Danganronpa Secret File Makoto Naegi's Worst Day Ever

Part 4

The look of utter surprise on all their faces was all he needed to know the game wasn’t rigged.

“Man,” his friend said, amazed, “that’s actually pretty damn impressive. Talk about bad luck.”

“Having impressively bad luck doesn’t make me feel any better,” Makoto said, slumping his shoulders.

“Don’t feel so bad,” his friend said, patting him on the shoulder and handing him a small wad of cash.“I’ll take a cola and some fried chicken!”

“Got it,” Makoto said with a bitter smile. “Guess that’s all the cheering up I’ll get from you, huh?” He pulled out a sheet of paper, hurriedly scribbled down everyone’s orders, took their money—all the while cursing his misfortune.

Ten minutes later, Makoto stepped out of the convenience store and onto the sidewalk, an overstuffed plastic bag hanging from each hand.

“C-Crap... this is heavy.”

Compared to other students his age, Makoto wasn’t the best built or most athletic of high-school boys. Having to carry almost ten people’s drinks and snacks from the store back to the park all by himself wasn’t going to be easy.

Think about something pleasant, he told himself in an attempt to take his mind off the task at hand. The first thing that came to mind was that night’s TV schedule. Someone he used to go to school with—someone he knew very well, but who did not know him—was supposedly making an appearance on a music program airing that evening. He had been looking forward to watching it for several days.

Man, I can’t wait, he thought—and in that very same moment, he heard the sound of something snapping and almost lost his balance.

“Whoa!” he cried, his feet instinctively pressing hard against the concrete in an attempt to avoid falling.

Once he had caught his balance, Makoto realized that his hands felt lighter—that the sudden change in weight was what had caused him to stumble in the first place.

“Huh?” He looked down at his hands, finally understanding what had happened. The bottoms of both plastic bags had ripped, and everything inside was scattered all over the sidewalk.

“No way...”

While it was logical enough that good weather didn’t necessarily mean good things would happen, he couldn’t help but feel like things were going excessively bad for him. Plastic grocery bags didn’t just randomly break on people. Unless, say, the clerk accidentally sliced the whole stack with a box cutter when he was unpacking the bags. And yet, it had still happened.

Anyone who saw him in that moment would know exactly how far on Lady Luck’s bad side Makoto was that day.

“Oh, come on,” he muttered, desperately scrambling to collect the snacks, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans that had scattered every which way. “Why did this have to happen to me?”

If, by some dramatic twist of fate, a girl wandered onto the scene and offered him her assistance, he would have gladly put all the misfortune that led up to that moment behind him. But nobody else was using that particular sidewalk—let alone any nice, helpful girls. The road along which the sidewalk was built was reasonably large, but he was currently in a residential area near a park a fair distance from the train station, so it was no real surprise there wasn’t much foot traffic. However, Makoto couldn’t help but think his bad luck was to blame.