AN: And another chapter! I forgot to do this last chapter but thanks to you who has favorite this story! I appreciate the show of support. Anyhow, I do not own danganronpa and on with the show.
John's Room; 0930 Hours; Day 7
John made his way to the cafeteria sluggishly. His dreams had been plagued with Monokuma's giggling as he revealed the inhabitants of the school in grotesque states of death, the images following him, losing clarity as he walked past the various dorm rooms.
He was snapped out of his silent reflection by Ferris's voice, his tone light and joking.
"And the zombies have begun their rise Rowland. Quick, we must prepare ourselves for the arrival of the main hoard."
John looked to the chemist and…took a moment to process the grayish tint that Ferris had developed. As the chemist approached him John noticed that a there seemed to be a greenish tint developing in the corners of Ferris's eyes.
"I would suggest locking ourselves in our respective dormitories as they are extremely hard to break into and as a precaution if one of us is infected with the zombie virus," Rowland said from his semi-reclined position from the table he was sitting at.
Ferris nodded as he began inspecting John, stating, "Fantastic plan but it seems that John has not come for our brains, which is fortunate because I would have had to escape while he went for the obvious choice in brains."
Ferris laughed as he turned away and began walking to the kitchen, before stopping and coughing heavily into his hand. Before John could move the chemist had recovered and had vanished into the kitchen.
"He does that sporadically," Rowland said, staring into emptiness, "I believe there is quite a bit wrong with our friendly chemist for symptoms to emerge the day after his medication is removed as a factor."
John looked to the kitchen considering if he should ask Ferris what exactly the medication he took was supposed to do, but as he entered the kitchen, the chemist ducked past him with a plate of food. Sighing, John set about preparing his breakfast, planning on asking Ferris after he had finished.
Of course, by the time he had made his breakfast several other students had arrived, and John did not want to try and get Ferris to speak in front of the others. He sat down and began eating greeting Jane, whose eyes were red and kept sniffling, and Alexander, who answered with a stiff nod. Ferris's inane chatter kept the heavy atmosphere at bay slightly. Paris joined him eventually, and Atsuko also sat with them, eventually causing Ferris to gravitate to them from where he had been talking to Louise as Wilbur quietly ate nearby.
After a few minutes of Ferris's chatter, Atsuko asked, "What was the watch for?"
And Ferris stopped talking. The sudden silence from the main source of noise in the room drew the attention of all present students, which included almost everyone at this point.
After a few minutes, Ferris said, "To keep track of time of course."
"Time until what exactly?" Atsuko insisted.
Ferris looked around conspiratorially before gesturing them closer, and once they had leaned in, Ferris said in a whisper, "The time until I die."
And Ferris leaned back a large grin on his face, before saying, "Now you can't tell anyone, okay? It's a secret from everybody."
"What is, Scientist Ferris?" Alexander asked.
"Oh, I bet it's killing you right now not knowing something, or do you? Maybe you know or possibly you don't, what does matters is that you can't really confirm what it was. Was it something I overheard in the library recently? Was it something about the motive?" Ferris rambled.
Alexander narrowed his eyes at Ferris, opening his mouth before Ferris laughed and said, "Wow, your face is priceless, it was just some harmless relationship stuff about who likes who."
"How would you know that kind of stuff?" Barry asked lazily as Alexander tried to figure out if Ferris was screwing with him.
"Store Shi-ru gossips like hell when he's bored, I also fit in the air vents."
There was some silence before Amelia said, "Ferris, dear, why, are you climbing around the air vents?"
"Boredom. Turns out I really can't sit still and think for a whole day," Ferris responded.
"Do you know how dusty those things can be? And you listened in on peoples' conversations?"
"Oh, ah, well," Ferris said, "I did cover my mouth with a cloth so I didn't inhale much dust, and I didn't specifically hunt people down and listen in on what you all were saying, I just listened as I passed overhead. And yeah, I realize how creepy that is but I was curious as to if they could be useful somehow. Short answer is only me, Atsuko, and Louise can fit in them, so no."
John heard Louise sigh, before saying, "Curiosity killed the cat Ferris, and it's probably going to kill you too."
Ferris laughed at her words, not a harsh bark of fake laughter like may have been expected but a genuine laugh, before responding, "You know how me and curiosity stand, Scully."
He stood up, but stopped, leaning on the table as he once again coughed heavily, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie. Silence fell as the coughing fit ensued; only broken by a sneeze from Jane that was followed by a muted 'bless you' from Amelia. When the chemist finally straightened up, his expression was as happy as ever, almost as if the whole death countdown he had assigned himself was a joke.
"I need some more books, you guys coming with, John, Paris?" Ferris addressed John.
John was caught off guard by the chemist's speedy recovery, but agreed to come after asking Paris if she had anything else to do, to which she responded with a shake of her head.
After their agreement, Ferris waited until they stood up before walking in the direction of the Library. John picked up his pace as the chemist's face pace began to open a gap between him and the other's but at the entrance hall Ferris stopped to cough into his arm again.
"What's wrong with him?"
John turned to where Perdita was standing, knowing it was her from her accent. The vocalist was standing in the hall coming from the central hall, pulling a face as Ferris's coughs turned more violent.
"His medication was cut off by Monokuma, you were there," Atsuko said.
"Yes, but I did not know it was a disease of the lungs, keep him away from me," the vocalist responded, "I will not risk his malady spreading and damage my voice."
Atsuko's expression darkened slightly and she opened her mouth to retort when Ferris straightened up and said, "Don't worry, it isn't contagious, I know."
Perdita sniffed derisively at the chemist and swept down the hall towards the cafeteria. Atsuko glared after her as Paris shifted foot to foot.
"I think the motive applies to her, the question though, is how?" Ferris said, looking after her through half lidded eyes, a disturbing look when coupled with his ever present smile.
"She did look paler then usually," John said, "but that could be explained as her makeup being removed, Amelia wasn't wearing any this morning so Monokuma may have simply emptied the medicine cabinets."
Ferris raised his eyebrows at John's comment but gave a nod of approval before moving forward again.
"What I said in the cafeteria was true though," Ferris commented, turning to face them walking backwards, "I am dying."
"But, why?" Atsuko asked.
"Oh, I've absorbed close to every fucking chemical I've worked with through my skin because I rarely remember to wear the proper gear before and the buildup of the chemicals over time basically has caused my body to start to shut down. I managed to create something that kept my body in working order, but, now that I don't have access to it, my body is in full shut down. Liver, kidneys, lungs," he thumped his chest, "yep, all starting to fail."
"Why-, why, are you, smiling then?" Paris asked haltingly.
"Oh, there's nothing we can do, well, John could say, strangle Paris and get punished horribly, and all the medicine would be returned. But we obviously aren't going to do that so option two is to wait until I die of semi, natural causes and the rest of the others get their medicine back."
"You don't think they would kill?" Atsuko asked.
"Jane, no, allergies aren't worth killing over. The one who's off the antipsychotics might suffer a breakdown and our druggie might be desperate to get their fix. I remember Louise was on antidepressants so if you guys can also keep an eye on her when you can. That leaves the hemophiliac; they're the wild card amongst the medicated. They probably won't kill but they might panic and react violently if they thought they're being threatened. It would be logical, considering that they are so much easier to kill now."
"That's a morbid line of thought," John said after a minute of silence.
"I may be dying but that doesn't mean I have to stop trying to keep everyone alive, it would be easier if we knew who more of the people were," Ferris responded.
"C-can we please talk about something else? I'm b-becoming uncomfortable," Paris said.
"Of course, you guys want to hear the actual gossip so if they ask any of you about it you have something to say?" Ferris asked.
"Wait, you actually crawled through the air ducts?" John asked incredulously.
"Yeah, I was curious, and I understand that it was creepy. I just can't sit still for long without knowing that something was being accomplished. So I decided to try and do something useful. Oh, and Shi-ru does talk when he's bored, and he is allowed to view the camera footage despite Monokuma trying to seal him out."
"Ugh, the thought of Monokuma being able to view us is just disturbing," Atsuko said, shuddering, but she shook her head and asked, "but, sure, what was the gossip?"
"Rowland has a thing for Mary," Ferris said after a conspiratorial look around that would have grabbed the attention of anyone who saw it.
"Really?" Atsuko asked.
"Yeah, it makes sense, he follows her around like a puppy," Ferris responded with a grin.
"Should we really be talking about this?" Paris asked.
"Oh, we're talking about this because you wanted a different topic, plus, if someone really presses you for what I said, cough, cough, Alexander cough, you have something that can distract him that you don't have to improvise or track us down before he can and disprove it."
"This isn't really what I had in mind," Paris said haltingly.
"Do you have a crush on anybody?" John asked Ferris suddenly.
"Eh? Ah," Ferris paused in his backward walk, turning around to give himself more time to think, "Maybe, maybe, I've had crushes before but they usually die…no, I don't have one right now, how about you, John? The word in the hall is you and Paris are getting together."
Paris choked and John felt his face flush slightly while Ferris wiggled his eyebrows at him. Atsuko elbowed Ferris in the ribs which unfortunately coincided with another coughing fit. John organized his thoughts as Ferris doubled over, leaning on Atsuko for support. John noticed flecks of something on the chemist's sleeve when he removed his arm from his mouth.
"Ferris are, you, coughing up blood?" he asked.
"Maybe, not sure if it qualifies as blood anymore, see? It's purple," Ferris said.
The flecks were purple, though as John watched, the flecks started to turn red. The chemist stood upright and began walking normally again, turning around and walking backwards again to say, "See I'm alright," before turning back around.
The rest of the walk was made mostly in silence until they reached the library. They spent some time together, looking through books, but the group eventually dispersed although Ferris periodically gave his position away by his heavy coughing.
As John was traversing the shelves a voice called out.
"You'd really think Alexander would realize that the buddy system breaks down amongst the shelves, and that the most likely place for there to be a murder would be here."
John turned, slightly surprised that the heavily accented voice belonged to Amelia rather than Rowland who was typically of that line of thought.
"I'm not planning anything," the girl said, letting out a huff as she browsed the shelves, "it's just that I worry that if anything happens Alexander would blame himself."
"Were you always this motherly with your family I mean?" John asked as an attempt to redirect the subject.
Amelia blinked, as she looked at him, John noting she was still wearing less make up although he noticed that she had found lipstick somewhere.
"Yes," she said, turning back to the shelves, "I was the oldest and my parents had jobs that kept them away from the family often, so I was in charge of raising my younger siblings."
"I have a younger brother, James."
Amelia smiled, a little tiredly, before saying, "Ivan, Yuri, Anastasia, Soap, Ella, and Boris; I believe I win the sibling game."
John nodded, before going through the names again and saying, "Soap? Really?"
Rolling her eyes, Amelia said, "Of course not really, he was always such a clean freak and always smelled of soap, haven't you heard of nicknames?"
John laughed, looking at a few of the covers before realizing what section he had wandered into a he read Monokuma's name listed across several of the spines. Pulling a face he moved to leave the section, Amelia following him out still with a sour look on her face as they left the area.
They paused as Ferris's hacking cough rang out over the shelves, Amelia adopting an anguished look at the sound.
Muttering something in Russian John didn't understand, she turned before saying, "Do you know anything about what is wrong with him? Speak up."
"No," John lied, hoping he hadn't appeared suspicious.
His hopes were unanswered as Amelia's eyes narrowed. The girl crossed her arms across her chest and leaned to one side before saying, "You just lied to me."
Putting on a confused look, John said, "No I didn't."
Narrowing her eyes even further Amelia said, "Who, here, is the actor? You? Or me?"
John sighed, before saying, "Look, I don't know what's wrong with him, he explained it but it ended up as some chemistry jargon that I couldn't understand," a lie, he understood that his body was basically shutting down, but he hoped that this would be enough to stop Amelia's questions.
The actress gave John a flat look before sighing and walking past him saying, "I know that is only a partial truth, and I expect the full truth later. I wish to help and I cannot help if I do not know what the problem is."
"The problem is that you may not be able to help even if you knew the problem," Ferris's voice came floating over the tops of the shelves.
Amelia snapped to attention and gave a quick goodbye before dashing off into the shelving towards where Ferris's voice had sounded. John stood still for a minute as the sound of her heels clicking against the floor faded away. A new set of footsteps approached John as he remained where he was standing.
Eventually, Perdita appeared, and in Ferris's voice she said, "One good turn deserves another."
Looking her over, he noticed that she looked fine. He was surprised as she had been one of the people to immediately seal herself in the room after the medications were removed. As he remained quiet, Perdita swept past him and moved without a sound as she vanished into the shelving, leaving him to think.
A thought crossed his mind. What was removed was in the medicine cabinets, so if things were removed from the cabinet beforehand, hmm. Time would show whether or not Perdita would show some sort of effect.
John turned the opposite way from where the vocalist had vanished and began to search for Paris.