Danganronpa Prodigy's: The Next Generation.

Chapter 11a: An Emotional Trainwreck (in some ways literally)

Haruhi Naegi, in case it wasn't already completely and blatantly obvious at this point, suffered from a very serious and crippling lack of confidence, and was "infected" (her own words) with awful social anxiety. Just being near a person, whether she knew them or not, was enough to make her paranoid about everything.

Which is the precise reason why she hated public transport.

Due to some strings being pulled, particularly with her uncle being the headmaster, Haruhi had been permitted to use her Research Lab at Hope's Peak as a sort of home. However, much like every other Japanese High School, nobody was required to attend the school on the Sunday, and it's doors were closed. Unfortunately for Haruhi, the school faculty had told her that she couldn't stay in her school at the weekends for the simple reason that all the gates were locked shut, and they didn't want to lock her in. Haruhi would have been totally fine with the arrangement, given that she never left her room of her own free will anyhow, but the faculty had stated it was primarily due to ethical and societal reasons they couldn't allow it.

Haruhi's anxiety was actually only half the reason she had been permitted to stay at Hope's Peak. The other half was that her parents, Toko and Komaru, lived quite far away from the academy, and didn't have anywhere they could move to that was closer. 

So every time the weekend would roll around, Haruhi would usually spend the night over at her Uncle Makoto and Aunt Kyoko's house, sharing a bedroom with Kuroba. However, every other weekend, Komaru and Toko would ask her to hop aboard a train and a ride to Towa City where they lived so she could spend the weekend back home.

Haruhi loved her parents and of course always complied with this, but it didn't mean she enjoyed the journey there. Rush hour trains are quite possibly every bit as packed as a crowd at a concert, and for someone with Haruhi's case, this was nothing short of a bad time. However, once she was off the train, she'd beeline it straight for her parents house, and then she'd be square for the rest of the weekend, until of course she had to get the train back the next evening.

This however...was nothing short of a nightmare.

On a typical journey home, no one would really look at Haruhi other than the odd glance that you typically get from other people on the train when they're just mindlessly looking at whatever's around them. The main problem usually was how close people got to her, and how easy it was for someone to get molested, which scared her. However, in this one instance, there was something else bothering her.

A boy with slightly tanned skin, who was standing right in front of her was staring at her.

Haruhi was part of the main course at Hope's Peak, but she recognized the boy had a black uniform, the same uniform worn by boys in the schools Reserve Course. The Reserve Course was a selection of other students who attended Hope's Peak through other means rather than the talent selection program. In the old days, you had to pay a fee and pass an exam to enter the school via the Reserve Course, but in recent years, a few rules had been reprimanded, and the fee aspect was no longer necessary. Furthermore, while they had different classes, the Reserve Course and Talent Course were no longer isolated from each other.

Regardless of who this boy was or where he attended school, Haruhi was very distracted and very nervous of the strange expression on his face, which was one of almost tension.

H-He hasn't stopped looking at me... she thought to herself m-maybe it's just my imagination...

That's what she thought of course. However she was very quickly going to be proven wrong. Though the train was crammed and the boy was only inches in front of her, he drew even closer and spoke to her in a hushed voice.