#git gud ic

[shslsoccergoalie-blog]

Hiroto Reacts: Ny-- Motive (Momoki)

Mono no aware was a well-known term describing the beautiful impermanence of life. It was used to comment on how awe-inspiring something on the verge of death was. Up until now, Hiroto had always thought the saying applied to all living things, and not just cherry blossoms and the elderly.

Well, apparently he had been wrong. Seeing something -- or someone -- close to death was not inspirational in the slightest. It wasn’t beautiful, either.

It was heart-wrenching.

So as he left his room and started walking down the hallway, he contemplated what old, privileged jerk had the audacity to say death was pleasant (never mind that until this situation he had agreed with the concept). He was willing to bet whoever it was had never been in a situation where they were supposed to murder their classmates or else watch their loved ones suffer. Because, well, that didn’t inspire any enlightened thinking on how nice life’s fragility was.

To be honest, it just pissed him off. His family had been there, and he didn’t really feel like imagining them actually all dying. As much as his sisters and parents irritated him, he didn’t want to lose them.

During this session of contemplation, Hiroto slowly wandered into the laundry room. As usual, it calmed him down. He went to collapse in one of the chairs near a table, only to completely miss the chair when he sat down.

“Shit!” he cursed as he fell. He scrambled to grab onto something, anything -- and managed to grab onto the edge of the table. As he landed, falling over onto his back, the table went with him. Honestly, what had he expected? Magazines fell all over him, and the side of the plastic table was now resting on his chest. He was a (questionably hot) mess.

“Tch, git gud,” he muttered, shoving the table off of himself (it was quite light, being made of plastic and all).

 He then sensed the presence of someone else in the room. It was that guy from the cafe -- the one named Momoki who wouldn’t make him the omuraisu.

Hiroto stared at him, trying to figure out how long he had been there. Had he seen the whole spill, or just him already lying on the ground looking pathetic? Either one was not an optimal second impression.

[shslsoccergoalie-blog]

Treasure Buddies (Prologue | Maguro)

The laundromat was hardly as interesting as the other places Hiroto had discovered on the first floor (especially compared to the entrance hall itself), but he nevertheless felt himself drawn to it. Maybe because the atmosphere seemed ordinary, and while familiarity usually deterred him, he found it to be a nice reprieve in this case.

Because as much as he hated to admit it, this situation was starting to worry him. Yes, at first he didn’t think the note on the bulletin board was unusual, but then he noticed the hatch, the guns, the cameras. He even noticed how confused everybody else seemed. It was as if everyone was just as in the dark as he was.

The laundromat, by contrast, was quite bright, just like all laundromats seemed to be. Then again, he had only been to one once in his lifetime. (When he was nine, he got drenched in cold water as the result of a bucket-over-door prank after school. He was ushered to the laundromat located a block from school so he could at least have a warm jacket for the cold walk home in the middle of January.) Nevertheless, he was willing to bet they all smelled like soap and felt cozy.

He propped open the door using a small table, so that the room wouldn’t get too stuffy. Then he sat down against a washer that was warm despite not running and started unabashedly flipping through a tween fashion magazine.

The sound of footsteps alerted him somebody was approaching. He looked up from the personality quiz section to see an unfamiliar person walk into the room… Well, they weren’t totally unfamiliar. He recognized them from the room where they all first woke up. Their name escaped him, however, as did their talent.

“Hey,” he said. He figured they wouldn’t be a bad person to ask when it came to answering this next question. “I’m Hoshi Hiroto. And weird question, but do you think my style is more fresh, edgy, or sweet? I’m thinking one of the first two, but I kinda want someone else’s opinion.”

A pause, then what he said next he did so with a completely straight face. There wasn’t any trace of humor in his voice.

“This is to see who my future pop idol husband will be, according to this magazine. And I swear if you choose an answer and I end up with Takuyo Tadashi, I’ll wreck you. I’ve gotten him for the last three quizzes and I’m fucking fed up. No more.”

[shslsoccergoalie-blog]

Spooky Buddies (Prologue | Osamu)

Ever since Hiroto was young, only the absence of sound was guaranteed to wake him up. On rare occasions when the electricity went out in the middle of the night, he’d jolt awake, caught off-guard by the absolute silence. His daily life was normally so noisy that he often felt uncomfortable in quiet places. Libraries made him uneasy, tea ceremonies left him feeling antsy, and hotels at night unnerved him.

So why was the humming sound he awoke to so disturbing? Perhaps because it sounded familiar, but also nothing like anything he had heard before. Or perhaps because he couldn’t place where it was coming from.

Yet the strange sound soon became the least of his worries. Where was he? Who were all these other people? Most were crowded around a bulletin board. He got to his feet, joining them.

The note itself was very unassuming. After a brief moment of irritation that the gas leak occurred in the first place, he decided it ultimately didn’t matter. At least that meant one day less of classes when the situation was taken care of, right?

Hiroto smiled slightly at the prospect of the gas leak taking so long to fix they cancelled classes for a month (he had always been an optimist when it came to no school), before realizing he ought to pick up his ID.

He rolled his shoulders out of habit as he wandered over to the front desk. His body ached from being on the ground for so long. It struck him as odd everybody was dumped so unceremoniously on the floor of a lobby, even if there had been a chemical emergency. But before he could ponder this further, he was struck by a sense of awe.

The ElectroIDs were so advanced compared to those he had in the past. He was used to plain plastic, but the one he picked up was similar to a smartphone. It had a touch-sensitive screen and everything!  He tapped one and saw a name come up.

Morishige Osamu.

The picture next to the name was of somebody his age, with purple hair and purple eyes a similar shade.

“Huh... Pretty moe,” Hiroto murmured. He glanced up to look for his own ID and came face-to-face with Osamu Morishige themselves.

He blinked in surprise as he did a double-take. The person before them was, in fact, Osamu. He stared at them for a moment before the severity of the situation dawned on him. They probably heard him call them moe! That’d be such a terrible first impression.

He needed to stay cool.

“Shit, sorry! Uh, Morishige, right?” he asked. “Morishige Osamu, the moe-- er, the occult investigator? I think I took your ID card by accident.”

[shslsoccergoalie-blog]

Effort [Jiro | Pregame]

Hiroto repeated the name over and over in his mind as he hunted for a certain physician’s dorm room.

Oshiro Jiro, Oshiro Jiro, Oshiro Jiro...

Why was that so fun to say? He assumed it was because it was more amusing than the other thoughts weighing on his mind -- which were all regarding the homework he hadn’t started.

He was taking a sports medicine class, which was apparently required of all those with sports talents to take. This he found appalling, since they had never mentioned in the acceptance letter that he had to do anything special other than play soccer. He had assumed the academics at Hope’s Peak would be the same at his other school... and he had been wrong. Sure, he had the option to take the easiest courses in the normal required subjects, but sports med? There was only one course offered.

Hiroto stopped in front of the physician’s door. He assumed Jiro would be inside studying or doing physician-y things. To be honest, he wasn’t even sure a physician was a medical talent -- but for the sake of his grades, he held out hope.

He knocked on the door with great tenacity.

“Oshiro? You there?” he called out. “It’s Hoshi from your homeroom! I need some help with this health class thing. It’s kinda really super important.”

He shook the door handle, trying to open it. He had no time to lose, after all.