Chapter Text
Hero looks up from the letter in his hand, beaming at his parents while sitting at the dinner table. He just got admitted to Construct Academy which is an incredible feat in and of itself. Everything seems to be going right for him, the bright light finally revealing the next steps in the Hero’s staircase of life. Hero awaits the beginning of the school year with great anticipation. Who knows what great wonders await him when the time arrives? Maybe Hero will learn some new skills, or perhaps he’ll make some new friends! Either way, Hero just cannot wait any longer; this brand new, sparkling opportunity dangles itself from a rope, waiting for him to finally grasp it when the first day of school comes along.
Eventually, and luckily for Hero, that day does roll around. Hero dashes down the stairs like an overexcited squirrel, nearly tripping on the bottom stair to his own, and his parents’ secondhand embarrassment. Quickly regaining his balance, Hero grins up at his parents standing above the staircase, standing up as straight as a pole and giving a confident thumbs up. After saying some brief farewells, Hero sprints out the door, stuffing a piece of toast in his mouth as he runs, almost as if he were an endearing protagonist in one of his favourite shows.
The school starts to make itself present to Hero, his enthusiasm growing higher and higher as he approaches the school gate. When Hero enters through the gate, this enthusiasm temporarily stunts itself. No one is here; it’s almost like a ghost town with its presence being so unbearably quiet and unassuming, and yet something about the silence is louder than even the most terrifying of screams. The breeze ominously blows in Hero’s direction, and several crinkling leaves fly directly into his face. Perhaps this is a sign from above, warning Hero to not take one more step towards this school. If he comes any closer, only death and despair will await him.
Despite nature’s potential warning, Hero’s eagerness for this new experience sprouts back when he reaches the door to the school building, putting his hand on the knob and turning it. The door seems to be able to open, so that’s exactly what Hero does. He opens the door, and steps into the interior of the school. The hall he enters is dauntingly huge; the air of the seemingly endless corridor weighs down strangely upon Hero the more he walks. Everything grows heavier and heavier as the weight that is his own body weighs upon Hero’s shoulders. Then, Hero stops in his tracks and glances around. The entire room starts to spin around as Hero falls to the ground; everything goes dark.
Hero eventually comes to his senses, blinking, then opening his eyes to find himself sitting at a desk in what looks to be a classroom. Standing up from his chair, Hero looks around at his surroundings. The classroom appears to be room number A1. There’s a speaker nailed to the wall, and what seems to be a television monitor right beside it. Hero remains in thought, staring at the television with his hand to his chin when suddenly, there’s scrambling, then incredibly loud banging coming from the direction of a large cabinet.
“Hey! Is anyone outside by chance!? I’m stuck in this…thingy!” The cabinet seemed to yell, rocking back and forth as it did.
Hero walks in the direction of the cabinet, quickening his pace when he sees one side of it lift off the ground, almost falling to its side. “Okay, okay! Try not to fall over now, you almost crashed to the floor!”
The cabinet replies, its voice slightly muffled by the metal doors blocking the sound, “I can’t help it! It’s so cramped in here I could die! I’ll suffocate before you make it over!” The cabinet pauses, thinking for a moment before continuing, “Probably…the gaps still technically give me air, but…whatever! Who cares! All that matters is that you’re just letting a poor, deprived of space, no air-given person perish in these terrible conditions!”
Hero, not getting the joke, sprints over with a worried glance. It sounded like the voice was truly in danger. Suffocating in a cabinet sounds like a terrible fate. Not wanting that to happen, Hero rushes over and starts trying to pull the cabinet door open, but finds it stuck. The way the door isn’t budging is almost as if someone is holding it from the other side. Then, the cabinet sways further, and faster, until it crashes against the ground, creating a loud bang emanating across the entire room. One of the cabinet doors swings open from the force of the fall, revealing the grinning person inside, lying on their side.
He remarks with a chuckle, “I’ve always wanted to flip a cabinet from inside! What do you think? Neat, huh?”
The person rolls out of the cabinet like a log rolling down the hill before stopping and lying on his back, straight as an arrow. He flings his feet all the way back to where his head is positioned and uses them to launch himself, flipping upright to a standing position, meeting Hero’s shocked, confused, yet amazed expression.
“Woah, that was…kind of impressive.” Hero utters quietly as he takes a step back to give this person a little more room.
The other voice beams at the praise, “Why, thank you! You truly honour me!” He recalls their current situation, finally. “So, what’s happening here? Were you stuck in a cabinet too?”
Hero shakes his head, putting his palm up, “No, I wasn’t, I just remember waking up at that desk over there.” He points at the empty wooden desk in the middle of the classroom.
The other voice tilts himself slightly to look at the empty desk, his eyes darting to Hero and then back to the desk. “I see, so then we’re both absolutely clueless, right?”
Hero puts his arm down by his side, nodding as he responds, “Yeah, guess we are.”
He looks around the nearly empty classroom, staring a little longer at the television and speaker before looking back at the voice in front of him. Hero smiles somewhat awkwardly, scratching his cheek with his index finger slightly as he asks, “So um, what's your name?”
The other voice responds almost instantly with the cheerfulness of a child, “Contrarian!” He points both index fingers to his face with a smile before putting one of his hands on his hip, and the other to his side. “Now shall I ask for yours, or should I take a guess? I think I could come up with a few guesses if you give me a minute!”
Hero chuckles a little at Contrarian's demeanor, glad that it isn't as awkward as he anticipated it would be. “If you wanna guess then you could have a shot at it.”
Contrarian’s cheeks puff goofily as he stands there in what could look like deep thought, “Um, well, if you can hand me a dictionary, I can probably find a good word that would describe you, like dashing or courageous or some sort of saviour.”
Hero blinks twice as he processes Contrarian's words. He's never been called dashing or courageous before, and so he laughs nervously at what he thinks are compliments, “Oh uh thank you. Well, my name's Hero,” He looks away for a brief moment and smiles, “Nice to meet you, Contrarian.”
“Nice to meet you too!” Contrarian puts his hand in his pocket for a brief moment, discreetly pulling out some sort of sticker, and hiding it in his palm. Putting his hand out for Hero, Contrarian moves his head to the side in a cheeky manner, “Come on now! Shake my hand!”
Oblivious to the incoming prank, Hero reaches his hand forward and puts his hand around Contrarian's in a handshake. Contrarian’s handshake is strangely firm as he pushes his palm towards Hero’s in a manner that could be considered unnatural. When Contrarian lets go of Hero’s hand, he points towards that hand, mildly humoured.
“There’s something on your hand!” Contrarian announces to Hero with a high amount of enthusiasm and anticipation. He then questions in a soft tone, yet purposely speaks loud enough for Hero to hear, “I wonder how that got there?”
Confused, Hero turns his palm to face him and his eyes widen slightly with surprise. The sticker contains an image of a smiling jester holding up a peace sign.
“Oh, was it always there?” Hero wonders aloud, staring at the sticker in his palm.
“I have no idea! Not a clue! Totally!” Contrarian shrugs his shoulders up and down, playing the fool in a joking manner; he smirks in a way that he thinks would make it quite obvious that he is the culprit.
Hero looks up from his hand, not getting the hint as he registers Contrarian's expression for a moment. His eyes travel back down to his open hand, smiling softly at the little jester sticker.
“Huh, well I think it's pretty cute,” He giggles as he holds his hand up to show Contrarian the sticker. “What do you think?”
“Oh, yeah I agree! It’s very, um…” Contrarian temporarily stumbles on his words, scratching the back of his head a bit awkwardly. “It’s cute! Yeah, it’s cute!” Now, thinking he saved himself from looking like a complete idiot, he quickly puts his previously seen confidence back on his face and posture.
Hero doesn't notice anything off, luckily for Contrarian. Instead, he turns his hand back to stare at the sticker for a little longer before looking back up at the other voice. “Do you think we should head out to see if there are other people around here? It would be kind of strange for there to be just the two of us in this school, right?”
Contrarian nods his head eagerly, “Yeah of course! I would assume there are other people around somewhere or another.” Contrarian skips past Hero and spins around, facing him and walking backwards towards the door.
“Let's go look then,” Hero turns to follow Contrarian, chuckling at how goofy the other seems to be as he walks backwards, and he gives the classroom one last look before walking over to the door.
The two voices start walking through the school hallway, and after a long search, eventually find the gymnasium. A group of people surround the stage as if they’re waiting for something to happen. Hero and Contrarian join the small mass when a small bear jumps up on the podium, landing on its rear and then standing up on its stubby-looking legs.
“Hiya, I’m Monokuma!” he announces to the crowd, his voice laced with twisted enthusiasm. “I am this school’s headmaster!”
One of the voices in the crowd speaks up, pointing his finger at the bear, “Are you some sort of stuffed animal? Like a child’s toy?” The voice then crosses his arms in front of him, the sleeves of his coat rustling as he does so. “That explains the horrible scheduling and class setting this school appears to have.”
Another voice rolls his eyes, a scowl on his face as he scoffs, “Of fucking course it's a goddamn teddy bear. Why the hell is a fucking toy our headmaster?”
Contrarian overhears another voice quietly mumbling something to himself. The only reason why Contrarian can hear him is because this voice is standing directly in front of him.
The voice looks down to the ground with what could be sorrow. His next words come out much more clearly for some of the group to hear, “It just shows how much this school cares about us…which is not at all. It’s miserable, we don’t even matter to them.”
“If they don't care, we should show them just how serious we are!” One voice standing near the front begins cracking his knuckles, grinning as he narrows his eyes at their supposed school headmaster.
Someone standing off to the side slightly crosses his arms around himself, observing the scene playing out. “Why even bother? If they don't care then they don't care. It's as simple as that. It doesn't matter.”
The one at the front steps forward, speaking in a low tone, “Well it matters to me alright.”
He marches up to the bear at the podium, reeling his arm back for a punch and thrusts his arm towards the bear. It's a direct hit as a resounding pow echoes in the gymnasium. After the sound fades away, it’s replaced with another sound; the sound of repetitive beeping.