Five Nights at Monokuma's

Hajime Hinata


NIGHT ONE

Now that he was actually sitting in the muggy security office, Hajime Hinata wasn't sure that one-hundred twenty dollars was worth a week as a night guard in a musty old pizzeria. It was hot as balls and smelled very strongly of cheese. The security office had no windows either, just a rattling desk fan. There were two metal doors on either side of the room, but Hajime wasn't inclined to close them lest he suffocate.

It was an unusual place, one he had a few memories of visiting as a little kid. Its mascot was a bi-colored bear called Monokuma, but its pride and joy was a set of humanoid animatronics. A blonde girl named Junko Enoshima, who sang and dance, and another one named Nagito… something. He was a waiter. Hajime seemed to recall there being a third—someone tall with long, dark hair—but that could've been a regular employee. The animatronics were so lifelike, it had been easy to mistake them for real people as a child.

Some joker was breaking in at night and messing with them, though. A substantial amount of money had been poured into the animatronics, so the pizzeria couldn't afford to keep putting them back together. Thus, Hajime sweating in front of a surveillance monitor.

It was incredibly boring. He'd been sitting there since midnight, and it was only two AM. Sudoku had only kept him entertained for so long. He spun the desk chair in circles, staring up at the ceiling, occasionally checking the cameras.

Nothing.

The stale pizza smell was really starting to get to him.

He glanced at his cell phone, briefly considering calling Chiaki. She was probably still awake, trying to finish work she'd procrastinated on or playing video games, but decided against it. If someone broke in, he would probably hear them before catching them on the cameras, and didn't want to get fired on his first night because he got distracted. That wouldn't look good on a resume.

Hajime straightened his chair to check the cameras again. Not that anything could've changed, but it had been almost fifteen minutes since he'd last checked. That counted as frequently enough, right?

West hallway… east hallway… kitchen—why can't they get that camera working? ...bathrooms… dining hall… show stage…

That was funny.

Junko was gone.

It wasn't funny at all, actually. Panic set in as Hajime frantically flipped through the cameras again. Where was she? Someone seriously hadn't walked off with her while he wasn't looking, had they? Could you actually make money selling a stolen animatronic? Probably more money than he was guarding them.

But filching one himself was out of the question if the pizzeria found out their poster girl had slipped out from under his nose.

A flicker of movement in the feed from the parts and storage room caught his eye, but the moment he focused his attention on it, the image went black. A screech like microphone feedback suddenly blasted through the speakers, making Hajime jump back and cover his ears.

"What the hell?" he snapped, switching cameras. The dining hall appeared just fine, but the feed from the storage room was still earsplitting noise. A few moments later, the noise stopped and the image reappeared.

Something was lying on the floor. The white hair and tailored waiter's uniform looked familiar.

"Is that…?" Hajime leaned closer, squinting. "Nagito?"

Great. Figures it had to be both of the valuable ones. Grabbing his flashlight, as he probably should've done the moment he noticed Junko missing, Hajime walked out into the west hall.

The pizzeria was a lot creepier at night. In the dark, the children's drawings taped all over the walls looked disfigured and twisted instead of sweet, and the black tiles of the linoleum felt like they would swallow him whole. When he entered the dining hall, he flashed his light on the stage. Sure enough, Junko was missing from her spot between Monokuma and Usami.

Actually… Didn't it look like Usami and Monokuma had been moved as well?

Hajime shook his head. It was just the angle of the camera, messing with his head. He headed over to the storage room.

The door was already half open, and poor Nagito was a wreck. He was a rather grotesque sight in the dark. His legs were bent at odd angles, as if he'd been dropped from the ceiling, and one of his arms was detached, dangling from his shoulder by a thread of wires like a loose tooth. The face plates on his jaw and cheek were ripped off, revealing the metal endoskeleton underneath. His right eye flickered yellow, missing the actual eyeball.

"Dammit... So much for not getting fired on my first night."

Hajime sighed, setting his flashlight upright on the floor while he did his best to collect the ruined animatronic. It didn't look like anything was missing, besides the eye, but he was no engineer. Maybe Junko was more valuable whole; Nagito was just spare parts.

"Well… You're probably safer in the security room with me," he said. As a kid, the animatronics had been beautiful and fascinating. Now that he was older, he'd seen one too many horror movies for them to not be just a little bit creepy. But he had a job to do. Hoisting Nagito's heavy metal body, Hajime awkwardly hauled him back to the security room.

He propped Nagito up against the desk drawers and sat back down, wiping his forehead. It was really hot. Well, Junko was gone, but at least they could put Nagito back together in the morning…

Wait, what?

He switched between the dining hall and show stage cameras a few times, just to make sure the feed was coming through correctly, but it didn't change.

Junko was back on the stage.

"What the hell…? That's impossible. She was even gone when I walked out there..."

Something jerked on his pant leg and he glanced down to see Nagito staring up at him.

He very nearly flew off his chair.

"Sh-Shit! Fuck! Wh-What the hell, man?" Hajime gripped the arms of his chair with trembling hands. "Don't scare me like that."

Nagito continued to stare up at him. "...I… zu… ru…?"

"What?"

"Izu...ru…?"

"...Sorry, I don't understand," Hajime said, leaning down to gently tug his pantleg away. Much to his growing horror, Nagito grabbed at his hand instead. "C-Could you please let go of me?"

"It's me," Nagito said. His voice was soft, with a slight metallic quality. "Don't you… remember?"

Hajime furrowed his brow. Did the animatronic actually recognize him, or was the AI mistaking him for someone else? "I'm sorry. Maybe I saw you as a little kid, but I don't remember at all now."

Nagito looked as disheartened as someone with limited facial expressions could. "...You don't… remember me… Izuru…?"

"Izuru?" While Hajime was sure now Nagito was mistaking his identity, the name rung a very distant bell. "I'm not quite sure who you're talking about, but I'm not Izuru. My name is Hajime Hinata. And you're… Nagito, right?"

The animatronic's eyes lit up. "You… remember…?"

"No—No, I'm not Izuru. I'm just the night guard. You wouldn't… happen to be able to tell me who did this to you, would you?"

Nagito's eyes went dull again. "You really… can't remember. What did they… do to you…?"

"No one did anything to me. I'm not who you're remembering. I'm just a college student. Could you please let go of my hand, now?"

Hajime yanked his arm back as soon as Nagito's grip loosened. He felt a little bad for the animatronic, despite himself. In this state, Nagito talked like someone suffering from dementia. It was surreal in it of itself just to speak with him at all.

They were just… children's toys.

Sighing, Hajime turned his attention back to the surveillance feed. Nothing else had changed, no one else had moved.

And no one else did move for the remainder of the night. Not Junko or Monokuma or Usami, or Hajime, or Nagito—whose gaze didn't leave Hajime, even for a moment.

NIGHT TWO

Hajime didn't get fired, but he wasn't exactly sure if that was a blessing or a curse. Nagito had been repaired, and all of the other animatronics were accounted for. He had another chance at catching the intruder.

...If it was an intruder at all.

The fact that Junko had vanished and returned to the stage bothered him. What was the point of stealing something, breaking something else, and then putting back what you stole? It didn't make any sense.

Junko wandering into the storage room to tear Nagito apart herself didn't make a whole lot of sense either, but it was the only logical conclusion he could come up with based on the series of events from the previous night.

Hajime dragged over the pad of sticky notes and wrote down the locations of all the animatronics as they were at midnight. Junko, Monokuma, and Usami were on the show stage, Nagito was in parts and service, and a pair of bears called Shirokuma and Kurokuma were situated in pirate's cove. Now he had definitive proof for himself, in the event that any of them moved.

Not that any of them would move.

Normally, Hajime hated being wrong, but he wanted so badly to be wrong about this.

He briefly glanced over at the emergency doors. They were awfully… sturdy, for a pizzeria.

Hajime religiously kept his focus one-hundred percent on the cameras. For an hour, nothing changed—although, the curtain at pirate's cove seemed to shift occasionally, which unnerved him more than it should have. He cycled through the cameras methodically, checking each animatronic's position. By one-thirty, he had each room memorized.

He noticed immediately when Nagito went missing.

Frantic, he scoured the pizzeria, but there was no sign of him. Where the hell could he have gone? He'd been off the parts and service camera for no more than thirty seconds—there was no way he could've vanished that quickly. The three animatronics were still up on the show stage and the curtain to pirate's cove was still mostly closed, so Nagito couldn't have been attacked again.

He stopped on the west hall camera—was that a shadow at the far end of the hallway?

Nagito… was the only one who'd moved… right? So, by process of elimination, it had to be him. The easiest thing to do would be to simply poke his head out the door and shine his flashlight down the hall.

But… what if one of the others had moved while he wasn't looking?

Hastily, he flipped back to the show stage, then pirate's cove. No change. So, the figure at the end of the hall was Nagito—

The hallway was empty.

"Oh god," Hajime whispered. "Fuck, shit, fuck, fuck, fu—AAAHHHHH!"

Hands clasped his shoulders, ripping a scream from his lungs. One of the hands immediately moved to cover his mouth. It was cold and metallic and Hajime struggled against it with all his might, but its grip was too strong.

"Be quiet."

Hajime froze at the sound of Nagito's voice.

"You are in danger. Junko doesn't like that you're here, and she's coming to get you."

Trembling, Hajime twisted in his seat to look up at Nagito. The animatronic was a lot less frightening now that his face plates were all on. In fact, he was rather pretty. Like a porcelain doll. "G-Get me…?"

"To disassemble you, as she does to me."

"D-Disassemble? You mean she wants to kill me?"

"Stay quiet," Nagito repeated. His smile was chilling. "Monitor the others on the cameras. If they get too close, you'll have to shut the doors. But we can't keep them closed indefinitely, otherwise you'll suffocate. This room was converted from a storage closet and has no ventilation. You must keep Junko out."

Shaking, Hajime turned back to the surveillance cameras. Monokuma had already abandoned the stage and was lurking in the dining hall. "H-How do I know you won't… disassemble me as well?"

"You helped me, so I'm returning the favor."

Hajime's entire body went rigid when fingers brushed across the back of his neck.

"...And I would do anything for my beloved Izuru."

NIGHT THREE

The one-hundred twenty dollars was absolutely, unequivocally not worth it.

Nothing was, really.

And yet, Hajime found himself entering the pizzeria for the third night in a row. Last night had been nothing short of nightmarish, trying to keep track of five animatronics roaming around in the dark. Kurokuma and Shirokuma turned out to be the worst of the bunch. They lingered in pirate's cove with a slow, dramatic drawing of the curtains, then they'd disappear to bolt down the west hall for the security office. Twice, Hajime dove for the door switch and nearly didn't make it in time before deciding to just station Nagito, who could see far better than him in the dark, in that doorway.

He went home exhausted, but he'd gotten less than an hour of sleep. He'd left several messages for the pizzeria's manager about the animatronics running rogue at night, but had yet to hear back. He'd even gone out on his bike just to make sure the place was open, and it was. The easiest thing to do would've been to go inside and demand to see the manager in person, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it.

He couldn't enter the pizzeria in the daylight and see Junko Enoshima and Monokuma singing songs for children, knowing they'd been trying to murder him several hours ago.

That, perhaps, made it even more ridiculous that he'd enter the place at night when they very well would try to murder him, but the questions that plagued him throughout the day dragged him back. Questions such as, why was Junko antagonizing Nagito? Why was Junko now trying to kill him? Who was Izuru?

He was especially bothered by Izuru. The more Nagito seemed convinced he was "Izuru," the more Hajime was convinced he was not. At first, he'd assumed Izuru was the name of a child, but he'd begun to discard that idea. Izuru was someone Nagito was fixated on, obsessed with; Hajime got the impression this was someone Nagito was desperately looking for, but couldn't look far for, because he was only a machine. Nagito referred to him as "beautiful," "a special existence," and, most disturbingly, his "beloved." Under other circumstances, Hajime might've been flattered to receive such attention, but a case of mistaken identity from an animatronic was not his ideal at all.

When he entered the security office at midnight, he wasn't surprised to see Nagito already waiting for him.

"Izuru, you've returned," Nagito said, clasping his hands. "I was very worried you would not, as I was the first night. But of course, I could do nothing to stop you then."

Hajime wiggled out of his grip. "This is just my job. And stop calling me that."

"...Is this a game, Izuru? If it is, I don't understand it."

"I'm not playing anything. I'm Hajime Hinata. I'm nineteen, and I just took this job for some extra money over spring break." He sat down at the computer, turning it on. "Listen, Nagito… Who is Izuru?"

"You are Izuru."

"Okay, then who am I?"

"Izuru."

So, maybe Hajime was starting to understand why Junko ripped him apart. "…Alright, what is Izuru? Is he a child?"

"No. Izuru is as you are now."

"Nagito… I really don't remember being anyone other than Hajime."

Nagito's hands rested lovingly on his shoulders again. "...It's troublesome, what they did to you. No one else understood what was wrong with you, and they took you away from me…"

Fingers poised hovering over the keyboard, Hajime paused, thinking, and not liking where his thought process was going. "Izuru… Was he… like you? Was Izuru an animatronic?"

The grip on his shoulders tightened. "You remember?"

"N-No, I'm sorry."

"...I'm the one who should apologize." Nagito leaned down, wrapping his arms around him. The tinny undertone of his voice was sharp in Hajime's ear. "They ruined you, and I couldn't stop them… But look, here you are now! Here you are, my beautiful, beautiful Izuru… I'll return you to the way you were, I promise."

"Th-The way I was…?" Hajime rolled the words around in his head, letting them slowly sink in as he opened the surveillance program. "N-Nagito… This is the way I am. I've never been any other way than this!"

"They've gotten you so confused, haven't they? You don't even know who you are anymore. Don't worry, once you're your proper self again, you'll remember everything."

Nagito hugged him so tightly, Hajime was afraid his ribs would collapse.

"I'll never leave your side again."

The show stage camera went black.

"I'll protect you…"

It came back on. Junko was gone.

"I love you so much, Izuru… I'm not even bothered that Junko tears me apart because I won't tell her where I've hidden your body… She'll never get you."

"Sh-She's left the stage," Hajime hissed, choking in Nagito's grip. "Junko is… Th-The doors..."

"Upupupu..."

The sound of Monokuma's laughter filled the room. Nagito finally released him, and Hajime sagged in his chair, coughing violently. There was no time to check the cameras. Usami peered in the east hall window; only her eyes and ears visible over the ledge. Hajime scrambled out of the chair just as Nagito bolted out the door after her.

He was alone in the security office—alone with Monokuma.

The bi-colored bear stood at the back of the room, staring at him.

"H-Hi! Oh god, dammit—! How are you doing?" Hajime backed away, bumping into the desk and knocking over the fan. On reflex, he reached out to catch it, but a loud screech suddenly came from the west hall, and Shirokuma and Kurokuma burst into the room, launching themselves at him.

Hajime struggled as they tore at him, sinking their teeth into his arms.

"Gaahhh! Get off of me! Let me go!"

They dragged him down, and he knocked his chin hard against the floor. Monokuma laughed again and the bear waddled into view, his stubby little arms reaching out for Hajime's face.

"No! No! Noooooooo!"

Two bright blue eyes twinkled in the doorway, hovering over a pearly white, Cheshire Cat smile.

NIGHT FOUR

Hajime's head throbbed. Actually, his entire body ached, but his head was definitely the worst. The last thing he remembered was Junko's manic grin closing in on him. Clearly, he hadn't died. Death wasn't supposed to be this painful.

He blinked open his eyes to nothingness.

Huh?

Perhaps he was dead.

His shoulders were wrenched at an awkward angle, so the first thing he did was attempt to get more comfortable, he be found he couldn't move his arms. His wrists were bound together behind his back. His legs were tied together, too. The surface he was lying on was hard and bumpy, like some sort of grate.

Where the hell am I?

"Hey… Can you hear me?"

Nagito…? Hajime tried to speak, but only a muffled noise came out. Something was tied around his mouth, effectively gagging him.

"I think they noticed you never left the building last night."

Last night? No… No way. How long have I been here?

"They've been looking for you on the cameras, but they won't find you. I've hidden you too well."

That shitty manager—if Hajime got out of this alive, he was going to that guy's house with a baseball bat.

"I kidnapped you."

Hajime struggled against his bonds. His arms hurt where Shirokuma and Kurokuma had bitten him. The surface he was lying on shook with his movement, creaking. Footsteps approached him.

"Be still." Nagito's voice was hovering over him now. "And quiet. A fall from this height would be damaging to both of us."

Fall? Where are we?

A hand smoothed over his cheek. "It'll be alright, Izuru. You just have to be patient a little longer, and then I'll be able to return you to your body. You'll be whole again soon, I promise…"

Hajime wanted to scream. Scream that he was human, that there was no way to force him into the body of an animatronic, that he wasn't Izuru. He had no idea what part of him Nagito wanted—his heart? His brain? It didn't matter. Either way, it would kill him. A couple nights ago, he thought he might be able to help Nagito, but there was no way. Nagito had lost his mind. Escape was the only option that equaled survival.

"If they had just fixed you like I wanted, this wouldn't have happened. I know you did something terrible—"

What? What was something terrible?

"But they knew something was wrong on the inside. I'll do my best to keep you happy from now on, I promise. I'll protect you from everyone. I'll tear Junko to pieces, and anyone else who tries to touch you. Ah… Junko is moving off the stage now. She's coming to look for you. She's afraid, you know? She knows you'll destroy her the same way you destroyed that person."

Izuru did 'something terrible' to 'that person.'

The animatronics didn't use the word "kill," so it was likely they didn't have a concrete concept of death. But destroy was an awfully strong word—one that Nagito hadn't used before. Destroy had a sense of finality.

Izuru had killed somebody.

Something cold pressed against his temple, like the barrel of a gun, but Nagito's voice came instead of a bullet. "She underestimates what I'm willing to do to protect you. No, she… hasn't yet learned to think as you and I have. I'll return for you, Izuru, after I take care of her."

He heard Nagito get up, and his footsteps echoed into the darkness. Hajime still hadn't puzzled out where he was, but there were only a few places in the pizzeria high up he could be. His eyes were finally beginning to adjust to the darkness, and he could just barely make out the track lighting that was above the stage a few feet in front of them.

I must be up on a catwalk, Hajime realized. It was a clever place to hide him, completely out of the cameras' field of vision. No one would've noticed him there during the day, either, especially if Nagito had gone out of his way to keep employees from messing with the stage.

If he could just free his arms, he could run. He tugged against the rope, but it wasn't much use. He had to get his hands in front of him and use his teeth. Time was limited, Nagito was going to kill Junko and then come back for him…

He'd managed to flip over on his back when he noticed a white blob on the catwalk railing, crawling toward him. He knew that blob. Shirokuma. Kurokuma couldn't be far behind.

Panicked, Hajime wrestled to get his legs through his bound arms. The catwalk shuddered violently, but he paid it no mind. In fact, he could've sworn he saw Shirokuma bobbing precariously on the railing. He abandoned his original course of action and threw his weight against the railing, kicking it hard. The metal groaned and creaked, and Shirokuma slipped, clinging helplessly to the edge of the catwalk.

A few more would do it for sure. Hajime wound up, beating his shins against the railing. He would have bruises there later, but it didn't matter. The catwalk swayed and the white blob vanished from sight.

Hajime's sigh of relief was cut short as the catwalk suddenly snapped and lurched, tilting downwards. He slid headfirst towards the stage, flailing helplessly without having any way of halting his descent. Then the grate was no longer beneath his back and he was falling. The rope must've caught on something because his arms were wrenched painfully backwards before it quickly unraveled from his wrists. He flipped in the air, but had no time to throw his arms out to catch himself before he hit the stage.

Not even breaking his arm falling out of a tree had he been in this much pain. But he was on the ground and his arms were free. Twisting onto his back, he sat up and hastily untied the rope on his legs. He scrambled to his feet, the stage barely visible in the dark, and bolted for the stairs. A mechanical scream rose up from one of the hallways.

They're going to kill me, I have to get out, I have to get out, I have to get out—

Something caught under his foot and he slipped, faceplanting on the stage again. When he hauled himself up a second time, he noticed a dimly lit star off to his right.

Magical Girl Usami's wand.

He snatched the wand, suddenly able to see Kurokuma and twitching Shirokuma advancing on him again. Pain seared through his ankle. His arms hurt, his head hurt, he could barely see, but he ignored it all and bolted for the back exit.

He was never coming back to the hell hole that was Monokuma's Pizza, ever, ever, ever, ever.