大和田紋土 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
butterbelieveamanspromise) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
smashacademy2014-10-30 12:47 pm
butterbelieveamanspromise) wrote in smashacademy2014-10-30 12:47 pm
(semi-narration) and [action]: Past Blasting
When he came to, his vision phased into a classroom from the grainy blur it started out as. Rows of desks lined up from the back where he sat, in a desk of his own.
It was always a goddamn desk. Mondo was sure by now that the haziest points of his memory all revolved around this one unremarkable piece of furniture. It had nothing to do with his inability to cogitate class lectures, which were also the number one most fuzzy and tremendously dull moments in his traffic accident of a life. No. It was like a teleportation pad that transported him across voids sundered by his amnesia.
And this was the third time he'd woken up in one without ever recalling sitting down in it.
----
The second time was only a little over a month ago. Was it anymore? Time just didn't make sense the way it used to. There's a classroom. Rows of desks. He wakes up with a head full of cotton and an eyeful of flowing black hair. His sights snap into adjustment in a flash because that's sure not the last thing he remembered seeing. And neither is that teacher he doesn't recognize scrawling on a chalkboard posted in a classroom he doesn't go to and even more earthshaking for him are the identities of the students' backs before him.
They're... Hope's Peak students. Class 78, all here in the living flesh. All here, in the... Mondo ejects himself from his seat from the mental impact, gripping onto the sides of the desk like it was the only thing keeping him from falling over. Really, his thoughts could swirl together and pop out summed up in his next exclamation.
"What the fuck am I doing here?!"
His interruption cuts the string of lecture short and bends everyone's necks around. Most of the looks directed at him are addled, stupefied like they don't know what to tell him or where this outburst came from. Mondo glances around and feels the hot pinpricks of stress sink into him. All of this is strange- their uniforms, their collective presence, this normal-looking situation, the bright sunlight pouring into the room, no bars or bolts blocking the outside world from sight. In the absence of the teacher's retaliation, Kiyotaka is the first to speak up, his face stiffening back into its usual severity.
"What's the meaning of this? It's obvious, isn't it? You're here to learn!"
"No, no! That ain't what I mean! I-I mean..." He struggles to find the words to describe what happened without it sounding crazy.
"Then what are you talking about?" asked Aoi.
"Maybe he fell asleep and forgot he went to class..." Hifumi posited.
Okay, fine. Maybe it had to sound crazy. This entire situation was crazy, so why couldn't he be a little crazy, too? "I fell into a weird hole, and the next thing I know... I wound up here!"
The entire class goes back to staring at him like he was eating his own hair. Then it breaks out into laughter.
"You sure about that??" laughs Leon from the front of the room. "Man, I didn't think I hit your head THAT hard in P.E..."
"Maybe you ate lunch too fast, dude!" Yasuhiro decides to chime in.
This isn't the kind of clarification he wanted at all. Feeling hotter than ever before with shame, he rises to full height and makes his way to the door spouting an excuse to leave.
"Shit... I gotta go to the nurse! See ya!" The door slides open and slides shut with a final thump, leaving the classroom's laughter to die off and the light mood to plummet, heavy with real concern.
In truth, he never went to the nurse. He got carried away by his surroundings, blown away by the fact that this was Hope's Peak, that dim cagelike atmosphere full of students in classrooms and natural lighting. It looked like a real high school, like the kind of high school he wanted to experience. Why was he here all of a sudden? Was this some kind of dream? Everyone seemed to remember him, but it had been clear back then that they remembered things he didn't, and whatever he remembered didn't fit their understanding. All he knew was that it would never make sense to him, and that the culprit was probably a huge lapse in memory. It freaked him out bad.
No matter how fascinating it was to see Hope's Peak operate like a real high school, Mondo was quick to find the exit. Maybe it was ingrained from the time he wanted nothing more than to break free of the trapped feeling, and to him the school was symbolic of despair. The anxiety that the doors and windows would be barred shut again at any moment only quickened his escape.
And then he went... home. God, it had been years since he'd gone home. He went straight home because he wanted to prove to himself that he could, and sure enough, he made it. Without bumming around for long he mounted his precious bike- HIS bike, and went straight to one of the Crazy Diamond's hangouts feeling like he was riding on paradise's clouds. That feeling only intensified when he saw them there, shooting the shit to make night come faster, like it was any old day in the life he left behind. Overjoyed as he was, none of the guys could understand why he was holding back tears and slinging arms around them so much.
He spent the rest of the day with them and didn't look back. It was the best night he'd had in a damn long time.
When he returned home at two in the morning, he was surprised to find both Kiyotaka and Chihiro standing there. Kiyotaka didn't waste a breath before sending barrages of exasperated scolding upon him for interrupting class and lying to skip school, and Chihiro quietly handed him the bag he left behind and didn't even know he had. Beyond mere duty as classmates, they came because they were worried- their persistence in coming, even when it was the middle of the night, was evidence of that. Since they took so much trouble for him, and they were his closer friends from the Hope's Peak mess, he promised he would explain his bizarre situation to them tomorrow.
That said, the next day, nobody understood quite yet why Mondo was acting so strangely. They noticed something about him wasn't 'natural', and there were some whispers about him going crazy for real, but that was about the extent. His classmates were living on a completely different plane now. They would refer to stuff he never personally experienced but technically 'did'. He quickly learned that, just like the members of his gang, they had experienced a different Mondo altogether. It felt like he was some kind of understudy, like he was filling a role left behind by some other Mondo who was missing in action. Like he said he would, he got together with Chihiro and Kiyotaka during lunch period and explained himself to them. He never expected them to understand completely, and they didn't. Could he blame them? It got especially heavy when he summarized the game of mutual killing, that Class 78 was coerced to kill each other, one of their classmates was responsible for orchestrating the whole mess, and that the three of them suffered a cruel fate because of it. He did not have the heart to describe it, nor did he think it was good to go into that sort of gritty who-killed-who detail at that moment, no matter what their curiosities begged of him. As wacky as Mondo's story seemed, they could not help but believe him due to how sincere his emotions seemed when detailing it. In the end, he confessed with dismay that he could not remember a single day of their more carefree high school lives, and that if they could fill him in, he would be grateful. They were impacted greatly by this and all the other revelations and were more than happy to support their friend with his difficulties. Mondo was still Mondo, even if he had forgotten parts of himself.
He could have told the whole class about his predicament, but it felt impossible when the mastermind herself was walking around. That's why with most everyone else, he cut off more of his explanation and they only understood that he was experiencing some memory problems. Over time, he knew he would need to warn everybody of Junko's future designs. He just wasn't sure how to keep Junko from eventually catching wind that they were onto her.
The first week of his new life was the strangest and took a bit of adjustment on his part. He often wondered when he would wake up from what must be one of those 'alternate universe' things and couldn't detach himself from the idea that this wasn't real somehow. Even though they no longer shared the same stream of memories, Mondo got a glimpse of what everyone's friendships were like, and even the nature of some of his own, unspoiled by the mar of murder and despair. Ironically, it was his own side of the relationship that he couldn't peer into, which was completely ass backwards. He could only guess, and that was easy enough. As time went on, even without memories of the past 6 months he'd forgotten, he fell into place with Class 78 as easily as a jigsaw piece. Soon enough, he was smiling and laughing with them, sweating alongside them during sports day, setting up preparations forkyouko's cat cafe suggestion COME ON WE ALL KNOW IT the culture festival... It was almost like he belonged there all along. Best of all, he got to relive his heyday with the gang he sorely missed again. And with each passing day, as a month became almost two, Smash Academy drifted further and further away. He let go of the idea that he was returning in favor of this lifestyle, and all the baggage he carried from the past was shoved away where he didn't have to acknowledge it.
That's why when he awoke from a nap to find himself in a classroom with the Smash emblem printed on a red flag...
----
...he was completely shaken.
[[Ever since AU month sort of came to a close, Mondo's been missing. His stuff isn't gone, so it doesn't seem like he's gone forever, but has he always been this... well, not here? The truth is, he's been gulped up by one of those rips in spacetime and hasn't returned until now. Spooky. Well, just in time for Halloween! Mondo's gonna start moseying around in crisis mode now, so go ahead and run into him if you'd like.I swear I didn't mean to make a KI: Uprising reference; that's not the kind of crisis mode he's in]]
It was always a goddamn desk. Mondo was sure by now that the haziest points of his memory all revolved around this one unremarkable piece of furniture. It had nothing to do with his inability to cogitate class lectures, which were also the number one most fuzzy and tremendously dull moments in his traffic accident of a life. No. It was like a teleportation pad that transported him across voids sundered by his amnesia.
And this was the third time he'd woken up in one without ever recalling sitting down in it.
----
The second time was only a little over a month ago. Was it anymore? Time just didn't make sense the way it used to. There's a classroom. Rows of desks. He wakes up with a head full of cotton and an eyeful of flowing black hair. His sights snap into adjustment in a flash because that's sure not the last thing he remembered seeing. And neither is that teacher he doesn't recognize scrawling on a chalkboard posted in a classroom he doesn't go to and even more earthshaking for him are the identities of the students' backs before him.
They're... Hope's Peak students. Class 78, all here in the living flesh. All here, in the... Mondo ejects himself from his seat from the mental impact, gripping onto the sides of the desk like it was the only thing keeping him from falling over. Really, his thoughts could swirl together and pop out summed up in his next exclamation.
"What the fuck am I doing here?!"
His interruption cuts the string of lecture short and bends everyone's necks around. Most of the looks directed at him are addled, stupefied like they don't know what to tell him or where this outburst came from. Mondo glances around and feels the hot pinpricks of stress sink into him. All of this is strange- their uniforms, their collective presence, this normal-looking situation, the bright sunlight pouring into the room, no bars or bolts blocking the outside world from sight. In the absence of the teacher's retaliation, Kiyotaka is the first to speak up, his face stiffening back into its usual severity.
"What's the meaning of this? It's obvious, isn't it? You're here to learn!"
"No, no! That ain't what I mean! I-I mean..." He struggles to find the words to describe what happened without it sounding crazy.
"Then what are you talking about?" asked Aoi.
"Maybe he fell asleep and forgot he went to class..." Hifumi posited.
Okay, fine. Maybe it had to sound crazy. This entire situation was crazy, so why couldn't he be a little crazy, too? "I fell into a weird hole, and the next thing I know... I wound up here!"
The entire class goes back to staring at him like he was eating his own hair. Then it breaks out into laughter.
"You sure about that??" laughs Leon from the front of the room. "Man, I didn't think I hit your head THAT hard in P.E..."
"Maybe you ate lunch too fast, dude!" Yasuhiro decides to chime in.
This isn't the kind of clarification he wanted at all. Feeling hotter than ever before with shame, he rises to full height and makes his way to the door spouting an excuse to leave.
"Shit... I gotta go to the nurse! See ya!" The door slides open and slides shut with a final thump, leaving the classroom's laughter to die off and the light mood to plummet, heavy with real concern.
In truth, he never went to the nurse. He got carried away by his surroundings, blown away by the fact that this was Hope's Peak, that dim cagelike atmosphere full of students in classrooms and natural lighting. It looked like a real high school, like the kind of high school he wanted to experience. Why was he here all of a sudden? Was this some kind of dream? Everyone seemed to remember him, but it had been clear back then that they remembered things he didn't, and whatever he remembered didn't fit their understanding. All he knew was that it would never make sense to him, and that the culprit was probably a huge lapse in memory. It freaked him out bad.
No matter how fascinating it was to see Hope's Peak operate like a real high school, Mondo was quick to find the exit. Maybe it was ingrained from the time he wanted nothing more than to break free of the trapped feeling, and to him the school was symbolic of despair. The anxiety that the doors and windows would be barred shut again at any moment only quickened his escape.
And then he went... home. God, it had been years since he'd gone home. He went straight home because he wanted to prove to himself that he could, and sure enough, he made it. Without bumming around for long he mounted his precious bike- HIS bike, and went straight to one of the Crazy Diamond's hangouts feeling like he was riding on paradise's clouds. That feeling only intensified when he saw them there, shooting the shit to make night come faster, like it was any old day in the life he left behind. Overjoyed as he was, none of the guys could understand why he was holding back tears and slinging arms around them so much.
He spent the rest of the day with them and didn't look back. It was the best night he'd had in a damn long time.
When he returned home at two in the morning, he was surprised to find both Kiyotaka and Chihiro standing there. Kiyotaka didn't waste a breath before sending barrages of exasperated scolding upon him for interrupting class and lying to skip school, and Chihiro quietly handed him the bag he left behind and didn't even know he had. Beyond mere duty as classmates, they came because they were worried- their persistence in coming, even when it was the middle of the night, was evidence of that. Since they took so much trouble for him, and they were his closer friends from the Hope's Peak mess, he promised he would explain his bizarre situation to them tomorrow.
That said, the next day, nobody understood quite yet why Mondo was acting so strangely. They noticed something about him wasn't 'natural', and there were some whispers about him going crazy for real, but that was about the extent. His classmates were living on a completely different plane now. They would refer to stuff he never personally experienced but technically 'did'. He quickly learned that, just like the members of his gang, they had experienced a different Mondo altogether. It felt like he was some kind of understudy, like he was filling a role left behind by some other Mondo who was missing in action. Like he said he would, he got together with Chihiro and Kiyotaka during lunch period and explained himself to them. He never expected them to understand completely, and they didn't. Could he blame them? It got especially heavy when he summarized the game of mutual killing, that Class 78 was coerced to kill each other, one of their classmates was responsible for orchestrating the whole mess, and that the three of them suffered a cruel fate because of it. He did not have the heart to describe it, nor did he think it was good to go into that sort of gritty who-killed-who detail at that moment, no matter what their curiosities begged of him. As wacky as Mondo's story seemed, they could not help but believe him due to how sincere his emotions seemed when detailing it. In the end, he confessed with dismay that he could not remember a single day of their more carefree high school lives, and that if they could fill him in, he would be grateful. They were impacted greatly by this and all the other revelations and were more than happy to support their friend with his difficulties. Mondo was still Mondo, even if he had forgotten parts of himself.
He could have told the whole class about his predicament, but it felt impossible when the mastermind herself was walking around. That's why with most everyone else, he cut off more of his explanation and they only understood that he was experiencing some memory problems. Over time, he knew he would need to warn everybody of Junko's future designs. He just wasn't sure how to keep Junko from eventually catching wind that they were onto her.
The first week of his new life was the strangest and took a bit of adjustment on his part. He often wondered when he would wake up from what must be one of those 'alternate universe' things and couldn't detach himself from the idea that this wasn't real somehow. Even though they no longer shared the same stream of memories, Mondo got a glimpse of what everyone's friendships were like, and even the nature of some of his own, unspoiled by the mar of murder and despair. Ironically, it was his own side of the relationship that he couldn't peer into, which was completely ass backwards. He could only guess, and that was easy enough. As time went on, even without memories of the past 6 months he'd forgotten, he fell into place with Class 78 as easily as a jigsaw piece. Soon enough, he was smiling and laughing with them, sweating alongside them during sports day, setting up preparations for
That's why when he awoke from a nap to find himself in a classroom with the Smash emblem printed on a red flag...
----
...he was completely shaken.
[[Ever since AU month sort of came to a close, Mondo's been missing. His stuff isn't gone, so it doesn't seem like he's gone forever, but has he always been this... well, not here? The truth is, he's been gulped up by one of those rips in spacetime and hasn't returned until now. Spooky. Well, just in time for Halloween! Mondo's gonna start moseying around in crisis mode now, so go ahead and run into him if you'd like.
no subject
"Still. Hagakure, uh... Older, Baby-Daddy Hagakure, I mean. He told me about what Hope's Peak was like. The stuff you would remember. I guess..." he shrugged. "At least you got to spend a little time with your classmates in a more normal environment. I bet that was pretty OK."
He pulled some keys out of his pocket and his truck beeped loudly. It was a large, white pickup truck with a huge tray in back and a few dings and scratches. (Well. It WAS second hand. He couldn't afford anything brand new just yet.)
Aaaaaaaah
"Yeah, it had its ups and downs. It was interesting. I learned lots about them, and maybe a bit about myself." He couldn't resist cracking a grin and adding, "By the way, Hagakure's still a screwball, while we're on the topic. He tried hatching chicken eggs in his armpits, for one..."
no subject
"In his armpits, huh? I would've figured that bird's nest he calls a hairdo would'a worked. Then again, maybe he doesn't have enough blood flow to his brain to keep the little buggers warm up there?"
That COULD explain a few things.
Joel's truck roared into life and he started to pull out of the parking lot.
"If I'm bein' truthful, I kind of envy you. Man... there's not much I wouldn't give to spend a little time in my world before things went to crap. You're a lucky kid, Mondo."
no subject
He'd never told Joel about the darkest patch of his past. During the times spent sawing away in the woodshop, they'd fill some of their time with talk. He mentioned his older brother from time to time, especially whenever he relapsed into talking about his bike gang. Instead of lying about how he was always one step better than his big brother like he used to when covering up his past, he gave off more of an impression that Daiya was really hot shit, and he was proud to call him his bro. He solemnly recalled that one event he used to always cover up with lies and how, if he could reset his life to any point at all, it would be just before then.
no subject
"Never know, Mondo. Might happen that way. This place don't run on normal rules... next time you go back, it might be for keeps. You might get to do just that."
How great would that be? He wouldn't turn down an offer like that.
"You probably got a better chance'n I do. The area of the woods I wandered through to get here got blasted all to shit when that bomb went off."
no subject
He would have gotten excited about realizing he could leap through it all over again, but he'd already tried that stunt. The portal had vanished. What a bust...
no subject
He left the thought unfinished. It was too big of a risk. He might wind up somewhere worse, abandoning both his old life and his new one in the process.
"If I could get back to before the infection, I'd want to take you with. Even for just a little while." he said, concentrating on the road. "Show you Texas. Hell, we could rent a couple Harleys... My... uh. My Brother. Tommy n Me did that one year. I think you'd enjoy it."
He'd never mentioned Tommy before. Even when Mondo had talked about his own Brother, Joel had kept his under wraps. Still. It seemed like an OK time to chat about it.
no subject
no subject
Well. Joel wasn't going to correct him. The kid was Japanese, after all. They probably had a different idea of what made a bike great.
"...Tommy's my Baby Brother. Well, I say Baby but he's only a little younger'n me. He's a good guy. You'd like him. He's uh... He's got this thing about being hopeful. Comes to him real easy."
Tommy had always been the optimistic one of the two brothers. And it had caused no end of friction. It was also the reason Tommy had joined up with the goddamn Fireflies... Still. He had a Wife now, and was helping to run one of the few functional and independent communities left in the United States. His capacity for hope could probably be blamed for that, too.
no subject
"Hopeful, huh? Yeah, that sounds pretty nice. 'Specially for a little bro," he agreed. He pictured him always encouraging Joel whenever things were tough and inspiring him to face off against even unlikely odds. It seemed like a welcome presence to have around.
no subject
Really, all it had meant was that they had butted heads a lot. Tommy trying to find a way to save the whole damn world and Joel trying to teach him to just accept reality and understand what life was now. Pain and struggle and death, later rather than sooner if you could figure out how to do it.
"Anyway, I know he would'a thought you were a great kid. Me and Him rented Harleys one year for his Birthday. Took 'em cross country."
He remembered telling Henry this story. How Henry had asked - almost begged - for details. Joel hadn't been able to bring himself to go into specifics. He'd just been so used to keeping to himself. Coupled with the fact that he barely knew Henry. Mondo was a different story.
"It was pretty damn great."