For one moment, they were just starting out another normal day (at least, relatively normal by Ultimate standards), and then in one blink, it's devolved into...whatever the hell this is.
Hajime thought that, ever since Ms. Yukizome became their homeroom teacher, none of her antics would surprise him anymore. This new bonding activity she's got for today has proved him wrong.
Right now, Class 77-B's in the gym. This isn't the first time he and his classmates went in here but, this is a completely different level.
He sends off a blank stare at the guy who's so awkwardly out of place in the boys team. If he remembers correctly, that guy is Juzo Sakakura, the Ultimate Gymnast. He doesn't know much about Mr. Sakakura, aside from the fact that he's the head of the security, and that he's an old classmate of Ms. Yukizome, which he overheard from their banter a while back.
Judging by the disbelieving, exhausted look on Mr. Sakakura's face, it seems like the poor guy didn't want to be here either, but somehow Ms. Yukizome managed to drag him in here. Whether he meant that in the literal or metaphorical sense is yet to be confirmed, but knowing how his teacher works…yeah, he won't be surprised if it was the first option.
As for why their teacher decided to (hopefully not literally) haul this grown-ass man into playing a game with some kids, well, it turns out that their class is kind of unbalanced in terms of gender ratio. The girls outnumber the boys by one, and so, Ms. Yukizome sought some way to make things a bit more fair. At least, as fair as things could be for Ultimates.
He hears their teacher blow the whistle, and from there, Nekomaru is granted the first throw. He rears his arm back, and time slows down. Everyone's eyes follow the ball's movement, starting from the impact it got from Nekomaru's throw to the ball itself shooting up in the air.
At that moment, with eyes wide open, Hajime is brutally reminded of exactly what his classmates are capable of.
Time winds back to reality in the harshest way possible.
The ball ends up landing straight on the wall, leaving a sizable crater on it. Hajime winces at the sight; he doesn't want to imagine what'd happen if that landed on a human. 'I've always thought that the way sports anime do these kinds of stuff was ridiculous, but now…I think I might've forgotten how terrifying reality can be.' He gulps. 'Especially when it comes to Ultimates.'
Sure, the class is a lot better at restraining themselves this time now but, well, as some people say, some slip-ups can happen, just like the one he witnessed right now. He's grown way too complacent these days.
As their game restarts, the whistle blows once again. Everyone has decided not to comment on the crater Nekomaru caused; Hajime can only feel bad for the person who'd be forced to clean that up later.
Peko throws the ball first this time. It's still a pretty powerful one, but thankfully it's not as concerningly destructive as the one Nekomaru did earlier.
Mr. Sakakura huffs, and then he wastes no time in catching the ball with barely any effort at all. He lets out a "Tch." when at least more than a couple of boys start clapping in awe. The former gymnast throws the ball off; judging by his bored look, he might've half-assed it.
Even if that throw was half-assed, well, it's not like anyone can tell the difference anyway. Also, it's still flying off in the air at a rather impressive speed.
Mikan lets out a frightened squeal, her body freezing in place as the ball heads towards her. At the last second, she ducks for cover, somehow managing to dodge the ball by at least half a centimeter.
The ball bounces violently on the floor until it reaches the ceiling. Everyone's eyes follow where it's going, watching it go from the ceiling, then to the floor, and then it fucking ricochets to the walls. By then, everyone scrambles to stay far out of its range as much as possible.
Hajime isn't sure how long that ball's been going; the only thing he's aware of is its menacing bouncing that sounds like it's getting closer to him (as well as Kaz's terrified screams).
And then, the ball finally stops with a loud bonk, followed by a loud thud.
Nekomaru has collapsed; his body has gone completely still while his eyes went white. He's officially out, in more ways than one. The poor guy can't even continue the game even at the rear position. Hajime never thought that he'd ever see something knock the big guy out just like that, but ah well, he supposes that kind of weirdness is a given in his class.
The boys' team can hear some of the girls cheering from their side, further rubbing in their first victory. In fact, the girls start crowding around Mikan, praising and congratulating her. Mikan looks really flustered by that.
'Wait, come to think of it, is this even fair at all?' He looks over the girl's team with narrowed eyes, carefully scrutinizing each player they've got. After that, he looks back on his team; a drop of sweat comes down the side of his head when he sees some of them mourning their best player. A few of his teammates even look resigned to their inevitable loss.
"You FOOLS!"
A loud, bellowing voice yells out at them, bringing him, as well as everyone else in the boys' team he assumes, out of their thoughts. They turn to the source, and are greeted with Gundham crossing his arms as he stares everyone in the team down. The class's resident chuuni closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then starts ranting a bunch of weird stuff at them.
No one has any idea what he's talking about anymore, but even so, whatever he's conveying has transcended the language barrier. This isn't Gundham Tanaka, the kooky guy with a big case of Eight Grader Syndrome, anymore. The person everyone's seeing now is Gundham Tanaka, the no-nonsense Ultimate Team Manager.
Just like a stack of dominoes, the effects are immediate. Everyone's going all out and giving it their all, including Teruteru, of all people. It's like Gundham's incomprehensible but oddly inspiring rant-speech has juiced the boys' team up in all the right ways. It even affected Hajime in some way, somehow.
The next thirty minutes to one hour mostly consisted of feral screaming, passing the ball around in all sorts of violent ways, Mr. Sakakura keeping a good distance away from everyone, cracks and craters all over the walls and floor, Ms. Yukizome scrambling around to mitigate things as much as she can, and even more feral screaming.
Hajime isn't even sure who won in the end anymore. All he knows is that both teams had at least one player left standing, Mr. Sakakura and Mikan, respectively. Either way, he's sure that the one thing everyone will agree with is that the game's true loser is the gym itself.
(Some time later, the headmaster himself would drop his jaw after seeing the recent damages in the new gym, along with the expenses to fix it up.)
With all of that dose of weirdness over, everyone is now cleaning everything up after the wild games they just played from a while back. Somehow, even Mr. Sakakura got roped into cleaning up with them too. The guy looks like he's about to pop a blood vessel open.
As for Hajime, Ms. Yukizome sent him, along with Ryota, off to return the equipment they borrowed back into the gym's storage room.
"Alright, that should do it." Hajime grunts while he straightens his back. Both he and Ryota have already set down the last of those boxes.
While he stretches his overexerted body, he thinks about the game they just had. It was way more intense than he (or anyone else, for that matter) anticipated. He had a feeling that this would probably be the last time his classmates would be allowed to borrow the gym in a long while.
'Heh,' The corners of his lips twitch upwards. He inwardly chuckles. 'I guess some things don't change after all.' He mulls over those words over once again, and then slightly frowns.
"Hey, Hajime? Mind if we talk for a bit?"
Hajime blinks, immeidately snapping out of his thoughts after hearing his classmate's voice. Turning to him, he shrugs. "Yeah, what is it, Ryota?"
Ryota turns his head around, most likely checking their surroundings first, before turning back to look at him right in the eye. "I'm going to blunt real quick. Is there something bothering you?"
He probably should've denied it, play it off as just nothing, and if that didn't sound convincing enough, then say that it's just stress from regular class rep duties. Maybe if it was literally anyone else, he might've been able to do that.
Instead, he sighs in resignation. "Was I that obvious?"
His classmate blankly stares at him.
"Right," He takes a deep breath. "Well, it's kind of a long story, but I'll try to explain it as briefly as I can. Do you remember when Ms. Yukizome's first day as our new homeroom teacher?"
"Far too vividly than I'd like to." Ryota replies in a dull, frank tone. "Exactly where are you going with this?"
"I met with this girl at the reserve course. She was there when you and Ms. Yukizome came to pick me up. Since then, I've always met up and hung out with her at lunch. She always beats me in the games we played," He cracks a smile, reminiscing on the fond memories they've had together. "You could say she was the first real friend I've had. No offense to Kaz."
Ryota waves him off. "I'm sure he wouldn't have minded that. Anyways, getting back on topic, I assume something happened between you two?"
"You could say that. The last time we talked to each other, I…" Hajime grits his teeth. "I could've done something, anything to help her, but I didn't. I kept my mouth shut because I didn't want to overwhelm her, even more than she already has, and look at how that turned out. I haven't seen her since. I don't know if it was something that I said, or if it was something else, but if only I…"
Hajime pauses. His hand palms over his head, a weary and apologetic look coming over his features. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have dumped all of that onto you."
Ryota shakes his head. "No, that's fine. I should be the one apologizing for prying in the first place," Mainaning eye contact with him, he then asks, "So, what will you do now?"
"I...honestly have no idea. I've tried contacting her, but I haven't received any replies for, probably a year now. I've been thinking about personally coming in to her class for some answers, but, I don't know if I should do that."
"Since trying to contact her doesn't work," Ryota puts two fingers over his chin, "Then why don't you do exactly that and ask her former classmates, maybe even her teacher if you can? It's probably been months, but maybe they'd have something. Otherwise, you'll never know for sure what happened to her." He shrugs at the end of that.
He thinks over what his classmate said, and he'll admit that his classmate got a point. "I guess I'll see if I can do that. Still, thanks for hearing me out, Ryota."
"Anytime." That's all what Ryota says along with a small nod.
The end of their classes came by a lot easier than usual. His cluttered steps come to a stop.
'It's been a while.'
Hajime's hand lightly grazes over the gate. Remembering what Ryota said, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He breathes out, opens his eyes once more, and stares the reserve course department's building down.
Glancing back one last time, he steps inside the grounds of the reserve course department, all while trying to keep the ache in his chest down. 'No more going back this time.' He tells himself.
As soon as he got himself in, he can't shake off the feeling of dozens, if not thousands of eyes staring right through him. He quietly gulps, unused to this kind of attention.
It's not hard to see why this is happening to him though; here he is, an Ultimate student, waltzing inside the reserve course department like it's not a big deal. He's aware that he did this a lot too last year, but, he guesses that since he was visiting a friend back then, those things never truly registered in his mind.
Now that it's just him, those stares and whispers have a much bigger presence this time around. Still, he tries to keep his poker face on and ignore the stares he's getting from the reserve course students as much as he can.
Hajime pauses for a second to glance at his surroundings. Again, he ignores the whispers that grow louder in volume. He lifts his head; he might've been around the reserve course's grounds multiple times before, but he never actually went inside the building.
Taking a deep breath, he musters up all the courage he can get, and as calmly as he can, walks towards the direction of one group of reserve course students.
"Hey, uh, excuse me..." He calls out as he slowly approaches in their direction, hoping that they don't notice the tenseness in his voice.
Whether they noticed that or not, he'll probably never know. That said, the group heard him, alright. There's just one little problem that he sorta neglected before getting himself in here. Though it's not exactly forbidden, interactions between the main course and reserve course students are highly discouraged.
Because of that, Hajime isn't prepared to see the group he tried to talk to immediately turn tail and run out of there. The other groups that are still in that area turn to each other, their hushed whispers turning up to a more audible volume.
"The hell was that guy's problem?"
"Do Ultimates seriously think they can waltz in here whenever they want?"
"Whatever business he's going on with, I don't want to get involved with it. Ultimates are nothing but trouble."
"I wish they'd just leave us alone."
He breathlessly sighs out while scratching the back of his head. 'This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.'
The rest of his...attempts to ask the students around more or less ended in the same way. Most of them decided to either pretend he isn't there or, like the first group he tried to talk to, start running away from him as quick as they can. Others even started to become very confrontational and were yelling at him to leave them alone, forcing him to back down before it gets physical.
Since his previous approach failed so miserably, he's been staying away from the larger groups of reserve course students, especially if they're in proximity with each other in the same area. The last thing he wants is to cause trouble for them; at least, any more than he already did anyway.
At this rate, it seems like his search would lead to nowhere. He has no clue where the hell he's going with this, no one's willing to answer his questions, and he's been wandering around for who knows how long now.
Add in the fact he hasn't even explored at least half of the reserve course's grounds, he might end up being stuck here for a while, assuming he even gets the information he's looking for at the end of it. Even if he tries to go inside the building itself and go through each room one by one to look for the right one, he's sure that'd cause a bigger commotion.
He groans, gritting his teeth in frustration. 'Damn it.' He keeps his eyes on the ground as he passes by the side of the building. Obviously, aside from him, there's no one else here. He supposes that should be a good thing, since he isn't welcome here.
'Maybe I should just leave right now.'
Hajime pauses. An uneasy feeling goes over him.
'Is this how it's going to end? I'm going to give up, just like that?'
That…didn't sound right.
'But,' The more rational part of his mind argues, 'What's the point in going on if you can't find anything and no one's willing to hear you out? You're just wasting your time. You should move on already, Hajime.'
'Move on, huh...'
It's been a year already. Friends will always come and go, he knows that much. So what if Chiaki left without telling him the exact reason why? It's not as if she's the only friend he ever had, he has everyone in Class 77-B too. Shouldn't he be over it by now?
If that's so, then why is he still clinging onto her even until now?
He lifts his head, peeling his eyes away from the ground as he looks over his surroundings one more time.
From his current position, he can see that he isn't alone in this area after all. A group of four students, three boys and one girl, to be exact, are standing right by the corner of the building. He's far from them, but he can infer they're talking to each other, though judging by their gestures, it looks more like they're gossiping to each other.
'I guess,' His chest relaxes. 'It won't hurt to try one more time.'
His mind made up, he cautiously steps towards the group's direction. "Um, hey," He calls out to them, but stays at a reasonable distance away; he's not going to repeat the same mistake he did not too long ago. "I hope I'm not disturbing you guys."
That gets the group's attention. They stare at him, none of the members saying a word or moving even a single centimeter away from from their spot.
Hajime keeps his mouth shut too, bracing himself for any possible impact.
After a couple of seconds more of silence, the girl in the group growls and then she screams at him, "What the hell do you want with us?!"
The harsh response would've made a normal person flinch, but after spending more than a year with the Ultimate Yakuza as his classmate, it didn't faze him that much, if at all. If he wasn't trying to get on their good side, he might've rolled his eyes at the girl's attempt in intimidating him too.
One of the boys raises an arm, preemptively stopping the girl before she can even take a step forward towards him. The girl glares at him, before huffing and forcing herself to stay down. She doesn't seem to be too happy with that decision though, as she crosses her arms.
The boy in front, Hajime assumes that boy might've been the leader, narrows his eyes towards him. "Spill it. The sooner we can get this over with, the better."
While the leader's tone is rather harsh, Hajime is surprised by his willingness to hear him out. Deciding he won't waste this chance, he goes straight to the point and calmly asks him, "Do you know Chiaki Nanami?"
All four members turn to each other, each with varying levels of confusion. "Nanami, huh?" One of the boys says out loud.
"Doesn't ring a bell for me." The girl dismissively shrugs.
The leader hums in thought. He glances back at Hajime and replies, "She was our classmate a year ago. We haven't seen her since after, I don't know, somewhere in the middle of September, I guess."
"She's been gone for that long?" He frowns. 'So that explains why she never turned up in our meeting spot when I tried to visit and wait for her during those times. It still doesn't explain why she never replied, though.'
"Uh, yeah." One of the boys shrugs. He then mumbles under his breath, "Those times were tough, since the old man forced our class to cover for three missing classmates."
The other boy elbows him. "Hey, don't remind me of that!"
While the two are busy bickering with each other about that topic, the leader sighs and adds, "You could say, we reserve course students just come and go. We're not as lucky or privileged as you Ultimates, you know."
"I see." Hajime solemnly nods. He can't even imagine what it'd be like to be in their shoes; a part of him even wonders that, if things had turned out differently, he might've understood their situation.
"Don't pity us." Compared to her angry tone earlier, the girl sounds a bit more tired when she said that to him. "If that's all you want to chat about, then you should get out right now."
"Wait," Hajime raises a hand, "There's one more thing I want to ask. Do you know where your homeroom teacher stays in? I want to ask him about her."
The group exchanges uneasy looks with each other, until the leader breaks it off and tells him, "Yeah, I guess you could ask that old bastard. I don't know why, but he stays in our classroom after everyone has left. Our class is on the third floor, by the way. It's not that hard to find it."
Once they give him exact section they're in, the girl snaps at him. "Alright, we gave you what you want, now can you leave us alone?"
He simply nods at them. "Yeah, thanks."
The group doesn't say anything more to him. He supposes this is probably the last time they'll see each other.
When he finally got himself inside, he notices that there aren't a lot of students inside the building, and the ones that he's seen, he could probably count them on one finger. Still, he tries to avoid confrontation whenever he can. Let them pretend that he isn't here, and he'll do the same in return.
He gets to the second floor without much trouble. His eyes go over through each classroom, scanning each of their labels until—
'Finally, I found it.'
Making his way over that classroom, Hajime glances over the label once more, just to make sure it is the right one. As soon as he confirmed that it is, he knocks the door. He waits for a reply, and then knocks it one more time. "Hello, excuse me?"
Still no reply.
Hajime grabs the knob and tries to turn it over, only to be surprised by how easily it opened. 'It's not even locked?' He lets go of it, but in spite of that, the door still slowly creaks open, revealing what's inside the room to him.
As expected, the classroom's empty. The seats are neatly arranged, and the room itself is pretty squeaky clean, all things considered. Hajime would've thought that there's no one in there, until he hears the unmistakable noise of a pen grazing paper, as well as the faint stamping noises.
He figures there's no more turning back after this and so, he takes a step inside.
"Hmph, an Ultimate. I never thought that I'd ever be graced by one."
The voice startled him for a second. He regains his composure, right as he goes in front of the teacher's desk. "Sorry for bothering you," He apologizes. "I just wanted to ask you something." He waits for the teacher to reply.
A few moments pass, and the teacher doesn't say anything; instead, that guy went on with grading and stamping the papers like he's not even there. Deciding he might as well get it out, he then asks, "Did Chiaki Nanami attend this class?"
The teacher snorts. "You mean that slacker?" He neatly puts the stack of papers away to the side, right before another stack takes their place. "She dropped out a year ago." He nonchalantly says.
"D...Dropped out?"
"It's exactly as I've said. She didn't even finish a month off the second semester. That girl was nothing but trouble, from her first day to her last. I would've been happy to forget about her, until you reminded me about that."
Hajime feels his fist clench at that. Though he wants to defend his friend's honor, he reminded himself that he won't cause any trouble, and so, he forces himself to hold that in. "I...I see," Taking a deep breath, he manages to force out a, "Well, thank you anyways."
The teacher grunts out in return. "Have a nice day."
The sarcasm isn't lost on him, but he pretends not to hear any of that.
Right before he leaves the room, he hears the teacher grumbles under his breath, "They don't pay me enough to put up with shit like this." At the end of that, he stamps the next paper a bit harder.
When Hajime finally got out of the building, the coast was clearer compared to when he entered the grounds some time ago. Most, if not all of the reserve course students have already left.
He turns to look back at the building, before running off a familiar route. It's the same one he hasn't used in a while now.
Hajime never thought that he'd ever go to this spot again, but here he is, walking right into the space with the fountain and the public bench.
After spending months of wondering, he finally got his answer; Chiaki did drop out, or at least, that's what her (now former) teacher told him a while back. He got the answer on why she isn't around Hope's Peak anymore, so why does it feel like it's not enough?
He sighs right before taking a seat on the same public bench. He winces. It's been a while, and now, it feels wrong somehow. He slumps his back over the bench; he doesn't dare to turn to face his left, knowing that he'll only be greeted with an empty space.
Hajime grips the sides of his head with both hands. Gritting his teeth, he screams out, "I just don't get it!"
"Wow, who would've thunk that I'd see a real live brooding guy out here in the wild." A high-pitched voice comments out loud.
Completely caught off-guard by that, Hajime finds himself straigthening his back up (also, he totally did not scream at that, nope, not at all). He turns his head around, looking for the source of that voice. All he sees are a bunch of trees around this clearing.
He shakes his head with a groan. 'Great, now I'm starting to hear things too.'
"Hey, don't just ignore me!" The same voice whines. "I'm right here!"
Around the same time, he hears someone's footsteps coming towards him. He turns his head to their direction, and...huh, he knows he's seen this girl from somewhere before, and not just from the entrance ceremony that happened a month ago. Even a casual like him can recognize who this girl is.
"Wait, you're..." He squints for a moment. "You're Junko Enoshima, the Ultimate Fashionista, aren't you?"
The weird girl twirls around as she proclaims, "The one and only!" and then finishes that off with an equally weird pose.
'Yeah, there's no doubting that.' The weird vibes she's giving off aside, he'll admit that she's a really pretty girl in those magazine covers he's seen a few times, but now that he's seeing her in person, all he can think of is, 'None of those magazines do her any justice.'
"Soooo," She takes a seat right next to him. "What's an Ultimate like you doing, moping around here in the reserve course department?"
Hajime can feel his the edge of lips twitch for a moment when he heard her say that. 'Wow, she really cuts deep and straight to the point.' He breaks eye contact with her and then he groans. "It's none of your business. Actually, I should be asking what someone like you is doing here in the first place."
"Well, that's fair, guess I'll tell you exactly why," She shrugs, "You could say I wanna get away from my class for a while." After that, she pokes at his cheek without any warning. "Let me guess, you had a bad break-up?"
He grimaces, but he doesn't turn his head to face her. "It's nothing like that, and even if it was, you shouldn't stick your nose in it."
"Aww, why not?"
That way she said that in an obvious, sickeningly, fake cutesy voice rubs him off the wrong way. 'Why the hell is she so interested with my issues?' He can feel his initial impression of the Junko Enoshima he knew shatter at this instant.
Taking a deep breath, he pinches the bridge of his nose before facing her. "Okay, I'm going to be brutally honest with you. You've been nothing but rude to me and you keep insisting to talk about that even though we barely know each other, so why the hell should I tell you anything?"
Instead of getting offended like he thought she would, Enoshima ended up smiling at him. "Upupupu, how interesting." She puts a hand over her lips while giggling some more. It took less then a second before that devolves into full-blown laughter.
Hajime feels insulted, and also, a little bit unnvered by the way she laughs. Or rather, cackles, since that's a more appropriate way to describe what he's hearing right now.
She puts a hand over her chest, taking some time off to breathe again, all while letting out small giggles here and there. A second passes, and then she suddenly blurts out without warning, "Anyways, you sure you're not just being a clingy ex-boyfriend, right?"
"I-I'm not!" The idea flushed him, and not in a good way.
"Suuure you're not." Enoshima leans dangerously close to him. She also made sure to drag out the 'sure' part of her sentence, all while wearing a thin smile on her face. If she's trying to get on his nerves, he'll begrudgingly admit that it's working too well.
Hajime faces away from her with a huff, now staring on the pavement below. He's done entertaining her. 'If I shut up and ignore her, she'll get bored and leave.'
"Ya know, if it's a missing person you're looking for, I know someone who can help you with your problem." She rubs two fingers over her chin, "On second thought, though, maybe 'missing' is exaggerating things a bit, but you haven't seen them in a long time, so that counts, doesn't it?" She adds with a hum.
"Wait, huh?" He blinks as he tries to process her words. As soon as it did, the weight of Enoshima's words sinks deep into his mind, and he finds himself nearly flipping out. 'How the hell did she know that?!'
A smug chuckle comes out of her. "You're probably wondering how I figured you out, right? It's simple, really," She snaps her finger, "Your poker face isn't good as you think it is, and I'm just way too damned perceptive to not notice anything."
For some reason, she's put on some glasses and has her hair (which were in twintails not too long ago) up in a ponytail. How she did that so quickly and without him noticing, he'll never know.
"Aww, I can tell you don't believe me at all." She huffs and crosses her arms.
Hajime snorts. "You don't say."
In less a moment, her mood abruptly shifts once again, this time to a more serious one. "Okay, but seriously, I do know someone. We've got the freaking Ultimate Detective in our class for crying out loud, you know? You could give me the name of that person you're looking for and I'll relay that to her."
"The Ultimate Detective?" He raises a brow. "And you're telling me that she only needs the name?"
She nods a bit too quickly for him. "Yep, that's all she needs, but a little extra info can help. Don't worry, I'm not going to put your friend's name in some notebook after you tell me." She chuckles at the end of that, like she's heard a pretty funny joke.
For him, he doesn't think that's funny at all. 'Normally, I wouldn't be giving names out to people I knew for less than five minutes.' He glances at the girl for a quick second. 'But, I guess there'd be no harm in it. I heard that they scouted a detective for this year's freshmen, but I have no idea who it is. Whoever the Ultimate Detective is, she'd be my best bet for now.'
He breathes out, looks at Enoshima in the eye. "Alright. The person I've been looking for is Chiaki Nanami. She was my close friend at the reserve course, but I haven't seen her for several months now."
" Chiaki Nanami, and she's someone from the reserve course," She nods. A thin grin spreads over her lips, stretching from ear-to-ear. "Looks like my stay here in Hope's Peak is going to be a whole lot more interesting than I thought."
'More interesting? What does she mean by that?' Hajime's stomach sinks, now wondering if he should've just kept his mouth shut and left as soon as he saw her.
Enoshima stretches her arms, letting out a satisfied hum as she did so. She gets up, and faces him with a grin that would send chills up someone's spine. "Well then, thanks for that, Hinata! I'll let ya know when Miss Detective finds something about her. Catch ya later!" She waves at him.
His eyes widen, knees half-bent as he's stuck between the choices of staying right there and following after her to get some answers. "Wait, how did you know my name—?"
But by then, Enoshima is already too far to hear what he's saying. She must've left the school grounds already, since he can't see even a trace of her from anywhere.
Slumping again on the bench, Hajime thinks back on the short conversation they had. She's nothing like what he thought of her to be, and if he's being honest, she feels awfully shady. Not to mention, the timing between his and her respective arrivals feel rather off too.
He isn't sure if he can even believe what she promised him, but if there's a chance...
Well, he guess he should just wait and see.
A/N: Whew, this is probably one of the longest chapters I've put out for this fic. Anyways, sorry for the late update. I kinda struggled with some parts of this, mainly Junko herself, and even now, I'm not sure if I nailed her right. I'll probably go back and edit this later.