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“Goooooooood morning!” Kokichi exclaimed, bursting through the door to the SHSL Leadership Lab. The Hope’s Peak Academy uniform hung off his thin frame, signature checked scarf tied with a tight yet childish knot.
“Absolutely terrible to see you here today, Sonia!”
Sonia turned around, waving at Kokichi with a smile while clutching a handful of pins. Her hair had been tied out of her face this morning, light blond strands collected into a ponytail wrapping over her shoulder. Her brown clover headband was still adorning her head, as always.
“That was a lie of course, it’s been a shitty morning, and I’m happy to see you. Of course, you already knew both of those things.”
Kokichi sighed, dragging his feet over to the swivel chair, or as he liked to call it, spiny seat, he had claimed as his own. It was much softer than a typical swivel chair, though that was to be expected seeing as he had quite literally begged for it to be custom made for him. Head to the floor begging, while Souda and Miu exchanged grins and glances. It had taken about 3 minutes of begging from Kokichi, and the appeal of everyone else in the tech lab, which mainly consisted of sad looks from Chihiro and Chiaki, which made a pretty strong case in Kokichi’s favour.
It had taken them a week of work and several calls to Tsumugi, what with Kokichi’s various demands and miscellaneous complaints. At least half that time had been spent finding a fabric they could both use for a chair, and that Kokichi would be comfortable sitting in for more than 10 minutes. In the end however, he had ended up with a squishy chair with plush fabric. It was the only one of its kind and Kokichi had thanked them all profusely. Of course he had immediately taken it back, claiming all gratitude was a lie and that, had any of them stepped out of line, he would’ve had them executed on the spot.
However, Sonia could tell Kokichi really did love his chair, watching him hop up into the seat and kick his legs back and forth.
“It is not yet 7am, Kokichi. What has happened in the day so far?”
Kokichi shuffled around, trying to get comfortable as he placed his feet on the top of the chair and let his head dangle over the side.
“Aw, Sonia! You know I can’t tell you that! If I did, who knows what I might do to you! It may very well bring about the end of the world!”
Sonia nodded solemnly, retrieving a couple pins from the table that sat in the centre of their room. She had a couple more pictures from Koizumi to pin up, and Kokichi wouldn’t mind if she busied herself with the keeping of her corkboard while they talked. He was the same with his whiteboard after all, sitting right behind the chair he was draped across.
Each member of the council was fairly protective of their boards and everything on them. Technically, Kokichi was the most open with his board, leaving out markers for any of their visitors to use, whenever they dropped by during visiting hours. As such, the board was filled with various doodles and drawings by various students. If Sonia looked, she could see a character from one of Hifumi’s anime, a different one from something Tsumugi was partial to, and some hyper realistic flowers Angie had whipped up.
Kokichi cleared off the board weekly to make room for new doodles, as well as clearing it whenever he felt the need to write something out for argument’s sake. If Sonia remembered correctly, the smiling caricature of himself in the top right hand corner had been done in permanent marker, unlike everything else. Whether it was permanent or not, as long as Sonia could remember, that doodle had been on the board.
“I see… I certainly do not wish to bring about the end of the world! No matter how intriguing the possibility may be, I must think of the others, who may not be so excited about this potential.”
Kokichi clicked his tongue and pointed a finger gun at Sonia.
“That’s right! It’s incredibly boring of you to be all ‘caring about others’ or whatever-“
“But-“ Sonia cut in gently. “I would be happy to listen to anything you want to share, Kokichi.”
Kokichi didn’t respond, sighing a bit and fidgeting a bit more.
The room was quiet for a bit. Sonia wasn’t quite sure what Kokichi was doing, too focused on the arrangement of photos on her corkboard. The LED lights surrounding it were beginning to glow a bit less brightly, maybe they needed new batteries. The pairs’ boards were directly opposite each other in the SHSL Leadership Lab, so when Sonia was facing hers she couldn’t see what Kokichi was doing.
As she repositioned the candid of Ryouta and Chihiro, Sonia heard the gentle smack of Kokichi’s shoes hitting the floor as he hopped off the chair, the pop of a marker cap coming undone, and the squeaky sounds of writing, as Kokichi began to add on to the mass of doodles and phrases that was his whiteboard.
A few minutes of relative silence, safe for the squeak of marker, rustle of photos and paper, and tapping, as Kokichi tapped his fingers against the marker he held.
Without turning around, Kokichi began to speak. His voice was low, devoid of its typical artificial cheeriness.
“I couldn’t find my scarf this morning.” He confessed quietly, more addressing the umbrella he had begun drawing than Sonia.
Sonia hummed thoughtfully, nodding along. Neither of them even faced each other.
It was easier to talk when you didn’t have to worry about body language after all. At least for Kokichi.
A soft mutual understanding.
“It shouldn’t have bugged me as much as it did. It’s just some cloth and stuff.”
Sonia kept quiet, letting Kokichi speak without interruption.
“Tore apart my whole room looking for it. Stupid thing had got caught in a jacket sleeve.”
He tugged at the fabric winding around his neck.
“I have it now, obviously, and I’m fine. It’s just annoying.”
Sonia hummed a bit more, waiting to see what Kokichi would say next.
“Anyway, everything I’ve said since we’ve met has been a lie! My name is Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko, and I’m the Super High School Level Affluent Progeny, who the hell are you!”
A smile returned to Kokichi's face and voice, and both he and Sonia turned around to meet each other.
Sonia giggled, lowering into a bow.
“I am Sonia Nevermind, Heiress to the Kingdom of Novoselic, student at Hope’s Peak Academy, and the Super High School Level Princess. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Her hair swooped in an arc as she straightened, a blush rising on her face from the blood rushing to her head. She grinned, as did Kokichi.
“What are you guys doing?”
Sonia glanced at the clock on the wall. 7:00am exactly.
“Morning Fuyuhiko~”
“Good morning, Fuyuhiko.”
Fuyuhiko walked into the room, nodding at the other students inside.
“Morning.”
He walked around the table, walking forward and around the long way, past Sonia and to the left, instead of the shorter way past Kokichi, to make it to his side of the table. Sonia’s chair was pushed in, a simple school chair taken from one of the empty classrooms. It was a lot easier to get around than Kokichi’s custom one.
Fuyuhiko grumbled, fishing a piece of chalk out of the little holder nailed to the wall.
The chalkboard was covered in students' names, with tally marks around them and various notes and reminders scrawled about. It was quite a large chalkboard, talking up nearly the entire wall.
With far too much malice for a simple stroke, Fuyuhiko added another tally under ‘Hagakure Yasuhiro’ to the ever growing number he had previously earned.
A darkened look crossed over Sonia’s face, while one more of anger and distaste settled on Kokichi.
“Pardon my language,” Sonia said, voice with a touch more growl and bite than the princess’s typical soft, foreign lilt. “But what has that heathen done now?”
Fuyuhiko scrawled out an explanation underneath the tally.
“That asshole-” Muttered Fuyuhiko through clenched teeth, “-had the nerve to ask Kiyotaka if he was possessed. Said he was acting ‘too creepy’ and ‘not human’. Bastard.”
The darkness on Sonia’s face hardened, and a sort of sadistic grin crossed over Kokichi’s.
“Does this mean I’ve got permission to sic my organization on him? I could take him out in an instant!”
Fuyuhiko gave a resigned sigh, raising a hand in a pause gesture.
“I could too, but Mondo’s got dibs on this one. Taka’s his boyfriend an’ all, and he doesn’t get the opportunity to really do council shit like this anyways. Wouldn’t be able to stop him if I wanted to anyway, as soon as he found out, he was out for blood.”
Kokichi and Sonia nodded. Kiyotaka and Mondo may not do more organized council work like them, and they didn’t really have places in the lab itself, but they were still part of the group, and despite first impressions, the council was fiercely protective of one another. Most lab groups were, if they really thought about it. As Sonia’s main role was student harmony, she thanked the stars for this. If only the creativity lab would do the same…
The trio sat down at their table, each of them at their respective side, in front of their board. It was now 7:03am, and their meeting had officially started 3 minutes ago.
Of course, none of them were going to start business until the final council member arrived.
At around 7:10am, after the other council members had held idle conversation over the general goings-on at Hope’s Peak, Byakuya walked through the door, sitting at his end of the table, which was luckily closest to the entrance. Naturally, he held a coffee cup, likely filled with coffee more expensive than reasonable, and not wearing the uniform. It wasn’t strictly mandatory, and god knows Byakuya Togami had nicer clothes than the brown jacket and pants of the Hope’s Peak Academy uniform.
“I’m not sorry I was late.”
Byakuya announced, arrogance pouring off him.
“Yeah, yeah of course not~” Kokichi taunted. “Too busy getting your rich boy coffee, huh?”
Byakuya took a sip from the coffee cup he was carrying.
“That’s none of your concern.”
Kokichi pouted, tears welling in his eyes.
“Soniaaaaaa! Byakuya is being mean to meeee!”
He sobbed in overdramatic hysterics, though no one at the table batted an eye.
After a moment, Kokichi dropped the tears, continuing to pout.
“You guys are no fun. I hate it here.”
Fuyuhiko rolled his eyes, more out of fond annoyance than genuine anger or dislike.
Byakuya pulled a tablet out of his bag, tapping at it and sliding something up to project on the large touchscreen behind him. This was Byakuya’s board, by far the most advanced and expensive.
None of the other members particularly envied him. Each of them were quite happy with their respective sides, and responsibilities as a whole.
“We’ve received some news from the higher-ups in Hope’s Peak Staff, and there have been a few complaints and requests from our last meeting with the student body we need to address. The Entertainers Lab has sent an appeal to us about hosting more events than just ‘movie night’ and the dining hall wants us to make an announcement about breaking into the kitchen after nighttime.”
With the air of confidence and leadership that only Byakuya could project, he ran through each of the items that they would be covering that day.
“We don’t have much time to waste-“
“We mighta had more if you weren’t so insistent on drinking enough coffee to kill a normal man-“
“-So let’s quit wasting time. I don’t care to deal with your trivial nonsense, I expect better out of other supposed ‘leaders’ of Hope’s Peak Academy.”
Byakuya scoffed, as though he didn’t tell them the same thing everyday.
Regardless, the others sat up straight with attention.
"We shall do our best!”
“Let’s get fucking started already.”
“Uh yeah, I’m the supreme leader of evil! I think I can manage some bratty high school kids.”
Byakuya smiled, his signature vain smirk, but with a touch more genuine happiness to it.
“Don’t disappoint me.”
The next meeting of the Hope’s Peak Academy Student Council had begun.