Chapter Text
Korekiyo awoke to repetitive tapping heard next to his head, and slowly rose his neck up, rubbing tired eyes. He peered up at the annoyed expression of his English teacher, glaring down at him.
“Shinguji.” She said, frowning. He quickly shuffled to get his textbook out, yawning all the way.
Lately, he hadn't slept much. When he did, it was restless. Last night, Miyadera took a late shift at her newest job to pay for groceries, leaving Korekiyo to make dinner for Reimei and Hikari. That wouldn’t be a problem every once and a while, but they were quickly running out of their original money and it was more often than not Miyadera was working.
But it was nice, in some ways. Over the first two weeks of living at the new place, he felt home. Peaceful with people who cared for him. Sure, balancing out food money with rent wasn’t easy, but even without parents, they felt more family than ever.
Blinking back into reality, he realized his English class sleeping antics lead to some giggling from classmates. It wasn’t surprising he had obtained zero friends. He hadn’t had any to begin with, so, same old same old. Still flustered, he opened the book and refused to look up, not wanting to acknowledge the amused stares.
The bell rang, and Korekiyo was the first one out of the room, hating any kind of confrontation. He hated how people stared at the new kid, who refused to say anything about his past and family, who was far too timid to even be a person. This made lunch the highlight of his day, retreating to the school rooftops for some solitude. Or, well, it was supposed to be in solitude. Apparently, already tired and annoyed enough, life cursed him with another person to deal with.
He hadn’t noticed anyone at first, sat with his knees drawn up on a bench, taking his scarf off to eat. Then came humming, rhythmic, melodious humming followed by footsteps.
He drew back in surprise, seeing someone walking on the roof fence. A petite girl balanced on the top of the metal fence, black flats criss-crossing over each other. She had her white hair done up in two long pigtails, and her dark uniform contrasted on the pale sky. Korekiyo had seen her before, the girl was in his history class with no name. Never really paid attention though, lost in her own world, fingers tracing paper into imaginary artwork.
His first instinct- and damn Miyadera motherly tendencies for rubbing off on him- was to yell at her to get down, because it was foolish and easy to fall from such a tiny railing. There were no teachers up here, so no one could do that for him. What kid could be so...dumb?
Of course, he didn’t want to scare her, so his second idea was what actually came out of his mouth. A stuttered, “Be careful…” He instantly mentally kicked himself for how stupid that sounded.
The words were said, and the girl looked up from her feet, meeting his eyes with a blank face. She stopped walking and swayed on the piece of fence, looking down at the school courtyard below, and then back to Korekiyo, contemplating something.
“I wasn’t really trying to be careful.” She finally says, voice lighter than he expected. Her expression becomes somewhat of a smile, but her eyes say otherwise.
Oh. Something clicks. She was doing something this dangerous with the possible intention of falling. Right. Korekiyo swallows hard, wringing his hands together. Oh god, he wasn’t prepared for this. If she jumped, it was his fault, it was always his fault.
And she did jump- jump down to the roof side of the fence, hands and feet hitting the concrete only a foot below. The girl brushed off her hands and spun around to get the dust out of her skirt. She skipped forward till she was in front of him, a genuine smile now forming.
“Angie.” She stated, holding out a hand. Still a bit dumbfounded, he shook it with a dry mouth.
“You see,” Angie continued as if the introduction never happened. “I do that every day, a few laps on the fence. It’s kind of a test, people want me dead enough, but if it was an accident no one would be blamed! A win-win situation, ykno?” She’s stopped talking to him, looking up at the sky, perhaps talking to the gods. It’s getting cloudy out.
“Buuuuut…” She says, drawing out long enough to meet his eyes again. “No one’s ever up here! And yet here you are!” Angie draws her arms out wide, grinning.
“Y-Yeah. I am.” He replies, slowly, honestly not sure what to say. This might be the strangest girl he’s ever met. She appears to have just been trying to die and five seconds later is bouncing around like sunshine personified.
”Thanks!” She says, grabbing his wrist to aggressively shake his hand again, leaving Korekiyo dumbfounded as she skips away, skirt twirling. Instinctively, he waves, bandaged hand falling to his side.
What a weird girl.
. . . .
”Turn that trash off!” Miyadera shouts from the kitchen, balancing two plates against her side, walking to the living room. Hikari and Reimei sat crouched on the floor in front of their tiny square tv. She reached down and snatched up the remote, clicking off the Danganronpa V2 replay. The two younger siblings groaned, but still took the dinner plates from Miyadera’s hands.
”It’s a good show!” Hikari pouted, looking at Miyadera with an annoyed expression.
”I don’t want you two watching it. It’s not humane, brainwashing those kids.”
”You’re not our mother.” Reimei mumbled just loud enough for her to hear, to which Miyadera flinched, turning away.
”You’re right.” She stood, tossing the remote back down. ”I’m not.”
Feeling guilty, the brother and sister quickly went quiet to eat, leaving Miyadera to head back to the kitchen.
“What were they watching?” Korekiyo asks curiously, moving his homework out of the way so she could lean against the counter. She sighed dramatically and rested her head on the wood.
“Danganronpa. One of my coworkers at the diner is obsessed with it. I’m sick of hearing about kids killing each other.”
Korekiyo looked perplexed. “It’s just a TV show, right?”
“Virtual reality,” Miyadera quickly replied. “Sure it’s not real, but that’s gotta mess with your head, right? Last season’s winner looked dead inside when he was first interviewed.”
“Oh.” He shrugs. “Sorry, I’m not really caught up with the media.”
Miyadera didn’t seem to care and dropped the subject, sighing to look back in their living room.
“You don’t have to be their mother, you know.” Korekiyo said after a moment, to offer her some solace. Their run away from home hadn’t been easy, especially on her. He’d noticed Miyadera’s stress to replace their parents, no matter how low the standards were. He felt shame sometimes, not being able to do enough to help. Multiple times she’d mentioned they might be struggling for rent soon. Once late at night when Reimei and Hikari were sleeping, she even suggested they go back home.
It was quickly shut down, as she then said she’d rather get caught free.
“Yeah, but I have to be your sister.” Miyadera said standing up, ruffling Korekiyo’s long hair and shaking him back to reality.
Maybe things weren’t going so bad.
. . . .
Danganronpa comes up again in Korekiyo’s life, oddly enough, only a few days later.
He sees Angie more often now that he’s aware of her. He’s a bit concerned to talk to her, and she seems to always be in and out of the halls anyways. Even when he goes on the roof to eat, he only sees her once leaving back downstairs. The first person to actually talk to him and she was an enigma.
Fate has other plans, apparently.
It was a soft fall day out, warm enough for Korekiyo to have no jacket over his uniform, headed outside the front entrance to go back to the apartment for the night. The quiet day is interrupted as he turns the corner and hears heated conversation on the other side of the school wall.
Now- he wasn’t one to eavesdrop without reason, but human nature had curiosity implemented in it. So Korekiyo peaked around the corner to see someone leaning on the other side, phone held up to their ear.
It’s Angie, of course, body tense, phone up to her ear.
He spins back around to flatten himself against the wall, not wanting her to notice. She doesn’t, and the conversation continues.
“I’m not- I’m not backing out now.” The girl hissed at the other person on the phone. “I have to do this- God’s telling me to!”
“Fuck your bullshit god!” A female voice on the other end became loud enough for him to hear. “It’s just an excuse for you to run away.” Korekiyo winced. He knew all about ruining away.
“You don’t care about me.” Angie replied, voice sounding more tired than angry. “You keep using my commission money to buy useless stuff- I don’t even have enough for my medication anymore.”
Well, that explained the fence thing. Maybe. Who was he to assume?
The person on the line says something he doesn’t catch, and Angie sighs.
“Look-“ The other says finally. “Your parents didn’t want you so we took you in. Show some goddamn respect. Don’t listen to your fake God and stay.”
“It’s not…” A long pause. “You won’t have to deal with me. I know you and our roommates don’t like me. I’m just here to split the rent. So just, let me do this.”
“Do whatever you want, Danganronpa will just fuck you up more than you already are.
Korekiyo peeks back around to see Angie slumped farther down the wall, curling in on herself. Scared.
A few monotone words come from the phone then, and the line goes dead, leaving them in a dial tone and silence.
Danganronpa, huh?
He bites his lip, thinking about what he just learned, even with how little a Korekiyo knew about Danganronpa. Then, he immediately realized he just listened in on a whole conversation, and moves away from the wall. Unfortunately, Angie turns around a second later, and bumps right into him.
“Oh!” She blinks up, much shorter than himself, blue eyes wide. “Hi! You didn’t hear that, did you?”
The girl has a wide smile on her face, looking almost ecstatic, but he sees tense lines in her forehead, stretching the fake grin.
“Um, hear what?” He lies. The face mask was useful for some things, able to easily hide expressions.
“Great! I’m Angie!” And she grabs his hand to shake it. “Again. We met already, yeah? Thanks for that, by the way.”
“You’re...welcome.” He says awkwardly, narrowing his eyes as non-threateningly as possible.
“Anyways! I gotta go!” The girl spins on her heel and waves goodbye. “Places to be, auditions to audition for!” Skipping away, Korekiyo is left alone with thoughts of strange girls and killing games.