AN: And the second chapter I'm posting today, so I guess I did get the chapter up as soon as possible. And things are starting to get good so with only a disclaimer stating that I do not own Danganronpa or any of the songs I mention in this chapter let the party begin!
Day 14, 0930 Hours, Cafeteria
"What time did the bear say to show up?"
John looked at Wilbur. The pilot looked well enough but John could spot the nervous glint in his eyes, the mistrust of everyone present.
"Around noon, although he did say that you could be 'fashionably late' until twelve thirty."
Wilbur nodded and left. John watched his back as he vanished from the cafeteria. The pilot never really said anything unless it was required, making him a horrible conversationalist. The same went for Barry, although he was horrible because he seemed to answer with the same set of phrases over and over again.
As John silently sat and judged his fellow captives, he was joined by Paris and Atsuko.
As they began to eat, John stopped eating the food he had gotten earlier and asked them, "What do you think of our classmates?"
They both paused, finishing what they had been chewing before Paris said, "Well, Rowland is okay, so is Barry even if he does seem…"
"Stoned," Atsuko supplied.
"Right," Paris agreed, "Mary has a temper but is usually in a good mood and does seem to be getting along with Rowland fairly well."
"Yeah, the gentle giant and the angry dwarf," Atsuko said.
"She's taller than you," John said.
"Compared to him she's a dwarf," was Atsuko's response to which Paris gave a nervous laugh.
"Y-yeah, well, um," she paused, clearly starting to wonder if she should continue to voice her opinions on her classmates.
"Adam is a bit egotistical," Atsuko supplied, to which the other two nodded in agreement, "and Billy is horribly cynical. Perdita's a bitch, so is Chloe when she's in a bad mood."
John pulled a face, but nodded in agreement. He did not like to admit it but both the vocalist and survivalist tended to view the others as nuisances.
"Alexander is fine as long as he doesn't go full blown soldier and Amelia is a sweet person even if she can go overboard on the motherly thing," the lucky student continued, voicing the main traits of the others.
"Jane, Wilbur, and Louise tend to keep to themselves so I really don't know about them but, overall I think they're all decent people, and I hope they're good people as well."
The silence after her last sentence was deafening. The unspoken sentiment was easily distinguished.
I hope they are too good to kill someone.
Hope. It seemed to be coming up a lot lately.
"Come on," John said standing up abruptly, causing the girls to snap out of their thoughts, "let's go make sure that the stupid bear didn't do anything to horrible and afterwards let's get Ferris."
Paris nodded and stood up as Atsuko pulled a face at John's comment about Monokuma but stood up as well.
Day 14, 0945 Hours, Gymnasium
"Something's wrong."
John looked at the shorter of the two girls but could not see what could possibly be wrong. The stage was out again, except equipped with a karaoke machine placed upon it. There were tables with an enormous amount of food and drink piled upon them. It looked fine. John could see why that didn't sit well with Atsuko.
"We're not allowed to touch anything yet so there isn't anything we could do," John said after another look around, "we can only hope for the best."
He turned away from her as she ground her teeth in frustration. There was nothing visibly wrong, and he doubted Monokuma would try anything too radical. He turned and left, pausing outside to wait for the girls who came out a second later. They began to walk towards the dorm area the clocks slowly ticking towards noon, reaching about ten thirty before they actually reached Ferris's dorm.
John pounded on the door, calling out before stopping, remembering that the rooms had been soundproofed; a fact discovered when Atsuko had tried to have a conversation with Ferris through the door.
The door remained closed for another ten minutes before Paris said she needed to check something and ran off to her room. Atsuko eventually left for her dorm leaving John waiting by himself for the suddenly elusive chemist. Finally the door opened, not to Ferris, but Shi-ru.
"He asked me to let you in," the penguin said as John entered. Then closed the door and vanished.
John saw Ferris sitting on his bed, although the general disorganized chaos of the rest of the room was just as eye-catching as the first time John had glimpsed it. John saw Ferris moving and perceived something coming at him, and caught whatever it was as it bounced off his head. Looking at the chemist indignantly, John opened his mouth to saw something before he realized he was holding the watch Alexander had given Ferris.
It was a digital watch, fairly practical which John would expect from Alexander with nothing to its design that wasn't serving some function. What really caught his eye was the fact that an alarm was going off, which he hadn't been able to hear when it was clutched in Ferris's fist.
"I was supposed to die fifteen minutes ago," Ferris said when John looked back up, now gazing at the everyman.
"Did you-," John began.
"Miscalculate? Yes, I think I might have a variable wrong," the chemist responded.
John gave Ferris a confused look as the chemist stood up and began hobbling around the room, explaining as he went.
"I calculated how long I would last without the medication the minute I started taking it, at the time I had about a week. No ifs or buts or, unfortunately, coconuts."
John blinked as he was thrown off track and did his best to refocus as Ferris continued.
"Now, I had started to synthesize something to actually combat the chemical imbalance in my body, but I was a year away, and if I was successful, after say, a few months, I would have a survive rate of about two weeks."
"Wait, so you just told me-," John started.
"I think we might be missing at least a year and a half worth's of memories," Ferris finished stopping to face John.
"How do you know its two weeks?" John asked after a second.
"I'm guessing, being optimistic," Ferris said, "I mean going off my degeneration."
Ferris motioned to the door and John exited, holding the door open for the chemist and turned to the sound of Paris's voice.
"G-g-good!" she said, coming down the hall with Atsuko, "I was w-worried t-that you had d-d-d-, passed, and h-had run to m-make sure the m-medicine hadn't b-been returned."
"I haven't croaked yet," was Ferris's response but he was halted from further conversation by coughing.
"The party starts soon," Atsuko said slowly once Ferris had straightened out, "well, it'll probably start soon by the time we get there."
Ferris nodded and motioned forward, knowing he was the one they were using to set the pace. They started walking, pausing every so often and waiting Ferris to finish coughing. It was eleven thirty by the time they got there, and they started to talk as they waited for the party to officially start.
Day 14, 1236 Hours, Gymnasium
John jumped when Shi-ru's voice suddenly cut through the air. He was talking to Mary who had shown up a few minutes ago with Rowland, the only other group to show before time had been Alexander and Chloe much to the survivalist's chagrin.
"Alright," the droid said, sporting a pair of headphones around the area his neck might be, "karaoke or should I just start playing songs?"
"I'll sing," Ferris said, standing up and doing his best to walk normally to the stage.
Chloe snorted and moved to the tables with food, pausing to give the chemist a glare when he started singing 'Land Down Under' by Men at Work, John thought. He listened to the chemist sing, poorly, and clapped at the end with most of the others, Chloe rolling her eyes while Rowland started to comment on Ferris's singing which Mary silenced with an elbow.
Atsuko took the mike next and this continued, John recognizing a few of the songs sung. People continued to show up, Amelia and Jane showing up shortly after they started doing karaoke closely followed by Billy and Adam. Adam, who automatically took the stage and only was slightly disappointed when he was told they were doing karaoke and he couldn't show off his acting.
Wilbur eventually showed up with a very unhappy Louise. John noticed she didn't look like she had been sleeping, but she tried to look happy and started a conversation with Ferris. Barry turned up by himself and ended up being led away to where Shi-ru had stored the instruments he had asked for. By this time a good chunk of time had passed and people were starting to enjoy themselves.
John noticed that Perdita had slunk in sometime and was glaring at Rowland who had been dragged on stage by Mary to sing a duet. Barry had moved onstage and was setting up various instruments, when Perdita swept towards the stage. When she got to the stage she opened her mouth, possibly to announce exactly what she intended to sing, but before she could Ferris called out.
"Hey, sing 99 Luftballoons by Nena, in German!"
The vocalist gave the chemist such a venom laced look that Atsuko, who was sitting next to him, flipped her off, drawing Perdita's glare to her.
"I was," Perdita began, "going to sing one of the many songs that I have performed in the various Operas I have performed in but-."
"I can play what he said, but not any opera bullshit," came Barry's lazy voice from behind her.
Perdita bristled, but eventually started singing a song which John assumed was the one Ferris had requested, as he saw the chemist bobbing his head along to it. John could notice that people were enjoying themselves. John finally moved and grabbed some food and began eating it.
The party went on for some time, those present eventually tiring of the karaoke which had become backed by Barry and eventually a few people began dancing. Ferris and Atsuko was a pair, they were joined by Amelia who had gotten Wilbur to dance with her, even though his main form of dance was to awkwardly shift around, Barry was also dancing, although he had ended up by himself. John noticed that Jane had moved and was talking with Louise and saw Mary attempting to convince Rowland to dance, with little success although the Brit seemed to be weakening.
Time passed and eventually John was joined by Ferris. The chemist greeted him and began a conversation neither of them was paying attention to, which was cut short when Paris asked John to dance. They danced for a few songs as others shifted from talking to dancing to eating, the atmosphere generally positive. Eventually Amelia and Adam took the stage and performed an improvisation that Ferris had called out, performing the strange scene quite spectacularly.
It was getting towards six when things took a turn for the worst. John noticed the others were starting to act differently, although he was also losing the ability to focus. Paris had become way more talkative and kept hiccupping, Louise was openly sobbing while Amelia comforted her and Jane snoozed on the table. Adam was arguing with an extremely irate Billy, and Alexander was talking to the air were Ferris had been standing, who was moving quickly towards John, smacking the drink out of his hand.
"The punch has been spiked," the chemist hissed, his perpetual smile turned into a grimace.
John blinked, trying to focus as Paris began laughing at something Atsuko had said. Ferris grunted at his slowness, spinning around while telling John to try to get the others back to their rooms.
John nodded his brain finally catching up to the present. He turned to try and convince Paris to go back to her room, when the soccer player kissed him. John lost all focus and sat there surprised until Ferris reappeared, pushing the two apart. Rowland was with him, carrying Mary who was saying 'whee!' over and over again. John opened his mouth to say something when Paris fell over on top of Ferris the chemist growling under his breath, the grimace still in place.
"Did you end the party?" John managed after Ferris had shoved the girl off him into John's arms.
"Yeah, and some of the kinder people who managed to stay sober are helping those who aren't," the chemist responded, "the bear probably slipped it in about an hour or so ago while we weren't paying attention."
John nodded, doing his best to stand and hold onto Paris who had passed out. He began moving her toward the dorms. Ferris was guiding Atsuko as best he could while Rowland kept pace with them.
"Mary, where is your room key?" Rowland asked after a second.
The artist stopped her giggling long enough to fish it out, causing three sets of eyes to turn to the walls.
"Thank you," Rowland said his voice actually strained.
"Hey John, mind coming with me to my room? I know Atsuko doesn't have any pockets in her dress and I think her ID is in the same place Mary's was," Ferris said, "I rather there not be the chance that things start spreading that I was alone with a drunk girl all night."
John nodded, noticing that a few of the others had passed them, most notable Alexander still talking to the air thinking it was Ferris. When they reached Ferris's door Rowland b id them good night and kept moving forward while Ferris scanned his card. Piling into his room John laid Paris across a desk and laid down on the floor, suddenly remembering something.
"Aren't we shupposhed to shleep in our own dormsh?" John slurred wincing at the sound.
"No, just says dorms," Ferris responded.
John nodded suddenly realizing that Shi-ru had appeared and was throwing blankets on Paris and Ferris, who had put Atsuko on his bed. The penguin also threw one on John's head, the everyman eventually laying down on the floor and falling asleep.
"John! Fuck it! John! Get the hell up!"
John was having trouble getting his eyes open, they felt crusty, and his head was pounding.
"John! Get up! You too, Paris! Atsuko! Atsuko! Jesus Christ! GUYS WAKE U-."
The Ferris's voice cut off as coughing began and John felt the splatter against his face which caused him to move into gear. Sitting up and wiping the blood and spit off his face, John felt something being forced into his hand. Finally opening his eyes he saw a fizzing glass and Shi-ru motioning for him to drink, his eyes feeling less crusty and his head feeling better. Finally focusing on the chemist, Ferris was shaking Atsuko who was showing signs of waking up and Shi-ru was moving towards her, another glass of the fizzing water in hand.
John moved and began shaking Paris awake while asking, "What's wrong?"
"My medicine is back," Ferris responded, "someone's dead."