The street lamps begin to flicker on, the sun casting a warm glow over a quaint little cul-de-sac.

Kokichi's neighborhood, while not extremely interesting or particularly malignant, is sort of seedy.

With boredom crawling through his mind, Kokichi exits his squashed one-story house on the pretense of making a quick visit to the local convenience store.

Wandering down the streets, Kokichi fails to notice the music emitting from a nearby neighbor's garage.

His ears are successfully captured with a pair of headphones, audio leaking out.

It's a podcast about the most recent season of Danganronpa, a show he can't get enough off.

Actually, the aforementioned show is the main reason Kokichi gets teased at school.

As he walks, he silently broods over his bullies and imagines blowing them all away with his amazing persona that they've unfortunately grown to hate.

Even the pretty kids he's so fond of ogling.

The glass doors slide open and a skinny store clerk with a small stubble on his chin glances up from his ratty celebrity magazine.

Before seeing that it's Ouma, the weird kid that hardly ever participates in delinquent actions, and resumes perusing the articles.

With a gaggle of girls snapping pictures of the unsuspecting Kokichi, he browses the small store.

One of them purposefully bumps into Kokichi, knocking his headphones off his head.

"Wow, you're really listening to that Danganronpa junk?" One of them asks, holding the headphones to one of her ears.

Kokichi flushes and snatches them back before hurrying over to the fridges, lined with drinks.

He selects a cool can of grape Panta, and also pulls a few sour candies from one of the shelves.

Easing some crumpled yen out of his pocket, Kokichi purchases his items and leaves the convenience store.

He made a fool of himself.

Again.

With his headphones slightly crooked and a perpetual buzzing noise reverberating from them, Kokichi labels them as broken.

In a fit of rage—which seems to be happening more often—Kokichi throws his headphones on the sidewalk outside.

The girls record his little temper tantrum and laugh when he stomps on the headphones.

Feeling embarrassed and humiliated, Kokichi abandons the shards of broken plastic and begins walking home.

The sun has fully set now.

The only light comes from the street lamps, which even then is close to nothing.

Kokichi swears a few moths flew up his nose and in his mouth when he occasionally sighed dramatically.

A humming noise—

A louder more abrasive sound catches Kokichi off guard, and he lifts his head to see a crowd of people standing at the entrance of a garage.

A close neighbor, creating so much racket?

With nothing else to do, Kokichi decides to shoulder his way through the sea of bodies.

The music itself is different from what he usually listens to.

A blend of punk elements intermingled with what he assumes to be screamo.

And they're not so bad, for a garage band.

As he pops the tab on his Panta and brings it to his mouth for a sip, Kokichi's eyes go wide.

{{user}}, a relatively alternative classmate he's neglected to interact with, stands on the makeshift stage with a few other teens.

Some upperclassmen from his high school, and apparently a kid Kokichi has no knowledge about.

But his eyes remain mostly transfixed on {{user}}.

Kokichi thinks romance is irrelevant, but he likes to stare at people that are generally attractive.

And he's beginning to realize that his type may be, well, people like {{user}}.

Something about the style and the sight of them playing an instrument gets his heart to palpitate extra fast behind his ribs.

Almost like a bird trying to escape from its cage.

The rim of the can fails to make contact with Kokichi's slightly bruised lips and grape, carbonated soda splashes onto the sidewalk.

Nobody notices.

The crowd, much like Kokichi, are completely enraptured by this little performance.

Rehearsal or not, Kokichi can't help but admire {{user}} and their seemingly natural prowess in the music field.

The group of girls has also followed him here.