Chapter Text
Shuichi checked the envelope and address three times, just to make sure. It was definitely his name, clearly printed in dark ink on the invitation.
Rationally, he knew it couldn’t mean anybody else. After all, the letter specifically mentioned that he would be attending Hope’s Peak as the Ultimate Detective, which would be far too much of a coincidence if it were supposed to be for anybody else. But still, why him? Surely there must so many other talented people to choose over him. He wasn’t like Kirigiri, who had been a full-fledged detective by the time she was Shuichi’s age, he was just…well, just a nobody who’d solved a single case. And there was no way he could do that again.
Shuichi sighed, slipping the letter back into the envelope and doing his best to bury it under the pile of junk mail it had come with. It really wouldn’t do much to hide it, his uncle was a detective after all, and he was sure to notice an opened letter amongst the pile. But it really didn’t feel right to throw it away.
As if on cue, his phone buzzed. A text from his uncle. Working late tonight. Will be back at 8. Eat without me. That was fine, his uncle usually worked late during the week anyways, all too often the circumstances of a case would change and so would his uncle’s work. He wondered what it was this time. His uncle had been complaining earlier about a couple who wouldn’t stop fighting over divorce terms, maybe it was about them.
Really, it wasn’t any of Shuichi’s business. He did barely anything to help his uncle now, even though his uncle had done so much for him. The least he could do would be to help with some of the cases, if he wasn’t such a…failure as a detective.
Shaking any self-loathing thoughts out of his head, Shuichi went ahead and heated up a pack of cup noodles, even though he knew his uncle wouldn’t be pleased that he kept eating them. He simply wasn’t a good enough cook to make anything else.
It was some time later, after Shuichi had finished his thrown-together meal and begun his homework that his uncle returned home, looking exhausted as he removed his shoes and coat, tossing the apartment keys onto the kitchen table. To Shuichi’s relief, he didn’t bother looking through the stack of mail.
“Cup noodles again?” The look he gave Shuichi wasn’t a harsh or scolding one, but Shuichi couldn’t help but feel bad regardless.
“I’m sorry.”
His uncle shook his head. “No, no, it’s fine. I was home too late.” He smiled at his nephew and gave him a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll take care of breakfast tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Shuichi smiled and nodded, but really, he only felt worse. He couldn’t help his uncle with his work or with taking care of the house. His uncle had taken him in out of the goodness of his heart. There was any number of kids his age out there who had lost their parents, and so many of them had nobody to take them in.
Then again, there were probably a lot more parents out there who had lost their children. Babies did not fare well during a tragedy. But that wasn’t really something he liked thinking about, the idea that well over half his generation had died well before they’d even been old enough to start school. But, he supposed, that was reality.
A few hours later, lying awake in his bed watching the flickering shadows on his ceiling, he thought about just how helpful it would be for his uncle if he attended a school like Hope’s Peak.
The next morning, sitting across from his uncle over breakfast, the topic finally came up. His uncle took a sip of his coffee, folding up the paper he’d been reading. From the front cover, Shuichi could make out the word Remnants in a headline. So there’d been an incident again, and if it was front-page news then people had probably been hurt. Shuichi frowned down at his meal.
His uncle took another sip of coffee. “So, Hope’s Peak, huh?”
“Oh.” Shuichi raised his head slowly, unconsciously reaching for his hat. It was still in his room, he was at least okay with looking his uncle in the eyes, or at least mostly okay. “I…do you think I should go?”
His uncle was silent for a moment, in thought. “I think it would be good for you.”
“I see.” Shuichi could feel his uncle’s eyes upon him. There wasn’t much use in hiding his thoughts from him, so he blurted out “Do you really think I’m good enough? To be an ultimate, I mean?”
“Yes,” his uncle said, and that was the end of that conversation.
Despite being in Tokyo, there were only fifty students in Shuichi’s year at his high school. They were the students who had been broken apart, all because of Despair and all because of Hope’s Peak academy. At least the school didn’t have a bad image as a result, being run by the Ultimate Hope himself probably helped. But Hope’s Peak was a big name place for big name people, and not a detective who really only made things worse for everyone around him. Though his uncle had told him not to think like that.
Maybe if he went to Hope’s Peak, he would get better. Maybe, he would become a real detective, somebody who both he and his uncle could be proud of. Maybe he could learn to look people besides his uncle in the eyes, and maybe he wouldn’t doubt himself so much.
Shuichi read the letter once again, eyes lingering on the signature line. Written by the headmaster himself. Had he sent a personalized email to every potential student?
Shuichi removed the return envelope, already addressed to Hope’s Peak, and went about writing his reply.
And so it was that three months later, Shuichi sat in the back of the car his uncle had borrowed from a neighbor, clutching his suitcase to his chest as they inched along through Tokyo lunchtime traffic. Though really, Hope’s Peak wasn’t that far away, at least not by car, taking the subway would have made it an extra hour. Shuichi carried one of his detective novels outside of the suitcase, in case the drive took any longer, but with his nerves and some of the bumps in the roads, he felt it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe once they got back out onto a major street, one of the ones that had been fully repaved in the Tokyo Restoration and not one that had been patched back together with tar.
The ride to Hope’s Peak somehow managed to be both too short and too long for Shuichi, and as he stepped out of the car onto the pristine campus, he was hit with the magnitude of it all. The newly built school building towered over his head, lined with glass panels like a skyscraper. Shuichi craned his neck to gaze up at it, pulling down his hat to shield his eyes from the sun. Of all people, he, Shuichi Saihara, was now a student of a school like Hope’s Peak Academy.
The first day of his arrival involved simple stuff. Hope’s Peak students all had dorm rooms, and so Shuichi carried his suitcase up to the second floor of the first-years dorm. Though technically, he thought, it should be second years, he’d already had a year of high school after all, but that was beside the point. His suitcase was light enough that it posed little problem, he didn’t have a lot of personal possessions that he wanted to bring with him, just clothes, novels, and the electronic devices he would most likely need for classwork. More things took up more space, and they would make more work for the people around him, and that was something Shuichi would rather avoid.
There were a number of other students unpacking, and Shuichi glanced through a couple of open doorways, wondering if any of the other students would be in his class. A boy with spiky purple hair caught sight of him and gave him a wave, and Shuichi waved back nervously, a bit embarrassed at his snooping.
The rest of the day passed in a blur as Shuichi threw the rest of his stuff into his room and said his goodbyes to his uncle, who patted his shoulder and reassured him that he would be fine. The opening ceremony was all right, if a bit dull, though a lot of students were excited at seeing Headmaster Naegi in person, and Shuichi was no exception. The headmaster was a good speaker, even if he looked closer to Shuichi’s age than in his 30s, but his voice was reassuring and his speech on how everyone should feel welcome at Hope’s Peak and his plans for inclusion of those with and without talents was nice. Shuichi accidently knocked his arm against the girl sitting next to him, and she shot him a glare that made him shrink away.
The day was long enough that Shuichi fell asleep surprisingly fast, and almost immediately he was jolted from his sleep by his alarm. Class. It was time for class, his first class at Hope’s Peak academy.
He put on the Hope’s Peak uniform, a dark brown blazer and pants with a white button down and a red tie. He smoothed down the shirt, and buttoned up the blazer all the way in the hopes that he would look at least respectable enough to be walking the halls of Hope’s Peak. Placing his hat onto his head, he hoped that the dress code here was more lax than at his previous high school.
The school building was big enough that it took some time to find his homeroom, even with a map, but he eventually found it, marked as class 91-B, which he decided was an odd way to mark the room, by class year. He hesitated, reaching for the door. He’d taken long enough to find it that some of his classmates were probably already there, and he would surely need to introduce himself to the—
“Oh, is this your classroom too?”
Shuichi jumped in surprise, turning to look at the speaker. A girl with long blond hair smiled at him. Her smile was warm and friendly enough that Shuichi felt a little reassured. She had musical note clips in her hair and a similar pattern on her skirt, so Shuichi assumed she must be a musician of sorts. He hoped it wasn’t weird to analyze people like that. Well, if she could wear her own outfit, with only the Hope’s Peak blazer to identify her as a student, he was probably okay with his hat.
“My name’s Kaede Akamatsu. It’s nice to meet you.”
It took Shuichi a moment to notice she was speaking to him. “Oh, um, hi. I’m Shuichi Saihara.”
Kaede nodded in confirmation. “Well, Saihara-kun, should we go meet our classmates?”
Oh. Shuichi had almost forgotten that that’s what they were supposed to be doing. “Ok.”
So Kaede slid open the classroom door as Shuichi tailed along behind her, looking over her shoulder to see the people who would be his classmates.
As it so happened, there weren’t that many people there yet, but as the clock ticked down to the start of class, more and more students filed in. Kaede had suggested that everyone wait to introduce themselves until everyone was present (there would be sixteen of them, there were always sixteen students per class), so Shuichi lingered in the corner of the classroom near Kaede waiting for everyone to arrive.
When the last person, a short, tired looking red-headed girl enter, Shuichi could tell that Kaede was more than ready to start getting to know everyone.
“Hi everyone!” Kaede said, waving to catch her classmates’ attention. “It’s nice to meet everyone,” she looked around at each of the students, some of whom looked excited and other who seemed more wary. “Maybe, we can all introduce ourselves!”
Before she could say anything else, the purple-haired boy Shuichi remembered from yesterday cut in. “Okay then!” He flashed his classmates a smile. Apparently he had decided to forgo the school uniform altogether in favor of wearing his own jacket, which was decorated on the underside with a space-themed print. “My name’s Kaito Momota! And I’m the ultimate astronaut! No, not just the ultimate astronaut, I’m the Luminary of the Stars!” He looked quite proud of himself.
To Shuichi’s left, a girl with wild blond hair snorted, and Kaito looked a bit discouraged, but it didn’t last long. “Okay, next! How about you!” He pointed at another student.
“Me?” The student, a girl with dark brown twintails said skeptically, clearly not particularly pleased about being nominated. “How about someone else.” She frowned, playing the ribbon on her uniform, which she’d worn properly, but with long red leggings that rose to just below her skirt.
“No, no, we all have to introduce ourselves!” Kaito protested, and the girl’s frown got darker.
“Fine, whatever. I’m Maki Harukawa. Ultimate Child Caregiver.” And with that, Maki, made it quite clear that she didn’t plan to say anything more. Apparently, Kaito wasn’t discouraged by this though.
“Okay, next, how about—“
“H-hey!”
Everyone turned towards the source of the noise, Shuichi included, and took in the odd scene. A short boy with a cheeky grin whose uniform seemed to extend to wearing only the Hope’s Peak blazer over a white outfit with a checkered scarf was tugging on the hair of another…boy? He didn’t really look human, more like some sort of android perhaps.
“Huh, is this real hair?” The short boy asked in excitement. “Is it attached to you? If I cut it off, would it grow back”
“Please stop!” the android responded in annoyance, pushing at the boy to little effect. “This is discrimination! You wouldn’t do this to the others, so you shouldn’t do it to me! I’m a person too you know!”
“But you’re not! You’re a robot, right?”
“That is extremely robophobic! I have lawyers you kno—“
“Um, okay.” Kaede interrupted the two, a somewhat strained smile on her face. “Let’s not fight, how about you two introduce yourselves?”
“Yes!” the apparent robot agreed. “My name is K1B0, but please call me Keebo. And while I may indeed be a robot, I’m a student just like you. So” Keebo raised his voice “I will not accept any kind of robophobia from any of you! I know my rights!”
“Ok.” Kaede smiled politely. “What’s your talent?”
Keebo faltered for a moment. “W-well, since I am the ultimate robot, I am the most advanced example of artificial intelligence that science has to off—“
“So your talent is just existing?” The boy who had been tormenting Keebo asked, placing a finger on his chin in a mockery of thought. “Wow, I didn’t even know that could be a talent! I thought you had to actually be good at something.”
Before Keebo could response, Kaede once again attempted to salvage the situation, this time looking a bit more annoyed. “Geez, you two…anyway, why don’t you introduce yourself too?” she said to the other boy.
Keebo mumbled something about how this situation was not his fault, but the boy didn’t seem to mind. “Oh, ok! My name’s Kokichi Ouma, and I’m the” he stretched his arms out as if for effect “the ultimate supreme leader!”
Kaede frowned. “No, you’re not. What’s your real talent?”
“Awww, you don’t believe me? That’s so mean.” Kokichi pouted. “But I really am the ultimate supreme leader! I have a super secret organization with over 10,000 members.”
“Really? What’s it called?”
“It’s a secret so I can’t tell you!” Kokichi said smugly. “Or maybe you were right and it doesn’t exist at all. Maybe I just lied!”
“Geez, can you—“
“Anyway.” Kokichi jabbed his finger at Kaede, looking a bit more serious, though Shuichi really couldn’t tell if he was faking it or not. “You’ve been telling all of us to introduce ourselves, but you haven’t introduced yourself yet. “
“I’d be glad to!” Kaede said firmly. “My name’s Kaede Akamatsu, and I’m the ultimate pianist.”
Ah, so Shuichi had been right, her talent did involve music. The blond girl from before snorted again, muttering “ultimate penis” just loud enough for everyone to hear.
“Ok!” Kaede spoke louder. “Shuichi, why don’t you introduce yourself?”
Wait, what?
Shuichi wasn’t ready for this, and he certainly wasn’t ready to be made fun of by any of his new classmates. He fiddled with his hat, lowering his gaze on the off chance that he might meet someone’s eye.
“My name’s Shuichi Saihara.” Shuichi tried to speak as loud as he could. “And I’m the…ultimate detective.” He waited for someone to say something, either for that girl to make fun of him or for someone else to mention Kirigiri, but instead he only heard Kaede move on to the next person to introduce themself, to Shuichi’ relief.
He listened through the rest of the introductions, which went off a lot more smoothly, taking in the details of each of his classmates. Another dark haired girl introduced herself as Tenko Chabashira, ultimate aikido master, a girl named Angie was apparently the ultimate artist, though she also said that it was actually Atua who was the artist or something, Shuichi didn’t know. A giant of a man introduced himself as Gonta Gokuhara, and asked Shuichi if he liked bugs, which Shuichi, slightly afraid for his life, said yes to.
The rude girl who had made fun of Kaito and Kaede was apparently an inventor named Miu, and she made a few more vulgar remarks regarding her breasts and her apparent genius intellect. The short red-headed girl was named Himiko and she insisted repeatedly that while she may have been admitted as ultimate magician, she was actually an ultimate mage.
“What are you, some kind of chunni?” Miu asked, and Himiko fell silent, apparently pouting.
The tiniest boy Shuichi had ever seen introduced himself as Ryoma Hoshi, stated he had been the ultimate tennis pro, and promptly ignored everyone else.
Kirumi was the ultimate maid, and she declared that she looked forward to working with everyone, and that she would take care of any work cleaning the classroom, which made Himiko perk up a bit.
An unusual boy with long dark hair and bandages stated that he was Korekiyo Shinguji, ultimate anthropologist, and he was extremely interested in “observing the beauty of the class” or something.
“Creepy male.” Tenko complained.
There was a laid-back boy with greenish hair whose name was Rantaro, the ultimate adventurer. He seemed nice enough, Shuichi decided, but it was hard to picture anyone willing to explore a world where there was so much danger present.
“Is that everyone?” Kaede asked, glancing around the classroom, before her eyes caught the final student. “Oh, who are you? I’m sorry I didn’t notice you.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” The student, a blue-haired girl, said. “I’m pretty plain, so I’m not surprised you didn’t notice me. But I’m the ultimate cosplayer.” She glanced around at the class, seemingly excited from mentioning her talent. “If anyone wants to go to a cosplay, I’d be glad to help!”
So, Shuichi thought, looking over at all of his new classmates, careful to avoid meeting any of their eyes. These would be the people who he would spend the next two years with.
Well, he wasn’t sure about some of them, but most seemed like nice enough people. Maybe people who could be his friends, if he worked to know them.
He caught Kaede’s contented smile from under the brim of his hat, and smiled back with a bit of hesitation. Maybe attending Hope’s Peak had been a good idea after all.