#class 79 au

[theamityelf]

The idea of Kokichi just having books that just have makoto's pictures taped on it in the class 79 au is so funny, just makoto seeing him with it while he waves at him and having a full on conversation with him while just holding it close to his chest is also fun.

Makoto is so confused at this, it would also be intresting if Kokichi takes it further and further since most think it's a bit, he wants to extend that, like having some weird makoto binder or shirt or shrine in his dorm room, even funnier if he's really chill about it and makes it look like it's all a bit, escalating to a point where makoto and kokichi are in kokichi's dorm maybe for some studying or something and makoto just stares at the weird shrine of him and finally realizes 'oh it's not a joke'

Context: Yandere Naeouma

I like to think that Makoto periodically says, "You're just kidding, right?" and Kokichi oscillates between claiming he's joking and flatly saying that he's dead serious.

When Makoto sees the shrine Kokichi has set up in his dorm room, at first he's like, "...Ha ha, did you set up a whole shrine just to freak me out?"

And Kokichi is like, "Yep! 😁 It was just for that. 😁 You know me so well. 😁 You should see the look on your face. 😁"

But then Makoto starts to notice things about the shrine, like Hey, that's the souvenir I got from Sayaka's concert. I've been wondering where that was, and Even as a joke, to have this many sketches and doodles of me must have taken time...

And there are sticky notes all over the shrine. Little thoughts and reminders. Some just say logistical stuff like "Fire hazard (major)" or "2 days to get rid of apple core". But some is emotive. Like, "Hey, what if I murdered the richest teen on earth?" positioned near what Makoto is pretty sure is a pen he gave Byakuya once.

Again. More time, effort, and thought than one would likely dedicate to a joke.

"What is it?" Kokichi says innocently. Crossing his legs in a way that draws attention to his shoes, where he's written Makoto's name over and over again on the rubber soles. Makoto has even seen him do it, when he's bored– just click his pen and start scrawling Makoto's name on his shoes.

"Hey. All of this stuff...It's a lot, isn't it?" Makoto probes.

"What 'stuff'?" Kokichi says.

"The drawings of me, the photos of me, the...my stuff...."

"Finders keepers." He shrugged.

"It just looks like it took you a lot of time, and...I don't know, isn't that kind of a lot?"

Kokichi grins and switches to sitting crisscross-applesauce. "By 'a lot', do you mean 'too much'?"

"Well...yes."

"Then no. I'd say it's just the right amount to keep my simmering obsession at bay."

"And you're still just joking about that, right?"

"Oh, that was never a joke. But I figured, if I can't be normal about you and I can't chain you in a basement, I may as well find a way to make my obsession work in polite company. Neehee!"

Makoto gawks at him. "How...? Me?"

"I know, right?" With an exasperated lip trill, Kokichi switches to yet another sitting position. "You have no idea how much you've been making me suffer, these past few weeks. My only real consolation is that I still might be lying about the whole thing."

"I don't think you're lying."

"Then there goes my only consolation! Now look what you did!" Kokichi rolls up his pant leg to reveal that his shoes aren't the only place that have been graffitied by Makoto's name in dark purple ink.

"What I did?!" Makoto protests.

"You made it real by believing it was true. Quick, change your mind, and maybe it'll go away!"

"...I think you just don't want to finish studying the Taisho period."

Kokichi grins, lowering his pant leg back into place. "Ah. You got me. This was all a clever ruse."

[theamityelf]

Hope's Peak is an openly, famously yandere-friendly environment.

It hasn't always been that way; that branding came about when the reserve course became a thing. All those talentless just bop around, so quaint and killable. The school needed a narrative to explain why so many of them kept dying off, and they managed to tell the truth in the most victim-blaming way possible:

It was just that Ultimates had a higher tendency to be yandere than most. Before, that hadn't been such a problem, because the Ultimates were also situationally-aware enough not to provoke the yanderes among them, or else physically-excellent enough to overcome whatever retribution they brought upon themselves. But the reserve course were neither. They didn't anticipate the problem, and they couldn't face the problem. So, the school lost a few of them. Unfortunate and unavoidable.

"It's important to know your mutual yanderes from your unreciprocated yanderes," Hifumi coached the incoming 79th class. "It's harder than you might think. Example: Mr. Owada and Mr. Ishimaru are not dating, but they are mutually yandere. Ms. Owari and Ms. Tsumiki are dating, but only Ms. Tsumiki is yandere."

"Does that mean we shouldn't talk to Owari, or we shouldn't talk to Tsumiki?" Tsumugi wondered quietly.

"About how many people here are yanderes?" Kaede asked.

"Look," Shuichi said, handing her a pamphlet. "They're listed here."

"Of course, those pamphlets can only tell you which students took the time to register as intensely obsessed with a schoolmate," Hifumi said. "There are some who aren't listed, either because they didn't care for the paperwork or because they were in denial."

"Paperwork sounds like a pain," Himiko mused. "What happens if you're a yandere and you don't fill anything out?"

"Then anything you do to act on your intense obsession is officially against school rules," Hifumi said. "Registering as yandere means anyone who provokes you is doing so with full knowledge of the consequences– assuming they've been keeping up-to-date on the yandere status of everyone in their social circle. If you don't register, then you have no right to harm anyone."

"So, we have to check the yandere status of everyone we talk to? All the time?" Shuichi protested.

"Once a day has worked for me so far," Hifumi said casually. "Like homework."

"Are you yandere for anyone?" Angie asked.

"Certainly not! My heart belongs solely to 2D! Which is why I was hand-picked as the ideal liaison for this particular aspect of student life."

"Is the yandere paperwork a lot of pages?" Tenko asked.

"New students have to wait a week before registering as yanderes. I think the form is two pages."

"Is there paperwork to make someone stop being yandere for you?" Himiko asked.

"No. So far, no. We don't have anything for that...But it hasn't been too big a problem yet!"

"What about all the dead reserve course students?" Maki deadpanned.

"May they rest in peace?" Hifumi offered.

[theamityelf]

The killing game simulator had been an annual "class project" for first-year students at Hope's Peak Academy for only a few years, now, but already the rules were pretty well-established.

The participants ate a hearty "last meal" beforehand, like hibernating bears, and went into the pods late Friday night. The simulation itself started early Saturday morning, and as such, that was when the upperclassmen were allowed to start visiting, to watch.

(Always, it came at a point in the year where organized lessons gave way to free study, so it was common for senpais to watch their kouhais' simulation all day, even once it reached Monday, Tuesday, and so on.)

The second-year students were most frequently the ones watching for long stretches at a time, both out of genuine interest and concern, and because their kouhais' killing game meant that they themselves were no longer going to be on the receiving end of all the jokes.

(Who, in the past year, hadn't heard Souda joke that Owada was "a butter man than me"?)

All of that being the case, even as she was reeling from the sudden cessation of pain and the flood of memories to her head, as if waking up from a dream, Angie was not surprised when the first thing her bleary eyes saw was Hiro, offering her a hand out of the pod. (A hand he had once boasted had "a longer lifeline than you might think.")

Before they'd gone in, Angie had thought a lot about how she would wake up. She might wake up after being killed. She prayed she wouldn't kill someone, but she knew she wasn't in control of what might happen in the simulation; she wouldn't have these memories, then. But she had heard the horror stories about Mikan vomiting when she woke up, of Nekomaru waking up swinging, of Sayaka curling up in a ball and refusing to get out of the pod, so she had offered herself consolation in the promise that she would compose herself as quickly as possible.

As she took Hiro's hand, Angie felt simultaneously the fragile smile climbing into place and the tear streaking down her cheek, and she knew at once that she would be unable to keep that promise.

She heard her name being spoken from different parts of the room. Kaede and Rantaro approaching her from one side, Makoto and Mahiru from another.

She wasn't conscious of running, but she soon found herself sitting in the art room repository, wiping tears off her face only to supply more.

Well. She needed to stop crying. That was the first thing.

She would just...work on that...

"I killed Hifumi in this room, last year." Celeste's approach hadn't been without warning; her shoes were very loud. But it was a surprise that she was speaking without the accent she liked to put on. "I had tricked him into framing Hiro for killing Taka."

Angie kept her face turned away, but she did raise her head. She had intuited long ago that Celeste had been a murderer, in her class's game, but people didn't talk about that sequence of events much. Well, Hiyoko tended to bring up hammers when she ran afoul of Taka's hall monitor duties, and there was one incident where Angie had overheard Celeste snapping at Toko, "Talk sh!t about my execution one more time and I'll garrote you with those fvcking pigtails, b!tch! I don't care which one you are!" But other than that...

"I also warned my classmates not to go out at night," Celeste continued. "We all agreed to it right in the beginning. A bunch of them broke the promise, but still..." She cleared her throat daintily, and she had acquired the false accent again by the time she continued, "I was surprised by how resistant your classmates were, to the idea. They treated murderers better than they treated you."

Angie sniffled quietly. Celeste must have heard it, because she paused before adding:

"Do you need something?"

With a deep breath, Angie calmly requested, "Please tell Kaede and Ryoma that I'm sorry."

A rustle of fabric, as Celeste leaned against something. "Are you?"

"They weren't supposed to hear what I said."

"About the resurrection ritual? They don't hold that against you. They actually laughed it off."

She remembered the stories she'd heard about Makoto. How he surprised everyone, how he held nothing against Sayaka, who framed him, and how he inspired the "living" and the "dead"...She'd never let herself consciously hope that she would be that person, to her class. That they, like Makoto's class, would emerge with a sudden respect, a sudden admiration, for the classmate they considered a bit of a joke before...But it did float to mind, now, that she'd failed.

The way things were going now, Kaede would probably be hailed as the angel of their class. So maybe Angie shouldn't apologize. The angel was only more admirable if she accepted apologies she never received. Like Makoto.

The clarity of this helped Angie to stop crying. Being thrown out of the story was a shock, and reflecting that she hadn't gotten to be the angel was painful, but now she needed to think. If Kaede was the angel, then what was she?

...It occurred to her that Celeste had approached her alone for a reason. Though Angie hadn't killed anyone, it seemed like Celeste had found aspects of herself in Angie's...performance. So... "Are you sorry?" Angie asked her.

"No. Well...There are things I regret. But in the scheme of things, no. I played the game, and I'm not sorry for that. Though I find it very impressive that you managed not to, even when they pretended you were crazy for it."

Angie, with something close to desperation, was able to grasp onto Celeste's description. You managed not to play the game. They pretended you were crazy. It eased some of the disturbed feelings inside her. "I must have caught Korekiyo planning a murder," she mused.

"It's a pity. I was curious to see you take your influence farther."

Now Angie felt a real smile curving her lips. "It might have been interesting."

"I don't think anyone else has managed to do what you did, in a killing game before. Maybe Imposter-senpai; I've heard he was quite a leader. And of course, Chihiro sort of hacked the simulation from inside it..."

"Why did they resist the nighttime rule?" Angie wondered aloud. "And why did they think I was crazy?"

Celeste shrugged. "I suspect the religious talk was part of it. You didn't do yourself favors, in that regard."

"It's the way I speak."

"But you're good at tailoring that from person to person, aren't you?"

Angie forced a laugh. "Clearly not."

"Just be glad you're a victim and not a culprit. You can probably make Shinguji bring you drinks and carry your books, when he wakes up."

"Did you do those things for Hifumi?"

"Of course not."

Of course not. "I don't want anything from Kiyo." Which was a shame, because they'd been pretty good friends, before. She tried to find that Makoto Naegi forgiveness in herself, but she had to drop the matter pretty quickly. Maybe later, she'd get there, but right now she felt too slighted. She could have made it to the end.

"Well, at least try to be the first face your devotees see when they die. Then maybe you'll keep your influence over them."

"I don't think I want that, either."

"Well, don't pull a Komaeda on us." She'd dropped the accent again.

Angie wasn't sure what "pulling a Komaeda" meant. She knew Komaeda, fairly well, and liked him. She knew that he had acted drastically in his killing game and rather shocked his classmates, and that as a result, he was closer to his kouhais than most. What Celeste was saying seemed to imply that his behavior when he'd emerged from the simulation had been similar, in some way, to hers. She felt curious, but not actionably so.

"I might go make some tea," she finally said. "Would Celeste like to join me?"

Celeste smiled. "But of course. All of the interesting people from your year have already died, so I have no interest in watching anymore."

Angie giggled, taking the untruth as the compliment it was clearly meant to be.

[theamityelf]

Wait, actually, Low Boundaries Ounaga Friendship...plus Rantaro.

They deserve to hang out as a trio. Each of them alone is kind of weird and off-putting, but all of them together become the intimidating cool kids.

Angie's the one with the beaming smile who seems nice, Kokichi's the one with the smirk who seems mean, and Rantaro's the one with the almost lazy grin who seems quiet.

I'm picturing them all at the mall, getting mani-pedis together. Picking stuff out for each other.

In the food court, Rantaro is the one who waits in line while Angie and Kokichi wait at the table.

Some of their classmates wander past (because this mall is a hangout spot for Class 79), and Angie's like, "Oh, Kaede! That's a pretty skirt!"

Kaede thanks her, and Miu is like, "You didn't say my skirt was pretty!'

"That's because it's not," Kokichi answers. And Angie just keeps smiling.

Because Rantaro is typically the one who waits in line for their food and drives them places, it would be easy for him to come across as a kind of underdog within their trio, but actually he's often the only one who can tell either of them what to do.

"Okay, two milkshakes and a lemonade," he says, gliding into his seat.

"I asked for a milkshake," Kokichi whines, as the lemonade is placed in front of him.

"The last time you got a milkshake from here, you texted both of us at 4 in the morning to tell us you were throwing up, and you said that milkshakes are 'literally, karmically evil'. You're having a lemonade."

"You're karmically evil," Kokichi grumbles, but drinks his lemonade. Then almost spits it out, because, "Sh!t, Ishi-senpai's here!"

"Yeah, with his boyfriend," Rantaro teases.

"Wasn’t Kokichi just saying he could beat Mondo-senpai’s a**?" Angie teases, resting her head on Kokichi’s shoulder.

Kokichi rests his head on hers. "We can take him if we work together."

"Then we have to cut Taka-senpai in half."

Kokichi giggles, hiding his face in Angie’s neck. "I get his legs."

"Keep it up," Rantaro says. "I’ll call them over."

"No, don’t!" they both protest. Angie quickly hugging the arm that Rantaro just jokingly raised (as if to wave at Taka), and Kokichi climbing across Angie’s lap to cover Rantaro’s mouth.

[theamityelf]

I wonder what kind of mystery adventure Makoto and Kokichi would go on in a non-despair au

Aww, this could be so fun or so angsty.

A part of me wants to go the "missing persons" route, since Hope's Peak has so many unsolved disappearances. (Obligatory "Makoto and Kokichi find a Kamukurized character". Okay, sorry. I'm done with that.)

But I feel like the tone of the question is light, so let's keep it light, lol.

Maybe Kokichi approaches Makoto like, "Senpai? Have you noticed anything weird about Kirigiri and Shuichi?"

"Hm? I guess I've noticed they've been whispering to each other a lot. I've seen Shuichi waiting outside our classroom to talk to her more than usual."

"I knew it! They're up to something."

"Probably just...solving a case, right? I mean, they're detectives. They work together a lot."

"Not like this. Shumai suddenly cares a lot when I steal his notebook. There's something fishy."

"Have you talked to him about it?"

"Oh, sweet, simple Makoto. Asking about it is how you lose the element of surprise."

"...Or how you get an answer?"

Kokichi strokes his chin, considering the merits of Makoto's straightforwardness. If Makoto asks Kirigiri what she and Shuichi are up to, it probably won't raise any defenses like Kokichi's curiosity would, and the way she answers might be a helpful hint. "Okay. Let's test your way. Ask your girlfriend what she's working on, and leave my name out of it. I'm really shy."

"She's not...We're not...Hey, no you're not!"

"No time to talk! I'll meet you back here this time tomorrow!"

(And boy, I hate to bring it back here, but this setup could definitely mean that Kyoko and Shuichi are finding out about Izuru Kamukura and don't want the school to know that they know, and this leads to a situation where Kokichi and Makoto find Kamukura while trying to figure out what their friends are doing and they sneak him out of the labs and Hope's Peak suddenly gets really serious about security, trying to find Kamukura, and Kyoko and Shuichi, who didn't know about Makoto and Kokichi's escapade, are like, "Security is searching everyone's stuff because they're onto us! They've figured out that we know and they're trying to intimidate us, etc.!" And it's shippy all over.)

[theamityelf]

Nagito sitting by himself, having watched his classmates disperse once school ended and feeling a reluctance to return to the solitude of his room, suddenly hearing a familiar voice call out his name, and then his bestie from de-radicalization class plops down beside him.

"Angie," he greets her with a smile. "Did you need something?"

"Nope! Just worried the bench might fly away, if someone doesn't help you weigh it down." Angie giggles. "Nagito is so skinny. Careful, or I'll tell Hanamura-senpai."

"Ah, please don't," he says. Mainly because he's grown protective of Angie and would prefer if she didn't interact with Teruteru at all, if it can be avoided.

"What a pretty sky," Angie digresses, gazing at the beginnings of a sunset. "She's wearing her nicest dress for us, today."

"You should try painting it," Nagito suggests. When she doesn't answer right away, he adds, "I'd certainly love to see it, if you do."

Angie hums in thought. Recent breakthroughs in de-rad class have made her strangely more reluctant to create art. But after another moment, she says, "Maybe after school. But only if I have a friend to hang out in the art room with me."

Nagito smiles. "Count me in!"

(Optional: Cut to a week or so later, when, after several days straight of wholesome art room hangouts, they suddenly find themselves having to hide a body, while in the art room at their usual time. Because I secretly never let go of this Heathers AU. Maybe it's Junko's body, for continuity with this post.)

[theamityelf]

My Danganronpa AU Masterlist

Because I realized I need some organization on my blog, lol.

First, my actual fanfiction is mostly on AO3; these will be just Tumblr stuff. Feel free to send an ask about any of these!

AU's are listed in alphabetical order, and the bullet points for each AU are in the order I think would be most coherent for anyone unfamiliar with the AU. I had to limit the amount of posts I included as bullet points, because this post really tested the hyperlink limit at first, lol. This meants the only way to be sure you're seeing all the posts for an AU is to click the "full tag" link; the bullet points don't cover everything, just the major ones.

Also, check out my Danganronpa analysis tag for posts I've made or reblogged that I just think are interesting from a meta perspective.

If you enjoy something I've posted, please leave a reply/comment. It encourages me to write more.

Crossover AU's (DR Characters placed in Other Fictional Universe)- has its own masterlist

Plot/Premise AU's

Aikido Makoto AU (someone teaches Makoto aikido)- full tag

Amnesia Barista Makoto AU- full tag

Big Bro Rantaro AU (Rantaro manipulatively big brothers his whole class)

First post

Bowtie Polycule AU (Naegamigiri/Kamukomaegi)- full tag

Living arrangements

Assassination attempts

Food shenanigans

Knock knock

Sleepytime (or else)

Changeling AU (Human Nagito, Faerie Kokichi)- full tag

Premise

Part 1

Part 2

Chaperone AUs (characters from one killing game "chaperoning" another killing game)- has its own masterlist

Child AUs (canon characters raising literal children, canon or OC)- has its own masterlist

(For non-literal children, see "Big Bro Rantaro AU" above or "Gentle Parenting AU" below.)

(For characters being physically shrunken but not de-aged, see "Mini Classmates AUs" below.)

Class 79 AU (where V3 cast is class 79)- full tag

Celeste and Angie

Junko and Angie

Makoto and Shuichi (+Naehara book club- full tag)

Upperclassman Taka

(see: "Despair V3 AU", in Despair AUs below)

Despair AUs (different characters converted to despair)- has its own masterlist

Gentle Parenting AU (Makoto gentle parenting Remnants)- full tag

Hand Cult AU (Makoto's hands got nailed to the desk and it affected people's zealotry after the fact)- full tag

First narrative post (It contains links to the two premise posts.)

Hinaegi/Komahinaegi School AU- has its own masterlist

Hope's Peak Debate Club AU- full tag

Premise/Polyamory web

Kyoko and Makoto

Hope's Peak Deradicalization Class AU- full tag

Premise (Nagito and Angie)

Immortals AU- full tag

Kokichi and Angie as primordial entities

Izuru as a god who fell for Human Makoto

Makoto as a god of diseases kinda (part 1, part 2)

Kamuegi Hope Tutor AU

Premise

Kamukuras AU (other characters undergo Kamukura Project)- has its own masterlist

Komaeda Intern AU- full tag

Premise

Sick Day (+bonus)

Komaegi UDG AU- full tag

Premise

Nagito, Makoto, and Yuta adventure

Makoto in Other Killing Games AU's- has its own masterlist

Makoto with Snakes AU- full tag

Mastermind AU (any time I make a different character the mastermind)- full tag

Memory Kidnapping AU (Yandere Kamukura)- full tag

Premise

Beginning

Realization

Kyoko finding out about Makoto

Classmates remembering Makoto

Izuru and Kyoko confrontation

Mini Classmate AUs (doll-sized DR characters cared for by normal-sized DR characters)- has its own masterlist

Naejunko Breakup Komaegi AU- full tag

Non-Makoto Characters in Other Killing Games AUs- has its own masterlist

NPC Makoto AU- full tag

Free Time conversations

Murder?

Ultimate Hope execution

Free Time gifts

Fanservice

Patron Celeste AU (Celeste/Angie)- full tag

Premise

Celeste pining part 1, part 2, part 3

Satyr Makoto AU (Greek mythology wilderness setting)

Premise

Separate Izuru AU

Premise

Soniakanedam Apartment AU- full tag

Premise

Soulmate AU- full tag

Variety list

Makoto and Junko (+bonus)

Makoto and the whole class

Survivors Killing Game AU

Premise

Naehinahara

Hajime prioritizing lives

All THH Survivors die (except Makoto)? (+bonus)

Aftermath

THH Survivors Pantheon AU (THH survivors worshiped)- full tag

Ultimate Makoto AU (where Makoto is Ultimate something)- full tag

Brainstorm

Multiship brainstorm

Undead AU (lucksters care for infected class)- has its own masterlist

Vampire AU (despair makes you vampire)- has its own masterlist

Werewolf Makoto AU- full tag

Werewolf Pandemic AU- full tag

Wings AU- full tag

Crossover AU's (Characters from Other Fictional Universe placed in Danganronpa)- has its own masterlist

-----------------------

I hope you enjoy, and I hope this masterlist is useful! (At the very least, it's useful to me, lol.)

[theamityelf]

Can I request a yandere naehara with shuichi as the yandere. Whether it's in your makoto in v3 au or in the au where v3 class is class 79. I think it would be fun to play around with those two in a yandere setting

Oh boy, thank you.

(Putting this at Hope's Peak instead of Makoto in V3 AU, since putting yanderes in a killing game limits what kinds of things can happen. Here's a post just kind of establishing what the Naehara status quo is, for this premise.)

With most of the THH yanderes, the endgame is to be in a relationship with Makoto, and with all of the THH yanderes, there's a feeling of accessibility. Being Makoto's classmate is so different from being his kouhai.

Shuichi is a yandere in the "crush on an upperclassman" sense, first and foremost. It's fun and feels good and the most concrete end goal is to just imagine something coming of it.

"Alright, you have to tell me who it is!" Kaede exclaims, one day.

"Who what is?" Shuichi asks, angling his head slightly to hide behind the bill of his cap.

"Every time the 78th class comes out for their free period, you look up to watch them."

"Not every time," he says evasively.

"I'm just going to keep bugging you until you tell me, so tell me!"

"Okay, okay. But you can't tell anyone else. Promise me."

"I promise," she says sincerely.

And he tells her. Kaede and Kokichi are the only ones in the class who know he has a crush on Naegi-senpai. (He didn't tell Kokichi. He just knows.)

Kaede sometimes teases him about it, and he allows that as a regular friend thing, as long as she never does it where anyone else can hear.

Shuichi keeps a meticulous log of Makoto's comings and goings, with dates, times, just fully staking out.

He's the Ultimate Detective's Assistant, and usually he's pretty embarrassed or uncomfortable about his talent, but keeping tabs on Makoto makes him feel like a real detective, in a way that kind of gives him a sense of pride and satisfaction. He likes his shelf of notebooks that one would have to read pretty closely for a while to even know they were about Makoto.

The notes are like, "September 3rd, left dorm at 7:30, uniform missing third button, left shoe untied. Dining hall 7:35-8, school store 8-8:05, class 8:07-11:45 (math test, score: 82. left shoe tied by the time he left the classroom), lunch 11:50-12 (bento with [insert foods here]), didn't stay long because Yamada needed help with [insert thing here], didn't eat his vegetables." etc. Very factual, and not weird in and of themselves. He keeps them secret, but if anyone were to read them by accident, they wouldn't clock them as stalker stuff right away; they'd just think the detective is detective-ing.

Also, as the Ultimate Detective's Assistant, he works with Kyoko pretty frequently. Perhaps daily.

She's very professional and polite with him, and he's very professional and polite back, but he has beef with her. He feels she takes Makoto for granted and sometimes puts him in danger.

So, basic status quo is, Shuichi has a crush on Makoto, is stalking him, and lowkey resents Kyoko. She's not the only one– he resents a lot of people in Makoto's class –but she's the one he interacts with most, so his feelings get to really fester and develop.

"Excuse me, Kirigiri," Shuichi says one day, during their collaboration time.

Or, during their nominal collaboration time. Kyoko often works alone anyway, leaving him with her briefing notes on whatever she investigated on her own time. But she at least knows she has to let him work with her when he goes out of his way to do so.

"What's wrong?" she asks.

"I just noticed that your Tuesday notes mentioned that the suspect acted shifty when sharing a space with a bystander, but you didn't list the bystander's details. It seemed unlike you, so I thought I'd ask."

Kyoko is silent for a second, which is all the confirmation Shuichi needs: She used Makoto again.

Kyoko doesn't know that Shuichi is yandere for Makoto, but she knows that Shuichi tends to have reservations about the things she's willing to do to solve a case, and she knows that Shuichi has intense guilt around being a detective in general, so she sort of takes his negative feelings about her use of Makoto to solve cases as part of that. After he got upset the first couple of times she brought Makoto into the mix, she started deliberately keeping it a secret every time she does so. But this time, she got caught.

"Did you ask Naegi to sit next to a serial killer on the train?" Shuichi asks, doing his best to emanate professional disapproval instead of seething rage.

"No. I asked him to sit next to a suspect. Now, did you look through the thumb drive I left you?" She never feels the need to explain herself to him.

The fact that he can't even report her to the headmaster (or at least feels he can't, because the headmaster is her dad) makes him even angrier.

He frequently fantasizes about poisoning her, past the point where it stops being fantasy and instead becomes planning. He knows she's too smart for the first few murder methods that come to mind. She thinks quickly; a lot of murder victims panic and waste time trying things that won't work, to save themselves. With all the death she's seen, he has to assume she's thought through what she'd do in the event of most murder attempts.

Fortunately, he's been trusted with her notes and files. He can get ideas from where other murderers failed.

Wait, is he actually planning a murder now?

No, no. He's just...thinking about it.

He'll tell himself he's "just thinking about it" through every step of the planning process until it happens.

And then he becomes the Ultimate Detective. He wasn't even thinking about that part! Being handed her title and told to investigate her murder.

He supposes he'll...have to interview her friends, won't he? It'll be nice to finally have an excuse to really spend time with Makoto.

When he starts asking him a lot of questions, eventually Makoto panics. "Wait, am I a suspect?!"

And Shuichi would have immediately assured him that he wasn't (He would never let Makoto go down for any crime, even if he were guilty.), but he...froze for a second. And Makoto gets more anxious, so Shuichi slowly says, "Hey, it's okay. I trust you. I believe that you're telling me the truth. You are, right?"

And of course, Makoto is quick to agree.

Oops, now it's almost like Makoto has to spend time with him whenever he wants. Shuichi didn't intend for that part to happen...But it is nice to spend time with him.

And Makoto is so sad about Kirigiri's death. It makes Shuichi kind of jittery. As if being a detective didn't make him guilty enough, now he has to be a detective and a murderer. Not just convicting the wrongdoers; being the wrongdoer and convicting the innocent!

It's okay. He'll just frame their most recent suspect; the guy was guilty anyway. And all of this was for Makoto's sake, so it's okay!

And Makoto is worried about him, too. He doesn't address it right away, but it comes out later:

"Hey," the upperclassman says kindly. "Have you been okay? I know you worked with Kyoko every day, so solving her...her murder is...I can't even imagine. I'm here for you, if you ever need me."

Shuichi lets some tears fall– not just to be manipulative! He isn't grieving Kirigiri, of course, but he does feel really intense affection for Makoto in this moment. "It's been really hard," he chokes out, and Makoto touches him on the shoulder!

"I know," he says heavily. "She was really amazing. I'm glad I got to be her friend."

...Okay. If Shuichi just has to ignore all that stuff, then that's an easy tradeoff!

And he doesn't expect he'll have to kill anyone else in Makoto's class. Like Owada, or Togami...No, he's sure he won't need to do that. But if he did, Owada's death would be easy to stage, and Togami-

...

(Also, obligatory reference to that one post where yanderes are an accepted entity in Hope's Peak. I like to imagine Shuichi deciding whether or not to submit paperwork to be counted as an official yandere. Thinking through the pros and cons, probably landing at "no".)