Danganronpa Secret File Makoto Naegi's Worst Day Ever

Part 19

“Hope's Peak Academy Administrative Office” was printed on the reverse side of the envelope. “Hope's Peak Academy? That Hope's Peak Academy?”

“Yeah! The one and only!” his sister squealed, bouncing up and down like a rabbit. “Inside, it said you were selected to be the Ultimate Lucky student! You get to go to Hope's Peak Academy, Makoto!”

Me? The Ultimate Lucky student?

The reality of the situation still hadn’t sunk in.

“Hold on,” he said, “you read my mail without my permission?”

“What’s the big deal?” she asked, bringing her face almost uncomfortably close to his. “You’re going to Hope's Peak Academy! You know, the school where if you graduate, you’re basically guaranteed success for life! You get to be one of them!” She was breathing so hard he could literally feel it.

Seeing how worked up his sister was, it finally clicked.

“I-I’m going... to Hope's Peak Academy?” he asked as the unbelievable truth began to sink in. With trembling hands, he reached into the envelope and pulled out the letter. As his eyes raced across the text, he gulped.

“We at Hope's Peak Academy have selected by lottery a single candidate from a pool of average students. Your name was chosen, and so we invite you to join us this year as the Ultimate Lucky student.”

“That’s wonderful, Makoto!” his mother exclaimed from behind him, placing both hands on his shoulders.

“Hip hip, hooray!” his sister shouted, dancing as if she had been the one chosen.

“Where’s Dad?” his mother asked. “Is he home?”

“Yeah, he’s on the phone with Grandma and Grandpa!”

“They definitely need to know!”

Makoto’s mom and sister squealed in unison, joined hands, and did a little dance. As he watched his family rejoice for him, a smile finally rose to Makoto’s face. He chuckled, pumped his fist, and then started cheering.

“Y-Yeah... Yeah.” At first, he was just muttering to himself, but eventually he too raised his voice in excitement.

“Yeah!” he shouted with everything he had. What had been a day of nothing but misfortune had been flipped entirely on its head with one gigantic stroke of good luck. He saw the invitation as a gift from fate—an undeniable reversal of his unluckiness.

However, the reality of it was quite different. It wasn’t good luck that had led to his selection as the Ultimate Lucky student—but very, very bad luck. Had he not been chosen, he would have never met that strange mechanical bear, and he would have never been made to participate in the academic coliseum.

He would have never experienced any of those hopelessly despair-ridden events.

But he was chosen. He was selected to be the Ultimate Lucky student. And that, more than anything else, was what truly made those twenty-four hours the worst day of Makoto Naegi’s life.

At that point in time, though, Makoto didn’t even have an inkling of a premonition of what was to come. He spent the evening celebrating with his family.

But that’s perfectly natural. After all, this is a tale of something that happened before anything had happened yet.