Hopeful Days XVI – Late Night Conversations
Makoto tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
With a sigh, the brunette throws the covers to the side and sits on the corner of his bed. "Argh." He groans while looking at the time in his alarm clock. "2 in the morning." The luckster let's out a heavy sigh.
He got to bed three hours ago after a lengthy call with his sister and just, wouldn't fall asleep.
Part of him was just overwhelmed with the fact that tomorrow was the first day of school. Yes, it's already been a week since he got into Hope's Peak but the brunette couldn't help but feel out of place.
Monaca, Kotoko, Sayaka, Leon and Mondo made it easier for him to feel more welcomed, but the clear difference in status between him and the other Ultimates was still quite large.
The way Nagito talked to him and what Mahiru said yesterday had at least some effect on the boy.
Someone like you.
What did she mean by that?
Makoto wasn't sure and that was eating at him internally.
With another sigh, the brunette got up and started walking towards the door. "Maybe some tea can help me sleep."
The luckster walks down the stairs and enters the kitchen, he was so lost in thought that the boy didn't even notice how the lights are on. "Huh?" He stops by the door and freezes as his eyes locks with someone else's.
"Eeek!" Yelps the other person while stepping slightly backwards. "Ah-" The person trips while walking back and starts to fall towards the floor.
"Watch out!" Makoto yells while running towards them. Luckily they aren't that far away from the door, so the brunette was able to grab them… although as expected, the unlucky luckster ends up tripping on his own feet and falls together with the person. "Ah!"
Thankfully Makoto was able hug the person and turn around, so they fell on top of his body.
"Argh!" The brunette boy groans as he feels the ground upon his back. "A-Are you okay?" He asks worriedly while looking down, where his hazel eyes met with ones of the same color, just softer.
"T-T-T-T-" Stutters the person under him with their cheeks burning a bright shade of red.
Makoto blinks, before noticing that he was hugging this person. "O-Oh!" The brunette boy quickly let's go of them and the two get up. "S-Sorry about that!" He apologizes while his own cheeks start to turn red.
"N-No! I-It was my fault!" The person says while bowing apologetically. "S-Sorry and t-thank you!"
It takes some seconds for Makoto to recognize who the person is.
Fujisaki Chihiro – Ultimate Programmer
Chiriho has short light brown hair, she is smaller than Makoto and has a certain delicacy to her, almost like a doll that needs to be handled with care. She is wearing striped blue and white pajamas with various cute little bunnies printed on.
"U-Uh, I'm Naegi Makoto, Ultimate Lucky Student." The boy decides to take the lead, seeing that the girl was still very embarrassed. "A pleasure to meet you." He extends his hand and she stares at it for a second, before letting out a cute little gasp and quickly shaking his hand.
"I-I'm Fujisaki Chihiro." She awkwardly shakes his hand. "U-Ultimate Programmer…"
The two then fall back into silence.
'Welp… this is awkward.' Thinks the brunette boy, before saying. "What are you doing here at this hour?" He asks and the girl blushes again.
"I-I just wanted something to drink." Chihiro replies and Makoto smiles.
"I was about to make some tea for myself, do you want some?" He offers and the girl shakes her head.
"I-I don't want to bother you…" The programmer replies unsure.
"No, it's okay." Makoto smiles softly, which seems to calm her down a bit. "It's better to drink something together with someone else."
Chihiro looks reluctantly towards him, then nods. "O-Okay, if it isn't any problem." She then smiles softly and Makoto almost dies out of the sheer cuteness emanating from her.
The brunette nods and walks up to the kitchen's counter. While he starts to boil the water, the programmer sits down and by the table.
"Why are up so late, Naegi-san?" After some minutes of silence, Chihiro speaks up, seemingly feeling more comfortable.
"Couldn't sleep." He replies opening a drawer and moving to grab some tea bags. 'Huh, what's this?'
Inside of the drawer, there's three bags of Royal Milk Tea with a small note stuck to them.
DO NOT TOUCH, PROPERTY OF CELESTIA LUDENBERG – was written beautifully in the note.
Makoto blinks slowly. 'Well, better not touch that.' Concludes the luckster, before grabbing the green tea bags and closing the drawer. "And why are you up so late Fujisaki-san?" He turns to face the girl, making her look down at her own lap.
"I-I'm used to sleeping late." She replies shyly. "Uh-" Chihiro stops for a bit, clearly hesitant to contusion what she was going to say.
While Makoto didn't knew her that well, he could probably assume what she was doing so late. "I'll take you are programming?" He asks and her eyes lit up suddenly.
"U-Uh, yes!" The shorter Ultimate happily, before seemingly noticing it and blushing. "How did you-" She stops herself. "Oh, yeah, Ultimate Programmer, silly me." Chihiro sighs and brings her hands to her face. "Sorry, I'm not used to talking with people in person like this."
Makoto chuckles softly. "It's okay, I get it." He turns his attention back to the water, but continues to talk with the girl. "You only reveled your face recently right?" The brunette comments. "I remember reading theories online of who the 'mysterious bunny hacker' hacker was."
While the name stuck around on most people's minds, Chihiro wasn't really a hacker per say, she could do it, just chose not to.
But mysterious bunny programmer didn't sound catchy, so he could get why people referred to her as a hacker.
"Yeah, I mostly took on anonymous jobs or under different pseudonyms." She explained while gently adjusting herself in the chair. "People only knew it was me when they saw my signature."
"The Usami code right?" Makoto turns around once again and the girl nods.
Chihiro's signature was a little cartoonish bunny head that she hid in midst of the lines of code, it was because of that she gained her little title.
"I remember reading about it when I was researching about you." The brunette boy comments and the programmer lifts a eyebrow. "Oh, I did some reading on everybody from our class before coming to school." He explains and the girl nods.
"That makes a lot of sense." She looks down at her lap again. "I kinda wish I did that now, I haven't talked to anybody the whole week."
"Really?" Chihiro nods sadly. "That's not really a problem though." He adds making the girl look surprise at him. "We have three whole years ahead of us, no need to rush this type of thing."
The smaller Ultimate shakes her head in agreement. "You're right." She giggles cutely. "I was just worrying over nothing." A comfortable silence falls as the two just quietly stare at each other. "Uh, Naegi-san?"
"Yeah?"
"The water for the tea."
"Oh crap!" Makoto quickly turns around and goes back to attending the tea.
It doesn't take long after that for the brunette to brew them both a cup of tea and they drink it up while making small conversation.
Once their cups are empty, Makoto offers to clean them up and Chihiro reluctantly agrees.
The two brunettes say their goodnights to each other and the small girl goes back to her room, leaving Makoto alone with his thoughts.
While washing up their cups, Makoto's mind wanders off to Chiaki.
He hasn't seen her since that day.
The Ultimate Gamer seemed like she got along with her classmates, by the way all of them seemed to see her in quite the high regard and Makoto was quite happy about that, really he was.
But-
That created a slight problem in his mind. Now that Chiaki had this many friends, Makoto didn't want to bother her.
What if she feels forced to hang out with him?
Of course, the boy knew that those are silly thoughts, Chiaki wasn't the type to do that.
Someone like you.
Mahiru's words hang in the back of his head.
"Argh." Makoto unconsciously groans in frustration.
"My, oh my! I wasn't expecting to find anyone around here at this hour!"
Turning around, Makoto's hazel eyes cross with blue ones.
Enoshima Junko – Ultimate Fashionista?
Standing there by the door was none other than Enoshima Junko, Ultimate Fashionista.
She was just as pretty in person as she was on the photos that he saw of her.
Bright blue eyes that seemed to completely pierce through him, silky skin that looks pretty soft to the touch, a powerful hourglass figure and strawberry-blond hair tied into two twin pigtails.
While staring at her with his mouth open, Makoto's hazel eyes gaze down her body and a deep blush forms on his cheek.
Junko was wearing a very transparent nightgown and thanks to that, her black lacy underwear which was practically calling attention to itself.
The brunette quickly turns his face away from her, making the girl giggle to herself.
"I-I was just drinking some tea." He says still not looking towards her.
The blond girl licks her lips and smirks. "At this hour?" She asks and Makoto gets even more uncomfortable.
He opens and closes his mouth while trying to form a coherent sentence. "I- Uh- I-"
Junko laughs, before saying in a surprisingly rough tone. "Relax shithead, I'm just fucking with ya!" Walking inside the kitchen, the fashionista goes towards the fridge. "I saw Fujisaki-chan getting out of the kitchen, so I'll assume you two are drinking together?"
Makoto gulps down and looks back towards the girl, trying his absolute hardest to not stare at her body. "Yeah, when I came in, she was alre-" The boy almost chokes when the blond girl opens the fridge and bends down, throwing her backside almost as if provoking him. "-A-Already in." He averts his gaze once again.
The Ultimate Fashionista smirks, knowing very well that she's making him uncomfortable. "Well, guess I just missed the party then." She grabs a carton of milk and closes the fridge. "Oh, you already know, but my name is Enoshima Junko."
Hearing the fridge's door closing, the brunette boy assumed that it was safe to look once again. "I'm Naegi Mak-" He blushes again as Junko starts drinking the milk straight from the carton, some of it even dripping out from the corner of her mouth. "-o-oto…"
She has to be doing that on purpose!
"Oh yeah, the stuck in the tree guy!" The blond smirks. "I read about ya!"
Makoto lifts a eyebrow. "Really?"
"Uh-huh! I did some research on everybody from our class before coming to school." Junko cleans the milk that was still on her face using her arm. "And I gotta say, your wacky adventures are a absolute joy to read!" She laughs out loud.
"T-Thanks?" He scratches the back of his head, embarrassed.
The strawberry blond model takes another chug of the milk, then puts the carton on tip of the table. "I good sip of cold delicious milk always helps me get a good night's sleep!" She announces with a smirk.
Makoto looked at the empty carton of milk and blinked. 'I don't think that counts as a 'sip'." He was about to say that out loud, but decided to keep the thought to himself.
Stretching her arms, Junko puffs out her chest, making the brunette look away once again. "Well, it was nice meeting ya here." She smirks at the sight of the blushing bot and giggles to herself. "G'night." The strawberry blond girl turns around and starts going towards the door.
"Uh, E-Enoshima-san! Wait!" Makoto calls unconsciously and soon regrets as the girl turns back, her piercing blue eyes staring right at him. "Uh-" He takes a deep breath. "Have we- have we met before?"
Yes, that day at the lake. He was sure it was her-
"Dude." Junko looks at him unamused. "If you want me to open my legs, ya gotta work more on your flirting."
The brunette blushes deeply and shakes his hands. "T-That's not what I meant!"
Crap now he dug himself into a hole!
"Pffffff-"
He stares confusedly at the model as she starts to laugh.
"Hahahahaha!" Using one of her fingers, she cleans a tear that formed underneath her right eye. "Geez Naegi-kun, your reactions are priceless!" She says in between laughs.
Makoto just stares confused at her as she continues to laugh. Once she's done, Junko smiles teasingly and walk up to the brunette.
The strawberry blond stops in front of Makoto and for the first time, he notices the difference in height between the two.
Bending down slightly, Junko places a kiss on the luckster's cheek. "You're like, soooo cute when you're embarrassed!" She whispers in his ear with a very girly voice. "I'm gonna love teasin' you~"
Makoto blushes deeply and tries respond, but no words come out of his mouth.
Moving away from the boy with a smile on her lips, Junko says. "That was really fun!" She turns around and walks towards the door. "Oh and one more thing." Turning her head so she would give him a side eye, she continues. "Drop the '-san'. Just Enoshima is fine." Her tone was strangely ominous as she said that. "Byeeeee!" going back to her Cheery, girly tone, Junko smirks and walks out of the kitchen, leaving a still stunned Makoto behind.
The boy blinks slowly, before noticing one thing.
S-She never answered his question…
"Enoshima…" Makoto looks towards the door and gulps.
What was this foreboding feeling?
Hopeful Days XVI – Late Night Conversations
And with that, we end the Hopeful Days Arc and kinda end introductions.
Of course, there still tons of characters to introduce but the main players for the first semester are already in place and the ones that aren't, are going to be introduced in the coming chapters.
Anyways hope y'all liked the chapter and see you around!