Interlude IV – Beginnings - Start
"Nervous?" Daisuke asks as he watches his son through the reflection of the front mirror.
Makoto smiles softly and nods. "You have no idea." The brunette looks outside of the window, a thoughtful look on his face. "I'm still not sure if I should be going there." He let's out a sigh. "I am really good enough to be a Ultimate?" Makoto asks, more to himself than to his father.
Daisuke looks back towards the road and says. "Maybe you shouldn't." The older Naegi grasps onto the driving wheel. "Maybe you aren't." He turns his head slightly and sends a side glance towards his son. "But all those maybes don't really mean anything." The man looks forward once again towards the road. "You can only say that you deserve or not to be a Ultimate once you experience that for yourself."
The brunette teenager closes his eyes, before sighing and opening a small smile. "Thanks Otou-san." The older man smiles and shakes his head.
Makoto looks outside the window once again, the ever changing scenery reminding him of how things are going to change.
I'm not at my home anymore.
This was the biggest step Makoto ever had to take, it wasn't strange for the teenager to be ever so fearful of what's going to happen.
Yet.
There was something more to it than just fear.
Makoto could only describe this other feeling as excitement.
He was excited to meet new people, form new bonds, discover more about the world and heck, maybe even more about himself.
The boy knew he wasn't going to be completely alone, Chiaki was going to be there. Makoto didn't knew if their friendship would be the same after a year of not talking, but he couldn't help but feel excited about meeting his old friend once again.
Not just that, but according to the quick search that he did on some forums, Maizono Sayaka would also be attending Hope's Peak.
While the boy was sure she wouldn't remember him, at least a part of him was hopeful that they could maybe become friends.
There was also… her.
Enoshima Junko, the most popular fashionista of the decade, heck, some people even say that she may become the most popular fashionista in history if she continues to raise in popularity as quickly as she is now.
But, Makoto couldn't shake this strange feeling that girl have him, a strange sense of familiarity together with strange loneliness that made his heart ache.
Shaking his head, the brunette watches the ever-changing scenery from his window.
This was going to be a completely new beginning to him.
Daisuke stops their car at the parking lot of Hope's Peak.
"Well." The older Naegi says while turning to face his son. "This is it." He smiles. "Don't forget to call once you settle everything down, okay?"
Makoto nods, before opening the car door and stepping outside. "I will."
"Oh, and Makoto." The boy turns to face his father, who gently shakes his head. "Do your best." Daisuke gives his son a thumbs up. "I'm proud of you."
The brunette smiles, while bowing. "Thank you, Otou-san!" With that, the boy watches as his father drives off, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Makoto grabs his turns around and starts walking towards the academy, once he gets in front of the entrance gate, the boy stops and looks at the majestic building in front of him.
Honestly, I don't know what Hope's Peak sees in me. I'm just your average guy who likes whatever is popular. I don't have superpowers, a stand or anything like that, but Otou-san was right, I can't keep just thinking of the maybes, I have to take this first step myself and see where it leads me.
With his thoughts in order, the brunette takes a deep breath and adjusts his hoodie.
"Hope's Peak… here I come!" Makoto announces as he takes his first step into the academy.
Looking around, he can see other students all around the entrance area, probably waiting until the entrance ceremony can start.
He can see a redhead boy looking around, a blond girl with some fancy clothes talking with a strangely familiar boy, a tall muscular girl meditating under a tree, a toned girl and a muscular guy stretching to the side and so much more.
While walking, Makoto stops and looks once again to the main building in front of him. "So this is Hope's Peak?" He gulps, but still keeps his determined expression. "Might as well go inside." The brunette goes back to walking, but soon a loud noise catches his attention.
"Watch out!" A gruff voice yells and Makoto looks towards it.
"Wha-!" The boy barely has any time to process what's happening, before something large and surprisingly soft hits him in the face and he falls unconscious.
Makoto slowly opens his eyes, he was at a white room with lots of pink details.
"Where-" The teenager closes his eyes then opens them again. "-Am I?" Looking around a bit more, he finally notices where he was. "Is this the nurse's room?" He gets up from the bed and slowly approaches the curtains.
Pulling them aside, the boy sees girl with long and unevenly dark, plum-colored hair, she was trying to grab something on the higher cupboard.
"Hello?" Makoto calls the girl.
"Kyah!" She squeals before quickly turning around, as she does this, somehow her feet tangle themselves together and the girl falls forward.
Ignoring his own growing headache, Makoto dives in to catch the girl, but thanks to the strangely slippy floor, the brunette slips forward and the two fall down together.
"Aieeee!" The girl cries, while closing her eyes. "S-Sorry!" She apologizes before feeling a squeeze on her left breast. "H-Huh?" She opens her eyes and sees Makoto's hazel ones. "Ah~!" The girl moans slightly as she feels his knee touching between her legs.
Somehow during their fall, Makoto's hand landed perfectly on the girl's breast while his leg fell square between her legs.
"A-Are you okay?" He asks worried, before noticing the position the two are in. "Ah!" Makoto jumps away, before blushing deeply and bowing.
"I'M SORRY!" The both of them yell in unison.
"H-huh?" Makoto lifts his head and sees the girl with her eyes closed. "E-Excuse me?" He asks confused and the girl gets up.
"I-I'm sorry!" She apologizes while bowing. "B-Because of m-my clumsiness y-you hurt yourself again!" The girl sniffs before failing to her knees and bowing on the floor. "I'm so sorry!"
The brunette blinked slowly, with one question on his mind. ' What the actual heck is going on?'
"P-Please d-don't hate meeeeee!" She keeps on crying with her head on the floor, before Makoto finally approaches her.
"H-Hey!" The boy touches her shoulders, making the sniffing girl lift her head and look at him. "I-it's okay!" He smiles and helps her get up. "I'm great!" Doing a twirl, the brunette stops and looks towards the girl. "See?"
She slowly nods, still holding back tears.
"More importantly." Now that she seemed to have calmed down, the boy bows again. "I-I'm sorry for t-touching you." He lifts his head. "It was a accident."
It takes some seconds for the girl to process what he said. "Oh!" She says, before bowing again. "I'm sorry f-for making y-you feel s-sorry!"
Makoto blinks again, before finally noticing that this conversation wasn't going anywhere. "L-Let's just forget what happened and get back from the beginning right?" He asks and the dark-haired girl meekly shakes her head. "Okay then, I'm Naegi Makoto. Who are you?"
This time is the girl who blinks, before she joins her hands together and starts moving her hips from side to side. "Y-You want to k-know my name?" She asks, not hiding the happiness in her voice.
First the fourth time in a roll, Makoto was baffled.
Who gets happy when people ask them their name?
The girl notices his stare and quickly bows again. "I'm sorry!" She apologizes, before lifting her head and finally introducing herself. "M-My name's T-Tsumiki M-Mikan!" Mikan bows yet again. "I'm sorry!"
Makoto wasn't even sure what she was apologizing for this time, but he decided that it would be better to not saying anything on that front. "A pleasure to meet you Tsumiki-san." He then looked around the room once more. "Is this the nurse's room?"
Mikan meekly nods. "Uh-huh." She anxiously starts playing with her thumbs. "Y-You've got k-knocked out and s-sent here."
"Knocked out?" Makoto asked confused. "By what?"
"Uh, ah, you see…?" Mikan stumbles on her words a lot, but still manages to explain what happened to the boy.
I remember thinking about how my first moments at Hope's Peak are gonna go back then.
Safe to say, I wasn't expecting to be knocked unconscious by someone's butt hitting my face at a absurdly fast pace.
Which in hindsight, might have been a heavenly premonition of how my time in Hope's Peak was going to be.
"I've got knocked out by someone's butt?" The brunette asks incredulously.
"Y-Yeah." Mikan replies, before a silence falls between the two as Makoto tries to process what he has just heard. "I'm sorry." The dark-haired girl bows again and the boy sighs.
"Say, what time is it?" He asks and Mikan looks at the clock on the wall.
"9:45, w-why?" The girl asks and Makoto's face turns pale.
"THE ENTRANCE CEREMONY WAS SUPPOSED TO START AT 9:30!" The brunette yells desperately. "We're late!" He quickly grabs Mikan's hand, making the girl blush deeply and let out a cute squeal.
The two bolt out of the nurse's room and start running through the halls of Hope's Peak.
"Urgh, where's Tsumiki?" A red-haired girl with freckles asks as all the classes listen to some boring speech from the principal. "Shouldn't she be here already?"
"Piggy-chan must be taking care of that loser from the first year." A small girl wearing a kimono and with blond hair in pigtails says.
"Hiyoko-chan!" The redhead scolds the other girl, who simply smirks and giggles. "Seriously, how can a first year be so unreliable that he gets knocked out before the first day?"
"Must be a curse for those lucky freaks." Hiyoko replies with venom in her tone. "Remember what happened in Nagito-chan's first day?"
How could the redhead forget, she never saw such chaos around a single person before. "Yeah, but Komaeda is a girl like us." She then crosses her arms and sighs. "But to a boy be this unreliable, it's honestly unbelieveable."
Sitting just by the two girl's side is Chiaki, who was almost sleeping throughout the entire speech. ' Huh… I wonder." She thinks to herself.
Truth be told, they only learned that the lucky student for class 78 had been changed today, they didn't knew why exactly though.
After hearing about why the boy had been sent to the nurse's room, she couldn't help but feel slightly nostalgic.
The situation was so bizarre that it reminded her of Makoto, which made the mauve-haired girl smile.
At that exact moment, the door to the gymnasium is opened and everyone turns their heads towards it.
Chiaki's heart skips a bit when she sees who's standing there, holding onto Mikan's hand and completely out of breath. "M-Makoto-kun…" The girl whispers.
"S-Sorry for being late!" The boy yells and bows his head.
Truly, that was quite the strange beginning for my high-school years, yet I can't deny that it was so exciting back then.
To see all those new faces and also returning ones, it made my heart beat with excitement.
And I was right to be excited, because the best and worse days of my life are about to begin.
Interlude IV – Beginnings - End
Mikan my beloved, I finally can have you on the story.
Ahem, so, that's a start ain't it?
After 27 chapters, we are finally here at Hope's Peak and you could say that here is where the story really begins.
Man, we have so much to do now that we finally reached this point, but sadly, we will have to wait some more.
I'll be taking the rest of december off, so I can cool down on writing, not that I won't be working on this story, because i will.
During this little break I'll be going over my plans for Hope's Peak, because now we have a lot of characters that are going to need a lot of screen time to work.
Anyways, I'll probably will still post some random one-shots throughout december just for the hell of it.
Now, I sincerely hope ya'll enjoyed the chapter and thank you for reading.
See you next year!