Mondo awoke suddenly, staring up into the inky blackness of his room. Turning over, he gazed at the clock on his nightstand, reaching over to move a discarded sock from its face. The red numbers read out 3:30.
He turned over again, closing his eyes and hoping to sleep again, when he heard the door to his room quietly open. He shot up as he heard it close again, and immediately reached over and turned on the lamp next to his bed.
He blinked in the light that flooded the room, but there was no one inside with him...that he could see.
Clenching his fists, he got to his feet and peered into every hidden space in his room and bathroom, checking for a hidden intruder. He opened his closet with fists raised, tearing out the coats he had hung up there. He was met only with the forgotten school books he had thrown on the closet floor at some point.
Restless now with adrenaline, Mondo figured whoever had been in his room had fled. The opening and closing of the door he had heard in the dark must have been his intruder fleeing, no doubt having realized they'd woken him up.
His mind reeled as he wondered just who would be breaking into his room in the early hours of the morning. He briefly wondered if it might not have been a rival gang member, coming to off him. But surely they wouldn't have skittered away in the dark like a coward.
On the other hand, if they were trying to kill Mondo in his sleep, they were already cowardly.
There would be no more sleep for Mondo that night. Pulling on some clothes and a coat, he was careful to lock his door before heading outside. He would take this matter into his own hands.
You couldn't even get into his room without waking him? How pathetic are you? I break in places all the time, and I never get caught! I mean, my victims never live to tell anyone who broke in. Maybe you should look into that! Hahaha!
Mondo returned to the school around ten o'clock the next morning, appallingly unconcerned he had missed his first two classes. His early morning investigation turned up nothing as to whoever his intruder could have been.
His mood was already sour when he walked into the school; it only nose-dived from there as he passed by a couple of his classmates standing near the entrance hall.
It was Sayaka Maizono, and she was giggling and smiling at a deep-red Makoto Naegi as she handed him a package of chocolates, wrapped in carefully-tied blue ribbon.
Grimacing, Mondo hurried on. He hadn't realized it was Valentine's Day. He hated Valentine's Day. It always played out the same way: Mondo would come to school and be inundated with his classmates acting like absolute fools. Girls would be giggling their heads off and blushing, and guys would suddenly have all the confidence in the world as their female friends would give them truffles and bars and even home-made chocolates from their special ladies. But Mondo wouldn't get anything—he typically only hung out with guys, and he had never had any female friends. So he would have to weather a day of foolishness empty-handed, save for pitiful looks he'd get once many of the girls noticed. But that wasn't even the worst part.
He would start to get sympathy chocolates.
He never accepted them, and he had learned to start ignoring any girls that approached him late in the day with their offerings. He could understand not receiving chocolates in the first place. Mondo was not a girl's dream boy. He was big, ugly, with a tendency for yelling. He occasionally attracted girls looking for a bad boy, but he would ultimately frighten them off.
No, Mondo could deal, but he despised sympathy. And these Hope's Peak girls definitely seemed like the sympathetic type. Well, some of them, he thought as he passed by the stoic Celestia Ludenberg.
On the plus side, all this meant Mondo never felt obligated to reciprocate for White Day, and that at least saved him money and effort.
Having already missed two classes, Mondo decided he would just skip the whole day. He headed back to his room, avoiding the inquisitive gaze of Kyouko Kirigiri as he passed by her. She held a small purple package in her hands (what was with that girl and purple?), the name Leon Kuwata spelled out on its tag in her careful hand.
He reached his door and thrust his key in the lock, only to find it unlocked. He felt his muscles tense up as he walked inside, his fists clenched, ready to throttle whoever may be inside.
Once again, his room looked empty. However, there was something left on his bed.
Mondo carefully made his way over to his bed to get a better look, listening for any sudden sounds. It was a small, brown, square box, tied with a gold ribbon. There was no note with it, not even a name tag.
Glancing around once more, Mondo untied the ribbon and opened the box. Inside was a single, large piece of chocolate in the shape of a coiled dragon. It was professionally-made, and the bitter-sweet scent of the chocolate made Mondo's mouth water.
He closed the box with a glare. Was this some kind of prank? Who breaks into someone's room to leave them chocolate, even on Valentine's Day?
This must be the same person who had broken in during the night, Mondo though. This chocolate could be poison. He should get rid of it...but in case it wasn't...
He shoved the box into the drawer on his nightstand, swapping it with some comics he had stashed there. He would get to the bottom of this soon, but he first had to survive Valentine's Day.
You didn't even put your name on it? How dumb can you be? He'll probably think it's from someone way prettier than you, and you'll never have the guts to tell him otherwise. But that's probably for the best. I bet he'd be so disgusted to learn it's from you!
Hunger drew Mondo out around dinner time, and he joined the rest of his class in the cafeteria. Thankfully it seemed almost everyone had either eaten their chocolate already or else stashed it in their dorm rooms. Only Hifumi Yamada had a package with him, a long, slender box wrapped with black, silver and red ribbons.
"There you are," said a meek, quiet voice, and Mondo saw Chihiro Fujisaki waving to him from a table by the window. He nodded to Fujisaki and joined him after grabbing some food.
"I got this for you," Fujisaki said, sliding over a small, clear bag of foil-wrapped chocolates. It was tied off with a fat, pink ribbon.
"This is weird," Mondo said flatly. "You're a guy." Fujisaki blushed and looked away. Mondo was the only person in the school who knew Fujisaki was only disguised as a girl. "But it's cool," Mondo said quickly. He shoved the bag of chocolates into one of his coat pockets, and Fujisaki smiled.
"I appreciate that," Fujisaki said. "I mean, it would be weird if I didn't give you anything today, right?"
Mondo just shrugged in response and dug into his dinner. He ate ferociously, as he hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch that day; he had eaten some snacks he kept in his room, but they weren't much. A few minutes into his meal, he heard a gasp directly behind him.
Looking over his shoulder, Mondo met the bespectacled gaze of Touko Fukawa. She looked like she had been passing by and suddenly stopped to gander at him. For a moment, she looked almost mesmerized, but she quickly recovered and glared.
"D-d-do y-you always e-eat like a p-pig?" she stammered. Mondo had spoken to Touko a few times, and usually because she was hurtling some insult at him.
His mouth full, he nonetheless said, "Yeah, all the time."
She looked completely disgusted and stalked out of the cafeteria.
"That was strange," Fujisaki said as Mondo swallowed his food.
"This whole day is strange," Mondo responded, and he told the boy about the break-ins and mysterious chocolate.
Fujisaki's eyes were wide. "You should tell the headmaster about that," he insisted, but Mondo waved his hand dismissively.
"I got it," Mondo assured him and returned to eating.
You really are a coward. I always have to take things into my own hands, don't I?
Mondo stayed up late into the night in the recreation room with Fujisaki, mostly playing billiards. After Fujisaki went to bed, Mondo spent some time outside, smoking and contemplating. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning when he returned to his room again.
He cautiously tried the door, to find it locked. Breathing a sigh of relief, he unlocked the door and flicked on the light switch.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Touko Fukawa.
She was sitting on his bed, her legs folded under her, and she looked at him with a horrified look on her face. She tried to stammer something out, but she could hardly form words.
Narrowing his eyes, Mondo folded his arms over his chest. "You the one who's been breakin' in?" She fell silent and looked down at her hands, which wrung the end of her skirt nervously. He approached the bed, and she cautiously backed away to the far edge of it, looking ready to bolt out the window.
Mondo opened the drawer of the nightstand and pulled out the small box he had shoved in there earlier. He looked at her as he held it up, and she glared in response.
"S-so what?" she snapped.
"Least I know it ain't poisoned," he said, setting it back down on the table.
She looked puzzled by his answer, but she said, "That's a s-stupid thing t-t-to s-say."
Mondo looked at Touko closely, trying to gauge her purpose. Why would she give him chocolate on Valentine's Day? They weren't friends. He barely knew her.
"So, what? This some kinda prank?" he asked, his voice raising in volume.
She raised her gaze to his, her expression cautious. "Prank? N-no."
He snorted. "You sure about that?"
She bit her lip. "L-look, it wasn't m-my idea t-to c-come in here ton-night."
"So this is a prank," Mondo said.
"Th-that's not—no." She got to her feet. "N-never mind. I knew th-this was a s-stupid idea." She walked toward the door, muttering awful things to herself.
"So it ain't a prank," Mondo said quickly, and she stopped and looked at him. She was hunched forward, hugging her arms to herself as if she were braced for an attack. He sat down on the bed, knowing that towering over her wouldn't help, and asked, "Then why'd ya break in last night?"
"Y-your grammar is a-atrocious," she said, but straightened up, letting out a breath. "I-I wanted to l-leave it f-for you to f-find in the m-morning. B-But you woke up." She glared down at the floor, then turned away. "It was s-stupid. Just—Just forget about this." She hurried out of Mondo's room, and he didn't stop her.
He sighed and laid back on his bed. Reaching over, he grabbed the little box on the night stand and pulled off the lid. The chocolate dragon inside grimaced back. It was so well-made and detailed, he almost didn't want to eat it.
He set the box down and sighed. Looks like he'd be searching for something for White Day.