"Oh, this is so frustrating!"
Naruhito startled as Dax kicked his podium.
"There's literally only thirteen suspects," he raged. "How can this be so hard?"
"Hey, hey, take a breath, buddy," Naruhito soothed. "There's got to be a way to narrow it down. I mean, who could it definitely not be."
"Luca-sempai, because he was asleep." Fukue said immediately.
Everybody turned to her, perhaps startled with how resolute she sounded. She blinked at them owlishly, before taking off her glasses to wipe them using a corner of the grey t-shirt she'd recently swapped over to wearing.
"Uhhh, weren't, like, most of us asleep?" Yori asked. "That's not really useful."
"Hey, quit it, Jerk-Face! At least she had an answer! No need to take it out on her — besides, I don't hear you contributing to the discussion much."
Naruhito felt bad when he saw Yori's heterochromic eyes widen in surprise. They'd gotten along before all this, whenever they'd met up in the Disabled Students Network. Yori had been an eager guinea pig for various types of walking aids, or things to help with the fiddlier tasks of everyday life, and even though it was obvious he didn't have a technical bone in his body he'd always been interested in how invention worked. Yet somehow, they didn't rub along right here in captivity.
But is that really surprising? Naruhito thought. There's nothing that rubs along right in this situation…
"Yes, I was sleeping," Luca said. "And Fukue, Fukue was with me until I fell asleep, and then she went straight to her own room. Right?"
"Ooooh, she was with you?" Hayami asked, eyes wide as she leant forward. "Tell me more!"
This made Kagura giggle for a moment, before she slapped her hand over her mouth, going red:
"Sorry, sorry! Now's so not the time…"
"No, it really isn't." Inori deadpanned.
"It's not like that, anyway…" Fukue said, fiddling with a lock of her hair and avoiding their gazes.
"In any case, can you confirm that you were with him?" Inori asked her. "You were very quick to vouch for Fontana-sempai, and not yourself."
"Ah, can't we just call it a day and then search everybody's rooms like we did last time?"
Everybody turned to Kakeru, who had clearly run his hands through his dark brown hair so many times that it was now standing up on end at all sorts of bizarre angles.
"Upupupu, nope, not gonna happen!"
Kakeru yelped as the screen flashed into life. The bear leered at them and said:
"You had your chance to investigate during, you know, the investigation? Now's the trial period, and you better keep it short and snappy if you don't want the corpse to start rotting out there. It might put you off your food!"
"You're disgusting." Kagura said, mouth twisting. "Just, really disgusting."
"Nope, it's not me who's disgusting, it's whoever killed her that's disgusting, tee-hee."
"In any case, he's right!" Dax exclaimed, pointing at Kakeru. "We should be allowed to go back and search like last time. That's how we found the frying pan in Kai's room, after all."
"But that's because you were disgusting little amateurs last time!" Monokuma shrieked. "This ain't your first rodeo, if you wanted to search the rooms you should have thought of that during the investigation period! So nah, you're just gonna have to use those SHSL brains of yours to figure it out! However long it takes…."
The screen winked out. Dax groaned and muttered:
"That's not even how investigating a crime works…"
"Maybe not out in the real world, but we're trapped in here!" Kakeru exclaimed. "We need to find a way to work it out before we all die! Isn't it better if just one person dies than all of us?"
"Oh my, that's very cold." Hayami said. "Wouldn't have thought it of you, Yanai-kun."
"He has a point, though." Inori said blandly.
"Ehhhhhhhhhhh?" Hayami gawped exaggeratedly.
"I have to agree," Silas spoke up. "I don't like it. I don't think any of us like it. But nonetheless…."
"No," Luca said firmly. "I can't believe it of any of us. I know what Chiara did, but that's…you agree too, Ono, yes? We need to stay strong."
"Ah, yeah, that's totally right, bro!" Naruhito exclaimed, not having expected to be talked to directly.
"No it's not!" Kakeru yelled.
When everybody stared at him, he shrunk a little behind his podium, shoulders hunching. Nonetheless, he gestured wildly at all of them, saying:
"Don't any of you all care? We're all trapped here and it's not like we can do anything about it, and now there's another corpse upstairs and I don't know about you, but I don't want to become another one of them! We need to stop being so stupid! And so do I!"
"Why?" Yori asked. "Was it you?"
"What?" Kakeru looked like he was about to explode, with how rapidly his face turned a vivid shade of red, his gold eyes bulging. "No. No, no, no! Of course not! Now that's a stupid question! Can't you just shut up if you're never going to say anything useful, don't you even care that we're all going to die?"
"Hey, now who's being the Meanie Weenie? You need to-"
When he saw that the copywriter was hyperventilating rapidly, Naruhito swallowed down the rest of his words, feeling rather guilty. Way to put your damn foot in your mouth, Naru, he scolded himself. You know he's struggling without his meds. Naruhito watched as Ena went over to Kakeru and murmured soothing words to him while coaxing him away from the podium. She then led him to the door, still murmuring and occasionally rubbing his back.
And here's another thing that isn't rubbing along right, Naruhito thought bitterly, knowing full well that if they'd been back in Hope's Peak, or just, well, not captured, then he wouldn't have hesitated to try and talk Kakeru down from his panics. Beyond not wanting to see a fellow student (and a fellow Disabled Students Network member, no less) distressed like that, it wouldn't have bothered him. But here, everything was different. Here, he was swallowing words and irritation, unable to do anything once putting on a cheerful front no longer sufficed, leaving it to the ones who already gave so much.
Maybe I really am just a screw-up…
"Hey!" Monokuma blared back into life again. "You can't leave!"
"We aren't leaving," Ena said calmly. "We're just taking a moment, that's all."
"Oh, right, fine, whatever."
The screen went dark once more. Apart from Ena trying to calm Kakeru down, the room was silent. Nobody seemed to know quite what to say to each other, Naruhito least of all. Because when he looked over at the shaking, whimpering boy once more, all he could think about was the last time, when Chiara had been executed. How, even before Monokuma had done the thing with the locked doors, flashing lights and the siren noises, Kakeru had been very insistent that Chiara just cooperate, to the extent of almost dragging her to the execution contraption.
When we do figure out who it is this time, Naruhito thought, even as he hated himself for thinking this thought, will he be so eager to send another person to their death?
Eventually, as she tended to do, Hayami was the one who broke the almost-silence:
"Soooo…..are we going to assume that hysteria is a sign of guilt, just as it was the last time?" she asked.
As always, the gymnast sounded off-handed, but for a brief moment Naruhito thought he caught a glimpse of something else in her expression. Whatever it was though, it was gone pretty quickly as she puffed out her cheeks and then blew out the air idly, clearly bored.
"Well, it can't happen twice, right?" Kagura said. "Besides, he jumps at his own shadow, poor kid. I don't think he would have been able to stab anyone without freaking out about it. Besides, he doesn't spend that much time in the kitchen area, so surely we would have noticed if he was lingering to choose a knife?"
"So we're narrowing it down to the ones who are using the kitchen most, right?" Silas said. "So that would be…"
"Me." Fukue offered.
"Yes, Fukue does help us with the meals," Luca agreed. "Although, really, she is not there much and would not steal a knife-"
"No."
At this, Naruhito looked at Fukue properly. She looked pale, and her mouth was set in a thin, grim line. Luca stared at her, baffled.
"What do you mean 'no', Fukue?" he asked.
Fukue's gaze flicked towards Luca, but she did not turn to look at him. That's how she's been looking at us this whole time, Naruhito thought. Looking without really looking. Trying not to be seen at all. And he felt like that was one of the final pieces of the puzzle, but he couldn't see how it slotted in. Or rather, he didn't want to see. Unlike Kakeru, he didn't want to know what the final picture looked like. But like Kakeru, he knew that the picture had to be put together and seen. It was the only way for this part of their ordeal to be over.
And it seemed like Fukue knew it too. After a few moments where her expression flickered, she sighed heavily, exhaustion seeming to settle over her like a mantle as she finally gazed at them all head-on. She lifted her chin slightly, though this did not disguise the slight tremble of her shoulders. And then, clearly, she said:
"It was me."
Characters Introduced This Chapter:
Missing Students
Kakeru Yanai, second year, SHSL Copywriter (my OC)
Deciding to put up a in-game chapter rather than push through and finish a main story chapter this time around basically came down to two things. First, I realised that Kakeru had not been officially counted as 'introduced' and second, I felt like it would be interesting to have a case where the killer is revealed before the victim is revealed. There aren't many stories where I could do that, after all.
In any case, I'm hoping that I have, in fact, now listed every cast character as introduced haha. I'll have to go back and check though, of course. But anyway, hope you enjoy this chapter, and next time we'll be back to the main story :)
