AN: And another chapter up! Thanks to Mr. Toast for reviewing, and without further ado, the new chapter.
John's Room, 1130 hours
It did resemble his room back home. It was sparingly decorated with posters of popular bands and sports players, even one of Paris, which he should take down since she might be creeped out if she saw it. His bed and dresser were in the same place, and checking the dresser, all that was in it were carbon copies of the outfit he wore, what looked like a school uniform, although it was indistinguishable from what he was already wearing beyond a crest printed on the shirt, and a set of sleepwear. There was a door towards the back of the room that opened into a bathroom when John went through it, a small one with only a shower, a toilet, and a sink with a medicine cabinet above it.
As John turned to leave, Shi-ru walked through the door, wearing a hat with the logo of a delivery company, a generic thing featuring a box with wings. Hopping up onto the sink he opened the medicine cabinet before rummaging through a large bag and removing a large orange envelope with John's name marked on it. Opening it up, the penguin animatronic removed a pill bottle marked aspirin and put it in the cabinet before closing it and hoping down off the sink and exiting the room.
John snapped out of his stupor at the sudden appearance and actions of the students' friendlier captor, and darted out of the room after him in hopes of asking him some questions. Instead of Shi-ru waiting for him, Monokuma was standing in the middle of the room.
Groaning at the turn of events, John glared at the bear. Drawing back slightly, Monokuma put on an injured tone of voice as he talked.
"Ah, what's with the dirty looks? I only came to tell you important information! If you're going to be such a bastard I might as well keep it to myself."
Sighing John tried to put on a more pleasant look and tried to keep the frustration out of his voice, "Would you be so kind as to tell me the important information you came here to tell?"
The animatronic nodded, the voice returning to its original childish tone.
"That's better. As you can see, we have taken your health into consideration and stocked your medicine cabinet with any drugs you might need to live or slack your craving! Also, note that boys' bathroom doors don't lock, while girls' do."
Noting the second piece of information, John focused on the one that seemed more pressing.
"Did you just imply that someone here is a junkie?" he asked.
"Weren't you listening? Bah, I have more important things to do," Monokuma said before leaving without giving John another chance to speak.
Slightly disturbed by Monokuma's information, John decided to go get lunch since it was almost noon, before tracking down Alexander to share his worries. Opening the door to the hall, John interrupted Paris mid-knock. She froze, surprised by his sudden appearance, before letting her fist fall. Standing in silence a few seconds, possibly trying to gather what she had in mind when she came, her expression suddenly turned weird.
John blinked before realizing that the poster of her was in line of sight from the door, prompting him to step into the hall and close the door behind him, red in the face.
"I, uh, got that before I knew I was coming here, and uh, he, the bear, copied our rooms exactly, so uh," John stuttered as an explanation.
"Right, right," Paris cut him off, "I was thinking uh, of getting lunch, and Alexander would probably complain if we, uh split up and Louise told me how intimidating he can be, so…"
John nodded as she trailed off before heading towards the cafeteria, Paris easily matching his speed as they both tried to escape the awkward atmosphere that had risen.
Entering the cafeteria, they saw Ferris lounging on one of the tables with a bored look as Alexander spoke to him. Chloe was sitting at a table a ways away watching them while she ate her lunch. Mary was standing by the door of the kitchen and waved to them as Rowland emerged, probably washing the plate he had use to eat. Rowland and Mary then left the cafeteria, Rowland offering a greeting as the pair passed.
Ignoring the other three for the moment, John entered the kitchen area along with Paris. Looking around, John saw a door that must lead to the pantry, as well as one that must have been a freezer. There was cupboards that probably contained dishes and…
Knives. Lots of knives.
Taking another look, John realized the ridiculous amount of cutlery scattered about the counter, as well as the fact that the freezer control reached lethal temperatures and locked from the outside. Disturbed by these observations John turned to find Paris had entered the pantry. Following her, John found her inspecting a list. Looking over her shoulder, John realized it was a helpful guide to the massive pantry. Seeing another slip of paper, John grabbed it, thinking it might have been for the freezer.
He was wrong.
He read:
Hey you bastards, some of your fellow classmates have allergies, lethal ones! If you want to take advantage of that, here are some things you might want to try slipping into their food.
The note proceeded to list where to find foods containing peanuts and seafood. John heard Paris make a disgusted noise behind his back as she read the note over his shoulder. Looking around John went towards a high shelf, locating a step ladder to reach the top shelves, before pitching the note as far back as he could. Hoping no one would find it. He turned to descend to find Paris with a horrified look on her face.
Blinking John descended, and opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong but she cut him off.
"You think someone might actually kill?"
"No," John assured her, "but taking precautions isn't a bad thing, right?"
She calmed a little at his assurance but still walked away from the area as fast as she could. Turning away, John took the time to figure out where the ingredients to make a sandwich were and retrieving them before heading after her. He found her awkwardly standing outside the door.
"I forgot to grab something," she muttered on the cusp of hearing, not meeting his gaze.
John lifted the bread he was holding so it caught her attention before saying, "Sandwiches work?"
After Paris nodded, John turned to the freezer and stopped. Looking around he found something to prop the door open before heading in, telling Paris that he didn't want to risk it shutting and getting stuck. She didn't put up as much fuss, but he could tell it weighed on her mind.
After retrieving more things to prepare their food, John exited the freezer to find Paris talking to Alexander. The taller boy loomed over her a little, although judging by his expression it was mostly subconscious. Paris still drew back from him as she talked, and John caught the end of her sentence.
"…hid it on top of a shelf."
Clearing his throat to alert them to his presence John sat what he was carrying down near the bread he had grabbed from the pantry. He opened it and began taking out slices offering some to Alexander who accepted.
"Can you show me where you hid it Citizen John?"
John looked towards the soldier, nodding before rewrapping the bread and moving towards the pantry. Pointing in the general area he had stored the list, he put the bread back. He came back to Alexander descending from the step ladder, possibly the only ones who could reach without it were Rowland and Chloe. Both exited the pantry to find Paris making her sandwich, layering on various meats and cheeses.
John and Alexander joined her in silence, making sandwiches of their own. Soon John and Paris left, Alexander volunteering to stay behind and put the things back in the freezer. Walking out of the kitchen, John and Paris saw that Chloe and Ferris were now sitting together, and they moved to join them. They, or more accurately Ferris, stopped talking as they sat at the table.
"What were you and Alexander talking about earlier?" John asked, but Chloe answered before Ferris could.
"The midget won't answer, says its 'classified information' on a special 'need to know basis,'" sarcasm dripping from her voice at the end.
The shorter boy rolled his eyes, his usual smile plastered across his face. He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but a moment's hesitation showed that he diverged from his original choice of words.
"Chloe is gay."
John blinked at the statement, looking back and forth between the chemist and the survivalist, hoping that Paris was as weirded out as much as he was. His hopes were met as he heard her shift uncomfortably in her chair. The silence was broken by Chloe's voice.
"What, you all too high and mighty to associate with me now?"
John quickly shook his head while Paris babbled incomprehensibly in an apologetic tone. Giving them suspicious looks, Chloe subsided from her hostility.
"We were caught off guard," John managed, Paris nodding in agreement, "for all we knew Ferris was being an ass."
Snorting, Chloe muttered something about how Ferris was an ass, which didn't seem to bother the chemist at all, who was watching them talk with interest.
"Why did you deflect the topic?" John asked him.
"Because the topic was none of your business, no I am not planning on following the escape clause our captor has so kindly provided if that is what disturbs you."
Shaking his head John decided to back down for now, figuring that Ferris had known Alexander beforehand and that they had not parted on the best of terms and for all he knew Alexander had tried to mend fences with the chemist, which may have ended poorly. John started to eat his food as Alexander exited the kitchen and joined them at the table, which might have descended into an awkward silence if Ferris hadn't decided to fill the air with inane facts about his work.
After a while Atsuko joined them from the direction of the dorms, and Ferris stood up and left with her after talking for a minute. With the chemist gone, the silence he had been protecting them from descended with a vengeance.
Finally unable to take it, John turned to Chloe and asked, "How did you become a survivalist?"
She turned to him surprised, before saying, "I lived in the outback, pretty damn far from the nearest town, my parents were scientists. One day the building we were living in burned down, killing my father, and my mother thought I had died too. She went to get help to try and shift through the wreckage but it was still a three day drive to any sort of help. I ended up living out there for a month before they found me. They were amazed I lived that long, and a few of them wanted to know how I survived. I told them I wasn't an idiot and knew what was safe to eat and drink, and had figured out how to avoid the predators."
Finishing her story, Chloe eyed John up and down.
"Alright, I spilled my story, now you spill yours."
Taking a moment to think, John sighed before saying, "Not much to tell. People began noticing that I managed to get the exact average of everything I did in a group, and people got curious, ran some tests, and asked me to attend this school to 'study' my natural 'mediocrity'."
"So, you're saying that if we put you out in the wild with me and some stupid loser, and I came back well fed while the other guy starved, you'd only be half starved?" Chloe asked, a wicked smile across her face.
John grimaced at the analogy, while Alexander choked a bit on his mouthful of sandwich.
"W-What an a-awful th-thing to say," Paris stuttered.
"What, you mean because the guy hypothetically starved to death?"
"Yes, w-we really sh-shouldn't be joking about death right n-now!"
"Why not, m-miss stutter?" Chloe mocked back.
"B-b-b-because o-o-our lives are on- are on- are-"
John interrupted, laying a hand on the shaking girl's shoulder; and Paris subsided as Chloe left the cafeteria with a snort, leaving Alexander behind with a mutter of a general area to where she was going.
As Alexander rushed to dispose of his dish and follow her, Paris managed, "W-what a b-bitch."
John nodded in agreement, although Chloe might become more personable to people she was closer to. Or she could just always be this abrasive. Either way, noon had come and gone as they had eaten to Ferris's mindless babble of facts.
Seeing that Paris had eaten, John picked up their dishes and put them in the kitchen, Paris looking as though she wanted to protest his actions, but deciding to not argue. He suggested they go to the library as he had stated earlier, and she agreed. They left the cafeteria, muttering greetings to Wilbur and Louise who were passing as they headed in the general direction of their rooms.
Passing the main entrance, John saw Shi-ru out of the corner of his eye standing in the hall leading to the central room. Turning, John sprinted towards the penguin, Paris letting out a soft noise of surprise at his actions. Skidding to a stop, John gaped at the scene before him as Paris joined him, covering the distance he had in possibly half the time.
Before them, Shi-ru, sporting a hard hat and holding what looked to be plans, presided over…three other Shi-rus, all decked out in tool belts and hard hats as they remodeled a room. What they were doing was blocked by a brown cloud of dirt which flew up from the robots rapid pace of work like in a cartoon, which John would not be surprised if the robots were releasing the cloud themselves.
"Oi, this is a closed set bub, the store will be open when we finish," the Shi-ru acting as foreman told them when he noticed their presence.
"Store?" Paris asked in mild confusion.
"Well, storeroom would be more accurate," said a Shi-ru, pausing in his work.
"Oi, back to work, I'm doing the talking!" said the foreman Shi-ru.
"Yes, but we're the same person," said the other Shi-ru.
"Yeah, and I'm the version that's talking and you're the version that's working!"
"Why?"
"Because I got the blueprints see? And you ended up with a tool belt!"
"Then let's switch."
"No, back to work."
"I don't want to."
"You don't have a choice."
John cleared his throat, interrupting the bickering copies. The one dressed as foreman returned his attention to John while the Shi-ru decked out with tools made what looked like an attempt to flip the bird, which was hindered by the fact that he had flippers, at the other's back, before returning to his work.
"So, what exactly is this room going to be?" he asked.
"A place to get stuff that might be useful, you know, new clothes, matches, stationary, gardening tools, other assorted shanks and shivs, the works."
John opened his mouth as Paris made a distressed noise, but the Shi-ru cut him off.
"Now get, you two are distracting the workers."
He proceeded to shoo the two away, failing to notice the other Shi-rus all stopping work the minute he turned his back to watch him chase the pair away down the hall. Once they were back in the entrance foyer, the Shi-ru unit turned and left, yelling at his clones and once again starting an argument as to why he was in charge.
"What's the conflict?"
John turned to see Ferris and Atsuko standing close by, although he was unsure as to where they had come from.
"Well, Shi-ru is arguing with Shi-ru, who is supported by Shi-ru, as Shi-ru pretends to work because he doesn't really care who is foreman but doesn't want to work," John said.
Atsuko gave John a strange look while Ferris nodded at what John said.
"Sounds about right, it takes a special kind of person not to strangle their other versions when they encounter them."
Atsuko shifted her look to Ferris, who looked around at the others before saying, "What? It's a basic fact of fiction; anytime there are multiple copies of a person, they are most likely going to end up in conflict over something."
Still not receiving any sort of acknowledgment beyond befuddled looks, Ferris snorted, but paused, and said, "Well, I can think of an instance , where at no point in time, did the copies fight, but that is very rare, and the guy was one of those 'pure of heart' kind of character who was the main hero of the story."
Once again the silence dragged on, before Atsuko said, "Anyways, what were the two of you planning on doing."
"We, ah, we were heading to the, the library," Paris said quietly.
"Mind if we join, I haven't really got a look at it yet?" Atsuko asked.
"No, not at all," John said, Paris muttering agreement after a moment.
The four of them started down the hall towards the library with Ferris once again starting up a barrage of words. This time it was actually conversation, not just trivia from his work. From talking with them, John learned of Ferris's and Atsuko's love of anime, Ferris's enjoyment of fantasy novels, Paris shared stories of some of her games, and Atsuko described some Japanese customs she remembered from her mother. John in turn shared some of his fun experiences he had with his brother.
They eventually reached the library where they split apart, Ferris mentioning trying to find a manga section, and Atsuko following him, conversing about an anime John had never heard of. John proceeded to drift through the bookshelves, losing Paris, when she paused to leaf through an appealing novel in the romance section.
John continued walking through the various shelves, eventually coming across Billy and Adam, who was speaking rather quietly. Checking the marking on the shelves, he realized they were in a section dedicated to theater, which explained Adam's presence but did not explain Billy's.
Saying a quiet greeting to the two he moved to keep walking but Adam hailed him, raising his voice to about a normal speaking level.
"I see you have found your way to this mecca of the arts, would you care to hear of some of the highlights of the history?"
"Uh, sure, I'll listen for a bit."
Billy chuckled and shook his head as Adam began a detailed history of some of the greatest playwrights and actors in history, a lot more history than he was prepared to receive.
"You're really passionate about theater…," John said after a while.
"Yes!" Adam said, returning to his natural volume in his excitement, "Theater is what I live for, bringing to life beloved characters, the applause, all of it!"
"Yes, the constant ego stroking would suit you," Billy said from his position against the shelves.
Adam glared at him, but sighed and said, once again at a lower volume, "Yes, I will admit that I do, enjoy, the recognition I receive from my performances, but who doesn't enjoy being recognized for their accomplishments. I'm sure you do."
Billy snorted, looking up from the floor.
"My main job is to determine if someone has a behavioral disorder or figure out how a criminal will act, there isn't much recognition for those things," he said.
Adam scowled slightly, unhappy with Billy's disagreement, but he shrugged it off fairly quickly. He started to speak again.
"Well, at least I am willing to acknowledge my flaws, which many find difficult to do!"
"Yeah, well you just made your narcissism a reason to fuel your narcissism. It's no wonder you have trouble getting along with others."
They began to argue, which got louder as Adam once again got swept into the passion of what he was saying. John stood by awkwardly, trying to figure a way out when a section of books a few inches above everyone's heads vanished and Rowland's face appeared in the gap.
"You are familiar with the idea of silence in the library, or do I need to explain it to you two?"
Adam subsided at Rowland's interference, while Billy simply grunted and slinked off to a different section of shelves, Adam scowling after him. Seeing the effect he had had on them, Rowland vanished from the gap without a word and replaced the books in their proper spots.
John also took the chance to duck away as Adam picked a book off the shelf. He decided that both of them, Adam and Billy; gave themselves a lot of airs, but, again, like Chloe, they might become more bearable if they became more comfortable with the others. Hopefully, they would at least eventually stop grating on each other's nerves.
Deciding to try and find Paris, John called out her name quietly every so often while gazing along the spines of the books. He noted that the books were stored by type and organized by the author's last name, like a typical library, but this one was massive. He noted what looked like stairs leading up, but a barrier of what looked like plastic sealed them off. He continued looking for Paris, but stopped when he heard Rowland talking quietly to Mary.
"We will have to show this to the others, so that they have knowledge of this, section."
"It's going to unsettle them…maybe we should hide the books among the others?"
"No, we can't risk losing track of any of them."
Rounding the book shelf, he found the tall brainaic and the smaller artist inspecting a section of the shelves, Rowland retaining his emotionless mask while Mary scratched her hand nervously. Walking up to them, Mary seeing him approach and increasing her scratching, he read a few titles on the spines, and was disturbed.
The books all had names that suggested they were advice books on how best to go about a murder. Checking the author, he noticed that many of them were labeled with Monokuma's name although a few listed the name Enoshima, whoever that was.
"You're right Rowland, we do need to tell the others, but I suggest we tell Alexander first," John said.
Rowland let out a huff of air before saying, "We seem to be putting a lot of trust into Alexander, I am unsure if this is entirely wise."
The others fell silent at Rowland's words, but the British boy sighed and tapped Mary's shoulder, grabbing her attention before motioning towards the exit. The artist looked to Rowland before forcing herself to stop scratching her hand and headed for the exit Rowland following her.
John turned away from yet another reminder that they were expected to kill each other and continued to look for Paris beginning to become unnerved by the library's size. He eventually found her back towards the front engrossed in a romance novel that she clutched to her chest and refused to let him see. Snorting in amusement he said he was getting tired and asked if she was alright going back to the dorms.
Nodding, and still clutching the book to her chest, she followed him out of the library. Walking along the halls, they passed Barry who was by himself. He waved and kept walking but John stopped him.
"Where's Perdita?" he asked.
"Somewhere."
Barry continued to walk by and eventually walked out of sight.
"They, aren't, taking it, seriously…," Paris said haltingly.
John sighed as he turned around saying, "Look we can't do anything about it. We might as well tell the others tomorrow."
Paris bit her lip, but had no response, so she clutched the book tighter as they walked. John stopped as she waited for her door to open. They bid good night and she entered her room. John walked to his room pausing to note that Mary's was across from his before swiping his ID, watching the animation, and passing out the minute his head touched his pillow.