COTE: New Game+

Prologue 2: A Happy Ending?

Kiyotaka's POV
April 5, 2037
Ayanokouji Residence

"Dad, wake up..."

"Ugh..."

"Dad, Mom says breakfast is ready."

"5 more minutes..."

"If you don't wake up, I'll eat all of the ice cream on the fridge."

"Fine, I'll wake up."

I got up from my bed and looked at my daughter. She had inherited my brown hair and golden eyes, as well as my expressionless face. Considering that she has emotions, I am now sure that this face is somehow genetic.

She also inherited my love for ice cream too, but honestly, who doesn't love ice cream?

"You're really weak to ice cream, aren't you, Dad?" she said with a small smirk on her face, although it was barely visible.

"As if you're not weak to ice cream yourself, Honami. You really shouldn't be the one saying that." I said.

"Touche." she chuckled. "Anyway, I'll be going down now, Dad. See you."

With that, she ran down the stairs, leaving me in my room to get ready.

*****
"Good morning, Kiyotaka."

"Good morning, Kei."

I greeted my wife as I walked down the stairs to eat some breakfast.

"Where's Suzuki?" I asked, noting that my younger son was missing.

"I'm here Dad! Good morning!" Suzuki came out of his room energetically and he ran down the stairs quickly.

He had inherited his mother's looks, her blonde hair and purple eyes. He also had a small ponytail as well, as if emulating how a male version of Kei would have looked like when she was young.

"You're too excited again." Honami remarked as he entered the dining room.

"But Dad said we were going to that place he told us about!" he replied.

"You know Dad has bad memories of that place, right?" Honami said.

Memories, huh?

I then reminisced about how I got to this point in my life.

After I graduated from ANHS, I returned to the White Room, just as I had intended. I had experienced everything that the outside world had to offer, or so I thought at the time. I had ignored that feeling of emptiness inside of me, attributing it to the fact that I had returned to the persona that I had donned in the White Room. However, a few months afterwards, I had received shocking news.

Horikita Manabu had discovered the existence of the White Room.

I had been receiving news of the outside world in that place, and I heard that Horikita Manabu, who had grown influential in Japanese politics, discovered the existence of the White Room, and has exposed it to the public. Soon, I had also heard that many of my former classmates and schoolmates in ANHS had formed a group to help me break out of there.

I was apathetic about it at the time. I had thought that the whole conflict will end with that man winning. After all, he had firmly planted his roots deep in the Japanese government. There was no way a group of college aged students and a rising star in Japanese politics would be able to dethrone him.

And yet, somehow, they managed to defeat that man. They managed to destroy the White Room.

2 years after my graduation, the facility known as the White Room was raided by Horikita Manabu and Sakayanagi Shigemori's private military. I heard the explosions and the gunfire, but at the time, I was conflicted as to whether or not I should escape. However, I had made up my mind when I saw one person enter the room I was in.