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Shuichi Naegi sits at the kitchen table, his small legs not quite able to reach the floor yet. In front of him is a fresh stack of his father’s blueberry pancakes, a ‘special breakfast for my special little guy’ as his father had put it. Shuichi isn’t too big on sweets, but even he can’t get enough of the small bursts of blueberry flavor in every other bite of the fluffy pancakes.
Normally, their family breakfasts consists of something quick like eggs and toast - with both of his parents having such important jobs at Hope’s Peak Academy, they usually have to leave home really early, but today they wanted to make an exception.
It was Shuichi’s eighth birthday today, and because it fell on a Friday, his parents weren’t as crunched for time as usual.
So Shuichi happily eats his pancakes with his father while his mother enjoys a nice cup of coffee with a slice of apricot toast, much like Shuichi, she isn’t too keen on sweets - especially for breakfast.
“Shuichi are you excited for your party today?” his father asks, bright green eyes shining with excitement for his son.
“Y-Yeah I can’t wait!” Shuichi says shyly, lowering his black cap to cover his eyes a bit. He can practically feel his parents concerned faces looking at him.
“Are you sure there weren’t any classmates you wanted to invite? I don’t want you to feel like there are too many adults at your party.”
“Makoto,” Kyoko warns, tucking a strand of lilac hair behind her ear “Shuichi already told us who he was comfortable inviting. If he doesn’t want his classmates to come, its his choice, not ours.”
His mother was as keen as always. It’s not like he didn’t have friends at his elementary school, he just didn’t consider himself close enough to any of his classmates to invite them.
Makoto scratches at his chin guilty, “I...yeah you’re right Kyoko…” he reaches over and pats Shuichi through his hat “Sorry for trying to change your mind Shuichi, I just want to make sure you have fun.”
Shuichi shakes his head as he takes a sip of his orange juice “I-Its ok Dad, as long as Kaito and Kokichi come, I’ll have fun! B-But I’ll make s-sure to play with any other kids that come too!”
Without a doubt, he’s considered Kaito and Kokichi his best friends ever since he met the brothers a few months ago at a “Bring Your Child to Work Day” his parents brought him to. And they’ve only become closer since that initial meeting - they may not go to the same school, but that doesn’t get in the way of their friendship. As long as they are there with him to celebrate, Shuichi knows he’ll be happy.
Kyoko finishes her coffee and then grabs everyone’s plates to wash them in the sink. Before Shuichi walks off to brush his teeth, she stops her son and crouches down to readjust his hat. Kyoko’s gloved hand brushes across Shuichi’s cheek as she gives him a warm smile, “There’s no need to hide yourself from the world, alright?”
The boy nervously nods his head before making his way to the bathroom, trying to block out his parents chuckling behind him. Kyoko gets the car keys from the kitchen counter and smirks when her husband approaches her holding three boxed lunches.
“I-Is something wrong Kyoko?”
But rather than directly answer him, Kyoko reaches out and grabs his tie, startling the Ultimate Hope. “Your tie looks sloppy,” she chuckles silently as she readjusts the blue tie into Makoto’s vest. “We can’t have the students thinking their headmaster is lazy now, can we?”
“R-Right! Thanks for that.” Makoto leans over to kiss her cheek, secretly thankful that he managed to pass his wife’s height over the years - it was only about two or three inches, but still.
Shuichi comes out of the bathroom, grabbing his backpack from the living room and securely grips the straps as he walks over to his parents.
Makoto crouches down to his son’s level and hands him one of the boxed lunches, which Shuichi puts in his backpack. “Now Shuichi, I’m going to let Aunt Komaru out of a work a little early today so she and your cousins can come set up for your party. Do you want me to ask Mr. Hinata to get you from school and keep you busy until your mother and I get off work?”
That suggestion manages to get a grin out of Shuichi. “Y-Yes please!” he says all too excitedly, somehow managing to do a single hop in the air before straightening his posture.
“Well then, let’s get going you two.” Kyoko says calmly as Makoto and Shuichi walk out of the house beside her. After locking the front door, she walks to the car and gets into the passenger seat as Makoto drives off to Shuichi’s school.
Normally, they drop off Shuichi at the entrance and wait for him to enter the school gates, but Makoto decides to surprise his son by finding a parking space so he and Kyoko could walk him to the gate, like he had seen a handful of parents do. Needless to say, the firm grip Shuichi held on his hand while they walked practically melted his heart, and he could tell this gesture got to Kyoko as well.
They both give Shuichi a kiss on cheek and wave him off as he passes the school gate with a bright smile on his young face.
Anything to make their son’s special day more memorable.
“Hmm...it should go a little more in the center.” Nagisa directs Komaru and Kotoko as they try to set up a line of streamers in the dining room for what feels like the tenth time.
“Grrrrr! Nagisa stop trying to be so anal about the decorations! We’ve been trying to hang these stupid streamers for five minutes, and the room is nowhere close to looking totes adorable yet!” Kotoko yells back after her adopted brother’s instructions finally test her patience.
The blue-haired boy adjusts the rim of his glasses, clearly annoyed with the attitude of the Ultimate Actress. “Well, maybe things would run more smoothly if someone,” he directs his voice to the red-haired teen on the couch, attempting to get his attention, “would actually help instead of lazing about all day!”
Masaru scoffs at the implication that he didn’t help with setting up for the party and resumes playing a game on his handheld gaming console. “Tch, I helped set up the tables outside and the gift table in here plus the basketball hoop in the backyard. And I don’t care about decorating, so my work here is done!” He snickers, but when he gets the the wind knocked out of him, he looks to see a package of table cloths sitting on his stomach.
“Go put those on the tables then you lazy bum!” Kotoko shouts from the dining room.
“Piss off!”
Both Komaru and Nagisa sigh in exhaustion as the more vocal personalities of the teens start shouting obscenities at each other.
“You just had to take them all in after The Tragedy, didn’t you Komaru…” the woman thinks to herself. Sure, they were each a handful in their own ways, but Komaru couldn’t just leave them be after everything that happened to them. Even after the events of Towa City and the re-establishment of Hope’s Peak, it took a while before the Future Foundation allowed her to take the former Warriors of Hope under her wing. She knew the kids each needed some kind of authority figure to set them on the right track, and considering her and her best friend Toko had spent the most time with them, Komaru thought it best for the two of them to watch over the kids.
Toko wasn’t too keen on sharing their apartment with a bunch of kids, something about it ‘decreasing the likelihood of Master coming to visit’ or something like that, but eventually the two managed to save up enough from working at Hope’s Peak to buy a decent house for the six of them.
Looking at how the four of them have (mostly) matured into respectable teenagers, Komaru wouldn’t give up these new additions to her family for the world.
“Jataro sweetie, how is your banner coming along?” she calls to the shyer boy under the table.
“Oh i-its almost done...wanna see it?”
“Of course!”
Jataro crawls out from under the table, paint splotches littering his white t-shirt and bits of the hair he has wrapped in a ponytail. He holds up the semi-finished banner for the three in the dining room to see.
The message “Happy Birthday Shuichi!” is painted with several shadings of blue, green, and purple. Hints of blacks and greys are spotted in select letters of Shuichi’s name for highlighting purposes. Below the message are chibi versions of Shuicihi’s family and friends gathering around the birthday boy as he smiles at the birthday cake with a candle shaped like the number eight sticking out of it.
Komaru has to stop herself from crying over how much thought the young artist put into making the banner.
“You know what guys, let’s take a break for lunch - you all deserve it!”.
Shuichi ended up getting picked up after school by Mrs. Hinata, after Mr. Hinata got called in by Uncle Byakuya for an emergency meeting with the talent scouting team. And immediately when the car pulled up to the school, Shuichi was nearly tackled to the ground by Kokichi and Kaito as they started wishing him a happy birthday.
They decided to go to a nearby park to share a piece of the cake his homeroom teacher brought the class for his birthday. A majority of the teachers at the school have small parties in their classrooms whenever its their student’s birthday, and usually buy a cake and punch for their class to share.
Afterwards, Mrs. Hinata offered to take the boys to an arcade to pass time while they waited on Shuichi’s parents. As always, Shuichi was really blown away with how good Mrs. Hinata was at video games, still finding it hard to believe that an adult could love video games so much. The only one who could even come close to beating her was Kokichi, who always got so close to landing the final blow in a fighting game or was just a few points shy of her score in Galaga.
The purple-haired boy always mocked his older brother whenever Shuichi got a victory against him. “Way to go Shushu, you beat my dumb brother!” and other comments like this he would say with the smuggest of smiles, casually showing off the missing tooth on the left side of his mouth. Nine times out of ten these insults would lead to Kaito chasing his little brother around the arcade, and because Mrs. Hinata would get so invested in whatever solo cabinet she was playing, Shuichi had to be the one to stop the brothers.
It was around 4pm when Chiaki told them they would have to start heading over to Shuichi’s house, but because she was the “fun parent”, she allowed the boys one more game each. Kaito immediately dashed off to the Galaga cabinet to try and beat Kokichi’s score, while the younger of the Hinata siblings followed Shuichi to a crane machine filled with plushies.
“Huh? Why that game Shushu? Y’know these games are reaally hard to play!”
“That Pikachu with detective clothes looks really nice, I want to try and get it for my room!” he said, but after he put his last coin in and concentrated as hard as he could, Shuichi was only able to tip the plushie over. The boy sighed in defeat and grabbed Kokichi’s hand, “C-C’mon let's go find a game for your last token Kichi…”
The boy tugged Shuichi’s hand back. “Well it’s right here!” Kokichi happily says as he reached into his pocket for his last token, lining it up with the coin slot.
“N-No Kichi don’t use your last token on me, its ok!”
The purple-haired boy looked at him sadly, but nodded his head, “Ok, if you say so Shushu…”
...And then lets his coin enter the slot anyways, “Whoopsy! My finger slipped, I’m sooo clumsy!”
“Hey, no fair you tricked me!” But Kokichi was too focused on the game to respond to Shuichi scolding him.
The claw slowly hovered over the plushie, and Kokichi subtly bit his lip and he pushed the button to lower the claw. Time seemed to go by slowly as it inched closer to the prize, and the boys held their breaths as the claw sunk into the yellow mouse plushie.
As it rose, both Kokichi and Shuichi cried out in victory as the little Pokémon was seen in the claw’s grip before getting dropped down the opening for Kokichi to claim “his” prize.
He happily held out the plushie to Shuichi, who looked dumbfounded that the smaller boy managed to grab it with his last token. “But Kichi, you won it. I can’t just take it, that would be wrong!”
“Shushu, you’re my best friend, I want you to have it!” that's when Kokichi’s big purple eyes start to water. “D-Do...D-Do you not want my second birthday present?”
Tears started to come down his cheeks at an alarming rate, “WWAAAHHH!! SHUICHI H-HATES ME NOW-” but a hand covered his mouth before he could draw any attention.
“I-I’m sorry Kichi p-please don’t cry!” he quickly grabbed the detective Pikachu from the smaller boy’s hands. “I really like your present, I just didn’t want you to go through a lot of trouble for it…”
Then as quickly as they came out, Kokichi’s tears all but vanished as he flashed Shuichi with his toothy grin. “Nishishi! I gotcha Shushu - now you gotta keep my present!” before the birthday boy could protest, Kokichi was already dragging him to entrance to meet with his mom and brother.
They were about five minutes away from his house, and Shuichi was already looking forward to the party.
As soon as they step through the door, Shuichi is wrapped up in a hug by Komaru who greets him with a “Happy Birthday” as his older cousins each walk over to give him a hug or ruffle his hair. He sees his parents in the kitchen with Aunt Hina, who looks to be helping his dad get some of the food ready.
Seeing his parent out of their work clothes reminds Shuichi that he should probably take a shower and change out of his uniform before the other guests arrive for the party. After greeting his parents and being wrapped in a big hug by Aunt Hina, Shuichi scurries off to get ready.
By the time Shuichi gets himself ready, only Mr. Hinata has arrived at the party so far. Mrs. Hinata is helping his mother and aunt with some final decorations; on the patio Aunt Hina munches on a donut while she and Mr. Hinata grill a few more burgers and sausages, and his cousins are helping his dad take different platters of food outside. At the gift table, Kaito is trying to stop Kokichi from peeking at the handful of presents currently laid out.
Shuichi asks them if they would like to play video games in his room before they have to stay outside for the party, and the two quickly say yes. After setting down the Pikachu plushie on his desk, Shuichi connects an older gaming console him and his dad sometimes play on together. Fortunately, Kokichi and Kaito bring their own controllers from home since their mom has the same console.
The three of them are able to finish a single Grand Prix in Mario Kart, with Kaito narrowly stealing first place from a very bitter Kokichi, before Makoto comes knocking on the door to tell Shuichi more guests are arriving.
Aunt Toko comes in looking as timid as ever while carrying a small box neatly wrapped in purple striped gift wrap. Toko has her hair let down and wears a dark long-sleeved sweater with a purple skirt that stops a little above her ankles. She mumbles out a greeting to Shuichi before leaving the present on the table and rushing off to find Komaru. Shuichi has always wondered why she startles so easily; when he first called her ‘Aunt Toko’, she started fidgeting but then told him to go to his room - which he did because he was scared he was in trouble.
Uncle Byakuya and Uncle Hiro come in around the same time, with the former coming dressed in business casual attire and the latter being just more...casual, no one would ever expect them to be going to the same place. Byakuya gives him a firm handshake and then leaves him a birthday card, while Hiro pats him on the head and hands him a shoddily wrapped present that Shuichi believes will break should he drop it. As they head off into the backyard, with Uncle Hiro’s every little action getting on Uncle Byakuya’s nerves the entire walk outside, Shuichi can’t help but wonder how these two drastically different men are somehow on close terms with his father.
Over the next couple of minutes, more guests arrive at the party.
Uncle Fuyuhiko and Mrs. Pekoyama with their young daughter Natsumi, Mr. Komaeda, Aunt Ibuki (he wasn’t too familiar with her but she insisted that she be referred to as an ‘Aunt’), Aunt Akane with her son, Mrs. Nevermind and Mr. Tanaka with their newborn twins, and Mr. Soda came with his wife and daughter.
The last person to arrive is Mr. Ryouta, who hands Shuichi a small flash drive and tells him it has a short animation he did for his birthday. Shuichi’s eyes widen at the thought of getting such a unique gift, and he catches the taller man off guard when he wraps him in a hug. Eventually the man returns the hug, but Shuichi swears he hears Aunt Komaru and Mrs. Pekoyama chuckle from somewhere in the room.
All the grown-ups seem to enjoy their food while engaging in conversation with each other, a few of the adults take sips of the alcoholic drinks they brought. His cousins have their own table, seeing as they are the only teenagers at the party - Masaru has a mountain of food on his plate while the others have more realistic portions of food. Kotoko and Nagisa alternate between eating their food and checking their cell phones while Jataro is too preoccupied with drawing in his sketchbook to pay any attention to his food.
Mr. Soda’s daughter, Miu, and Natsumi sit with Shuichi and the Hinata brothers since they are the only other kids at the party in his age group. Natsumi pays little attention to the others at the table, even after Kaito tries to include her in the conversation. Miu, on the other hand, fits right in with Kokichi and Kaito. She even goes as far as joking around with Kokichi and joining him in throwing some of their food at Kaito - which of course causes Kaito to start a mini food fight that Mr. Hinata has to come break up.
Masaru ends up inviting Shuichi and his table, minus Natsumi who chooses to hang out with Kotoko, to a game of horse at the basketball hoop he set up.
The game starts off pretty smoothly, but eventually Kaito and Masaru start getting super competitive with each other. Miu ends up getting so mad at being the first one out that she kicks the basketball with all her might, unintentionally sending it into Masaru’s gut, knocking the teen to his knees and ending the game.
For the next hour or so the kids play tag, hide-and-seek, or gather around Jataro and ask him to draw something. After a while, everyone gets called inside when it's time for Shuichi to open his presents.
The gift marked from Komaru had a DVD re-release of The Great Mouse Detective, one of his favorite animated movies, and the present his cousins had chipped in for him was a Sherlock Holmes costume complete with a magnifying glass, a small journal, and short comic drawn by Nagisa titled Detective Shuichi.
Fuyuhiko and Peko’s gift was a shiny polaroid camera that came with a nicely-styled navy blue photo album, and Ibuki surprises Shuichi with a custom-painted black and grey guitar with white stripes. She practically cries when he opens it, and starts saying how she can’t wait to get him an electric guitar when he’s ready, but quickly shrinks when Shuichi’s mother glares at her.
Uncle Byakuya’s card had a twenty dollar bill, while Aunt Toko had found Shuichi a few “choose your own adventure” books and even wrote one herself. Uncle Hiro bought him a glass figure of a monarch butterfly, and Shuichi absolutely loved it - Hiro can’t help but boast how his fortune about seeing a creature with wings as a great gift was right on the money.
Aunt Hina and Aunt Akane chipped in to buy Shuichi a few video game-themed plushies, the one bag from the two of them held about six plushies total. Mr. Soda actually got Shuichi a stuffed penguin that had a built-in mood reader. If Shuichi ever feels sad, the plushie would warm up and snuggle into him if he hugs it, and whenever he is happy the penguin will dance for him.
His mother decided to buy him a new hat, it was a little big but he really liked the star pin on the side. As he swapped his current hat for this one someone mentions how his hair was ‘like Makoto’s’, and his mother smiles at him when she tells Shuichi he’ll grow into the hat.
Gundham and Sonia’s present had two items in it, and Gundham really wowed the kids in the room when he had commanded his hamsters to open the gift in front of Shuichi. The ‘Devas’, as Mr. Tanaka had called them, nestled into Shuichi’s lap as he stared in awe at the bug-hunting kit he pulled out of the box along with a Novoselic book on entomology and a box of Novoselic chocolates.
His gift from the Hinata’s (and surprisingly Mr. Komaeda) really stunned him. The gift was likely Chiaki and their sons’ idea, but the family had gotten him a newer-generation video game console - that Mr. Komaeda mentions he ‘luckily found on sale for pretty cheap’ - with four remotes.
Makoto was actually told about this in advance and went out to buy a few games that Shuichi, Kokichi, and Kaito could enjoy together. The extra remotes were actually bought for whenever the boys come to visit.
“Mom, Dad can we stay at Shuichi’s tonight please??”
“Can Kaito and Kichi stay the night so we can play it??”
All three boys asked their parents simultaneously, making most of the party guests laugh over their antics.
“Oh no! Their cuteness levels are piercing this twisted heart!” Ibuki dramatically cries out.
“Of course you two can stay over,” Chiaki tells her sons. She crouches down to pat their heads then whispers, “I kind of expected this anyway, so I packed some bags for you and left them in the car, don’t tell your dad.”
“Chiaki, you know I heard that right?” Hajime teases, making Chiaki puff her cheeks at him.
“C’mon, just let the boys have fun tonight. It’s rare that they ever get to stay the night here!”
“Haha ok, ok I’ll allow it!”
“Wow,” Nagito cries out, “who would’ve thought that fatherhood would turn Hajime into such a softy!” Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi can’t help but snicker at his joke.
Shuichi turns back to his parents. “So...can they stay, please?”
Kyoko gives him a small smile, “I don’t see why not, tomorrow is the weekend so there shouldn’t be an issue.”
After Shuichi opened the last present, Aunt Komaru came out of the kitchen holding the cake tray. The eight candles burn brightly on top of the strawberry cake with chocolate frosting. “Happy Birthday Shuichi!!” is written with white frosting, and a few icing stars are scattered throughout for presentation.
With Kokichi and Kaito beside him, Shuichi starts to feel tears come down his cheeks as his father leads the guests in singing “Happy Birthday”. Shuichi closes his eyes tightly as he thinks of his wish-
“I wish that my family and their friends have good health, and that I’ll always be best friends with Kichi and Kaito!”
-and blows out his candles.
After everyone ate their slices of cake, a few people had to leave the party, but the few grown-ups that stayed went to the backyard to drink and talk the night away while Chiaki stayed inside to play video games with the kids.
Uncle Fuyuhiko and his family ended up having to take Aunt Ibuki home after she drank a little too much and ended up face planting on the ground, after trying to slam dunk a basketball.
Kaito and Kokichi’s parents were the last ones to leave, having stayed behind to help clean up before kissing their sons goodbye.
Now the three boys were in Shuichi’s room dressed in their pajamas as they played one of the games on his new console. His parents told them not to stay up past 10pm, or they would ground Shuichi from video games for a week and make sure Kaito and Kokichi got equally punished. With only thirty minutes left on their time limit, the boys finish the last level of one of the worlds in the 3D platforming game they were playing, before taking their turns to shower and brush their teeth.
Kaito was the first to fall asleep, but Kokichi and Shuichi stayed up as they whispered to each other. Shuichi holds the Pikachu plushie close to him as he and his best friend talk.
“Today was super fun huh Shushu?”
“Yeah, it was. And I’m just happy you and Kaito could come; I don’t think I could’ve had this much fun if I never met you two!”
That’s when Kokichi gets strangely silent.
“Hey...Shuichi?” using his first name usually means Kokichi is being serious. “Can I ask you something?”
“Y-Yeah go ahead…”
“Can you promise that you won’t forget me, and that even when we get mad at each other we’ll always be best friends?” he swears he can hear the smaller boy sniffle, but Shuichi doesn’t want to upset him by asking.
“I promise...Kokichi. No matter what you’ll always be my best friend. Forever.”
He feels Kokichi scoot closer to him. “Thank you Shushu...that means a lot.” This time he can hear the genuine gratitude in boy’s voice. “Umm...is...is it ok if I cuddle with you? I usually have a stuffed animal but my mom forgo-”
Shuichi wraps his arms around the smaller boys back, bringing him as close as the detective Pikachu would allow him to. “That’s ok with me Kichi.”
Kokichi wraps his hands around Shuichi, as he tries to snuggle his head into the boy’s chest. “Goodnight Shushu…”
“Goodnight...Kichi…”
The two boys slowly drift off to sleep, but not before Shuichi smiles one last time at the small mass of purple next to him.
Don’t worry Kichi…
I couldn’t forget you even if I tried…