Gentle Rocking of the Ship [Penelope]

Asher was forcing a smile onto his face so that if anyone came near him, they would think he was just fine. Truthfully, he wasn’t really happy. Everyone else seemed upset, and that made him upset. But negativity from him would just make things worse, wouldn’t it? Wait hold on, wouldn’t two negatives cancel out and become positive? Like in math? No, no, in his experience that didn’t work out. And… well, there were sixteen people, and one was sleeping so she couldn’t be negative or positive, so he had to offset the negatives, right? Well, maybe. Whatever. A smile couldn’t hurt anyone but himself.

However, a purple haired girl sat in front of him and Asher forced his smile to grow even bigger, to the point it almost hurt his face to smile. “I don’t think it’s taken. Unless Captain Monokuma stole it, then someone is probably missing their chair.” He hoped that the captain hadn’t stolen the chair just for them to use. Now he was starting to feel bad about using a stolen chair… if of course it had been stolen. But there was still that possibility so it was slightly upsetting to him. “Did you find any food yet?” Sure, they just started looking and he was the first one to really just run off, but there was still a possibility she found something.

Especially since he was just sitting here and not really looking. Damn. Maybe he should be looking. People would be angry if he didn’t look. His pants still had the blood on them, and it was a little bit cold. Oh well, he’d change his pants later. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to bloo–

He leaned back in his chair a little too far and soon found himself falling back, hitting the ground as the sound of wood hitting wood rang through his ears. Asher quickly jumped to his feet and smiled nervously at Penelope. “I’m alright!” He didn’t want her to worry about him, make her feel more upset because of him, when she was already upset because of the sleeper, probably.

Penelope Baron

Asher continued to smile as widely as he could despite the fact that he felt like he was just making things worse. When he had mentioned the captain stealing the chair her smile seemed to falter and Asher nearly dropped his smile, but then he remembered that the smile would make her feel better, in the end, because happiness was contagious, just like hope and despair. He couldn’t let her be sad, and the least he could do was smile to try to make her feel happier.

“I don’t think anyone will die. I don’t think anyone wants anyone else to die bad enough. I mean… it doesn’t matter how hungry we get, we’ll always like each other right?” Unless they got into a fight and Asher got upset and wished them dead and then cried into his bed until the wee hours of the night to discover that hours later they had died. All because they had a fight and he wished them dead. Sometimes Asher wondered if the world was better off without him, without him hurting other people, without him constantly causing dangerous situations and catching things on fire. But, the least he could do since he was still alive, was to try to prevent people from being sad.

“Oh yeah, I’m alright. I fall all the time.” Asher said as Penelope went to get a cloth and wetted it. “I’ve had a lot worse than this.” He looked at his hand as she wrapped the cloth around it. “Ha! I remember once I accidently started a fire and that’s why I have this scar.” He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a nasty burn scar all the way down his leg. “Was lucky it wasn’t worse, but the school wasn’t happy when they had to rebuild the whole side of the school.”

Penelope Baron

Asher laughed when she said that he could be Good Luck instead of the SHSL Heir. He knew that most people didn’t think he was a good Heir, but the people at the school insisted that he was the SHSL Heir, so he must be, it had to be true because so many people said it was true. It didn’t matter what the others thought, it didn’t matter how his friends teased him and said it wasn’t true, it had to be true. The school said it was true. They were the one’s who made the decision. His friends had to be wrong, because the school was the ultimate say in everything.

“Nah, I’m the Heir. Nothing else.” Asher’s smile faded ever so slightly before growing back forth even stronger than before. No, he could let the smile fade. He had to make her happy, he had to positive.

“Oh don’t say that. They’re just… shy. I bet if I ran up to them and talked to them they would be a lot happier. Why would they be dangerous? I mean, we’re just on a ship. It’s not like anyone can die here.” Asher laughed heartily. His entire understanding of death seemed to be completely different than anyone else. That Teruru was just sleeping and upsetting everyone else and that made him angry. When he had to face the fact that people didn’t die the way he thought they did… well, he would cross that bridge when he came to it, even if he didn’t know he was going to cross the bridge soon.

“What’s a roofie?” Poor, poor sheltered existence of Asher Black. He was fully unprepared for everything that was going to happen.

“Of course! You’ll be the first one I call… and… thank you for being nice to me. Most people find me annoying. I just… want to make everyone happy.” Angie was the one who shoved him away from Teruru when he was trying to wake her up, Teruru was mean to him already, and really he hadn’t the chance to interact with anyone else yet. He just… wanted everyone to be happy, and he didn’t want to annoy people or make them want to hurt him. He just wanted peace.

Penelope Baron