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What were they like? Before all of this happened. Before all of it.
A new kid at school. His cardigan was just a bit too tight and always too hot and so he rolled up his sleeves where they were uncomfortably tight around his elbows. He got his first eccentric piercing, on his eyebrow, and he was still too much of a little shit of a teenager to properly take care of it. His hair dye was gray and fading still at the edges of his hair, and he clipped an Usami keychain to his bag the day before in a shorthanded attempt to make friends.
Shorthanded is all he needed, because first day of school a girl with deep red hair eyed his keychain at the back of the classroom and then never once seemed insecure about blatantly staring at him the entirety of class.
He would be a little nervous about that fact, if it wasn’t that this girl looked…
The moment they were let go she packed up quickly and was at his desk in milliseconds. “I like your keychain. I’m Yumeno.”
Amami blinked, a little taken aback. “Ah- uh, thanks.”
“...Season two is my favorite.” She blew a strand of hair out of her face. She was entirely blocking any route of escape out to the door of the classroom. “I think Ibuki was my favorite.”
“Me too.” he said on instinct.
Her expression didn’t exactly… change, just something in her eyes did. “Really?”
“...Actually, no, I don’t know why I said that.” He laughed nervously. “But-! I do really want all her piercings. She looks so fucking cool.”
Yumeno smiled. “I know, right? I got her autograph, actually. What’s your name?”
She didn’t budge, still blocking any way for him to leave, even though the room was practically empty.
“Amami.” He said.
Yumeno hummed. “Weird name.”
“Is it?”
She shrugged. “Come on.”
And with that she began to leave, and Amami found nothing to do but trail after her like a puppy.
Yumeno was kind of an… intense person. They’re walking home one day when just before they get to the vending machine they frequent, she pulls a small metal object out of her cardigan pocket and begins flipping it in the air, catching it half-expertly.
Eventually, she stops for a moment, just holding it in her hand, and Amami is able to get a good look at what it is.
“Is- do you have a knife? ”
Yumeno grins at him. “Chill, it’s just a trainer.” She flicks it open and there’s no sharp edge, just a thick metal plate in its place. She spins it like a butterfly knife and swipes at the air.
Amami’s gaze is fixed on it. “Do you like knives?”
She half laughs as she answers; “Yeah- I guess you could say that.” She pockets the trainer. “I collect ‘em.”
“Really?” He asks incredulously, and it seems to throw her off. “That’s really cool.”
She blinks at him. “Uh… thanks.” She turns away and quickly tries to retrieve her small jingly wallet from her school bag around her shoulder. “So, uhm,” She coughs, and motions to the vending machine as they approach it. “What do you want?”
Amami is waiting each day with bated breath to get an email back from Danganronpa. This season's auditions weren’t open to the general public.
He smiles. “I’ll have a melon soda.”
Yumeno grabs a grape fanta for them both. As he cracks his open he decides Yumeno isn’t someone he wants to be enemies with.
They help each other out with schoolwork, eat lunch together, and walk each other home every day.
“Do you pack your own lunches?” He asks Yumeno as he cracks his chopsticks apart. He tries not to suck in through his teeth as he looks down at the box his mom packed for him, and sent to him by mail, because she knows he’s the first one awake in the house.
Yumeno stares down at a lunch that looks like unheated leftovers. She lifts up a fork she looks like she can barely hold. “Sorta.”
Amami swallows down a cough. “...Did you ever watch season nineteen?”
Nothing about her body indicates it, but for some reason he can see Yumeno perk up. It’s something about her… aura.
Or something.
“Obviously.” She takes a messy bite and runs a hand through her hair. “It had the first triple murder… and the Dollmaker.” Her knee bumps up and down in a barely withheld excitement Amami can relate to. That Amami is trying to learn to control. He leans back and listens to everything she has to say about that season, over their oddly sad lunches.
“Do you wanna watch a movie or something?” Yumeno pops a piece of popcorn in her mouth along with an m&m.
“I mean, we’ve kind of made the perfect movie snacks anyway…” he motions to the bowl next to her where she’s sat on the countertop. He taps the top of his phone with his index finger, checks the time again. “When does your mom get home?”
As she hops down from the counter she makes direct, intense eye contact with him. “This isn’t a date.”
It kind of scares him, if he’s being honest, and he grips his phone tighter. “I know.”
She grabs the bowl and starts to the living room. “In like an hour. She’s fine though.”
“Oh.” He says. “Right.”
She stops and turns, leaning her shoulder against the wall. She eats another bite. “Grab our drinks, will you? We’re gonna watch a horror.”
Amami nods even though he never agreed to this, and grabs two sodas from the fridge. He shuts it with his leg and as he makes his way to the living room phone still balanced in one hand he thinks if I’m this much of a pushover can I even handle Danganronpa?
“Have you ever been bullied?” He dumps on her one day. She’s in the middle of trying to actually read a book, for once. She doesn’t even move her head, just her eyes, to stare at him for a moment.
Then she returns to her book. “...Yeah.” She turns a page.
“Really?” He messes with his notebooks on the table in front of him. “I woulda thought you were the middle school bully.”
Yumeno fully shoves the spine of her book against the table and gives him something between a full angry scowl and bewilderment. “S-Sorry!” He puts his hands up. “You just… kind of give that vibe, honestly.”
“If anyone has bully vibes, it’s that guy,” Someone at a too-nearby table whispers, and they both look up to watch a lanky kid with a mask and incredibly long hair for a boy walk by, paying nobody any mind. Amami immediately feels a distaste wash over him, and he snickers a bit.
Yumeno presses the heel of her palm into her cheek and watches the guy walk away. “He looks like he’d be a school shooter.” She says with zero enthusiasm. The other kid- and Amami, even- try to laugh under their breaths, and Yumeno shakes her head.
“I don’t actually know why I said that. That’s so fucked up. None of us even know them.”
Amami stops laughing, and stares at her. The kid laughs for a second longer, before awkwardly dissolving and trying to coolly play it off with a cough. Yumeno props her book up with her hand and moves on.
“...You say whatever you want, don’t you?” He asks her. She shrugs, and reads her book.
He kinda wishes he could speak his mind like that. He’s always worried what everyone thinks of him. He’s always worried he’s never gonna be seen and liked by everyone. Especially because the guy in the horror movie he watched with Yumeno he immediately decided was like him Yumeno quickly decided she disliked, hoped he died first.
He wasn’t going to die.
(He couldn’t.)
“Saddest death in Danganronpa.” He doesn’t bother asking it as a question.
Yumeno actually puts her phone face down on the bench. “...Season nineteen is my favorite, but… my favorite death is Pekoyama in season two.”
“I said ‘saddest’, not ‘favorite’.” He points out.
“I know.” She says like he’s stupid. “It just had too much meaning behind it… like she was a tragedy- there was no actual way to save her, if she was alive that would mean treating her as a human and she would never allow that.”
Yumenos' eyes neary glaze over as she talks. “You’ve thought about this a lot, huh?”
She stares him down and if he didn’t know her he’d read it as a glare. “I like Peko a lot. That trial actually got to me because I really wanted to hate her. Because Mahiru is my favorite from, like, anything.” She looks at him sideways. “It’s kinda impressive you remember all these characters. Most people don’t bother.”
Amami shrugs, and his head floods with all the time he spent studying Danganronpa trivia & history instead of school.
“I’m… dedicated.”
“I’ll say.” She crosses her arms over the table. Her uniform is too big for her and always will be, as far as he can tell. “I hope they still make another season.”
Amami swallows down something in his throat. “What do you mean?”
Her eyes are fixed on him. “They haven’t made any announcements yet. And season fifty is a good season to end it on… or a good number, at least.” She looks at the bench, a little bit… dejected.
“They’ll make another season,” He says hurriedly, and she cocks an eyebrow at him. “Trust me.”
She gives him the ghost of a mischievous smile. “I don’t trust you one bit.”
The classroom is busy, and Yumeno’s turned her adjacent desk around so she can talk with Amami and look like she’s working. And also lay down on her sleeves and sleep a little bit. Amami rewrites his own name in different ways in the margins of his paper.
A tall kid with a mask and long hair that gives Amami the creeps is sitting at the front of the room, alone at their desk. He doesn’t know why he feels the need to stare at them.
When he looks over Yumeno is turned, staring in the same direction, her eyes thin with what would easily be judgment if she was anyone else. Then she suddenly sits up a bit, turning straight towards Amami, eyes crinkled. “Is that guy your type?” She asks, grinning.
“What?” Amami whisper-screams, and she snickers. He’s mostly surprised because this isn’t the type of school where he was expected to be asked… if he liked guys.
“You heard me,” She whispers, then glances at the guy again. “I mean, you’ve seen their Monokuma pin.”
He hadn’t.
“You could hit it off with them.”
Amami opens his mouth to say something, and nothing comes out. Instead he looks up at the kid, sits up straight, and considers them.
They turn around, and look in their direction. Amami slumps down and picks up his pencil at a great speed while Yumeno doesn’t turn around, just closes her eyes and laughs. Only the kid doesn’t know she’s laughing at Amami.
Amami got some emails back that made him wait with bated breath even more than he was already, and they made him shove his personal laptop under his bed that night instead of leaving it downstairs like he normally did- he was just so, so afraid of his sisters accidentally breaking it somehow- and everything will be ruined.
They’re walking home together, and Amami likes school generally, likes Yumeno- but gosh he just wants to get home right now.
Yumeno stops them for drinks, and to pet people's dogs more than a couple of times.
She pops open a Ramune with two-handed effort. “What’s going on with you? You seem weird.” She says suddenly.
“Hm?” he looks over at her. “Oh. Nothing. I’m just… waiting.”
“On what?” She takes a sip of her soda.
He shrugs her off. “A, uh… an email. For a job interview.”
She looks at him like she knows he’s lying, and it sort of makes him feel like he’s about to die. This is a girl with an extensive knife collection sitting in her bedroom, next to pink bed sheets and cutesy posters.
They walk in silence for a little while longer, and then Yumeno stops and shoves a foot in front of his ankles, forcing him to stop or trip. He stops last second, almost spilling his milk tea (he doesn’t need a bunch of caffeine), and looks at her.
“What's up?” He asks as casually as he can. Which isn’t very.
Her face skews a little as she looks at him, like she’s trying to read him, gleam any truth from him. But his words are minorly contract-bound by auditions and he doesn’t feel like he could speak if he wanted to.
“Hey… do you like me?” She asks quietly, her tone nearly impossible to read. Nearly .
“What?” He takes one step back. “No! I mean like-”
She sighs and runs a hand over her face. “As a friend, dumbass. We’re… friends?” Her voice gets softer, a little bit higher, and Amami realizes she always talks low, scratchy, like she just woke up. She sounds awake.
“...Yeah, obviously.” He tries to laugh it off a little but then just coughs into his hand, looks away from her. “We’re friends. It’d be kind of an asshole move on my part not to be,” He wiggles the drink in his hand and cracks a small smile.
Yumeno stares at him. He thought at first she used to walk home with him because she didn’t want anyone messing with her, that he was protecting her, or something. But the longer things go on the more it feels like the complete opposite- Yumeno doesn’t need anyone protecting her, she’s tough as nails as far as he can tell and even though he’s never seen it demonstrated he feels like she could beat him in any fight easily. There’s always the same look on her face, a stone cold expression that dares anyone to talk to her. He’d be tempted to say it was a heavy wall up, if she wasn’t so bizarrely honest. She speaks her mind without a care in the world, because if somebody has a problem with her- well, that’s their problem.
Now, though? He’s not sure. He thought he knew what a completely neutral expression was, especially on Yumeno, but the way she’s looking at him…
There’s a bit of hope behind it.
“...Let’s hang out this weekend.” She says with her normal surety, like if Amami has something else to do he’ll either cancel it or deal with it himself. “There’s a concert at that hole-in-the-wall venue a couple blocks from here.”
She’s already begun walking again, leaving Amami a bit in the dust, but he leans toward her. “I didn’t know you liked concerts.”
She scowls at him. “ Everyone likes concerts. It’s just a fact of like, humans.”
Amami thinks back to when he heard her tear an earbud out of her ear very fast and for a small moment some intense heavy metal filled the silence, and wonders if this is a concert he actually wants to go to.
It doesn’t really matter, though. He’s going anyway. He smiles.
That night, Rantaro runs through his house yelling the good news- I got accepted! I got accepted! his sisters squealing with him no matter their age and his dad and stepmom both give him giant hugs. He checks the date he’s needed in to start getting prepared.
That next day at school Yumeno turns around to see Amami’s desk empty. She shoots him a text to which he reads and responds a couple hours later; ‘sorry, got busy’. He doesn’t text her back after that.
Nor is he at school the next day. Nor does he answer when she calls that weekend.
When the classroom blows up with the news Yumeno sits in the back, alone. Everyones going around shoving their phones in each other's faces saying “Hey isn’t this Amami?!” and making sudden claims about how well they knew him, especially all the kids sitting around her.
“He was my best friend! No one even talked to him cuz no one knew him from middle school-” “I knew him from middle school! Me and Ryoma were-” “His name isn’t even Ryoma, dipshit! That’s how I know you didn’t know him!”
Yumeno walks home alone, realizing this is going to be her life the rest of the school year. She breifly reads over their maybe week old texts, feeling like they’re ancient, and buys herself a grape fanta when she remembers that he said once it was his favorite.
She pours half of it into the pond and tosses the can in after it, and walks away from the woman nearby who immediately starts berating her for doing so.