makes you say that, Saionji?"

Because the universe loves to screw everyone over, the answer came to them, alright, when Mitarai suddenly collapsed over his belly. He passes out. That's only the beginning, as others came to follow. They didn't pass out just like Mitarai did; it'd make things simpler if they did. No, it's much worse.

"Tanaka," Sonia struggles to talk. Her chest heaves back and forth as she pants.

"What is it you desire?" His scarf isn't enough to cover up his flushed face.

The others aren't doing much better either. Tsumiki crashes over Kuzuryu once again, only this time, it looked like it's done intentionally. Pekoyama isn't happy about that in the slightest and tried to pull the lucky student off the heiress by her legs, but considering their current states, it isn't much. It ends up looking so wrong.

Dread fills Hajime as he looks towards his classmates and teacher, and then back to his tainted soup. 'Oh crap,' All sorts of disgusting feelings come to him. 'There's been a mix-up!' The rest are getting even lewder as each second passed, and so, he turns his head away from them before he gets permanently scarred.

A familiar voice rings out. "Miss Sonia, Tanaka, wait!" Kazuichi desperately crawls over to the duo. "Don't leave me out of this!" He's around a few feet away from getting close to them when suddenly, someone grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him up. He turns his head around and screams at his captor, "Komaeda, let me go right now!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that." Komaeda whispers. His shaky, cool breath breezes over Kazuichi's nape. "We must let nature run its course."

"What the hell are you going on about?!" When the other boy didn't reply or made any signs of stopping, Kazuichi's eyes are starting to widen just as much as his agape mouth did. "Wait, no, no! No, no, no, stop! STOP IT! GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!"

Although everyone can hear his scream (it's impossible not to, not with how loud it was and they're all in an enclosed space), no one's willing to help him. They're all too busy with something, or in this case, someone.

Hajime would've done it himself, but then another enemy showed up.

Saionji has since moved the hell outta there when she saw Koizumi getting weird with her sketchpad. Unfortunately for the nurse, she isn't fast enough, and now, the gardener got her cornered.

He may have his grievances about her, but right now, that didn't matter.

When the gardener least expected it, Hajime runs up and without any warning, delivered a roundhouse kick that's heading towards that pervy guy. An audible crack is heard as the sole of Hajime's shoes makes contact with that pervy guy' back.

"BRUNO MAR—" Hanamura's scream is abruptly cut off as his lips made contact with the wall. It didn't break because the school invested enough to make sure certain incidents won't repeat, but it's enough to do him in.

It's at that time, he concluded that no one shall miss the pervy gardener after his untimely and tragic departure. Except maybe for his mother, of course; oh well, he'll have to send her his condolences in that case.

One problem down, about more than a dozen problems to go; it's time to put a stop to this messed up excuse of an orgy.

"Everyone," His legs strain themselves when he forces himself to keep standing up. He screams, "Get ahold of yourselves!"

His classmates immediately stopped with what they were doing. They turn their heads towards him in surprise (and for a few others he won't mention, annoyance because he interrupted them from…finishing).

Although he got their attention, his body couldn't take it anymore. Those shameful feelings grew stronger and made his world go round. Just as he saw Ms. Yukizome getting up to try and help, his legs give out.

'Oh fuck my life' is Hajime's last semi-coherent thought before everything went pink.

He woke up with the mother of all headaches sometime after that. He groggily opens an eyelid, and if his senses weren't playing with him, he must be in the school clinic. "Ms…Yukizome?"

"You're finally awake, Hinata!" She's as chipper as usual, which is kind of weird, now that he thought about it.

From what little he can see, the others are still passed out and even though he's somewhat recovered, he could still feel the unpleasant after-effects. 'But for Ms. Yukizome, it looks like she's back to normal rather quickly.'

As if reading his mind, the teacher laughs a bit and replies, "The aphrodisiac was plenty strong, but it didn't affect me as much because I'm an adult. I've already experienced something like that." Ms. Yukizome grins. She flexes an arm up to emphasize her point.

'Okay, that makes sense as much as it doesn't at the same time.'

The teacher mentioned a bunch of other stuff, but the whole ordeal made him so exhausted, he can't help but tune her out. Just to help clear his head better, not because he's doing it on purpose or anything like that.

Well, he made it this far. He could probably survive this long year, even with the added responsibility of being a class rep.

'Or,' Hajime sneaks a peek towards a few of his other classmates. More specifically, he's giving the ones who started, and in the case of others, escalated this mess further in the first place, the mother of all stink eyes. 'Maybe not.'

A/N: I can't believe this fic just turned two years old! (Then again, I kinda forgot about it until someone pointed it out; man am I pretty neglectful)

Anyways, sorry for the chapter delay. There were a lot of, let's say unexpected things that happened.

EDIT: Decided to take out that segment with Nagito at the beginning of this chapter. I've since reworked some of his characterization, and I thought that scene doesn't really fit in anymore.