Bandaged with Lies

As the days go by

Yo! So as a bit of forewarning for this chapter: It's really long. To explain, it's essentially an anthology of short stories of the days leading up to when Kokichi and Mikan hang out! While it's not 100% essential, the stories are pretty good in my opinion, and some of them will contain clues for future twists. Also: This will have the first namedrop of the serial killer! If you want to skip around, then:
Kokichi's first POV: A cute story with Gonta
Mikan's first POV: Her and Ibuki spend some time together!
Kokichi's second POV: Some tension in the class
Mikan's second POV: Maki comes in to get some wounds treated
Kokichi's third POV: Conclusion to his and Gonta's tale
Mikan's third POV: Sonia gets sick, so her and Mikan chat
Hope you enjoy!

Kokichi's POV:

The next night, I went to the courtyard. It was the first time in a while that I didn't have the members of D.I.C.E. to entertain me. If it turned out to be boring, I had a contingency plan of playing video games afterward- but for now, this was fairly unexplored territory for me.

Honestly, despite it being pretty, the courtyard was really boring looking. With the different array of ultimates here, I would have expected something a bit more grandiose- but I guess they had to keep the appearance of a "prim and proper school", even if its students were anything but.

At some point during my exploring, I found that my legs were starting to get tired. The campus was huge, so it was taking a while to explore everything- even if most of it looked the same. Sitting down on a bench, I take a better look at where I was. It was mostly dark, except for a building made of glass that had its lights on. I recognized this as the research area for the ultimate entomologist, Gonta Gokuhara.

I found myself looking at it closely, absentmindedly taking in the black silhouettes of the bugs flying around. Something was "bugging" me though. The light was on, but I didn't see the silhouette of that giant teddy bear Gonta. He didn't seem like the type to waste power, so I had to wonder where he was.

That was answered quickly when I heard a voice behind me- "Oh, Kokichi! What you doing out here so late?" he asked in his usual grammatically incorrect way.

"I'm looking for fireflies!" I lied, putting on an air of excitement. Gonta's mouth went agape in surprise, before smiling. "That great to hear Kokichi! But it still too early for fireflies to appear, even though they very pretty." he says, his smile turning a bit bashful. "Darn, I was wondering why I wasn't finding any." I say, laughing it off.

"But it nice to know that Kokichi care about bugs!" says Gonta, seemingly trying to cheer me up. "Maybe we can discuss them?" he asks, getting into it. Now, everyone in class claims to hate lies, but this is one I know we all told: "Suuuuuure, I love bugs!" I say. Normally, Gonta is the least threatening being on earth, but if you dare say you don't like bugs around him... well, let's just say his power gets "over 9000!"

"Great! Then we can start now! Gonta was just bringing bugs some food." he says, smiling and leading me to his bug sanctuary. I do my best to keep up my happy facade, despite the utter disgust I felt on the inside.

As we walked down the path towards the brightly lit building, Gonta seemed to become more pensive. And soon enough... "Gonta happy that Kokichi agree to come with Gonta. Gonta know that others don't really want Gonta to spend time with Kokichi... but whenever Gonta look at Kokichi, he always seem so lonely..." he says, the thought seemingly having been on his mind for quite a while.

"Awww, are you worried about me Gonta?" I ask in a semi teasing manner. He takes a few moments, before answering "Gonta suppose so..."

We finally reach the insect house- it's every inch as disgusting as I imagined it. Bugs crawled and flew all over the place. My smile almost falters as Gonta shows me around for what felt like hours, beaming the entire time. "Woooow that's so interesting-" I say, choking back the urge to vomit at a wriggly worm.