In my timezone, this chapter has been published on the 16th of August - that is, Fuyuhiko's birthday. Happy birthday Fuyuhiko!

As noted in the previous chapter, from the next chapter onwards the romance - which I'm sure many of you are here for - will finally begin to occur. It'll be subtle at first, but as the story progresses it will gradually come to the forefront. If you're reading this story for the friendship, and unwilling to stick around for the romance, then I'd consider Chapter 10 the ideal cutoff point.

Thank you all once again for the amazing feedback you have given me. I hope you continue to enjoy this story!

Chapter 10: The Jumpstart

The music venue was deathly silent. All eyes were on Kazuichi, who, in turn, was furiously glaring at Fuyuhiko. Despite his anger, his palms were sweating, and he was shuddering intensely. He knew that the cold had nothing to do with it, as it was quite warm in the building.

He turned his head away from the look of hurt etched across Fuyuhiko's face. No. He wasn't going to fall for that. He wasn't going to feel sad when they made it through the class trial and watched Fuyuhiko's horrifying execution, despite the fact that it was hard not to. Fuyuhiko was a ruthless, manipulative murderer who'd played him like a fiddle, and for the sake of the survival of himself and the other students still alive, he had to expose Fuyuhiko as the kind of person he really was.

"You're seriously accusin' me of havin' killed them?" Fuyuhiko eventually spoke up in disbelief, breaking the unbearable silence. "Even after I opened up to you guys? Even after I promised not to hurt anyone anymore? Even after I sliced open my own stomach? Don't be ridiculous, Kazuichi."

"Any Yakuza can intentionally harm themselves and barely feel any pain to begin with," Kazuichi countered. "Yakuza also have exceptional skill in deceit and manipulation. These girls-" he gestured towards the lifeless bodies of Ibuki and Hiyoko, lying on the stage and taped to the right-hand pillar respectively "-were the two students, besides myself, who have forgiven you most openly in their own ways. Ibuki threw a recovery party for you, and Hiyoko forgave you for orchestratin' the death of someone she considered a sister. And you paid them back by taking their lives!?"

"Oooh, this is intense," Monokuma commented, twitching with excitement and interest in the argument between the two boys. "Someone gimme some popcorn!"

"No, this stops right now!" Monomi shouted from the stage. She frowned at Fuyuhiko and Kazuichi in turn, clearly disappointed. "Please stop fighting! The only way this situation will improve is if we all get along and-"

"Shut up!" Kazuichi interrupted. "I'm not gonna get along with a sociopathic murderer! H-he could've killed me too, because I blindly trusted him!"

"The hell makes you think I'd actually kill anyone!?" Fuyuhiko shouted.

"You have the power to kill anyone here and get away with it. And by gettin' away with it, you'd kill everyone else too. Have to wonder if you're the traitor among us and your clan are forcin' us all to kill each other…"

"So you're saying I killed Peko on purpose, then," Fuyuhiko whispered, staring down at his feet.

"Honestly, it really wouldn't-"

"I don't think Fuyuhiko has killed anyone," Chiaki cut in. "We haven't started the investigation just yet, but I highly doubt that he'd even attempt murder after everything he's been through recently." She smiled at Fuyuhiko sympathetically as she said this.

"But-"

"And I don't think he or the Kuzuryuu Clan are responsible for this dire situation we're in, either," she continued. "It seems that he genuinely has strong feelings for Peko, and really didn't want her to die. If he was the mastermind, he would've broken his own rules and let her live."

Fuyuhiko slowly nodded in confirmation.

"That doesn't change my suspicions," said Kazuichi. "Like I said, out of all of us here right now, he's the only one who could be capable of killing someone and getting away with it. I'm not gonna let us all die because of him!"

"You do realise that Ibuki was hanged by the time I-"

"Silence!"

Everyone's eyes now fixated upon Sonia, who stood tall with her hands on her hips in an authoritarian manner.

"Kazuichi, if you have any accusations or suspicions, it would be ideal to let us discuss them at the class trial," she said. "That goes for everyone else too. But for now, we need to begin investigating before we jump to conclusions and accuse one another for causing this unforeseen tragedy."

"Y-yes, Miss Sonia!" Kazuichi squeaked.

"Aw, I was really enjoying that brawl!" Monokuma complained. "But the Ultimate Princess does have a point… I haven't even handed out the murder details yet! Those, of course, will be found in… the Monokuma File!"

As if on cue, the survivors' Student Handbooks all sounded with a "beep" simultaneously, indicating that the third Monokuma File had successfully been uploaded onto the system.

"Um… what's going on?" Nagito piped up, rubbing his eyes in a daze. "It appears that another murder has occurred, but I have no memory of what has happened up to this point. What an inconvenience!"

Beside him, Akane was weeping quite loudly, but as soon as his words were spoken, her sobs died down into quiet hiccups. "Huh? The heck's happenin'?" she wondered aloud as she traced the tear tracks down her face, puzzled. "Why am I crying…?"

"It looks like th-the disease is c-cured!" Mikan announced with a pleased smile on her face.

"But how…?" Hajime questioned with a quizzical glance at the two living patients. "We never found a cure or anything, did we?"

"All I needed out of that was a murder!" Monokuma cackled, darkly amused. "And we were fortunate enough to get two deaths out of that! Wow, whoever was responsible must've really been off their rocket!"

"I know Fuyuhiko sure is," Kazuichi muttered to himself. No one seemed to had heard him, though.

"Now then! You've got a very limited time to investigate!" Monokuma happily announced. "The class trial starts real soon! I'll see you there!" And with a taunting wave of his paw, the monochrome bear disappeared.

The remaining students, as well as Monomi, stood frozen in their places in silence, still processing what was going on. They were undergoing this morbid, frightening process for the third time now. The first two times had been almost unbearable for Kazuichi, but this time around he was incredibly close to suffering a breakdown. People were dropping dead left and right, and he had reason to believe that Fuyuhiko - his closest friend and confidant - was responsible for it all. He almost felt alone again. How had he not realised how dangerous it was to get close to anyone in this situation? How could he let himself get hurt like this?

"Kazuichi," Hajime spoke up as he walked towards the mechanic. "You said you believe Fuyuhiko killed these two… right?"

Kazuichi bit his lip and nodded.

"Why's that? Have you seen him do anything suspicious?"

Come to think of it, he hadn't. The last time he'd seen Fuyuhiko in the flesh was when he'd dropped his communication system off at the hospital. After that, he'd only seen his face via their daily video calls. But that still didn't eliminate the possibility that Fuyuhiko had managed to kill Ibuki and Hiyoko.

"Have you?" he responded with a shake of his head.

"I don't think so," said Hajime. "As far as I'm aware, he went straight to his cottage after visiting hours were closed, and slept until the morning."

"But you didn't see him," Kazuichi insisted. "He could've done anythin'. Like, he could've gone back to the hospital, grabbed Ibuki, gone to the motel, grabbed Hiyoko, took 'em both down here, and killed 'em."

"That sounds a little convoluted," Hajime commented. "Someone would've had to notice-"

"Then he could've distracted 'em," Kazuichi interrupted. "Or maybe they were all asleep, so he had to sneak in and get his victims without wakin' anyone up."

Hajime sighed. "Why're you so determined to accuse him of this? I thought you've been getting close with him lately. Did you guys have a fight or something?"

Kazuichi paused, wracking his brain for a good response to this question. No, he and Fuyuhiko never really had a major fight up until this double murder; in fact, they'd been getting along quite well. Their small but frequent arguments had become a natural part of their bond that Kazuichi couldn't help but enjoy somewhat. But that just made this entire ordeal more suspicious and terrifying.

"...I guess I'm just scared," he murmured, turning his gaze elsewhere, nervously twiddling his thumbs. "Scared that I'll be used and betrayed. And scared of dyin'."

Hajime looked into his eyes gently with a soft smile. "I won't deny that I feel the same way," he confessed. "And I think many of the others are, too. But… I'm sure that the murder wasn't intentional or done out of unjustified malice this time around."

"You don't understand!" Kazuichi snapped. "F-Fuyuhiko's a fucking Yakuza. Trusting him has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever done! And when you're stuck on an island with all these people and forced to kill each other… who should you trust?"

Hajime hesitated for a moment. With another sigh, he eventually spoke again. "Fuyuhiko's changed a lot over the past week," he said. "He still has some rough edges, but… I think anyone would've been that deeply affected if they watched their childhood friend die and realised that their sister was killed, both in the same day."

"You trust him too!?" Kazuichi screeched, bewildered. He angrily pulled at his hair, glaring at Hajime. "Well, if we all die because we failed to identify Fuyuhiko as the killer, then it's our responsibility! Not his, ours!"

"Kazuichi-"

Before Hajime could object, Kazuichi scrambled inside the music venue's storage room, slammed the door behind him, crouched in one of the corners and buried his face in his hands.

The third trial went on for almost the entire day. It was long and exhausting, and by the end of it Kazuichi was on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Throughout the entire trial, he'd stubbornly clung to his belief that Fuyuhiko was the culprit, and once Mikan was accused, he, along with almost everyone else, objected, not believing that she - the timid, selfless nurse who'd exhausted herself from taking care of the victims of the Despair Disease - would kill anyone, let alone Ibuki and Hiyoko. They were all surprised to learn that she, in order to fulfill her own despair after having caught the disease herself, had snapped and taken advantage of Ibuki's condition in order to send her to the music venue, strangle her to death and frame it as a suicide, complete with filming a fake suicide video that Hajime had watched from the pink monitor at the hospital.

Meanwhile, Hiyoko had gone to the music venue herself in search of a mirror she could use to assist her in tying her kimono sash. Unfortunately, she'd entered at a bad time, and she had the knowledge that Mikan had killed Ibuki. So before she could run away and tell everyone what was going on, Mikan had tied her to the right-hand pillar and slashed her throat with a knife, effectively silencing her.

And so, when the trial had concluded, everyone, with the exception of Mikan, had left the trial room in one piece - but not without encountering an additional surprise. They'd rushed to the beach on the main island to find that Nekomaru had returned to them in good health, but he was no longer human - he was a robot. While he retained his intelligence and enthusiastic personality, his appearance had changed drastically, to the point where the other survivors were certain that they'd have to take some time to adjust to it. Even so, they were pleased to have the strong-willed man back, especially after they'd lost three of their friends that day.

As Kazuichi solemnly watched the other students head back to their cottages, mentally worn-out from the day's events, he realised that he had returned to the very state he'd been prior to the day he'd visited Fuyuhiko at the hospital - alone. He'd effectively pushed away the only person on the island who took the time out of his day to keep him company. He'd placed himself back on square one, a place he didn't want to be. His mind was still frantically processing the load of appalling information and sights he had seen that day. He was sorely tempted to collapse onto the sand and cry, but he knew that he couldn't do that - he was a man. Men had to be strong, didn't they?

Yet, according to the shounen manga he'd read, a man couldn't be strong if he didn't have friends by his side.

"Fuyuhiko!" he called out, spotting the shorter boy walking towards his cottage and running after him. "H-hey, wait up!"

Fuyuhiko stopped in his tracks and turned towards Kazuichi, his uncovered eye narrowed in a glare. "Ya need somethin'?" he snapped. "I thought I was a killer to you."

"I just…" Kazuichi trailed off, the words getting caught in his throat before he could let them out. Once he saw the look of anger and hurt in Fuyuhiko's eye, he couldn't bring himself to look away. He was desperate to make amends, but he was deathly afraid that Fuyuhiko no longer wanted anything to do with him. The thought saddened him.

"Hurry up and spit it out, I ain't got all day," Fuyuhiko grumbled.

"I just wanted to apologise," Kazuichi finally admitted. "It's just… I had no other way to know that Mikan did it… and I was scared, y'know?"

Fuyuhiko skeptically raised an eyebrow. "Looks like this calls for some sappy heart-to-heart moment," he said.

"Wha-"

"Come to my cottage. It's fuckin' freezin' out here."

With his eyes wide in astonishment, Kazuichi quickly nodded. He hadn't expected Fuyuhiko to forgive him this easily. Or did he? Was this some kind of death trap he'd planted just then? He'd take Kazuichi back to his cottage, where no one else would be able to see him, and-

"Move it," Fuyuhiko barked. Kazuichi had been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn't even noticed him beginning to walk to his cottage. "If you don't know where my cottage is, you could just follow me."

Taking a deep breath, Kazuichi complied. He needed to do his best to be strong, and brave. If Fuyuhiko tried anything on him, he could cry out for help, or stupefy him using one of his tools as a weapon. He wouldn't kill him, of course - that wouldn't end well for anyone.

The walk to Fuyuhiko's cottage didn't take long at all, and neither of them uttered a word throughout the trip. Once they'd reached their destination, Fuyuhiko fished his key out of his pocket and used it to unlock and open the door, and he and Kazuichi entered the cottage in silence.

In contrast to Kazuichi's cottage, Fuyuhiko's was tidy and well-organised. His bed was made, and there were no stray clothes or rubbish lying around on the floor. It even smelled a little nicer - a sharp, cinnamon-esque aroma filled the room.

Fuyuhiko sat on his bed and patted the spot beside him, gesturing for Kazuichi to sit next to him, and Kazuichi obliged. They sat in silence for a moment, as though pondering what they were going to say to each other, and Kazuichi anxiously tensed. He had a lot to say to Fuyuhiko - he simply didn't know where to begin.

"Been a stressful day," Fuyuhiko commented, breaking the silence at last. He placed his hands in his lap, staring downwards at them. "Thought we were all gonna be screwed."

"We probably would be if Hajime and Chiaki hadn't deduced that Mikan killed 'em," Kazuichi sighed. "'Cuz I woulda voted for you. I was so convinced that you were the one who pulled it off…"

"Why, though?" Fuyuhiko inquired, looking up at Kazuichi curiously. "There was basically no evidence that even suggested that I was the one who did it. I even had an alibi - I was asleep in my cottage the night the murders happened."

"Like I said… I was scared." Kazuichi bit his lip, albeit gently, as biting it any harder would be bound to draw blood. "I was used before, y'know. Used for his personal gain, and betrayed. By a close friend, no less. I didn't want that to happen again, and…" He swallowed. "I didn't wanna die. Still don't."

He studied Fuyuhiko's facial expression, searching for any signs of sympathy from the shorter boy. Despite his youthful face, with its soft, round cheeks and freckles dusted across his nose, Fuyuhiko's single, golden eye was narrowed steadily, as though it had long ago become accustomed to seeing terror everywhere he went. It almost made him look much older than he really was.

"Betrayal? Heh. Nothin' new to me," said Fuyuhiko. "It's somethin' I had to get used to from an early age. I was taught not to expect anyone to stay with me for so long. The only people I could trust with my life, from the moment I was born, were two people who were with me right from the beginnin'." He paused for a moment. "But they're both gone now," he murmured. "Never comin' back. So I guess I'm all alone now. I have no one I can fully trust. Well, I guess I kinda trusted you, but… well, to put it bluntly, you have some serious trust issues."

This was nothing new to Kazuichi and he knew it.

"You're so damn lucky," he said. "You've had these two great friends - hell, siblin's - throughout your entire life. And then there's me, an only child who never had a true friend to call my own." He took a deep breath, before continuing. "The one friend I did have… he was in middle school. He was the first person I had in my life who I seriously felt I could tell anythin' to. Hell, he was the only kid in middle school who really stuck up for me. To everyone else I was just that weakling who didn't fit in.

"Now one day we were doing this math test that he found insanely difficult. Math is one of my strong suits, see, but he was hopeless at it. So he begged me to let him copy off my answers, and I agreed. But we both got caught, and he said that I was just willingly giving him the answers.

"I didn't even mind getting ratted out over it. I was doing him a favour, y'know? But after that, he avoided me, and things between us were never the same again."

"So you lost someone too," Fuyuhiko spoke up quietly. He let out a dry chuckle. "Guess we're both alone then. Both in the same boat."

"But if we have each other, then that means we're not alone, right?" Kazuichi pointed out. "I mean… we're still friends, right?"

Fuyuhiko's single eye widened, stunned, and he turned away from Kazuichi to hide the faint blush that had spread across his cheeks. "You still think of me as a friend after all that?" he asked. "You do realise that you spent the entirety of today accusing me of killing those two girls, right?"

"What else was I supposed to do!?" Kazuichi cried. "I was afraid, and I couldn't ignore the possibility that you were the killer, and-"

"Shut up, Kazuichi." Fuyuhiko turned to refocus his eye contact with Kazuichi. "I ain't mad. Hell, I feel like I understand you a little after this. It's just… I dunno. It feels… odd, to be doin' this kinda thing with someone besides Peko or Natsumi… but y'know, there's somethin' that's been on my mind for awhile now. Why'd you visit me alone in the hospital? I thought you were scared of me or some shit."

"...I guess I was lonely," Kazuichi confessed. "I mean, everyone else had already really clicked with each other, and for how sweet and attractive Miss Sonia is, she seems like she's really far away…"

He heard Fuyuhiko scoff beside him, but decided not to dignify it with a response.

"Perhaps more importantly, though," he went on, "I began to see you in a different light. I mean, until the second trial I… was really afraid that you'd take advantage of your talent and do somethin' terrible to us." He nervously toyed with his shoulder-length hair with a sigh. "I didn't even know you could be so broken. I guess I went and visited you because I finally began to see you as human, and a potential friend… I could always use a friend. A true one, at that."

Fuyuhiko's lips turned up, ever so slightly, into a small smile. It was the first time Kazuichi had ever seen such a genuine smile on his face, and seeing it caused Kazuichi to break out into a wide, stupid grin. The shorter boy straightened himself, a determined gleam in his eye.

"Y'know what, fuck it," he declared. "Let's keep doin' what we've been doin'. We're companions, now. You and me. Us against the world - well, more like us against Monokuma. But you get my drift." He stood up and extended a hand towards Kazuichi. "How 'bout it?"

Kazuichi stared up at him, bewildered, his chest filled with a joyful warmth at the thought of Fuyuhiko forgiving him, wishing to continue being his friend. He never thought he'd see the day where he'd befriend a yakuza heir of all things - he'd thought likewise as he was walking down to the hospital to check on him - but here he was, reaching out to take Fuyuhiko's hand in his, officially sealing the deal. He was certain that they'd already been friends before this, but it was great to know that they could make it official.

The small, content smile reappeared on Fuyuhiko's face, and Kazuichi almost laughed out loud in joy at the sight of it. He'd only realised it just then, at that brief moment, but all he'd wanted was to see Fuyuhiko be as happy as he could be. He felt that his own happiness was directly influenced by Fuyuhiko's - and this was a feeling he'd experienced with his ex-best friend in middle school, too.

"Th-thank you," Kazuichi finally managed to say, his cheeks a soft pink. "Thanks for forgivin' me. You have no idea how much that-"

"Yeah, yeah, enough with the cheesy dialogue," Fuyuhiko interrupted. He was smirking in that way he often did when he made a sarcastic remark, and Kazuichi couldn't resist chuckling. "'S no problem, really."

For once, everything felt as bright and hopeful as it could ever be, and Kazuichi was confident that this time, no one was going to mess up. No one else was going to die. They would all escape Monokuma's deadly grip and return home, living their own lives - together, maybe.

Little did he know that there was still a long road ahead.