Those that were involved in the whole "drunk Kimi" incident were in general agreement that her behavior was oddly hostile, even by her standards. Bankei didn't seem interested in discussing it, so she left quickly, but it wasn't like it was unexpected that she would agree with their discontentment. There was just the question of how they'd handle this potential problem. Apparently, becoming intoxicated was definitely possible, even without conventional alcohol, and given the fact that the distillery's equipment could potentially be used to create more alcohol…How the hell were they supposed to stop her or anyone else from drinking?
"Apparently, keeping people from drinking alcohol is harder than we thought it'd be," Mareo reasoned.
"Well, I'm not particularly against drinking," Takeshi weighed in. "And even if I was…Maybe we shouldn't be looking at this like we need to keep people from drinking."
"You make a good point," Yori said. "I doubt the rest of us are particularly interested in drinking alcohol after seeing what Kimi just did in front of everyone. I don't think I've seen her that hateful, besides perhaps the third trial."
"It probably just removed any of her inhibitions to hold back her feelings," Mareo pointed out. "That's what alcohol does. Even if we're not losing our tempers, it will definitely change how we act."
"So, you don't think Kimi or anyone else is gonna be drinking alcohol after this?" Eryu asked. "She didn't exactly seem to be enjoying herself very much. That, and I think the rest of us know better."
"Yeah. Maybe we shouldn't get too worked up about this," Naoko suggested. "There's just the question about Kimi. What happens when she gets back to us?"
"We'll deal with that when it happens," Eryu reasoned. "For now, let's pick up on what we were doing before this."
"Hey, dudes," Ishi called out to them from the hallway leading to the stairs. "Figure out all that with Kimi?"
"Yeah," Naoko replied, "turns out she was drunk on cooking wine."
"Ah," Ishi responded, not seeming particularly surprised. "Alrighty then. So, about what Eryu said back there. You were in the distillery before, right?"
"Indeed," Yori said. "We were wondering whether it would be considered okay with IMONO to utilize some of the substances in the laboratory to create those compounds in the books."
"Oh, really?" Ishi replied. "Well, it's a good thing I got to you guys before you started that. I actually asked about that myself."
"You did?" Naoko asked.
"Yeah," Ishi replied, "after Eryu said something I thought was kinda funny, I wanted to get some info to clear up the confusion, y'know? In-between when I left and when I came back, I asked IMONO."
"And?" Eryu asked concernedly.
"And, apparently, like, as far as IMONO's concerned, what's important is what's needed for the truth serum," Ishi explained. "So, I guess you can use the other stuff, but, I mean, if we don't know what the truth serum is, it's kinda, y'know, risky."
"Then we need to figure out what the truth serum is," Eryu said.
"Maybe it's written down somewhere we don't have access to," Yori reasoned. "Perhaps in the safe in the laboratory?"
"Or maybe in that metal part of the cabinet?" Ishi suggested in an off-the-cuff manner. "I tried looking in there earlier, and it was locked."
"Why there?" Naoko asked. "That's in the distillery, not the laboratory."
"It's worth a shot, though, y'know?" Ishi replied, still seeming quite confident in her idea. "We just gotta crack it open."
"Well, we haven't found a key for it," Yori said. "Do we have anyone here that knows anything about picking locks?"
"Jumping to that, are we?" Eryu responded. "Well, I don't know anything about that."
"Neither do I," Takeshi said.
"I know that it involves taking a couple of thin pieces of metal and putting it into the lock," Naoko said. "One on top, and one on the bottom, I think."
"Well, let's see what we can do, shall we?" Yori suggested.
None of them seemed to know much about lockpicking, so they decided to start by asking around. Naoko, Eryu, Yori, and Mareo went to track down anyone who they figured might've had some sort of insight. They found Bankei after she'd wandered off, but she simply said she didn't really know much about lockpicking. Given that she wasn't injected with truth serum, she seemed to be telling the truth. After that, since Kimi was in no state to be speaking with them, they decided to track down Mariko instead. She apparently didn't know much either, but she did say that it was possible to make a makeshift lock pick out of a bobby pin. Apparently she learned that from a video game.
So, with that little piece of advice in mind, they grabbed a couple paperclips and a couple of bobby pins and made their way to the distillery. Crouching down next to the cabinet's lock, Naoko felt like he was traipsing into something he didn't really understand, but if it would result in some real progress to their cause, he was willing to at least try.
"Okay, so, I'll insert the paperclip on the bottom here," he said quietly. "And I'll stick the bobby pin in here, near the top."
"Just be careful, Naoko," Yori said. "If the lock is broken or jammed, we'll have to get rather creative."
"If this doesn't work, could we use a crowbar, or a similar implement?" Mareo asked.
"I guess we could," Eryu supposed. "The problem is, we don't have any crowbars. And Haru isn't…Well, obviously, he's not around anymore, so we can't have him make us one."
"We could try to figure out the workshop ourselves," Yori suggested.
"That'll probably take a long time," Eryu said.
While they spoke back and forth, Naoko quite literally picked away at the lock in front of him, not really sure what he was doing or what he was poking. He was supposed to push some things on the top of the lock, right? He thought he could feel the bobby pin touch them, but it didn't seem like it was enough to just push them all up. He must've needed to push each of them up a certain amount, like what a key does. He just didn't know how he was supposed to do it, or how much he was supposed to push. He tried his best to not be too forceful, but at the same time, he knew he was doing something wrong. After a good few minutes of struggling, he was on the verge of giving up, until…
The bobby pin broke.
"Damn," Naoko swore to himself. If he wasn't frustrated before, he was now. He must've gotten careless.
Yori crouched down next to him and carefully removed the piece of bobby pin stuck in the lock. "This seems to be a rather tricky lock," she noted. "Picking it could take some time."
"We'll have to just keep at it, then," Eryu reasoned. "In the meantime, there's the safe."
"Right. Is there anything in the laboratory that could be seen as a clue to its combination?" Naoko asked.
"We've looked, but we haven't found anything," Mareo said. "If all else fails, perhaps we can try every combination possible until it finally opens."
"You think we can find the combination just by punching in every possible combination?" Eryu asked.
"If we keep track of the combinations we try, it could work," Mareo reasoned.
"Well, the odds are one in about…ten thousand?" Naoko said. "That'll probably take way longer than this lock."
"Then, if nothing else, it's an option," Eryu reasoned, "At the very least, we'll have to keep trying to get this open."
"Well, we still don't know what we're doing here, and this lock is apparently quite difficult to pick," Yori pointed out. "Sorry for saddling you with this difficult task, Naoko."
"It's alright," Naoko assured her. "It's just frustrating, is all."
"That's fine," Eryu supposed. "If you wanna take a break from this, feel free. One of us could probably have a go at that."
Naoko took the offer, and surprisingly, there wasn't much else to say about what happened for the rest of that day. They made a couple of additional attempts to pick the lock, but those attempts didn't go much better than Naoko's initial attempt. Either they were doing something wrong, or the lock was especially complex. Probably both. Trying to, say, shine a light into the keyhole to see its insides wasn't much help, since it wasn't like they could get a good look at its interior when all they had was the tiny hole. At the very least, they probably weren't doing any damage to the lock, and they had plenty of time, bobby pins, and paperclips to work with.
Then there was the safe. Like they'd said, they didn't know how to get it open, and looking through what they had already found in the laboratory, there weren't any clear hints to its combination. It looked sturdy as all hell, so it didn't seem smart to try to force it open, so they got some paper and a pencil, punched in some fairly obvious combinations (1234, 2580, and so on) until they got to their fifth one, writing down all the combinations they punched in. Then they waited ten minutes until the safe's lock wore off and they could punch in five more. Wash, rinse, repeat. Thanks to the fairly generous amount of tries each time around, they were able to mark off over a hundred possible combinations by the end of the day. Suffice to say, either the combination wasn't particularly common, or it was and they didn't think of it.
So, what remained of the day came and went fairly peacefully. Kimi apparently woke up at some point, but she didn't seem to spend much time outside her room, and didn't really speak to anyone. Naoko saw as she wordlessly accepted a plate of food before going back to her room, and noticed that she, as she herself would say, looked like shit. Was she still a little drunk? Or maybe she was just hungover. In any case, she didn't make a fuss, at the very least.
Then the next day came, and they met up in the cafeteria again, including Kimi. She still looked rather unkempt and irritable, but she also looked like she was trying to avoid drawing attention to herself. Nonetheless, it wasn't like she was invisible.
"Kimi, about yesterday," Eryu said.
Kimi sighed resignedly. "Fuck. Okay, look, I know you're probably really mad at me. Just to be clear, I'm not exactly proud of what I said back there."
"So, you remember everything that happened?" Mareo asked. "Including what you said?"
"I guess so," Kimi figured. "I don't think I drank that much. Still, it's a little fuzzy, in my head. I remember I was really mad, and I said some things that I don't really think. That's the basic gist."
"Wait," Naoko interjected, "you're saying that when you talked about how boring we are, and how little you cared about our opinions, you were…lying?"
"I dunno about lying," Kimi said. "Obviously, I've had stuff like that pop into my head. I mean, c'mon, you gotta admit being stuck in here really fucking sucks. And besides that, I know you guys hate me."
"I dunno about 'hate'," Takeshi asserted. "Still, you don't seem to have much love for us. It's kinda hard dealing with you when you're like…how you were yesterday."
"What, you're saying you guys don't hate me?" Kimi challenged. "That's sweet and all, but I know for a fact that you all have a bone to pick with me for one reason or another."
"Well, I hate to say it, but that's kinda your fault," Mariko pointed out. "Like how you keep making potshots at me."
"Or how you keep disrespecting me," Eryu added.
"Or what about, like, what you did to Mine?" Ishi questioned pointedly. "That totally fucked her up."
"That was a long time ago!" Kimi said defensively. "I don't even know if I knew that…Look, I get it, I've been mean. But, well, what the hell do I have to do to make you guys happy? You guys are running around, doing god knows what, and I'm just…well, I'm a really good artist. Do I even count as a potential asset in your…harebrained schemes, or whatever?"
"Well, you might be able to help us," Naoko reasoned. "Do you have any useful skills?"
"Useful skills?" Kimi asked. "Like what?"
"Well, right now we're trying to investigate the fourth floor," Yori explained, "specifically the laboratory and the distillery. Both rooms have things in them that could prove very useful to us, depending on their contents. Do you have any insight on combination locks?"
"Those four-digit, punch-in-the-right-number things?" Kimi asked, drifting into what appeared to be deep thought. "...Fuck, it's hard to think. Have you tried 1234?"
"Yep," Eryu replied.
"What about 1010?" Kimi asked.
"I think so," Eryu supposed.
"Okay, whatever," Kimi said, giving up on the idea.
"Well, that's fine," Yori said. "There's also the cabinet in the distillery. We don't have the key for it still, so we've been trying to pick the lock. Would you know anything about picking locks?"
Kimi perked up noticeably. "Picking locks? Yeah, I can do that."
"You can?" Mareo asked.
"Totally," Kimi said. "I've been into picking locks since I was fourteen."
"...Why?" Eryu asked warily.
"None of your goddamn business, that's why," Kimi said. "I just know a lot about it. It's actually pretty simple, if you know what you're doing. Tell you what, if I pick this lock for you guys, will you let my little drunken temper tantrum slide?"
"I suppose that would be a fair trade," Yori said.
Later that day, they met up in the distillery, and Kimi was in the exact same spot that Naoko found himself in yesterday, prodding at the stubborn lock with thin pieces of metal. The main difference? Kimi actually seemed like she knew what she was doing. She took great care in shaping her tools, and when it came to actually picking the lock, she was slow, yet very dextrous at the same time. It was actually a bit uncanny that they didn't know about this skill of hers before, and it wasn't long before the questions came.
"So, I have a question," Eryu said. "We talked about this locked cabinet before, and you were among the first to find it. Why didn't you say anything about your ability to pick locks before?"
"Because I don't respect you, I guess," Kimi replied sarcastically.
"Yeah, sure," Eryu replied with similar sarcasm.
"Nah, but seriously," Kimi said, dropping the act, "I didn't really give much thought to it. I suppose I did have booze on the brain, but, hey, we already had the ethanol. Plus, let's be real, what're the chances of fancy alcohol being stored in here with a bunch of gross chemicals?"
"I thought you said you thought there might've been distilled spirits stored inside," Yori pointed out.
"Geez, I was joking, alright?" Kimi replied defensively. "What do you think I am, an idiot?"
"So, this wasn't worth your time before," Naoko figured. "Is that right?"
"More or less," Kimi supposed. "I guess if you specifically asked me if I knew how to pick locks, I might've said something. Actually, did you? I might not have actually been paying much attention."
"Well, I guess we didn't," Naoko said, trying to recall what they spoke of yesterday. "All I remember us talking about was that the compartment was locked and we hadn't found a key for it."
"Yep, figured," Kimi said self-assuredly.
"So, how long is this going to take, exactly?" Mareo asked. "We had quite a bit of difficulty doing this ourselves."
"Well, this is a pretty tricky lock, alright," Kimi replied. "Makes sense you'd have trouble if you didn't know what you were doing. Fortunately, yours truly has picked harder locks before. I just need to push here, and…"
Suddenly, a light clicking sound was heard, and Kimi was able to use her tools to turn the lock.
"Bam! D'you see that?"
"I did," Yori said. "Good job, Kimi. It's good to see you coming through for us."
"Yeah, well, no need to thank me," Kimi said proudly. "Since I kinda owed you guys, I guess this can be sort of an apology."
"Well, then, you're forgiven," Yori said.
Kimi sighed in relief. "Awesome. That's just what I was hoping for. Alright, let's see what we've got!"
Kimi grabbed onto the compartment and slid it out, peeking into it to see its contents. Naoko couldn't see what was in it from where he was standing, but he could see Kimi's reaction to it. She looked like she didn't know what she was looking at. It must not have been any sort of fancy alcohol after all. Well, not that she or Naoko were actually expecting that. Still, for all he knew, whatever was inside could have been their ticket to freedom. He'd have to move closer to get a better look.