Danganronpa Secret File Makoto Naegi's Worst Day Ever

Part 14

I don't care what happens anymore! Makoto thought and leapt down the stairs toward the door-slamming face first into someone and rebounding backwards, landing hard on one of the steps.

"Owowowowow..." he muttered, then lifted his head to figure out what in the world had just happened. There, he saw a man in a white helmet and a navy blue uniform on the ground, leaning back against the guardrail.

Makoto recognized that uniform-the man was a mailman. The mailman had seen the bus suddenly rush forward, then come to an equally sudden stop, so he had decided to see if something was wrong.

When he tried to board the bus, he collided with Makoto.

"S-Something didn't seem right," the mailman said, rubbing his neck.

He must have hit his head on the guardrail when Makoto bumped into him. He was wearing a helmet, so he had avoided any serious injury, but his neck appeared to be in some pain. "So, is there some kind of problem?"

"U-Um, uh..." As Makoto debated whether he should explain what was going on or ask the mailman if he was all right-

"Damn, am I lucky," came another voice. Makoto turned his head toward the source of the voice, and there he saw Jutarou Akafuku mounting the mailman's motorbike, which had been left beside the guardrail a short distance away.

"I make these intricate plans because I hate random chance screwing things up, but still I end up relying on it," he said, calmly gripping the handlebars of the bright red mailbike. "Well, at least my luck is good, I guess."

His luck was good indeed. Because the postman had noticed the bus acting strangely, and because he had crashed into Makoto, Jutarou had acquired an escape vehicle.

"Oh, and that goes for you just as much as it does me, boy," Jutarou said to Makoto.

"Huh?"

"If I were to get arrested because of you, boy, that's a grudge I would never let go of." While Jutarou's voice sounded somewhat self-defeating, his face bore an expression of pure disdain. His expression would send a shiver up anyone's spine-he looked like a starving wild dog that had finally found some prey.

Makoto couldn't move his body an inch-neither to run nor to fight. He just stood there, frozen in place-the prey about to be devoured.

Seeing that, Jutarou chuckled to himself. As someone who tried his hardest to minimize external influences on his plans, he would never normally make a threat like that. But in this case, he couldn't help himself. He had to get some form of payback-as insignificant as it may be-on the intractable child standing before him. The boy who threw

wrench after wrench into Jutarou's carefully constructed plans-and not even intentionally. Purely by luck. Jutarou would not stand for that.

And so he threatened the boy, hoping to shake him up-if just a little.

Of course, the threat was empty. Jutarou was unlikely to ever run into the boy again. Given that the boy knew he was a thief, crossing paths with him would cause nothing but trouble, and Jutarou had no interest whatsoever in being dragged through the mud by misfortune ever again. While his good luck may have come out on top this time, the last thing he wanted to do was try his luck a second time.

Taken another way, it could be said that Jutarou was afraid of Makoto's misfortune, but the thought never crossed his mind-or, rather, he endeavored to prevent it from doing so.