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Miu, tiredly, walked towards the dining room as a yawn escaped her lips.
That night, she barely rested: under request of Kokichi, she had to work all the previous night on the project of those Electro Hammers (and other things he asked her to create even if they sounded very childish). Mentally, she cursed his name: she was going to make him pay for asking her to create so many gadgets in so little time.
"Ugh... I feel like shit..." she murmured as she placed her hand on the handle and after a deep sigh, she opened the door. Immediately her nose caught on the amazing smell of breakfast laden on the table and her eyes lit up as she started to fully wake up.
"Good morning, Miu." Shuichi waved to her, busy placing a few bottles of soft drinks on the tablecloth.
"Mh, g'morning Shuichi..." she greeted back absently; she was so tired that she didn't even have the energy to distort his name like usual, sitting at her chair and puffing exasperated.
"Miu? Something wrong? Gonta finds strange you no insult anyone first in the morning like you usually do."
Even if in his own personal way, Gonta showed his concern for her.
"Oh, shut up, I'm just tired, that's all. Sleep is a waste of time and my genius brain had a brilliant idea, nothing that you plebs could ever imagine, ha-haha!"
Gonta nodded (noticing the dark and black bags under her eyes) "Oh, I understand! Well, I hope you get some rest then!" and with that, he returned to help Shuichi to finish preparing everything.
Miu, now that the others have lost their concern for her unusual attitude (except probably for some of them that weren't even listening to her ranting), started to nervously play with her hair.
She kinda wanted for them to be more worried, but they dropped the argument so fast that it hurt her.
She sighed, almost pouting "Ugh, if Keebo was here he wouldn't stop asking me questions like "How are you feeling?" and he would suggest ways to cheer me up, unlike some shitty people that-!"
It was at that exact moment that it hit her.
"Uh... do any of you have an idea of where Keebo is?" she asked her classmates, noticing that the robot wasn't in the dining room. It was rather unusual: he was always one of the first to arrive and even if in the end he never ate anything, he always enjoyed passing some time with them.
Shuichi paused, looking at Miu "Now that you mentioned it, I haven't seen him since yesterday evening."
Immediately everyone tensed.
His absence clearly raised suspicion. After the many murders that occurred in the last days, everyone was very wary as all of their thoughts seemed to synchronize, probably reaching the same possible conclusion.
"Gonta worried for Keebo..." the entomologist murmured with a feeling of dread, but Kokichi waved his hand dissentingly "Don't worry! Kee-boy is surely fine, he's a robot! But he is a useless one and he really sucks at fighting... it wouldn't be surprising that he-"
"We mustn't think of the worst-case scenario guys!" Kaito immediately interrupted him, not wanting the others to get more worried than they already were.
"Yeah! I'm sure he's fine unless one of you degenerate males has done something to him!" the voice of Tenko barged in, looking with suspicion at every guy in the room.
"Atua has noticed that everyone is very upset right now: we should all calm down, control our breathing and put our faith in him." Angie intervened and immediately Tsumugi and Himiko smiled, reassured; hearing the words of the god calmed their racing thoughts.
"Yeah, as that god-freak said!" said Miu, all the eyes of the others now focusing on her after catching their attention with her shouting. "Why are you getting so worked up?? I'm sure he's doing just fine, probably he's just fucking some sexy machine he found in the academy, no worries!"
She then walked towards the door that led outside "Just so you can finally put your souls at peace, I'll go check up on him since you are so scared that your legs are trembling! Tch, what would you do if there wasn't moi." she finished with a mocking tone.
Before anyone could say anything, Shuichi spoke up "If you don't mind I want to come too."
"Atua agrees, he will guide us to him." Angie added, Himiko and Tsumugi immediately agreed with her as they wanted to join the search too.
"Gonta wants to come too."
"Ne-hee, if everyone goes, I'll come too! It would be incredibly boring to remain in the dining room by myself..."
"Kehehehehe, it seems that it settled then..."
Everyone was worried for their classmate and Miu found herself unable to deny to all of them to follow her.
"F-Fine! If you all are so eager to follow me okay, but don't w-waste my time by slowing me d-down!" and after that she rushed out of the dining room, followed by her classmates.
"I think that it's best if we start by searching his room, it's our best possibility." Shuichi suggested.
"Like I didn't already know that, you're saying the obvious Pooichi, so much of a detective you are!" Miu sighed exasperatedly, but Shuichi didn't take it badly, on the contrary, he looked at her with pity. With his sharp attention, he has already noticed that since back in the dining hall, Miu's hands couldn't stop shaking nervously (something that she tried to hide with her words and a strong attitude). She was also the first one to immediately want to go searching for Keebo and her anxious look was with clarity showing it.
He felt bad for her, wondering how badly she was worried to make her act like this.
"C'mon Miu," Kaito tried to reason with her "It's already a start, don't attack Shuichi like that, I'm sure we'll find Keebo in no time!" and after saying this he immediately jumped in front of the group of his classmates "Let's go to the dorms, guys!" he shouted, leading them like a foreman.
Miu muttered something before immediately going after Kaito, not caring of a word he said and having in mind only one objective: finding Keebo safe and sound. That was her only thought.
It didn't take long before they arrived in front of his door and they stood there, unsure of what to do next.
"Probably his door is locked." Korekiyo stated, "We should find an alternate way to enter."
"Nyeh, there's no need to worry, with my magic I can make the door disappear!" Himiko intervened, sure of herself and supported by Tenko next to her in whichever magic trick she wanted to try out.
"Or instead of something stupid like that I can enter using my lock pins, piece of cake!" Kokichi interrupted the mage, not interested in anything she was saying.
After the "Insect meets and greet" everyone already knew of this ability of his and they weren't really happy with him being able to sneak in their rooms at any time.
"Oh, Gonta maybe can help!" the boy smiled brightly "Gonta can try to remove the door! Gonta very strong."
"Do you hear yourself?" Kokichi mocked him "I can easily tell that it's a stupid-"
"Guys," Shuichi muttered and all the attention went to him "It's... already open..."
After that phrase, Miu stiffened and the colour of her skin became pale.
"Atua says that we should be careful." Angie advised the others and instead of saying something in return, they stayed for a few seconds there, totally still.
It wasn't normal. And... if the door was open it could mean...
Suddenly, without a word, Miu pushed aside the student in front of her and made her way to the door, rushing into the room without warning.
"W-Wait Miu!" stuttered Tenko but the inventor ignored her.
She didn't care.
Everyone else didn't matter at that moment, she only had to make sure he was okay.
He had to be okay.
He...
"...what..." Miu murmured after entering the room, frozen at the scene in front of her.
"Miu!" Gonta shouted as everyone also busted in, worried for their classmate that was standing a few feet away without saying a word.
Leaning a little, they tried to see what she saw that made her react like that and they all gasped in horror after they locked gaze with a corpse on the ground.
In front of them, there was the body of Keebo lying with his back facing them.
Motionless.
Not wasting a second, immediately Miu crouched down next to him "KEEBO, CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" she put her hands behind his head trying to look for injuries but not finding even a scratch. Why wasn't he responding if he wasn't damaged? Could he be really...
The others were terrorized. Has there been another victim because of the game? They will have to go through another class trial once again?
"Wait everyone!" the voice of Shuichi drew the attention of his classmates towards him including Miu's, even if she didn't look at the detective, focused on the figure of the boy in her arms "The usual announcement didn't play, so Keebo must be alive"
"N-Nyeh... you mean that even if he's a robot..." Himiko started to murmur and Shuichi looked at her with a reassuring smile "Yeah, he's still a participant of the Killing Game, Monokuma must consider him as a part of it like us. This means that Keebo is okay."
At those words, everyone sighed in relief, reassured that no one was dead and that they didn't have to go through another Class Trial; meanwhile, Miu turned her head from Shuichi to Keebo, looking at his relaxed expression: slowly, a little smile appeared on her face and left out a breath she didn't know she was holding, cursing him in her mind for making her worry that much.
But Korekiyo voiced out the thought that remained unanswered without an explanation "It's a good thing indeed that he is fine, but I wonder... why doesn't he wake up then?"
They looked at the inventor hoping that she had an idea, but in response, she only shook her head "Don't look at me, I'm hella confused as you all are. There aren’t any external injuries that may have caused damage to his circuits, so-“
She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence as a familiar motto interrupted the students.
“RISE AND SHINE, URSINE!”
At that exact moment, Monophine, Monotaro and Monodam appeared in front of them, looking… frantic?
“I-I can explain! It’s not what it looks like!” shouted Monotaro, his little body shaking with fear.
“Ooooh! Dad will be very mad! He’s going to kill each of us Kubs!” Monophanie cried, worried for their lives.
“HE’S-GOING-TO-KILL-US!” Monodam exclaimed, scared by the rage of their father.
Noticing their panic, Miu shouted angry “Oh for fuck’s sake, stop crying and start explaining now or I’m going to disassemble each one of you ONE BY ONE!”
She didn’t care anymore: she would make them talk with force, if necessary. She disliked these little robots since day one anyways.
Monophanie immediately started rattling in fear “T-There’s no need to be so violent! Ah, I-I think I’m g-going to-!” she held her mouth, trying not to vomit after thinking about how gory their deaths would be.
“You’ve got it all wrong!!” shouted Monotaro, quickly shaking his ninja stars as a sign of denying.
“If what you claim is the truth, then would you mind explaining to us what happened to our classmate?” Korekiyo spoke out, caressing his chin in thought.
The little red one looked at him, starting to fidget between his fingers with his ninja gadgets “I-I really don’t know, I-!”
“Oh please, that’s clearly bullshit! You’re behind this, aren’t ya?!” the inventor shouted again, interrupting the little robot.
“Wait, we should hear him first Miu before coming to any conclusion.” Shuichi tried to calm her down, trying to reason with her “The Monokubs could be the only ones that know what really happened to Keebo.”
“Yeah, it’s like he said!” Tenko exclaimed, smiling widely “And if they don’t respond to our questions, I will teach them a lesson with my Aikido they won’t forget!”
Miu remained silent, simply holding Keebo tighter, seemingly disposed to hear the Monokubs' version of the story.
Shuichi smiled gratefully and then turned towards the robots “Okay, let’s begin from the start. What happened yesterday evening? Where were you?”
Monotaro turned his head to the other side in shame “W-Well… “ he stuttered, trying to find the words “Last night the others and I were just wandering through the corridors, y'know, making sure to check if you were in your dorms or not…” he indicated the sleeping figure of Keebo “… and that’s when we saw him going into his room…”
“And then? What happened?” pressed the detective, trying to pry out more information.
But Monotaro became quiet, his head looking at the floor in shame.
“You are under a magic spell that makes you say only the truth! You better continue explaining or I’m going to use an even more powerful enchantment to force you to tell us everything!” Himiko warned him as Tenko cheered for her.
Monophanie sighed (not really paying attention to the “threat”), continuing the explanation “Monotaro at that moment was delirious and he ended up mistaking the poor boy for our father! Ugh, I still can’t believe it!” she started crying, hurt by the fact that he couldn’t even distinguish their dad anymore.
“HE-RAN-SO-FAST. WE-COULDN’T-STOP-HIM.” Monodam stated.
“Ran?” repeated Kaito, confused “What do you mean?”
At this point, Monotaro was curled up in shame “I-I… ran up to him, but I was so rapid with my ninja-speed that I ended up colliding with him instead!” he immediately then shouted in panic “But it was an accident, believe me!”
The class looked at the Monokubs dumbfounded.
“So you’re saying that you hit him so hard to make him pass out?” Maki questioned, bewildered by his statement.
“T-That’s the problem! We don’t know! We checked up on him to see if he was alright and that’s when we noticed that he had passed out! W-We thought for a moment that we killed a participant and I was so scared that I almost threw up!” Monophanie cried out, wiping her tears at the memory.
“Whaaaat? So in the end Kee-boy only hit his head just a bit too hard? Man, I thought robots weren’t this fragile, it’s disappointing!” Kokichi looked sad from the discovery.
“No, I don’t think it’s because of that.” murmured Miu.
The attention of her classmates drifted to her and they all shared a look of confusion “Uh? Then what is it? Why Keebo not wake up?” asked Gonta.
Feeling observed by everyone, she stuttered embarrassed “I-I don’t know y-yet for sure, but… I think that during the collision, something happened to his battery.” she rested her hand on his torso “He isn’t damaged in any way on the outside so maybe the problem is internal. What I can deduce is that it was already pretty late back then, so…”
Angie interrupted Miu “Sooooo, are you saying that after Keebo was hit by the Monokub, the impact from the hit drained the rest of his energy and he entered a state of emergency after he didn’t manage to recharge his batteries?”
“U-Uh… yeah…” Miu muttered, amazed (and a bit impressed) by the perfect explanation of the artist, but immediately she returned to her cocky self in a matter of seconds “It’s just a deduction, but I’m sure that it’s right! My golden brain never fails me, I’m so smart!” the inventor almost shouted, proudly.
“That is for sure a wacky idea! It sounds so ridiculous to actually believe it even for a second, nishishishi!” Kokichi laughed, but he was interrupted by Shuichi “No, I think Miu may be right.”
Before anyone could say something, he analyzed the cables in Keebo’s room. Unlike theirs, his bedroom was provided with a complex machine that could, during the night, recharge his batteries during his sleep and he had to probably connect his body to these cables to do it.
“If you think about it, when we first found his body it was near his bed, so it’s not impossible that after the fall he accidentaly hit the machinery. Maybe it happened something at the contact that made his system shut down because of his already too low energy.”
Kaito smiled proudly at his ‘assistant’ “Good job, sidekick! I knew that you would immediately reveal the mystery in a matter of minutes!”
“S-So he’s like... sleeping?” Monotaro asked “Then we won’t be killed by father!” he smiled brightly.
“You should just shut up-“ Miu glared at the Monokub, wanting to rip off his circuits one by one with her own hands but restrained herself to do so. She then turned to her classmates.
“Okay then, mistery solved! From here and now I’m going to take care of him, I know far more about these things than all of you shitheads put together so I don’t need you here, you would end up only disturbing me.” she exclaimed, basically telling them to fuck off.
“And since when we should listen to you, you stupid-“ before Kokichi could finish his sentence, Shuichi interrupted him “Let Miu handle this. Gonta, could you please help her place Keebo on his bed? Meanwhile, the rest of us will return to the Dining Room, is it alright for you guys?”
At first, there were many complaints (mostly because of the previous rude behaviour of the inventor), but they knew that even if they all stayed there, there wasn’t much they could do anyway apart from bothering and annoying Miu.
“Let’s trust our friends!” Monophanie smiled “I’m sure that everything will return to normal again in no time!”
“Alright then! BEAR LONG, BEAR WELL!” the Monokubs sang as they volatilized per usual .
The rest of the class also exited the room, returning to the activities where they left them off (aka their breakfast) leaving now alone Keebo and Miu in the bedroom.
As the door finally closed, Miu released a breath she didn’t know she was holding from nervousness, looking at the robot who was the source of her worries.
Back there she almost lost it, thinking that someone may have hurt him to the point of actually damaging his circuits to the point of no repair.
“You made my heart fucking stop, y’know?! I can’t believe you waited till the last second to recharge and ended up playing dead in your bedroom for who knows how long if we didn’t find you this morning!” she shouted at him, releasing the tension she kept inside till that moment.
She scoffed at him “Turns out that you were simply too fucking tired to sit on a shitty bed and instead decided it was a good idea to pass out on the floor, hah!”
She chuckled darkly “Heh, here is me, thinking that someone murdered you during the night and I slept like fucking princess beauty not noticing what was going on. Hell, when you’ll wake up, I will FUCKING PERSONALLY kill you myself for the scare you gave me, you hear me?!”
She panted after lashing out her emotions like that, recovering her breath as she looked at him.
As expected, he didn't move even a centimetre after her shouting: his expression neutral and peaceful, as if he was only sleeping.
Even if he was a robot and not an actual living being, back there… he really seemed like he was dead when they found him on the floor.
Without even noticing it, she placed a hand on his cheek, tracing with her finger the black line on his face that went from his eyes to his jowl.
“I was so worried...” she murmured softly “But I’m glad you’re okay.”
------------------
Several hours have passed after the discovery of Keebo passed out in his room. The moon, outside of the dorms, was slowly making its way into the sky, replacing the sun as the evening came.
Slowly, Keebo opened his eyes as his system started up again and his AI began to work properly again as started to take note of his surroundings.
Where was he?
After he woke up, he received many notifications from his body that many hours prior, an unexpected shutdown had occurred because his battery level has been too low and it, unfortunately, caused a memory loss due to the resulting forced arrest.
Now his body was fully recharged so probably someone had connected him to his bed, but he didn’t remember anything like that.
He ruffled his hair, but as he tried to move his body, he immediately noticed how he couldn’t move his legs like something was on top of them.
Confused, he looked down to understand what it was and his eyes locked on the sleeping figure of the inventor who was peacefully resting her head on her arms, using them as a pillow to stay comfortable.
“Miu?” he murmured perplexed, not understanding what was going on.
He held his head, but his last memories were fuzzy and damaged: the last thing he could recall was that he entered the dorms to go into his room and from there... nothing. Like a black hole in his database.
Wanting to get answers to the million questions in his mind, he gently placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking her a bit so as to not startle her.
She mumbled incomprehensible noises in her sleep and scratched her eyes as she slowly got up in a seating position.
Keebo sighed a bit in relief after she was no longer on him, not having the weight on his legs anymore: in all honesty, he had been initially kind of embarrassed by how Miu had decided to sleep next to him in the first place.
Yawning, she stretched a bit but immediately stopped as she noticed a pair of light blue eyes looking curiously at her.
Before he could manage to say or ask her anything, she spoke first, almost shouting "Finally you fucking woke up, you sure took your damn time!"
But even if her words were angry she was… smiling? What was happening??
Her expression of what seemed like initially one of relief, was then replaced by one of worry as she started with her hands to scan every centimetre of his body while asking questions like “How are you feeling?" "Any problem whatsoever?" "Is everything working fine?" "Why are you not saying anything?!”
She angrily looked at him and she was surprised to see how he was barely holding in his giggles “S-Stop hah, i-it tickles! Mh! If y-you continue, I-I can’t…!” he squirmed under her touch as she was placing her hands on sensitive parts of his body during her “scanning for any problem” movements.
“O-Oh, ah, uhm- yeah, s-sorry.” a light blush appeared on her face at the realization, recoiling back and removing her hands from him: from the rush, she forgot how his body had receptors very sensitive everywhere.
After calming down, he looked at his surroundings “Could you fill me up about what happened? My memories are honestly kinda a mess...”
“Yeah, I’m not surprised to hear that, your database now is not more than a pudding probably.” She sat more comfortably on the chair and after clearing her voice, she started to explain from the beginning.
How at first everyone was worried that he didn’t show up for breakfast, to their discoveries of him passed out in his room and to the explanation the Monokubs gave to them.
While she was talking, he looked attentively at her, trying to piece together everything that happened in the previous hours.
“Then, after everyone left the room, I connected you to the machine for your recharging and while I waited for your batteries to be full again, I started to mess around with things in your room because I was fucking bored and they seemed interesting. You don’t mind, right?” she continued and he only hoped that she didn’t put her hands on anything important or added any strange function to his devices.
“I… guess.” he simply said and the inventor in response yawned in his face.
Looking at her better, it was very noticeable the tired look on her face and the clear sign of black bags under her eyes. Did she stay all afternoon in his room waiting for him to wake up?
“Hey, when was the last time you slept?” he gently asked, worried for her well-being.
She groaned “Can’t remember, this night I had to stay up late to finish a project. I only dozed off a bit from now and then- HAH, my beauty sleep can fuck itself at this point.” Thanks to a certain Kokichi and his motherfucking ideas, she thought.
A hand on her shoulder made her distract from her thoughts as she looked at him. It was now Keebo that looked worried “That’s not good at all! You should really rest Miu, a high-school student like us needs at least 8 hours of sleep so your organs can work better and avoid getting autoimmune diseases or getting sick.”
She rolled her eyes “Yeah yeah, but ya know, when you are a brilliant inventor like me, sleep becomes secondary-” she tried to hold in a yawn “But point taken. Shit, I feel like the room is moving” she stumbled a bit as she got up, trying to stabilize herself using the bed in front of her.
Immediately Keebo placed his arms for support around her “Are you okay?” he asked and she responded with a groan “Tch, I’m not an old woman that needs help getting up from a chair y’know?!” even if she was embarassed, she was a bit touched by his worry.
He moved away “Oh! I’m sorry.” he apologized “It’s just… from what you told me I know you stayed next to my bed all afternoon to monitor my condition even if you were very tired and I feel responsible about it.”
She was taken aback for a moment by his words “I-I… well! It was the minimum I could do, I’m the only one with a brain in this school to control if your recharging was going smoothly after all.”
She was never going to admit how worried sick she had been during the whole time, afraid that he could have never woken up or that his system got grave damage from the forced shutdown. Even if she didn’t confess it, it was clear as day that she became fond of him over time: she couldn’t bear to even think of one day finding him destroyed beyond repair…
“Even so…” on his face appeared a smile of gratitude “I can’t ever thank you enough for everything you do for me, Miu. Without you, I don’t know what I would do.”
As she heard his words, her face became incredibly red and for a moment she couldn’t make a coherent phrase without stuttering “…t-the same goes for me…” she muttered softly.
She tried to hide her blush, waving frenetically her hands “A-ANYWAYS! I'm going back to my room if you're feeling well! G’night!"
“Goodnight Miu, see you tomorrow!” he chuckled a bit, finding a bit funny and amusing her flustered reaction as she dashed out of his room.
As she walked towards her dorm, a big smile was plastered on her face as his last words replayed continuously in her mind.