Chapter Text
"Please make your way to the interview room by exiting your bedroom, walking down the hallway, and taking your first right. Then, take your next right, and continue down the hallway. If you have questions, please hold them until all students have gathered. This announcement will repeat until all students are awake."
The sound of the loudspeaker— what the fuck, loudspeakers?— is the bright, awesome thing that wakes Mutsuko up as she groans, sitting up straight as she rubs at her eyes with both hands, running her palms down her face.
She'd managed to catch enough of the message to know that she should be moving, so, as begrudging as she may be, she sits up on bed before dragging herself out of it— not that hard of a task, that bed was fucking uncomfortable. As Mutsuko stands up, she can hear the announcement start to repeat itself, which, great, of course.
Well, nothing to do other then listen if she wanted that thing done, right?
Exiting the bedroom, walking down the hall, taking a right. Got it.
The door opens with barely any creaking, she notes, as she walks out and looks both directions. One, a dead end, and the other, a hallway she could turn right into. Perfect.
The instructions aren't hard to follow, as she makes her way down to the waiting room and notes the space.
Okay, now she could worry about her actual situation. Quietly, she thinks it may be of her concern how quickly she listened to the intercoms, but, obviously she 's been kidnapped. And, well, nothing says "good hostage" like actually listening to the kidnappers. No one is there when she arrives, so she isn't sure why she's actually made to go here, but she supposes it doesn't really matter, huh?
…She's in her work uniform.
God, Keiji and Shiichi better be safe or she's going to kick their asses.
Her thoughts are cut off when another figure appears in the passageway where she had entered from and she whips around, seeing long cascading black hair and a doctor's uniform.
Idly, she makes the connection— this looks like a lab of some form, and he could easily be the person who stuck her here.
Carefully, as to not raise suspicions, she takes a step back, and tilts her head. For what it's worth, he looks young: not much going on with wrinkles or whatever, but still… doctor. As she takes a closer look, though, it's easy to see the fear in his eyes, too.
"Who are you," she decides to ask, as the doctor simply turns to her, his hands clenched. "…And where am I?"
"I- I'm… I don't know where we are. Who are you?" The way he stresses the know makes her more willing to believe him, but even so… that didn't make him trustworthy.
"Bullshit! Seriously, I'll kick your ass if you don't tell me what you know. Besides, I asked your name first."
The doctor twitches, nervously swallowing and taking a deep breath as his hands raise to clasp together. Huh.
"…Hirose. I promise, I don't know anything, I just woke up to the alarm, and, this was where I was directed."
As doubtful she is of his alibi, there isn't very much she can do about it as two other people come sauntering in. One of them is tall— long pink hair and some kind of cafe uniform— while the other is incredibly little, adorned with red hair with some strange white streaks in it.
The little red one speaks first: "So, who's the one that actually called us here between you two or are you guys just bickering for fun?"
"Excuse me?" Mutsuko asks, and she can feel the annoyance rise just from hearing that one speak for the very first time. Seriously. It's been, what, two minutes maximum, and she's already getting pissed off. "I was asking him—"
"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, let's use our brains for a second." The boy raises a finger to his temple as he taps on it. Seriously. What a bitch. "If we're playing 'who dunnit', I doubt they'll make themselves this obvious. Clearly they're not here yet, 'cause I saw doctor over here walk from his room down the hall, too! I mean, I don't know about you but—"
"C-can we not do this right now? Please." Mutsuko isn't sure what she's expecting to hear when the other new entrant speaks for the first time, but if anything, she can hear his anxiety rise. Whatever. It's not like she particularly cares about him. Not enough to worry about him, at the very least.
She's, admittedly, grateful when more people start trickling into the room, even if just to get the other people in the room to shut up.
The next person to arrive is another girl— holy shit, thank god it isn't just all men here— with blonde hair and blue and pink highlights who… does not look happy to be here, at all. Accompanying her is a boy, though it looks more like following based on their individual reactions. "Can someone tell me where the fuck I am?"
…At least the boy with her— one also with long pink hair, but with blue highlights added on top— looks less aggravated. To be frank, she's not sure how he seems so unconcerned when, presumably, his ass was kidnapped too, but kudos to him, she supposes.
"Obviously not if we're all here and talking about how we got kidnapped!" the little one with red hair rasps, and she seriously hates his voice, but as long as he stops talking, she'd be okay.
The new girl just groans, pinching at her forehead. "Fuck! I swear to god, I need to get the fuck out of here—"
"Wow! You really are an authentic Japanese delinquent!"
…fucking what?
Her own shock is clearly reflected in the others— the doctor, at least, blinks a few times in a row at the words. On the other hand, the… authentic Japanese delinquent herself just takes a deep breath, pinching herself harder as she very visibly refuses to look at the boy next to her.
"I swear to god, if you call me that one more time…"
"This is seriously boring. I don't need to hear you guys arguing. Do you know anything about this place, or, what?"
"Ah, no! We just came from the bedrooms to get here!"
"Then stop talking… is it that hard to understand?"
As Mutsuko notices that she's gone deeper in the room at this point— likely subconsciously as more people show up— her attention is drawn away by more people showing up. Great.
Nothing different happens: the next person to show up is a girl dressed in a fluffy blue coat. Each time a new person gets to the room, they ask a few questions before the little one with red hair shuts them down. He stops asking if they know anything when the people after blue-coat show up, stopping right between an even littler one with red hair and an anxious boy in a red scarf, the latter showing up with another short guy with bright green eyes.
Why are all the guys here so little? At the very least, the stupid announcement— she's had to sit through however many repetitions of it at this point— finally cuts off.
After that, it's some girl who looks way too dramatic for Mutsuko's taste, a girl with some… really cool prosthetics, and a shirtless man. Great.
The little red one, the same one as before, continues to shut them down each and every time, including when the group after, some guy with rainbow hair and a girl who looked like the textbook definition of 'nerd' show up.
Seriously, what takes these people so long?
The girl with prosthetic calls out despite being one of the last people to show up for the kidnapper, which doesn't work, so thanks a whole bunch for the noise traffic.
She hears the little red one talk again— she's just been tuning him out, at this point— when she sees another person entering, rounding off their total amount of people to sixteen.
"Lovely, it seems as though everyone has arrived."
As if on cue, a rabbit shows up out of literally no where. Holy shit, what the fuck? Why is it talking? How is it talking?
She can hear similar noises of distress coming from the others, so, at least she isn't straight-up hallucinating everything.
"Is that a fucking rabbit?" the shirtless one asks, and she's inclined to echo the question.
"I did not mean to alarm you. I'm simply here to explain your situation and introduce myself, if that's alright. You all seem to be rather curious about where you are, after all."
Okay. It is, in fact a rabbit, and she isn't insane. The rabbit is also talking. What the fuck.
"It's a mental hospital. We're in a mental hospital. That's what's happening here," the girl with prosthetics says, voice flat.
"Definitely explains a few things," adds the shirtless one. Admittedly, it's a bit amusing that those two, of anyone, are speaking considering how late they arrived— seriously, it's one hallway, it shouldn't have taken that long— but she digresses.
"Welcome to the Kanagawa Futurist Technologies Institute. This is a building in which many incredible discoveries have been made. Going forward, you will be given the opportunity to become a part of those incredible discoveries." The rabbit is really, really throwing her off. Seriously. How is it talking.
"Not interested."
"I'm afraid the opportunity is not optional. Please allow me to explain the circumstances of your residence here."
"This isn't happening," the doctor challenges, and Mutsuko is genuinely curious which part he thinks isn't happening, because as far as she's concerned, this very much is happening. Regardless of how insane this all sounded.
"B-… But I mean-…" the last girl to enter starts speaking, her voice— now that Mutsuko is actively paying attention—was throwing her off. "We're all seeing this, right...?"
"Someone grab it or something."
"I would not recommend that. You are currently standing in the top floor waiting room, also known as the resident lobby. On this floor, you will find the dormitory wing, cafeteria, kitchen, lounge, rec room, storage room, medical bay, interview room, and several other spaces you may explore at your leisure. I only ask that you please refrain from damaging or breaking the building in any way, as this is against school rules."
"School rules?—" The doctor's genuine confusion makes her less suspicious of him, but still, that's a wild question to ask when there was a damn, talking rabbit there, hello, is no one seeing this?
"Ah- Facility rules. My mistake."
The really, really dramatic looking one starts to speak and Mutsuko immediately starts tuning her, and anyone that isn't the damn rabbit, out. They start asking for explanations, which the rabbit tries to give before getting cut off by senseless bickering, and continuing again.
"The only way to escape this building alive is to kill someone." Mutsuko doesn't even hear anyone else, as her hands clench to her sides. Just the rabbit. "The game you're here to play is one of life and death. Nobody is allowed to leave until somebody has won."
The doctor argues, but it doesn't matter, because the rabbit clearly already has them where it wants. Regardless, this is insane.
"To win, you must either kill one of your peers without being caught, or you must survive through five trials and reach the game's ending state."
"What does that even mean?!" Mutsuko blurts out, the absurdity of the situation catching up to her. She's taking instructions from a teleporting, talking, black rabbit. The doctor continues to panic. but it falls on deaf ears. His commentary doesn't even matter, she just needs to figure out what the hell to do to get out of here.
"If a student is found guilty of murder during a class trial, they too will meet with the fate of death." Well. That's certainly not assuring.
"Um- Excuse me!" Ah. It's the nerd.
"Yes?"
"What do you mean by class trial?" Admittedly, it's a good question, but at the very least, Mutsuko can figure it's some kind of investigation thing, though—
"That will be made clear in time. For now, don't concern yourself too hard with it."
Never mind, then. Fuck her, guess they don't get to know.
"But-"
"I mean, I think I'm probably just gonna leave. Is there a front door or somethin'?" The big-green one comments, and Mutsuko is—once again—inclined to agree. This was stupid.
The doctor continues to argue with the rabbit— which, hilarious out of context, less so in context— before it simply disappears without even a trace of its presence.
"...I-It's gone." Ah. So the little green one can also speak.
"Wh-...What the hell?"
Everyone looks to be stun-locked for a second, which, dumb, but whatever. Seems like no one knows what to do. This is, quite frankly, a waste of her damn time. "Alright, enough standing around. I'm getting out of here." she decides, cracking her back as she stood herself up straighter.
"What?"
"I'm gonna go find the door," she responds, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Seriously, what else should they be doing? Killing each other? Ridiculous. "There has to be a door, right? I'm gonna go find it."
The little-green one pipes up, hand raising just enough to get Mutsuko's eyes to trace towards… him? Probably him. "Ah- Can I come with you?"
"Yeah, c'mon."
She can hear the doctor continuing to complain as she leaves, but Mutsuko could honestly not care less. This was dumb. She just needs to find a door to exit through.
"So, what's your name, then?"
"Oh. U-uhm, Yaitabashi. Yaitabashi Sou, but, Yaitabashi's fine."
"Cool. I'm Nishiguchi Mutsuko, then."
"Everyone, shut up!"
A single command swiftly shoots down the unrelenting cacophony of chatter, a once discordant room of sixteen fallen silent thanks to the authority of the only professional in the room. The doctor turns his head towards the brown-haired girl who had been trying to grab the group's attention in the first place.
"Yokoi," the doctor addresses her. She perks up at the name immediately.
"Um- right, well," Yokoi starts. "Real quick, before we start, can we get everyone gathered around in a circle?"
"Standing up?" A girl with long, harlequin pigtails tuts in disapproval a distance away from her. "There are seats in the room already, hell's the point?"
"I-It's just easier if we can all see each other," Yokoi sputters, struggling to defend herself, "and it gives us an order to speak in, whereas the seating arrangements are all sporadic and hard to follow!"
"Sporadic, huh," someone tall and purple mumbles off to the side, not quite loud enough for Yokoi to catch. "Nerd." She says it more like she's memorizing it than anything.
Another person groans. "Just do what she says, it's not like standing in a circle'll kill you. The whole thing'll go by faster if you cooperate."
The tall, purple girl with prosthetics snickers, following the other as she joins Yokoi in the middle of the room. "You make us sound like hostages. The kind held at gunpoint."
"Well, we're kidnapped, so. Halfway there already, I guess?"
Shortly, a few others begin trailing after the two, and soon enough the group's circle grows to be… rather sizeable, actually—at least, Yokoi figures it's probably sizeable enough for her to start the review, so she'll take it.
She clears her throat to grab everyone's attention before the ceaseless chatter from earlier can make its return.
"A couple hours ago, after the encounter with the weird… rabbit… thing, everyone split off from the group to investigate, right? Let's go over everything we found, just so we're all on the same page."
A boy with bright, colorful hair casts a quizzical glance over the group before shrugging. "Who wants to start?"
"Oh- Nononono," Yokoi raises her open hands and shakes them in an emphatic negation, "We're gonna go around the circle, in order, that way everyone gets a chance to talk. We don't wanna miss anything!"
"Well, shit, man," He rubs the back of his neck and looks away, "Never mind. You can start then, go for it."
"Great! Okay, so…" She clasps her hands together to denote the onset of her speech. "I'm Yokoi Ruka, but just Ruka is fine! I went back to my dorm room after the group split off to see if there was anything there that might be of interest."
Ruka pauses, embarrassed, before continuing: "There, um- there wasn't. But I did speak with the rabbit a bit while I was there! Apparently, its name is Monomoko."
"Monomoko," A tall, pink boy in a café uniform mutters with a small shudder. He gets a couple weird looks for it, but no one calls him out.
"It's a rabbit. I'm gonna keep calling it what it is," A short, red boy snarks, crossing his arms.
Someone else, one with a rather unique accent, fiddles with his large, red scarf anxiously. "I'm… not sure that's too respectful."
Ruka steamrolls through the interruption, undisturbed: "It mentioned that my desk was a workstation related to my talent, which… I'm, uh, not very sure what that's supposed to mean, actually."
"So what is your talent?"
"I have no idea!" She beams a wide smile at the notably shirtless blonde who'd asked the question. "But, um, I also found out that we have joint bathrooms. So, uh, it looks like everyone's sharing their bathroom with someone else. I'm with Ogura!"
"How fortuitous," Ogura, the girl in the rather over-dramatic hooded cloak, intercepts insightfully, "You're incredibly lucky."
"I-…" Ruka seems stunned, but nods anyway. "Right, uh- I am! After that, I met up with Ninomiya in the waiting room…"
"Huh, this room feels a bit unnerving without the big crown in it." Ruka did a full spin on her heels, trying to take in the sheer size of it all. Ninomiya snorts.
"It looks like one of those waiting rooms at a doctor's office or a dentist or something." Ruka supposed she agreed, what with all the toys scattered around. They didn't help make the place feel any less unnerving, though. She looked around the room for something else to think about.
"Oh, Ninomiya, look! There's puzzles!"
"… which is where we are right now!"
"Who the hell's Ninomiya?"
"Yo," Ninomiya, the guy with colorful hair and distinctive attire speaks up, raising his hand to get the recognition of the girl with prosthetics who'd asked for him. "Ninomiya Youhei. I was with Ruka for, uh... a little bit, I guess? I dunno man."
"Oh, Scene Kid," she nods. Ninomiya's face scrunches up in disdain.
"What?"
"That's what I've been calling you. In my head, mostly."
"Wh- That's, like, a whole different subculture-!"
"As I was saying," Ruka interrupts pointedly, "we investigated the waiting room! There… wasn't much there either, if I'm being honest—isn't much there, as you can see for yourself." She opens her mouth and falters like she wants to say something else, but doesn't quite know what to add. "Yeah."
"It has puzzles," Ninomiya offers. "And an elevator. That seems pretty important."
"That seems very important," a tall, rather young-looking doctor chastises. "Nothing we couldn't have figured out ourselves, but you investigated it, right? Tell me you investigated it."
"We fuckin' investigated it man, chill." Ninomiya rolls his eyes. "We wanted to see if we could go down another floor or something."
Ruka frowns. "Turns out the buttons need keys."
"And we don't have keys, so." Ninomiya shrugs. The doctor pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his index finger.
The shirtless guy with a green jacket piped up again. "We have our room keys, do those work?"
The two of them shook their heads at the same time, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. "I don't think so, no, the keys we need are a bit smaller," Ruka supplies.
"We went looking for them, but we couldn't find anything. This place is honestly pretty fuckin' barren."
"Um- Yeah, so that's all we found!" Ruka clasps her hands together again, this time signaling the end of her speech. She looks to her left, gesturing towards the person next to her—the tall, blonde pizza girl. "You! Your turn! Do you wanna start with your name?"
She blinks a couple times before registering the question. "…I guess? Uh. My name's Nishiguchi Mutsuko. Yaitabashi and I," she waves a hand towards the short, white-haired boy in the pretty dress next to her, "checked out the kitchen. It's pretty standard."
"This place is a dump."
"Is it?" Yaitabashi asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, it seems pretty clean."
"Well, yeah, it's clean, but it's not built for cooking. Like, at all." Yaitabashi quirked a brow, but abetted nothing further. Nishiguchi kept at it anyway. "What an inconvenient setup. Plus, this oven sucks." She slammed her fist against the surface. "It's cheap."
"Fridge, oven, dishwasher," she lists out the appliances with her fingers. "That kinda stuff. There's a walk-in freezer, too."
"Perfect for locking someone in," The short red boy comments, using a tone smug enough to agitate most of the group immediately.
The biker girl seemed particularly upset. "Holy shit, I haven't known you for longer than a couple hours and I already want you out of my face!"
"I've said maybe two things to you, maximum."
"It's 'cause you're so fuckin' smug about everything!"
"That's basically nothing, though. You're getting riled up over nothing. This is genuinely sad to watch! I haven't even done anything yet!"
"I swear to-"
"Quit it," Nishiguchi's voice cuts through the tension. The girl's jaw snaps shut and she looks away, petulantly. The boy grins like he's won some kind of game.
"I'm just being realistic. You think nobody's gonna take advantage of a walk-in freezer during a murder game? 'cause, in case you forgot, that's what this is. We're in a murder game."
"We're getting derailed," Nishiguchi shuts him down, getting a little exasperated herself. "There was nothing in the freezer—no meat or anything, it was completely empty."
Ruka nods. "Anything else of note?"
"The kitchen's connected directly to the cafeteria in the back left corner."
Yaitabashi smiles, agreeing. "Yeah. It's actually pretty big for a kitchen."
"I'll give it that, at least," Nishiguchi rolls her eyes, "I dunno, I'm still not impressed."
"Great! So-" Ruka turns her gaze towards the next person in line- "Let's keep going! Your name?"
It's the tall, purple girl with prosthetics again. "Maekawa." She has a name now. "Snowman Kid and I went down the really long hallway off the side of the caf."
"I—who?" Ruka asks, genuinely dumbfounded.
"Seriously man, what's with the nickname thing? I'm still stuck on the 'Scene Kid' one you gave me earlier."
"It's 'cause you dress funny. So, Scene Kid."
"That makes zero fuckin' sense dude."
"Too bad the nickname's already stuck, huh?"
Ruka's brows furrow in confusion. "Okay, wait, so, who did you investigate with, then?"
"That guy." Maekawa points to the opposite end of the circle, at a kid who sure does look an awful lot like a snowman. Hm.
"A-Ah! Um, I wasn't sure who you were referring to, either," he apologizes, fiddling with his scarf, "But uh- my name is Shishikura! It's nice to meet you."
"Hey, you investigated with me, too," the short, fiery girl protests. "What's up with the favoritism? I'd say I'm pretty fuckin' important."
"I was gonna get to you, Pigtails, I'm not there yet!"
A strange mixture of frustration and embarrassment flushes the girl's face. She opens her mouth to retaliate, but Maekawa bulldozes through it before she has the time to react: "Like apparently everywhere else, there was pretty much nothing there, except like-"
"Why is it so fucking dark in here? Is there a light?" Maekawa reeled, eyes trying to adjust to the sudden shift in light level. Well, at least her prosthetics offered some light.
"Uh, I'm looking for a switch…" Shishikura fumbled around, but evidently—even with Maekawa's advantage—it was almost impossible to find. Could that have been by design?
"Wait." He had an idea. "Look up. Is there a light in here?"
…None. This room was really, really off-putting.
"I mean, there was some room that those two were already checking out," she points in a vague gesture that could refer to any of the people in front of her. "Then a bathroom, then this weird room that didn't have any lights in it."
"Ah- Right. It locked from the outside, but you couldn't unlock it from the inside, which was… kind of weird. I-It just had a couch and a blanket, nothing else."
"Y-yeah, not creepy at all," the boy with the long, pink hair stutters. Shishikura shoots him a small smile.
"Did anyone see any windows-"
"Hey jackass. It's not your turn to talk," Maekawa glares at Ninomiya pointedly. He sputters.
"The hell? You let him talk."
"'Cause he was with me."
"What about the other guy?"
"He's right. Room was creepy as hell. What do you want me to say?"
The two stare at each other for an agonizing couple of seconds before Ruka gives the group the small mercy of breaking them up: "You investigated with someone else, too, right?"
"Oh, yeah, Snowman Kid and I split up for a bit after that. I went off with Pigtails and Redhead."
The aptly-named girl with pigtails perked up again. "I'm Pigtails, right?"
"Yep."
"Really? He gets Snowman, and I get Pigtails? You couldn't have picked anything else?"
"You gonna give me a name or am I gonna have to keep calling you Pigtails?"
"I-" She lets out this short, strained, frustrated sigh. "Kumada Erina. Maekawa and I were with that guy over there. Kinda." Kumada points at a short, red-haired boy, and suddenly the earlier nickname makes sense. "It was just a lounge or some shit. Had a coffee maker."
"If there's no door here, who cares? Why are we spending so much time in rooms that don't matter?"
Kumada wanted to strangle him.
"Because they might matter," Maekawa clarifies, frustrated. "We don't know if there's a door in them unless we look in them."
"Well, let me take a big fat look around then—oh crazy, look! There's no door!" The way he spoke made Kumada want to cut her ears off. Genuinely. There wasn't anything sharp in the room with her, though, so she guessed she just had to deal. "Which means we can move on!"
"Then move on! We literally don't want you investigating with us!'
"Whatever, have fun wasting your time. Bye."
He left the room, and Kumada could've sworn an angel just gained its wings.
"Ugh, I hate him," Kumada started complaining before she could register what she was doing. Maekawa looked just as relieved as Kumada felt.
"Seriously."
The two of them sat in the room for a little longer. They were silent, trying to find anything interesting that would keep them in the room.
"How long do we have to wait before we can move on?" God, he'd be so smug if the two of them walked out too soon…
There's a lull in conversation. Ruka chimes in, nervous, "Um, sorry- you were with Maekawa and Kumada, right? Can we have your name?"
"Why do I have to tell you guys my name? We're leaving, right? Why do we need to get all buddy-buddy?"
"Well," Ruka makes a face at being shut down so blatantly. "We don't know how long we're gonna be in here. Besides, I need to call you something, right? So it might as well be your name."
He looks like he's genuinely weighing her opinion before he shrugs. "Fair. It's Ikeda, for the record—I was poking around in some kind of medbay for a while, but after that I went with Maekawa and the short girl."
"I don't care about this place, I'm heading to the next room," Ikeda spun on his heels towards the exit, rather blasé about the whole ordeal.
The rabbit tilted its head, big beady obsidian eyes staring back at him. "Don't you want to investigate the space?"
"Nope, bye!" He was already leaving.
"There's always one, it seems."
"Didn't find any way out the entire time I was walking around. Gonna guess that the elevator is probably our best bet."
"Can we please talk about the elevator?"
"No," Ruka cuts off the doctor's line of thinking before the conversation spirals out of hand. "I wanna hear from everyone first! Even if nobody else found anything, it's only fair to give everyone a chance to speak."
A couple people seem like they want to fight, but nobody actually says anything, so Ruka continues. "We'll come back to it, then, I promise. Who's next?"
Everyone turns towards the next person in line, the green shirtless guy. "Is it me?"
"Looks like it! Go ahead!"
"Okay, uh, hi. My name is Akiba Taku," he rubs his hand against the back of his neck for no reason in particular. "I mostly just went up and down the halls 'cause every room already had people searching in it, but uh… I was in the cafeteria for a bit."
Yaitabashi nods, having seen Akiba there when he and Nishiguchi went to investigate the kitchen.
"Looked like a cafeteria. That's pretty much all I've got to report."
Yaitabashi… nods? That was a rather lame testimony.
"I, uh- I see, thank you, Akiba," Ruka praises, clearly trying to move on.
"Riveting stuff, man," Ninomiya remarks.
"Thanks."
"I checked out the cafeteria with Akiba-"
"Can we stop skipping around the circle? It's hurting my head," Maekawa complains, interrupting the pink café worker before he could speak properly. A large, bouncy blonde giggles a distance away from her, the first thing she's added throughout the entire meeting.
"It would be way more confusing if we did it a different way! Nobody's standing by their partners, so… I think things would get pretty messy otherwise."
The doctor next to the girl sighs. "Then why don't we do that? Stand next to our partners?"
No one—not a single person—moves from where they're standing. Maekawa whistles. "Wow, don't all go at once."
"I-If we're going to stay as we were, can I say what I was going to say?"
"Go for it, man," Ninomiya raises his hands in a permissive gesture.
"Well, uh," he seems lost for a bit, trying to find his words again after being interrupted. "I'm Tei Atsushi. Like I was saying, I checked out the cafeteria with Akiba. There was pretty much nothing there, yeah."
"Why make such a big deal about sharing your piece if you're not even going to offer anything useful?" Ikeda taunts. A brief flicker of hostility shines in Tei's eyes.
"Like you contributed anything," Kumada retorts.
"Besides, I didn't only investigate the cafeteria," Tei defends himself, frowning. "I went down the hall after we left. There was this place that I'm pretty sure is a rec room or something, it had games and a pool table and stuff."
"Hell yeah." Maekawa pumps her fist.
"The rabbit showed up while I was there, so I tried to get some answers out of it, and um…" His voice trails off, a little more fearful than usual.
He lifted the rabbit in a firm hold, hands curled around the full length of its tiny body. It gasped in surprise.
"I'd recommend you let go of me."
"Not until you talk."
"Mr. Atsushi, if you don't let go of me, I'll be forced to harm you."
"Let us leave," he commanded firmly, stressing each syllable.
"This is your final warning."
Tei's grip around its tiny, jet-black body did not falter—the uncooperative response only served to egg him on. Silence stretched for a few unbearable moments before some invisible timer went off in the rabbit's head.
"Very well." The ominous statement in its monotone, authoritative voice made Tei's blood run cold. "This is your first infraction, so I'll be somewhat forgiving."
He opened his mouth to question it further, but evidently, he wasn't fast enough.
"Let go."
His senses succumbed to a searing, blinding red.
"Yeah, don't do that," Tei recalls with a shudder.
An athletic girl with long, white hair tilts her head curiously. "Why not?"
Ruka makes a little 'pop' with her lips. "I think I know this part! It's what Ninomiya and I walked in on, right?"
"Holy shit, the rabbit did that to you?"
The doctor's concerned gaze flicks between the three of them before eventually settling on Tei. "What did it do?"
"It said it was going to hurt me and then started burning my fucking eyes." His hands instinctively make their way towards his head, scrambling to soothe the echoes of his assault. "It was like it had thrown bleach in them or something. It didn't stop burning for a couple of minutes."
"You were catatonic on the couch after that, man," Ninomiya jokes, unhelpfully. The doctor ignores him, giving Tei a once-over with a worried gleam in his eye.
"Are you alright now?"
"Yeah, I'm fine now, just…" Tei drops his arms into a comforting wrap around his body. "Don't touch the rabbit."
"I wanna take a look at your eyes later, if that's okay."
"That's, um- that's fine, yeah."
"We've been hearing a lot from you, actually," Ruka points out. "Do you want to share anything before we continue? Your name?"
"He's not next in line, though," The athletic girl from before protests. "I thought we were going around the circle, not jumping around? Wasn't that the whole point?"
"Yeah, but he-" Ruka makes an unhelpful gesture towards him before making some unclassifiable disgruntled noise- "I just want his name, it'll be quick! I want to know how to address him!"
"Hirose Shingo," He introduced without missing a beat. "And I agree, we shouldn't detour. This meeting's already gone on for far longer than any of us had intended it to."
"Then I'm up next, yes?"
All eyes turn toward the new voice lilted with a mild foreign accent, dressed in some kind of uniform.
"Oh, the authentic Japanese weirdo," Nishiguchi mutters under her breath. Yaitabashi casts an amused, dignified glance off towards the side.
Ruka smiles. "Of course! Sorry, what's your name?"
"Oh- Tsukigata!" He says with an air of cheery confidence, though it trails off as something is dug up from his memory:
"My name is Tsukigata Hideyuki," He introduced himself, smiling. He was lucky to have found himself with a goddess such as the girl next to him.
"Your name is not Tsukigata Hideyuki!"
Huh?
"… Huh?"
"Hideyuki, Hideyuki… Eugh, wormish! You need something soft. Gentle. Feminine." Oh.
"I do?"
"Your… name… is…" Ogura punctuated each word with such an air of grandiosity that he couldn't help but feel himself hung on the anticipation. She opened her mouth and posed dramatically, "Hidemi!"
"Oh, wow!" It was gorgeous. He wasn't quite sure what it meant, though… Not that he was tuning out the explanation, but the words she was using were too complex for him to keep up with. Ah, but he liked it regardless.
Tsukigata turns toward Ogura and asks, genuinely: "It's still Tsukigata, yes?"
"Yes."
"Perfect." He turns back to the group at large. "Tsukigata."
"Nice to meet you, Tsukigata," Ruka claps her hands together for the third time this meeting and counting. "What did you find?"
"Her Most Powerful and Two-Dimensional Goddess of Beauty and Grace Miss Ogura and I found an outdoor space!"
Dead silence settles over the group uncomfortably. Hirose clears his throat. "What?"
Akiba stares in some flavor of horror. "Who the hell's name did he just say?"
"Hidemi! You've given your goddess a proper introduction!"
"Oh, nevermind, that makes sense," he mumbles.
"However, I must say, it was not an outdoor space! It was a little room with fake grass all over the floor, and walls painted to look like a sky."
"I think it looks amazing," Hidemi praised, spinning around and gazing reverently at the unnerving, artificial clouds. "An authentic Japanese courtyard!"
"Wh-" Ogura felt trapped in here, like a stray animal plucked from the streets and kept in a cage. How could Hidemi get anything positive from this? "N-No it's not! This is just a random room with fake grass and fake sky!" It was creepy.
"And real tables!"
"Well-" She opened her mouth to retort, because nothing in this room was real—all of it, fake, intended to mimic natural environments—before she actually registered what Hidemi'd said, and paused. "Yeah, okay, I-I guess those are real tables." She didn't know what a fake table would be.
Not like it would make her any less uncomfortable. She should get the two of them out of there.
"It was like someone tried to make an outdoor courtyard inside."
"Right! It was nice!"
"It was creepy," Ogura says with an odd sense of finality. "Normally, I'd much prefer a two-dimensional sky to a three-dimensional sky as a tie to my origin realm, but this room was completely accursed," she shudders.
"Well, uh- accursed, right!" Ruka's the only one willing to engage with the pair, the rest of the group either exhausted of their antics or exhausted of the meeting in general.
Admittedly, she's starting to rush through everyone, for the sake of brevity. She hopes that nobody left has anything particularly important to say.
"Alright, now," Ruka turns to the next in line, "Hirose!"
"I was with Denden. We found a room down the hall from the dormitories that was full of pills and miscellaneous medical equipment."
"What are these?" Denden stopped rifling through the strange cabinets, stopping when she hit… What was that sound? Pills? Please tell him it wasn't pills.
"What did you find?"
"Pills, I think." Great. "But, there's no name on them." Great.
"… Completely unlabeled medication, that's always a good sign." Hirose hesitated to call this place a medbay, it honestly looked more like… He didn't know what to call it. The pills themselves looked completely generic, too, so no help in that regard.
"There are so many of these, come look!"
Something nagged at him in the back of his mind. He ignored it and looked back up at the cabinet.
There sure were a lot of those pills.
"I'm Denden," The girl in the warm attire next to him speaks up. "The Denden he mentioned was me!"
Ruka grins. "Nice to meet you, Denden!"
"I thought Ikeda already investigated the medbay," Akiba reminds the pair, confused.
"That's the thing," Hirose starts. "We thought it was some kind of medbay, but when we went to the other end of the hall, we found an actual medbay—likely the room Ikeda investigated—so now we have no idea what it is."
"Creepy," Ogura declares dramatically.
"My only request is that everyone just leave it alone for now. We want to figure out what it is before people start running around in there and messing everything up."
"I think that's a request we can honor," Ruka agrees, trying to push the conversation along. "Is that all?"
"That's all," Hirose confirms.
"Who's up next?"
"Oh, um, me." The athletic girl with long, white hair raises her hand politely. "Hi."
She speaks in long, run-on sentences with drawn-out syllables: "Ouno Nanae. I explored the storage room, and," The girl raises a large, metal crowbar in her other hand. "I found this crowbar, so, if anyone tries to attack me, I'm gonna hit them with it. It's very nice to meet you all, and I hope we can get along!"
A tense atmosphere settles against the group, all fifteen sets of eyes sitting firmly on the weapon.
Hirose is the first to state the obvious: "We're going to let her carry around a crowbar?"
"What, are you gonna be the guy that tries to take it away?" Ikeda smirks, smug.
"I-I'm not gonna hit anyone with it," Ouno defends, holding the metal to her chest." I mean- unless they hit me first, then I am."
Ninomiya snorts. "Pfft, I like her." Ruka looks a little offended.
"I like her too," Maekawa agrees, and the face that Shishikura makes can't be described with words.
"I like you both!"
Ruka tries her best to move on. "Okay, okay, um- is that all you found?" Ouno nods.
Kumada looks around, doing a headcount. "I think we've pretty much covered everything, haven't we?"
"Is it finally time to talk about—"
"Uh, I didn't talk," A new but not unfamiliar voice chimes in. Discussion halts.
They're short with red, fluffy hair —the lower layers of it dyed some odd shade of green— and clothes in a notably alternative style. After they interject, there are a couple of moments where nobody speaks. They glance around nervously.
"Sorry, that got weirdly quiet."
"Oh, uh-" Ruka rushes to reassure them. "D-Don't worry about it! You're Isoda, right?"
"Right."
"Holy shit, really?" Maekawa blinks in surprise.
Ninomiya doesn't say a word. He just kind of… stares. Ruka pokes him.
"Huh- wh-?"
"It doesn't really matter, I didn't find much at all." They shrug. "There's a room down the hall from the waiting room that's just a couple tables and chairs in it, nothing else. There were crumbs on the carpet too, which… was weird, I guess."
"And?" Ruka prompts, hopeful.
"And the rabbit said it was the interview room, or something…?" They try. Ruka deflates immediately. They shoot her an apologetic look. "Yeah, I dunno. Sorry."
"Okay, that should be everyone-"
"Now can we talk about the elevator?"
"Oh my god, yes, Akiba, we can talk about the elevator," Maekawa groans.
Kumada snorts. "Don't act like you didn't wanna talk about it too." Yaitabashi casts a weird look off to the side and tries to keep the conversation productive.
"You said it needed keys?"
"You always look to your side," Denden points out. "It's kind of fun!"
Kumada looks at Yaitabashi a little closer. He straightens himself slightly. "Yeah, what's up with that? That's weird."
"It's really not that weird," Nishiguchi defends him before he has the chance to speak up for himself. "Elevator. Keys. Focus."
"Yeah, it needed keys, but we don't have any except for our room keys-" Ruka fiddles with a strand of hair that falls by her hands- "Which don't work."
Hirose frowns. "And you said you'd already looked for other keys?"
"What about something to pick the locks with?" Shishikura offers, shifting his body weight from one leg to another. "Do we have anything like that?"
Ninomiya shakes his head. "Feel free to look for something like that, man, but, uh… This place has pretty much fuckin' nothing, so."
"So we're out of luck, then," Ikeda concludes, and it's obvious that he's about to start antagonizing the group again. "We should probably just-"
"Okay, that's it." Akiba cuts him off smoothly, stretching his arms above his head. Ikeda opens his mouth to protest, or to spout something again, but Akiba continues without regard for him. "I'm gonna go down and punch a hole in the wall."
"I- I-" Tei stares at Akiba, jaw agape- "What? No, what? D-Don't do that."
"Akiba, that sounds like a terrible idea."
Akiba turns to face Hirose and Tei and just… shrugs, like he's not listening to them. "Is it, though? We might be able to get into a crawlspace or something."
"We're on the top floor, dumbass," Ikeda snarks.
"And we're…" Ouno starts, "Not allowed to break stuff, right?"
"So? What's it gonna do, burn my eyes or something?"
"Y-Yes?" Tei argues, exasperated. "Yes it will?"
"Pfft," Akiba makes a motion like he's brushing him off, "You said it was only for a few minutes, right? I'll put up with it. I want outta here."
"Don't!"
"I'm with Tei, I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Ruka supports. Tei gives her something that's kind of a smile but not really. Maybe if she squints.
"Cool, well, anybody who does think it's a good idea can come with me," Akiba offers, giving the group no time to react as he spins on his heels and starts walking towards an adjacent hallway. "I'm gonna head out."
"Akiba!"
"Later." He's already gone. Ruka groans, deflating.
"I'm gonna supervise him," She informs, already turning to follow him. Ninomiya and Tei move to go with her.
"Wait up," Ninomiya calls after her.
Kumada shrugs and starts trailing after them. "I kinda wanna watch this." Shishikura frowns, but moves along with the growing group of people.
"I'm not sure that's the right reason to check up on him," he argues, with only mild conviction behind it.
The rest of the group watches the six of them split off. They turn to look at each other.
"Well, uh," Maekawa crosses her arms, "meeting's adjourned, I guess."
"Akiba, seriously, this is such a bad idea!" Yokoi calls after him, but well, who cares? He has a wall to punch.
"It's just drywall, right?" He asks, turning back as he continues to walk onward, shrugging. "I'm not that weak, seriously, it'll be fine, you're totally way too worried about this."
"N-no, seriously, Akiba, y-you shouldn't do this." Tei adds, somehow more stressed than Ruka. Ugh.
"I mean, I kinda wanna see this." Ninomiya comments. Taku fights the urge to loudly thank him, because he was actually being kinda sensible.
"You don't." Taku pauses for a moment at how firm Tei's voice is. After the moment passes, though, he continues to walk forward without turning back. Seriously, that guy can't tell him what to do. "Y-you seriously don't, Akiba, t-the… it hurts. J-just don't tempt it, don't—"
"Yeesh, calm down, man. I'm getting us out of here, not whatever you think I'm doing… killing the rabbit or something?"
As he reaches his destination by the elevator, he realizes the crowd is a bit larger than he had expected. "Hey, one of us should totally count the elevator buttons. Make sure it doesn't break or anything when he's doing… this… whatever it is. Weirdo." Kumada adds, the insult gliding off of him as he huffs in response.
"I- I can go check them. I'll be fast," Shishikura replies, dutifully.
"Yeah, uh, go. Hurry." Yokoi's comment is a bit unnecessary, he thinks, considering he's going to be punching this wall in, regardless, but, whatever.
The rabbit suddenly appears in his peripheral vision; he catches it quickly enough to not be jump-scared. "Excuse me."
"Great… what do you want, rabbit?"
"I feel the need to remind you that damaging school property is against facility rules." The rabbit sounds frustrated— could rabbits even sound frustrated?— but well, it doesn't really matter to him.
"Welp, I don't care."
"Y-you should! You should care, actually, b-because the rabbit can definitely fuck you up."
"I do not wish to enact punishment on you this early on in the game," the rabbit adds, and at this point, Taku is feeling a bit annoyed. Why's someone else stuck around here trying to tag-team him with the rabbit? Seriously? "Please do not damage the wall."
"I'm warning you right now, I'm tearing the thing down." He braces his fists, swinging them to the side for a moment just to make sure his stance was right. "It's happening."
"I'd highly advise against making an irresponsible choice. This is your last warning."
"Akiba!" Both Yokoi and Tei call his name out at the same time, and, like, seriously? Just let him punch the damn wall already.
"S-Seriously! We'll find another way out!" Ruka yells, and, well, credit to her, but he wasn't exactly sure about that. He sure as hell wasn't going to do the 'search the whole area' again thing.
"Come on, just- just leave this stupid idea!" Tei adds, unnecessarily. They really needed to get out of his business already.
Taku lifts his hands and aims towards the wall, just slightly lower than his arms natural extension point— just so everyone else could use the hole to get out. "Here goes. Bracing my eyes." He ignores Ruka screaming his name again to instead wink at Tei with his functional eyes. Tei looks like he's about to start complaining again, so, instead of paying attention, his fist collides with th—
Taku doesn't quite know how to describe the sensation he feels. One second, he's fine, but the second that he feels the crushing of the drywall under his fists, a searing pain reaches his head, and he can feel the warmth seize him.
"Akiba!" He can't… really make out the voice this time.
"It… didn't even…" he mumbles, and he knows what it is he feels running from his mouth the second he feels the viscosity. It's blood.
"Holy shit," someone adds. He's not sure who's speaking, but he can at the very least register that it's not Tei or Yokoi, who are now by his side.
"Akiba, y-you're bleeding!" Huh. Well. He knew that part, Yokoi.
"I would strongly advise against repeating that sort of behavior in the future. I am being lenient because today is your first day in the facility. In the future, this will not be the case." The rabbit disappears as it finishes speaking and Taku can see the blood on his hand and oh god.
"I said- w-why did you have to do that?!" He knows Tei is talking, but the words enter his head like static. "Are- are you okay, t-though?"
"Y-Yeah, yeah, um- I-" he starts, not sure what he actually wants to communicate. What he really wants is for there to be no more blood on him. "Yeah, be right back!"
Someone calls after him— he can hear that fairly clearly— but he starts to book it. He needs to get to a bathroom, needs to wash the blood off himself, oh god. Vaguely, he can hear Yokoi call after him before deciding not to follow, but it's still background noise for him.
There's chatter in the dining hall.
Nanae isn't really… well, she's not really sure if there should be chatter, considering the fact that the rabbit said that breaking stuff wasn't allowed, so she's not sure why Akiba really thought this was a good idea. I mean, if he really wanted to break out, he could've also… used a tool. Like her crowbar. But, not her crowbar. Because that was her crowbar.
He had stumbled in, with a bit of blood on his face, and then Hirose brought him back out again to the medbay, she thinks, but she isn't all that sure.
It didn't take that long before he got back, so, maybe it really wasn't that bad.
"Oh, hey. You lived." Kumada sounds… kinda surprised about that, but, well, she is too, she guesses. To her side, she can hear… what was his name again, something long… Ninomiya, snicker. She's not so sure why.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Akiba confirms. "It was nothing."
It didn't look like nothing.
"I want you taking it easy. Just sit." Hirose says, ushering Akiba to a seat.
"Heh—" she hears the boy to her side again, and this time, she turns to him. "Made a pretty big hole, though. Not big enough for anything, but, pretty big, like, if you take his big-ass head, you could definitely shove it through, but not his torso, you know?"
Nanae looked up, checking Akiba's head size, and huh. Well. That was interesting. It was definitely bigger than her head.
"Shut up, man… where's Yokoi?"
Instead of getting a response, uh… Nishiguchi, yes that sounds right, Nishiguchi places a plate in front of him. "Eat." As she speaks, she can hear the shuffling of Ninomiya's chair, clearing his throat as he takes a step away from the table. "Shit, right, Ruka… she's not back yet, I'm gonna—"
There's an awkward silence as Ninomiya shuffles himself away, turning to the hallway, and, presumably, going to find Ruka.
"So, what even happened?" Nanae asks, gesturing towards Akiba's face.
"I mean... I have no idea, honestly. I punched the wall, it… caved in a little, like, the drywall fell back, and then-... I dunno. I just started bleeding." As he said this, Akiba was toying with the plate of food in front of him, and after a second, he took a bite.
"It didn't even touch you?" It takes a second for her to recognize the speaker— Tei— as the other person who the rabbit mysteriously hurt.
"The rabbit?" Akiba asks, pausing to chew as Tei nods. "Nah, not at all. But I mean-... it had to have done it, right? So what the hell is that thing?"
"I figured it was just a robot or something." Kumada comments, and—
"There's no way in hell that thing's a robot." Maekawa adds. The… half-robot girl. Well, if anyone knew, it was probably her, right?
"T-then… what is it?"
No one responds to Shishikura.
"I'm starting to think none of this is real. Maybe I'm just asleep or on drugs or something." Akiba shrugs it off, and, as much as Nanae wishes to agree, well, she doesn't. This is obviously real, she'd done the whole pinching herself thing already. Before the rabbit even showed up.
Ikeda and Tei both echo this sentiment, and, she can finally go back to eating the pizza—
And, Ogura is on the floor. Huh. Well, she wasn't on the floor, so, maybe, she should just… ignore that. Yaitabashi and Nishiguchi say some things, too, but… she doesn't really care.
"Wow, Nishiguchi!" Tsukigata comments, and Nanae's attention is momentarily drawn due to the accent in his voice. "You really are an authentic Japanese pizza—"
The sound of wood bonking against Tsukigata's head rings for a second, before it's replaced by Nishiguchi's voice: "Are you authentically Japanese?"
Tsukigata opens his mouth, then closes it, then goes back to eating.
Well, then.
"I still don't understand why you guys are acting so buddy-buddy." Oh, Ikeda's talking. "You know, we have to kill each other to escape. This is a waste of our time… seriously. This whole eating-with-the-group and having fun thing."
There's a long pause when Ikeda finishes speaking. They can't really… say he's wrong, but he isn't right either. Just, kind of annoying.
"Pfft… you guys aren't thinking of the long term. Where are we going to get food?" he questions.
"The rabbit said the kitchen restocks."
"What happens if someone gets sick? I'm sure a sick person's an easy one to just- huah! Poof! Dead!"
"We have doctor! And the medbay!"
"Okay, then, what about the trash? Where do we put it?"
"Ikeda, can you j-just… not do this right now?" Well. Tei's not very helpful, is he? Everyone else got him to switch points.
"This entire place is gonna be disgusting in a week," he hums. "Me personally? I wouldn't want to give in some gross dump. Especially not with people I don't know."
"Ikeda—" Tei doesn't— can't— stop him.
It's… hm. Ikeda's right. She doesn't like that.
"And if the power goes out, then what? he asks, shrugging as he continues forward. "That's just.. hm, what is it… oh! Another temptation."
He was right. Someone was going to kill— it was inevitable.
"I'm telling you, all it's gonna take is for one person to want it real badly."
Someone was going to kill.
"O-oh god…" She can feel the anxiety, the dread, settle in her chest. "W-we're going to die."
"We're not going to die!" Denden blurts out, and Nanae can't look at her, because she's wrong. Someone will die, which meant, that they'd all die. It was just a case of when. She was going to die. She can't die. Not in here. Her fists tighten around the crowbar she had armed herself with, feeling the coarse texture of the metal dig into her hands.
"I mean, we just need to get the elevator figured out, right?" Isoda adds. Nanae thinks that they're famous, or supposed to be, or something, but she's never heard of them, anyway. "I don't think we should get so pessimistic so quickly. It hasn't even been a day yet."
They're wrong, anyway. Someone was going to die. They weren't going to figure the thing with the elevator keys out, and they weren't going to escape, and someone was going to die.
"Exactly. Nobody's going to kill anyone. If you wouldn't kill anyone outside, you're not going to kill anyone here. That's stupid." Hirose sounds way too sure of himself. "Just control yourself for a couple days until we can get out of here."
"Besides, Ouno," Kumada says, tilting her head. Wait, what? Her? Why is Kumada addressing her? Sure, she's nervous, but— "If you freak out and start acting crazy, people are just gonna wanna kill you even more."
"I have a crowbar!" As she defends herself, she pushes her chair back, placing the crowbar directly in front of her as she tightens her grip.
"W-woah, put that down. We know, chill, Crowbar."
She's not sure how much she could do with the crowbar to Maekawa, considering the robot-parts, but, she does feel safer knowing that Maekawa is scared of it.
"Okay, j-just...yeah. I have a crowbar, so...don't come after me."
"Nobody's going to. Can everyone just eat?" Hirose sounds increasingly frustrated, she thinks, but, well. She doesn't really care.
Still, though, the change in focus is nice, she guesses, and she places her crowbar in only her left hand again. Instead of both hands, that is. The thought doesn't leave her head, though: she could die in here.
Hm.
Nanae wonders, just for a moment, if that wall-hole was worth looking into.
Stalking out of the kitchen, Youhei releases a breath of air as he combs his fingers through his hair. It… god.
Youhei had left her at the elevator earlier— right after Akiba ran off on his own— after she had politely asked for a minute. Keyword: a minute. Akiba had enough time to clean up, come to the dining hall, get scolded, or whatever, by Hirose, and come back before Ruka had come back.
Was it kinda sketch that Ruka hadn't been back? A bit. Youhei didn't think anyone would've killed her or whatever, but it'd been long enough that it felt better to check than not.
"Ruka," Youhei tuts, and she… doesn't turn to look at him. Well. That's weird. "Yokoi."
The decision to call Ruka by her family name seemed to work, the girl jolting upwards and whipping around, having actually heard the call for her name this time. "H-huh?" As her eyes meet Youhei's, they flicker downwards, her fingers picking at her nails awkwardly as she clears her throat.
"Ninomiya," she lands on, in lieu of any other greeting.
"What are you doing?"
"O-Oh! U-uhm…" Ruka trails off, only for a second, before her pitch increases drastically and crescendos as she continues to speak: "I mean!- N-nothing! I swear, I just wanted to- yeah!"
Youhei crosses his arms, and as Ruka's hands slow to a stop, she turns back to the hole, eyes suspicious.
"I was just…" she mumbles, the sentence dying and ending there.
"Ruka," he starts again, eyebrow raising as he steps forward to be next to Ruka rather than standing behind her. "Why're you staring at the wall?" Youhei half-laughs, admittedly amused. He already knew she was kind of a dork, but, hey, there's a new level with being totally obsessed with a wall like that.
He expects a quick answer, maybe more flustered stammering, or whatever, but there's a sharp narrowing in Ruka's eyes as her hands drop to her sides.
"…Do you think he's right about the crawlspace?"
"Wait, what?" Youhei expresses his confusion before he can stop himself, a mix of the comment and the sudden tone shift completely throwing him off.
"What Akiba said," Ruka continues. "The… the crawlspace."
His eyes flicker to the hole in the wall. It's big, sure, but it sure as hell isn't big enough to be able to fit all of them. Very quickly, he's reminded of Hirose's head, and Akiba's… frame, as examples. The crawlspace idea is risky at best—who knows if the rabbit would strike them down or something even if they managed a way out.
"Pfft… what? The hole? Like, you think we should go in there?"
"I mean…" Ruka trails off, but the message lingers all the same. "There's something about it… I- I feel like I want to look inside."
"Let's not mess with it," Youhei interjects, despite Ruka looking like she had more to say.
Hell, she definitely had more to say about it, but Youhei is not going to get stuck in a hole in the wall on a hunch. Besides, seeing Akiba all fucked up? The sight of blood coming out of his ears and mouth was… yikes. Admittedly, a bit terrifying considering the rabbit didn't even do anything. Not physically, anyway.
"We're going to piss off the rabbit again," he adds, trying to actually make a convincing point about this shit. "Do you wanna start bleeding outta your mouth and ears like Akiba?"
Youhei can see Ruka's expression shift into one of more hesitance. Okay, score. He totally has it, now. He just needs to… keep talking.
"Or worse! What if your eyes start burning, like Tei? Let me tell you, he's still not happy about that shit… I mean, hell, I wouldn't be too thrilled either."
"I- I don't think—"
"Oh, oh! What about your skin all melting off?"
"That isn't going to-"
"Your bones are gonna pop through your flesh," he takes a menacing step towards Ruka, grinning as he lifts his arms to make himself larger, jokingly, of course, "your eyes are gonna explode outta their sockets!"
Youhei isn't sure how this is what gets Ruka to laugh, but it does— a total bonus on top of distracting her from the wall hole.
"Pfft- Okay, now you're just being gross, cut it out."
"Your legs will turn… to sludge," Youhei adds, taking another step closer. "You'll be skulking around like a slug person!"
"Shut up!"
Ruka pushes Youhei away, gently, and snickers. "Shut up, that's gross."
"Right, right, whatever. You know it totally could happen with that freaky rabbit, though!"
Ruka's voice sounds a bit more pinched when she laughs again. "Well… maybe. I'd like to think the rabbit can't do all that weird stuff? I- I don't know."
"We both saw Tei," Youhei hears footsteps from behind him, "and then, Akiba. Seriously, wild shit."
He watches as Ruka's head turns back, not even the least bit subtle, and her eyes widen slightly before falling back into their neutral position as she sends a wave to the new guy: "Hey, Ouno!"
Youhei… well, here's the thing: Ouno's voice is kind of annoying, and, like, he doesn't really have a problem with her, but the fact that she carried a crowbar around everywhere didn't exactly help him with having a full-ass conversation with her or anything. At best, Ouno just kinda avoids people, too, so… he's gotta say, not too thrilled to be here anymore. Still, he guesses, he should be polite.
Ruka greets her enthusiastically, but the expression dims as Ouno approaches… the hole.
"It is pretty big, huh?" she voices, and Youhei loses Ruka to the hole again. Oh, damn it.
"Y-yeah, it is."
Ouno steps closer to the hole— closer than Ruka and Youhei both got up to, anyway— and her eyes trace the outline of where the drywall was destroyed. "I wonder," she says to herself, before her voice is back to its full volume— allegedly, anyway. "How far out do you think it goes?"
Youhei throws an arm around Yokoi's shoulders, trying to stop the other from wandering closer. "It's probably nothing, Ouno. Besides, the rabbit—"
"Akiba thinks he could make a crawlspace," Ruka cuts in.
Damn, Ruka. Fine. Jeez…
"Well, duh, he said that already. I mean, I dunno, it just isn't worth it when you consider what the rabbit can do."
Despite his various interjections, Ouno and Ruka keep pushing past his words. For the hole. Ouno cups her hands on the underside of the upper lip of the drywall, her fingers gently wrapped around the remnants of the top of the wall hole. "Mion could, probably, fit in there. Maybe even Ikeda, or Kumada, or Yaitabashi! They're small."
"Isn't it kinda high up, though?" Youhei questions, placing his free hand on his hip. "I mean, seriously. They'd need crazy leverage to get off the floor and, again, crazy-murder-rabbit will totally stop us."
"Huh…"
Ouno squeezes the wall with her hand, pressing tightly onto the material before half-shrugging. "Well, it's pretty hard, unless you count the chips that are, well, already broken, but still dangling from where the wall got opened…" After a moment of deliberation, Ouno lifts her leg up cautiously, stepping inside the hole— wait, what?
"Ouno!" Ruka calls out, immediately disengaging from Youhei.
"What? It's alright," a pause, "the floor is, just as stable as it is out there."
There's a beat of silence, and Ruka turns to look at him as if he'd know what to do in this situation— which, he didn't! Ouno continues on, and in a few seconds, totally disappears from the wall hole before hissing and taking a step back into sight, where the drywall isn't destroyed.
"Welcome back to hell," Youhei mumbles, crossing his arms. "Did you find anything cool or what?"
It takes a second for Ruka to notice, and a bit after Ruka notices for him to notice, but there's now a red spot on Ouno's arm where they weren't before, the angry color sticking out like a sore thumb. It's not big, nor does it look like, super painful or whatever, but it definitely looks like she hit herself.
There's a measure where Ouno turns back towards Ruka, looking hesitant before she closes her eyes, pausing and turning back to the layer beyond the drywall.
"There's a really small gap back here," Ouno emphasizes, even as she turns to look at her arm for damage. "And, a bit of electrical wiring, and pipes… normal wall stuff, I think."
Ruka gapes for just a little longer before she pulls Ouno's arm out, staring at it intently. An action that makes the girl raise her eyebrow. "Y-you're like, getting squished in there! Seriously, you don't want to accidentally break something…"
"We need to get out, though."
Oh. Yikes. Youhei can practically feel the temperature drop and Ruka's hands fall slack on Ouno's arm.
"I want to go home," Ouno adds, and it's crushing.
"P-please… maybe just get out for now? Until we can, uhm, make a better plan."
"But, how will you know what to plan around if we don't know what's in the gap?" Ouno continues to push, and Ruka's expression drops almost immediately. There's a pause, as Ruka simply pulls her hands away, clasping them to each other, and Ouno's expression only softens. "You still need to go eat, right, Yokoi?"
Ouno's expression snaps towards Youhei, and he feels… vaguely threatened, even if the crowbar— wait, hang on, she took the crowbar into the wall?— wasn't currently in her hands.
"U-Uh, yeah, totally Ruka," Youhei agrees, scratching at the back of his neck. "Nishiguchi made pizza, she'll totally be pissed if you only go back when it's cold and shit."
Ruka sends him an odd look before glancing towards Ouno and back to him again.
"Is it, really, okay to leave you here? I think I should—"
Ouno sighs, using her hands to gesture Ruka to move back, and after a bit of struggling, climbs herself out of the wall hole. The two of them— him and Ruka— don't speak once through the process. "Go eat, Yokoi. The hole will still be here, when you're back, I think, right? I can come find you later, and, check the hole out then."
Youhei thinks she's spewing a bunch of shit— no way she wasn't going back in the hole the second Ruka left— but there's a small look of content in Ruka's eyes that he isn't keen on stomping all over, even if he just met her. Better to have allies than not, he guesses.
"Totally, Ruka. It's not like the hole will magically fix itself, or, whatever. Come on, pizza time."
"Oh— uhm," she casts a glance at Ouno, who just smiles at her, "okay, okay! Coming on!"
Despite himself, after Ruka starts to walk back, he sends Ouno a quick wave, knowing that she wouldn't return to the cafeteria, even if Ruka hasn't quite processed that it meant Ouno was definitely still checking out that hole.