Dangan Ronpa: Unser Sommerende/Do You Want to Know a Secret?

I don’t remember the location super well, it could’ve been anywhere, but I still remember the card she gave me and what it said, down to the very last word:

‘HURRAY! YOU’RE INVITED!’

The font was large and chunky, with a bright colour and confetti drawn around it. Under it was smaller, black text, written in a round and unsatisfying font:

‘On September 6th, I’m gonna be having my 16th birthday and stuff! There’s gonna be games and a cake and music and dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets and more! I’m just having it in my room at midday, so it might be a tiny bit cramped, but I hope that’s not a problem! We can all go somewhere else if it’s too small, anyway, but... Oh no, I’m running out of room on the card! Maybe I shouldn’t type about how I’m running out of room since that takes up room as well, so’

The text ended there, accompanied with a messy drawing of a penguin with a party hat.

Now, the average person would have questions to ask, definitely. Stuff like ‘Aren’t you a bit old for Pin the tail on the donkey?’ and ‘If you were running out of room, why’d you draw a penguin?’. All good questions, but I had the most important one, one that the average person would be much too afraid to ask.

“Will the cake be poisoned?”

“No, Charlotte, not at all!” Amber shook her head, ponytail flapping about. “There’s no preservatives, either, and it’s lactose free! Since, um, I know that you’re lactose intolerant.”

I began to sweat. “H-how did you know that? You’ve been spying on me, haven’t you?”

“You mentioned it at the cafeteria two days ago.”

“And why were you listening in on me?”

“We were talking directly to each other...” Her expression grew weary and sorrowful, and I felt a little less tensed up.

“O-okay, I forgot about that. Sorry.”

“Mhm...” Ugh, she just looked sadder and sadder... Poor thing...

“Are you okay?”

“Well, it’s just... I gave you an invitation to my party, and then...” Oh no, she was going to start sniffling, wasn’t she? Oh no no no, her eyes, aaah, they were so big and damp! She looked like a baby seal who can’t find her mommy, that’s too much for me, that’s...

“I’ll come!” I say, unable to stand the sight of her frown any longer. I could feel myself lose all willpower to think critically as I should have, and reiterated, “I’ll come, and I always wanted to come in the first place, a-alright? Please smile again...”

“I-I’ll try!” She instantly lifted her head up and forced a smile, which quickly faded. “... But it’s not just about that, it’s your general attitude. Most of the time you’ve very very unhappy, and that makes me sad. Whenever you talk to someone, you look scared and angry, and, and it’s sad, sad, sad...”

I gulped, feeling myself getting swayed by her emotions again. “Amber, we need to be a bit reasonable about this, uh, I don’t trust people for a reason, alright? Does that make sense?”

She tilted her head. “Go on?”

“Uh.” I looked around, and, seeing nobody else nearby, I pulled her in close to me, whispering “Promise not to tell anyone, but they’re out for me.”

“Who?”

“Them. The powers that be.”

She paused, and looked down at my shirt, probably reading its important command to everyone: WAKE UP. Maybe she’d get a good idea or two from it. “The powers that be... You mean like, aliens or lizards or something?”

“Both. And more. It’s way too complicated, okay? Just know that I need to be careful, so no hard feelings if you ever think I’m being rude.”

“Um, okay, but how complicated is it?”

“... Look, if you actually want to hear it, we shouldn’t just be whispering about it in a public place, o-okay?”

“But nobody’s listening to us-”

“See, that’s why you need to be careful, they probably ARE listening to us, and... Oh god, we really need to stop this whispering thing right now before it’s too late.”

“Um, I think I know too much already. Are they coming for me too?”

I stopped and consider it. “... Well, we’re whispering, so maybe not.”

“Then we shouldn’t stop whispering, yes?”

“But it’s getting awkward having to whisper constantly like this!...”

“Whoa. Don’t shout whisper, they might hear you, right?”

“O-okay, look, we’re getting carried away now. Just... If you really, actually want to know more, come to my room at 9:30.”

“That’s past my bedtime.”

“Do you want to know the truth or not?”

“Um... Maybe 9:25 instead?”

“Yes, okay, sure, great.” I finally managed to stop grabbing onto her and backed off to talk at normal volume. “Wow, what a great conversation about innocuous topics we just had!”

“Huh?” She stared at me in the blankest confusion, before noticing the intensely fearful quivering of my innocuous smile. “Ohhhhhhh. Yeah, that was a really nice and normal discussion, wasn’t it, Mr. Penpen?” She waved her penguin’s flipper around, speaking on its behalf. “Yeah, totally! In fact, I wanna come to Charlotte’s room too! It sounds like fun!” She giggled, before turning to me with the penguin clutched tightly to her body. “Um, he can come too, right?”

I stared closely at the toy. It’s beady eyes were blank and reflective... But I couldn’t make out any hidden cameras, so I reluctantly nodded. “Alright... But I’ve got my eye on you, Mr. Penpen.”

Time went by excruciatingly slowly once the clock went past my usual sleepy time, since I spent all of it staring at the clock, waiting for half past nine to arrive.

I was so focused on the clock that I almost forgot what I was going to do when the time came.

Fortunately, I didn’t forget.

Phew.

I knocked on Charlotte’s door, Penpen in tow, and it immediately slid ajar just a tiny bit, a blue eye intensely peeking through the empty space.

“... I can’t actually see enough to tell who it is.”

“It’s me, Amber.”

“Okay, good, thanks.”

She opened the door further, letting me in, and I shut the door behind me.

By the time I had turned around, Charlotte had already taken her place on her bed, like she’d teleported there or something. This wouldn’t be remarkable normally, since the rooms in Wish’s Apex all had the bed positioned relatively close to the door, but Charlotte’s room was like no other - even though it had the same layout as the others, the whole place was covered with paper! It wasn’t strewn about in a mess, either, everything looked organised. Well, it LOOKED organised. There was just so much of it, I had no idea. Every piece of paper had a pin on it, and string lines connecting each one to another, usually there were multiple pieces of string going from each one. The strings came in all kinds of colours, which was probably since it’d be impossible to distinguish them from each other if they all looked the same, there were that many! They crossed over each other and went everywhere and it was all a bit overwhelming. There was paper pinned to the walls, paper stapled to the ceiling, even the floor was covered almost entirely... That’s why I was so surprised at Charlotte’s nimble navigation to her bed, the only place that hadn’t been all papered up.

“I told you it’d be complicated.” Charlotte said, noticing how I was gazing all around her place. I couldn’t tell you how long I’d been looking about by that point, there was just so much stuff! Where was I supposed to start? Where was I even supposed to stand?! But it was too late to go back, I’d already stayed up past my bedtime for her. It’s not like I had anything left to lose, right?

“Um, I can see that. But I’m not going to let it discourage me!” I held my head high, not wanting to disappoint my new friend. She nodded, looking a little relieved at my enthusiasm.

“Good to hear. Now, first thing’s first, you’re going to have to come over here so we don’t have to talk so loudly.”

I looked down at the paper ocean between us. “Walk over that? But what if I crumple the papers?...”

“There’s a path, don’t worry, it’s just a little hard to make out at first. Do you need me to guide you through it?”

I looked around at the floor for a few more moments, unable to make out a single spot where I could lay a foot down without trampling the snowy rectangles. Deary me, this was going to be tough. If she was able to cross without a sound, there had to have been a way through, certainly, but... How precise was it going to be? The way forward was practically invisible, so my only choice was to follow her instructions as closely as possible. I trust her! She knows what she’s doing! But I’m still afraid of messing up. Here goes nothing...

“Um, I’m ready.”

“Gotcha, so first you need to take your left foot... There.” She enunciated ‘there’ very slowly, as she pointed at a spot in front of me.

“Here?” I pointed at the spot.

“At little further right.” I adjusted my hand as she said. “The other right.” Gosh, I’m trying. “There, so just slide your foot in, under that sheet of evidence. It should accommodate your shoe without damaging anything.”

I lifted my foot to do so, but I found myself shaking it around a bit, not because of a lack of balance, more just because of nervousness... But I managed! Soon enough, my foot was cosy and stable underneath the nearest sheet.

“Yay! How many more times do I need to do that?”

“Dunno. Never really counted."

I gulped. “I-is there any faster way to get over to you?”

“Hmm... Well... You could step on top of the papers.”

“Wait, whaaaaaat?”

“It’s no big deal, if they get torn or something, I can just sticky tape them back together. I would’ve mentioned that before if I knew you were going to be so cautious and slow-moving and stuff.”

“Sorry...”

“N-no, don’t look sad! I’m fine with that, seriously! I just don’t wanna see you get worried about this, okay? We’re here to smile and have a good time and unearth classified government documents, so no pressure to be perfect, yeah?”

“Y-yeah, you’re right.” I smiled, looking forward to unearthing classified government documents, whatever those were. It sounded fun though, and I couldn’t help but think about what they could be as I walked across the kinda noisy sheets of paper. “So, we’re gonna unearth them? Is it like unearthing an Egyptian pyramid and finding treasure or something?”

She sighed loudly. “They weren’t built by Egyptians, they were built by aliens, that’s beginner stuff, Amber. I guess you’re a complete beginner, huh?”

“Woah... Y-yeah, I don’t really know anything yet, hehe!”

Oh my gosh, that sounded so cool. Alien pyramids, were they gonna be like, secret spaceships with hidden rocket boosters? Maybe beacons for alien messages to Earth? My mind was racing with possibilities as I pulled myself onto Charlotte’s bed, which was orderly and neat, but with an intricate pattern on the sheet. Complicated yet not messy at all, just like the rest of her room! That’s awesome.

“I love the motif your place has, by the way."

“What motif?”

“Just the way the room is themed and designed and it obviously has a lot of effort and thought put into it, it’s super cool! I love it!”

Charlotte made a face like she was taken aback by my compliments, dwelling on them for a bit. “Um... I didn’t really think about it a lot, I just bought this blanket because it looked nice, and the rest of my room is blank, so...”

“Yeah, you make a great impression while using so little, it’s impressive.”

“... Th-thanks.” She still looked a bit confused, but I could see her smiling a little. I think that was the first time I ever saw her smile, and it was super encouraging! Maybe she was even starting to see me as my friend, yay. She didn’t smile for too long, though, changing into a determined, calm look. “Anyways, lets get into this, shall we?”

“Sure, but I’m kinda thirsty.”

“U-uh, sure, I’ll fetch a drink for you, just a moment.”

True to my word, I got a glass of water and another glass for her penguin. I had to get the water out of my stored up water bottle collection - tap water is full of dangerous, experimental chemicals in the water, so there was no way I’d let Amber drink any more of that. Considering the stuff it did to amphibians, imagine the effects on humans!... Effects that would manifest any day now.

We finally got underway, and I began my explanation of the entire theory of, well, everything. I had forgotten why I set out to make the theory, or what the centre of it was originally, ‘cause it had grown out of that scope years and years back. At this point, the theory not only explained the things that the one world government sought to hide from the world, but it also detailed the very fabric of reality itself. I mean, I was PRETTY sure I had everything down right, but it was nice to have someone over to give a second opinion on it all.

“Okay, so where do we start?” My newfound apprentice asked with bright eyes. Honestly, a very good question, since there wasn’t any one particular place I had in mind for a launching point into the explanations.

“Hm...” I lifted a finger, swivelled my head to my right, and pointed at a random paper on the wall opposite the bed. “There.”

Amber looked at the paper, or at least, she looked at a spot that was probably slightly off from where I was pointing. She placed her flat hand above her eyes, focusing in. “The writing’s awfully small.”

“Yep, I have to fit a lot on there. No need to worry, I have just the thing...” I tuned over and launched an arm behind my pillow, rummaging and procuring a pair of binoculars.

“Ooh. Do you only have that one pair?”

“Yeah, I never really expected anybody to come and ask for a second. I’m fine without one, so go ahead.”

I held the tool out and she eagerly took it off me, and smiled as she looked through those two ocular portals. She leaned closer to where the paper is, and slowly frowned.

“Um, I can make the writing out now, but it’s very messy.”

“W-well, I wasn’t writing for anyone else, so I might’ve rushed a little. Y’know what, maybe I should read it out to you.”

“Hm, okay...” She took off the binoculars and gave the back to me, but when I started looking through them, I didn’t get a chance to read anything out before she said, “You know, even if you aren’t writing something you plan to show somebody, it can still be very fulfilling to practice calligraphy and improve your technique.”

“Yeah, cool, whatever.”

“No, really, it’s great fun, too, especially when I do it with my buddies!”

“You know people who wanna spend time doing calligraphy?”

“Well, just one, actually. Molly’s style is really pleasant to look at, I bet you’d change your tune if you saw it.”

“Ugh, not her.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot you two don’t get along... Still, you gotta have some kind of pastime you enjoy, right?”

I lower my binoculars so she can see me rolling my eyes. “I have way more important things to do than finding new hobbies, alright? We need to get into this right away, we don’t have all night.”

“Ah, I can come tomorrow if you’d like.”

“We’ll see."

I skimmed over the page, recognising its topic and place in my overarching interpretation of the inner humanity and outer cosmos and the like. I promptly explained the page’s contents, bit by bit, in as much detail as I could manage. Whenever I glanced back at Amber, she nodded along, assuring me that I was less incoherent than people thought. So, when I asked her if she was keeping up, I expected her to have a real grasp of what I’d told her so far.

“I think I understand... But who’s Dan Cooper?”

“I told you who he was at the start of the page...”

“Oh... Well that was ten minutes ago, and I think you mentioned twenty other things I don’t know.”

I rested my binoculars on the bed and sighed. “Maybe something’s just ruining your focus, I dunno...” I flopped backwards, my head cushioned by the pillow. Man, how was I going to get through this? There was so much to get through, and I had never tried to really explain my ideas to someone like this until now. There had to be some way to make it easier...

I suddenly felt something touch against my hair, and I look to see Amber’s hand on my hat. Wait, is she?!... No, she took her hand back, uh... I think she was just stopping it from falling off. Phew, that was close, the government’s mind-numbing signals would’ve... Ohhhh, that’s the problem!

“Hey, I think I know what we have to do now!” I shot up and Amber looked at me with a mix of curiosity and excitement, and that was more than enough encouragement for me to reach my bedside drawer (which was also covered in notes) and pull out a spare sheet of paper. “The reason you can’t keep up with me is because you don’t have protection from 5G! Whenever I tell you about one of these forbidden topics, the memories leak right out of your ears, so it’s no use trying until you’re equipped to deal with it.”

“Huh?”

“Exactly! But you’ll understand as soon as I make another...” I stoped talking as I focused on the paper, and, in a snappy few seconds, I had folded and crafted a paper sailor’s hat, just like mine, and planted it on Amber’s head, fitting snugly. If the hat fits, wear it. Her little mouth opened up into a little o shape as her eyes sparkled.

“You do origami?!”

“Uh, I guess?”

“See, I knew it! You do have a hobby! Ohh, origami’s so cool, I’ve always wanted to meet someone who...”

Alright, I guess we won’t be talking about my theories for another hour or so. I mean, she’s as annoying as you’d think, so I don’t mind. Plus, she hasn’t poisoned me yet, so that’s top shelf.

I was getting so so sleepy, but I was still so so interested. I made it a point not to look at the time, since it could make me extra tired if I knew just how late it was... But it must’ve been close to sunrise at this point!...

“Hey, it’s half past ten, maybe it’s time to grab some more water?” Charlotte asked.

“Half past ten in the morning?!”

“Half past ten at night.”

“O-oh.”

Seriously? Just an hour... I hadn’t been up past my bedtime in five years, but even then, I wouldn’t have expected time to move nearly this slow. But that was a good thing, actually! I was enjoying myself, so it was good for that to last as long as possible, right? The happiness that realisation brought was enough to perk me up and fill me with zest for the rest of the night, there was no way I’d let myself snooze off now!

“I’ve got no need for water, let’s keep going!”

Charlotte smiled at me. Yes, another rare Charlotte smile! “Great! To be honest, I’m the one who needs the water, since I’ve had to do so much talking.”

“Ooh, I’ll get it for you!”

“Ah, great!... But make sure you-”

“Don’t worry, I won’t get it from the tap!”

Charlotte’s eyebrows lifted up a bit, and then she smiled again. “Yep, that’s right. You’re learning so quickly, it’s crazy...”

As I walked off to her wardrobe, my mind finally caught a break from the intense lessons, not that it needed one. It gave me a chance to wonder how Charlotte even figured this stuff out in the first place, though, like... So many people in this planet, and she was the one to find out all this cool stuff. Lucky her! But I kinda wanted answers to that question a lot more than I wanted answers to whether or not the Loch Ness Monster is a time traveller.

But how to start that kind of conversation? Hmm...

“Hey,” I started as I came back with the drink, “I was kinda wondering, um... What’s... That tattoo sorta thing on your face?”

“Aah, that?” She smoothly placed her pointer finger right in the middle of her forehead cross. “Uh... I forget?”

“Nuh-uh!”

“No, I’m serious! I kind of forgot!”

“Kind of?~ C’mon...”

“... Ah, fine, not like there’s a point in hiding it.” My friend said with a yawn, before lying on her side, her eyes shifting to one side as they recalled the past. “It’s a reminder for me. I don’t really need it to remember, but since it’s been buried in years of research and discoveries, I keep it on my face, just in case.”

“Huh.” I paused with a finger on my chin, pondering the vagueness. “But what does it remind you to do?”

“It reminds me to remember, silly.”

“Ahaha, I see, but what’s the thing you need to remember?”

“The reason why I began this whole project in the first place.” As she continued, Charlotte seemed increasingly distant. “... Years and years ago, back when I was in kindergarten, I had this friend... We were pretty much best buds, yeah? And then she’s just gone. One day she stops coming to school. It’s as simple as that, it’s not a complicated story, heh... But I was devastated, especially since I had no idea what happened to her. That’s why I started a list of possibilities, of ways she could’ve disappeared, to try and pinpoint an answer. One thing led to another, and my investigations kind of spun out of control into what you can see all around us. I guess finding her isn’t my main goal any more... But she’s alive. She has to be. And, uh...” She sat up again, eyes focusing into reality again. “That’s why I got the X, y’see. X marks the spot, and that spot has to be somewhere. You catch my drift?”

I didn’t know what to say at first.

This sounded very familiar.

There’s no way...

I slowly raised a finger, gesturing towards her, and...

“... Are you THAT Charlotte?”

She gave me a puzzled look, before her eyes slowly opened up super wide.

“... You’re not THAT Amber, are you?”

We stared at each other a little longer, and well, yeah. She’s that Charlotte, and I’m that Amber. I hadn’t fully grasped it by the time my old friend had tackled me and was hugging me super tightly. There wasn’t a need to speak, both of us understanding well how much this meant. It probably meant a lot more to her than to me, since I had befriended so many other people before we met again, but since I couldn’t say the same for her...

... Oh gosh, then I got a look at her eyes, they looked like the eyes of a baby seal who couldn’t find her mommy.

“Hey, there’s no need to cry! It’s all fine, alright? It’s all good...”

“Sh-shush!” She managed to get out in a choked up voice.

“Eheh... Okay, I’ll shush.”