One Year Later

3 | Boy's Life of (NOT) Despair

The next afternoon, Naegi hesitated, nervous, outside of Mondo Oowada's dorm room door.

Thirty seconds of total silence, and he felt an elbow jut into his ribcage.

"What're ya waitin' for?!" Leon hissed. "Just knock already!"

Naegi nodded, drawing in a deep breath. Instead of knocking, though, he decided to press the little button beside the door and speak into the microphone there.

"Oowada-kun? It's me, Naegi. I have Kuwata-kun and Hagakure-kun with me. Care to let us in?"

There was another silence as they waited for a response. The dorm rooms were soundproofed, and so they couldn't tell if Mondo had gotten up to answer the door or not. But after a long moment, the door handle moved, and they backed away to allow him to open it. Mondo swung the door open. The trio was greeted by his angry face, tinted slightly red.

"You scared the shit out of me, Naegi! I was tryin' to do my homework."

Hagakure whistled.

"Were you, now? ...I still have to get used to you saying stuff like that."

Mondo's glare hardened, and his blush darkened.

"Of course I'm doing my friggin' homework! Taka's practically requiring me to go to college. Gotta keep my grades up."

Naegi noticed, just then, that Mondo swore a lot less frequently than he used to. He was still relatively foul-mouthed, but before, swear words had peppered his speech as often as conjunctions. He smiled politely at Mondo.

"That's great, Oowada-kun. And we don't want to distract you, but we wanted to talk to you about something important."

Mondo raised an eyebrow and studied them. He was thinking, surely, about the last time he'd had this particular group show up suddenly at his door. A moment of silence, and then he stepped aside and gestured within.

"Alright. Come on in."

Leon pumped a victorious fist in the air and didn't wait for permission to be seated. Just like the last time, he and his comrades sat around the table while Mondo cautiously sat across from them.

There was another painful silence. Naegi cleared his throat.

"So... Quiz time. What important date is coming up in about two and a half weeks?"

Mondo furrowed his brow and frowned. He looked up as he thought on the answer.

"...Uh... Two and half weeks? That's a kind of a long ways away, right?" He paused to rub at his chin. "Let's see... Is there an exam or somethin'?"

Leon, Hagakure, and Naegi all groaned at once, and Mondo jumped, instantly looking panicked.

"Don't tell me— you forgot?!" Naegi squeaked.

"N— No!" Mondo argued. He rose, angrily, from the table and stomped to his desk, where he fished around until he found his own calendar, and returned to the table with it. He flipped the page to the correct month and closely studied it. His glare wavered, and then it vanished. "...Oh. It's... Already?"

"So you remembered to write it down," Naegi breathed, feeling slightly relieved. "...You didn't forget, you just didn't realize it was that soon because you haven't used the calendar in a little while, right?"

"Right." Mondo slapped the calendar down. Naegi couldn't help but smirk. Mondo hadn't actually marked the date with "anniversary," but with a single large heart drawn in sharpie. It amused him that Mondo immediately knew what it meant when he looked at it.