Chapter Text
My brother saved us. We suffered neglect, cruelty, and sexual abuse from our family members. Our parents were cold, barely took care of us, and certainly did not believe us when we tried to tell them about Uncle Mitsuo. We were only five years old but were punished for accusing Mitsuo of creeping into our room at night. To begin with our coping mechanism was to crawl into the same bed, snuggle up together, knowing when he was coming. That way, at least we had each other. We were small, scared, and he ensured neither of us ran to our parents whilst he did what he needed to with us both. He threatened to smother the other one if we moved an inch. That was how he controlled us. We were terrified. Our parents didn’t believe us, it was like there was always some kind of resentment towards us from birth. Not sure what we did so wrong.
My brother Hikaru's next step was going to teachers in school, but it took him another year to get the courage to do it, I had resigned myself to my fate. Our pleas for help were taken seriously and we were removed from our parents and eventually adopted by a nice couple. They were well off, and we lived a comfortable life.
My brother saved us. I never would have had that courage.
Ever since we were children, my brother had been different, disconnected, rarely showed any emotion, except fear of our uncle and parents. It might be his response to the trauma we suffered, to disconnect; mine was anger. I was always short tempered, even as a child. Our adoptive parents had put us both into therapy, addressing the traumas. It helped. They had been so good to us. My brother and I were always close though. The adoption agency knew we should go to the same home, stay together, and the perfect parents found us.
Izuru… his birth name was Hikaru but a while back he asked to relinquish that name, the one our biological parents gave him. He suggested I do the same, but I didn't care for such an act of defiance towards our birth parents. I was used to my name, and our adoptive parents seemed to like both of our original names. They agreed he change his, though, supporting his decision, believing it was part of his recovery, or finding himself as he grew older.
It was now our first day of high school, Hope’s Peak Academy; a highly prestigious school. Our parents ensured we went through good education since they adopted us. I had plans to attend college and be the best I can be. I wanted to make something of myself, and my parents had given me the opportunity. I could be anything I wanted; I just wasn’t sure what that was yet.
I wondered what this school would be like. Our elementary and middle schools were also good ones. Our education had been of the highest standard. We lived too far from this school though, so we were moving into the dormitories. Our parents were proudly walking up the pathway with us towards our school residence.
"This is it, sons, I'm proud of you both. Your grades this far have been more than I could hope for," our father said.
"You never pressured us, but you inspired us," I replied smiling.
"You both worked so hard! Your entrance exam results were wonderful!" our mother said beaming at us. I smiled, warmed at their love and praise.
They were such kind people, and their wealth earned all on their own effort. That’s what inspired me, their hard work. Our mother was a successful model back in her youth, now she worked as a make up artist on photoshoots. She was very talented, and very beautiful. Our father worked his way up right to the top of his company. He had impressed his boss so much that leading up to his retirement, he began guiding and training our father to take over the company. His boss trusted him so much. I wanted to gain that trust from an employer, or maybe even start my own business, but I had no idea what field either might be.
All around us were other teenagers heading to school, some with luggage like us, going to the dorms, others straight through to the entrance ceremony.
We received our dorm numbers, and keys, seemed we would be in separate rooms.
"Do they have roommates?" our mother asked.
"No, the dormitories are individual," the woman at the desk replied. I was pleased of this. I liked my own space; I would be uncomfortable sharing a room with anyone but my brother. I smiled at Izuru, but he rarely smiled in return. Our room numbers were close, that made me happy too.
We entered our building, it was a huge dorm, beautifully adorned with fresh paint, high ceilings and open rooms with big windows. It was light and the air flow was great. There was a lounge and a recreation room, just for us and our dormmates. It was great. I loved it. I had a feeling my school years would be fun here. High school was supposed to be the best years of our lives. That might actually be true.
After we put our bags down in our assigned rooms, we said goodbye to our parents, our mother hugging us both, our father squeezing our shoulders, both smiling proudly before leaving. I looked to my brother. It was just us now.
"You ready, Izuru?" I asked.
"Yes, lets go." He agreed and we walked towards the hall.
When we entered, we noticed various booths lined up. There was a section where we could sign to clubs, another where we would receive our class planners, and more I wasn’t even sure what they were. Izuru and I had been put in the same class of which I was pleased. We looked different enough, since he had grown his hair long, dying it jet black, people wouldn’t confuse us. I always kept mine short I felt it was more professional, but it was somewhat untameable. For some reason, the bit at the top always grew faster than the rest of my hair and stuck up. Otherwise, we looked the same; completely identical, maybe even more so than most twins.
"Will you join any of the clubs?" Izuru asked.
"Let's see what they have,"
I noticed students already mingling with each other, and wondered what our new friends would be like. I wasn’t always the easiest to get on with, neither was Izuru, but we did make friends. We always had each other, regardless and we both knew that.
Izuru had taken interest in one of the clubs, he was browsing what they had to offer but I noticed a guy standing to the side all on his own, he was just watching everyone. I thought he looked nervous; this was quite daunting, so I didn’t blame him.
I wasn’t sure, this was a little out of my comfort zone. I didn’t usually approach people, but it seemed his anxiety was holding him back from involving himself, or even signing up to any clubs he might be interested in. It would be shame for him to miss out, and a good start trying to make friends, so I decided to approach him.
"Hey," I smiled.
"Hi," he replied looking surprised I had spoken to him.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Nagito Komaeda,"
"Hajime Hirano,"
"Nice to meet you," Nagito smiled. "Did you need something?" he asked.
"Well, I just saw you standing on your own over here, thought you might want to go check out some of the clubs."
"I might when it… clears out a little," he muttered.
"You might miss out on one you're interested in; clubs can get full."
"Then they get full," he replied. "I don’t…." he was uncertain about what he'd say next, I could see him hesitating.
"What are you interested in?"
"I like… reading and… writing." He seemed nervous.
"They probably have a book club or something," I replied. "Want to go around together?"
"What?" he looked even more surprised. "You want to go around with me?"
"Why not? We're all new, just need to get to know each other, right?"
His reaction was strange, it looked like he had tears in his eyes. I swallowed. He was a bit of an odd guy, maybe this was a bad idea.
"I'd love to go around with you, Hajime!" he said, smiling eagerly.
I slightly regretted my decision here, but he did look happy. I'll give him a chance.
"Alright, shall we find the book club?" I suggested, needing a different focus.
"Sure. What are you interested in, Hajime?" he sounded too eager, the tone of his voice, almost desperate, but I wasn’t sure why. It was a little creepy.
"I er… I guess, I'm interested in studying. I want to make the best of myself once I finish education." I replied.
"That's very admirable, do you know what you want to be?"
"Not really, I'm hoping this place can help me figure that out."
"There it is!" Nagito pointed to one of the booths.
"The book club, nice. Are you ok signing up from here? I didn’t want you to miss out on signing up to a club, it's a good opportunity to make friends and stuff. I think I'm going to join the study club; I want to get good grades." I said offering an uneasy smile.
"Oh… yeah. What class are you in, Hajime?"
"I'm in class 1B,"
"Me too!" his smile grew. "See you there?"
"Yeah," I muttered, and we parted ways. He was a little too eager, it came across really weird, creepy even. He probably wasn’t a bad guy though.
I found Izuru joining up to study club too.
"There you are, where did you go?" he asked.
"I found a guy holding back, encouraged him to sign up to a club he wanted,"
"That was kind of you, Hajime," he said, but in his usual flat tone of voice. "Are you signing up here?"
"Yeah," I picked up a pen and put my name down underneath Izuru's for study club and then smiled at him.
"Shall we head to class?"
"Yeah, let’s go," I replied, and we left the hall to find our way to our assigned class, using the school map we'd been given. I looked back into the hall through the door and that weird kid was watching me.
He was kind of creepy, but he was obviously nervous. We were in the same class, so I'd have the opportunity to make him feel more at ease. Perhaps he wasn’t as weird as he seemed. This was intimidating for all of us first years. We could stick together as classmates.