✧ Chapter 32 ✧
[ Begging and Pleading ]
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Gundham stood at the well, looking down at the darkness below with a disapproving glare. He's been checking on it every single day, each day waiting for the voice to reply him. But of course, no threats came from within.

He had narrowed it down to a few suspects, but in his opinion.. they seemed incapable of such evil.

Chihiro Fujisaki was one of his suspects, since Gundham had seen the girl approach the well every now and then. Perhaps she had something to do with this mystery.

Or rather, Gundham should call Fujisaki a boy instead. Since he knew that the hazel eyed student was hiding their true gender for some unknown purposes..

A few days ago, he had received a book from an unknown source. It was a simple leather bound black book, with white designs across it. On its spine, was a set of initials which read: R.o.L.

Gundham had discovered it lying on his bed, and it's contents held startling information-.

"Gundham?"

A voice made him turn, to see the Princess, Sonia smiling at him. The girl was in her usual school uniform, with a part of her long blond hair tied into a braid. She looked beautiful as always, but something felt off about her.

"Good afternoon, Gundham!" she greeted, "I was just passing by and.. I saw you hanging around here. So I was a little concerned."

She was concerned for him? Gundham scoffed, "I don't need your concern, or pity, Princess. A mere mortal like you cannot compare to a being like me."

Sonia smiled slightly, "Gundham, I told you so many times to not say such things. I'm your friend, after all. And friends should look out for one another."

He felt his face heat up slightly, making him quickly pull his scarf up to hide the redness. "You.. call me a friend?"

The blonde nodded, reaching forward and taking his hands with hers, "Of course! You've been helping me with my lessons and you're very kind to animals. And I want to understand you better as well, Gundham."

No one has ever said that to him before. And honestly, he felt touched. He glanced behind him, right into the darkness of the well. He swore he could see a pair of magenta eyes looking back at him, waiting; or maybe he was imagining things.

"Thank you Princess." he turned to the girl, thanking her without showing too much gratefulness. He had to maintain the distance between them, after all.

The girl smiled and leaned in to kiss his cheek, to his surprise. His eyes widened as he quickly pushed away from her, stepping back. "Wait.." he muttered, his back hitting the well as she looked at him. "You-."

Sonia continued to smile at him, as she held the ends of his scarf to stop him from falling. "You shouldn't really trust anyone Gundham." she said softly, "The leader says you need to be taken down. You know too much. So I was chosen to bring you down with me."

"Does this all have something to do with that..." he stopped himself from saying too much. "I trusted you!" Gundham glared at her as she let go of the ends of his scarf.

Curses... this was why he hated making friends. He was betrayed by the one he actually called a acquaintance. How could he have been so foolish?

"I'm not entitled to talk to you about the Leader's projects, Tanaka.. but I promise," she smiled, "We'll erase your memories and pretend this never happened."

Gundham held out his hands, "I'm not going down without a fight, Princess. I won't give up." As if on cue, all four of his hamsters popped up from within his scarf and readied their paws to fight.

Sonia tilted her head, "Hmm? Oh. That's a shame.. you don't have a choice, dear Gundham. Erasing your memories is very simple. In fact, you'll be back in school in no time."

With that, she leaned in and kissed him on the lips. Gundham pulled away again, but she pushed him backwards. Thinking quickly, as he stumbled, he grabbed his four hamsters and tossed them to safety.

The last thing he saw when he fell into the well, was her magenta eyes and small, trusting smile.

He trusted her.

With that last thought, the darkness swallowed him.

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[ Keebo / Kokichi's Dorm Room ]

Shuichi and Keebo tipped a box to its side, scattering stacks of paper onto the floor. "I swear it was in here before.." he muttered as Kokichi kicked papers aside and dug through them.

The three boys were in Keebo and Kokichi's messy dormitory room. Despite having moved in a mere five days ago— the new start of the school year —the room was already messy.

Kokichi's popcorn machine was stashed away in a corner and Keebo's glass board was scribbled with doodles from the purple prankster. And in a corner, there was a bin full of crumpled paper. Kokichi's work, obviously.

Shuichi was in their room, since he was trying to find the box which held that threatening message he and Kaede had discovered before.

Keebo was no help of course, since he couldn't seem to have remembered anything about the mysteries of Hope's Peak. Kaede wasn't allowed in the boy's dormitory, since that was the rule..

"It's no use," the blue eyed scientist sighed, pushing his glasses up to rest on his white-grey hair, "We can't find it. Are you sure it was in my-."

"Our," Kokichi interrupted.

"- OUR room, Shuichi?"

"I'm very sure," Shuichi frowned, "It couldn't have vanished because only you and Ouma have your dorm room cards." he scratched his head as he watched Kokichi stumbling through a pile of crumpled paper.

"Someone could've broken in," the purple haired boy suggested, "Everything started malfunctioning after the fire alarm was tripped. If Keeboy was a robot, he would've gone 'kaput'."

"I'm not a robot, Ouma, stop saying that," The scientist muttered, "And for the record... it appears that someone really did break in, now that I think of it.." he held up a his wrist, showing Shuichi and Kokichi a watch.

It was a simple device, the glass screen displaying the time and a small Keebo sprite at the bottom of the square screen. With a simple white strap, illuminated by a series of blue streaks, it seemed rather futuristic.

"Someone made this for me.." the blue eyed boy frowned, tapping the screen, "I found it, but something told me that I shouldn't take it off.. maybe it was a gift."

Shuichi felt a sudden pang of guilt, feeling sorry for the guy. If he told Keebo what had happened between him and Miu... who knows what could happen? He might start raging and do something to Monokuma as revenge.

After all, the last time someone tried to blab about the academy's secrets... they got their hearts impaled by knives.

"Someone did enter our room, Kokichi," Keebo continued, "I installed a feature in this watch which alerts me when someone enters."

"You mean it could detect that time when I went to the kitchen for cheese at two am in the morning.?" Kokichi asked, tilting his head.

"That's.. oddly specific," Keebo muttered, "But yes.. it can. According to the records," he looked at the screen and swiped on it for a few seconds, "Someone entered our room at 5 pm yesterday."

"Which is unusual, because Kaede and I were at Monokuma's office. And both of you were at the nurse's office, am I right?" he looked at the two. Shuichi nodded, unsure as to why he was feeling his face heating slightly. Probably because he was thinking about that incident between him and Ouma.

"So no one else could've gone to our room. They broke in, and probably stole that note Saihara read. But why, is the question."

"The traitor," Both Shuichi and Kokichi spoke up at the same time. The blue haired boy looked at the smaller guy, who just seemed amused, "They're the one who locked us in the library." Shuichi explained to Keebo.

The scientist frowned, placing a finger on his chin. "You're certain there's only one person behind all this?"

"What makes you say that, Keeboy?" Kokichi leaned back on his chair, propping his mismatched red and green sock covered feet on the bed. "You think there's more than one person behind this?"

"Kaede told me something," Shuichi spoke up, suddenly remembering the conversation he'd had with the girl back when he was recovering from the incident at the library.

"Before she found us in the library, she met a mysterious person who helped her break into the place."

"Can you describe the person?" Keebo asked politely, as if he were a interviewer.

"Brown hair, black hoodie.. that's all she said. Weird coloured eyes and had a low voice." the detective replied.

He flinched when Kokichi leapt up, snapping his fingers. "Say that description again." he ordered as he flung more sheets of papers aside and making them fall to the floor.

Shuichi and Keebo exchanged glances, "Uh.." the detective scratched the back of his head, "Brown hair, weird eyes, black hoodie."

"Okay," Kokichi waved a hand at him and pulled out a thick folder of notes, "As per usual... that traitor got their facts wrong. I had another copy of the files, because the old Keeboy was such an anxious guy. He was always rambling about how he needed backups for his backups."

"I'm still Keebo, you know?" the blue eyed boy frowned as Kokichi pulled a face, "You're my best friend, yes yes, blah blah blah, you're great and all but there's always one person for me and-."

He immediately cut off, glancing at the camera situated at the corner of the room. "Anddddd I'm sure they like cheese." he finished.

"..." Shuichi blinked, wondering why was Kokichi bringing up the word 'cheese' so much. Maybe he was hungry. "Anyway," the liar grinned, holding out the files. "Have fun reading this."

Shuichi cautiously took the folder from him, opening it and almost immediately, a piece of paper fell out. Keebo bent down to pick it up as Shuichi read the pages. Some of the papers were wet, the ink bleeding to the other pages and pictures sticking to each other.

"So?" Kokichi grinned, "Tell me what do you think, as per usual!" with that said, he grabbed a bottle of Panta from a cupboard behind him. Keebo watched in awe as Ouma downed the entire bottle in one go.

Shuichi wondered how could he actually manage to do that. His heart skipped slightly as he watched the smaller male laugh at Keebo, who was trying to drink Panta as well.

Shuichi wanted to hear more of Ouma's laughter... where were all these emotions coming from? Shuichi looked down at the files, labeled 'Komahina'.

"..." For now, he should focus on this task. Maybe, just maybe, that would ease the pain of longing in his heart.

♥ End of Chapter Thirty-Two ♥

First of all. Another A/N. [ I wanted to do a Monokuma Theatre, but I'm exhausted ]

I'm sorry if I don't make sense sometimes. My writing isn't very good, honestly. Whoops. I promise I'll try to be more descriptive, and stuff. Because I find that I lack the proper skills to describe my characters and whatnot. English!

*Sigh* Anyway, sorry for having to put up with my crappy writing, and I hope you have a great day/night ahead. :)