Chapter Text
Knocking on the open door of the storage room, no one is visible to Ruka or Shingo until, from the corner of Ruka’s eye, she spots Ouno crouched down, going through boxes. “Ouno?” Ruka softly asks, yet still scares Ouno into jumping up into a standing position quickly, turning around to face Ruka and Shingo
“What- what are you two doing? What do you want?” Ouno shakily asks the two, only for Shingo to lightly glare at her
“We’re investigating. We came in to inform you that we found an elevator. It’s locked behind a key, and we don’t know where it is.” Shingo spoke with a sense of skepticism about it. Ouno, in response, only slowly nodded. Shingo then tapped onto Ruka and gestured to leave. However, instead of leaving, Ruka kept staring at Ouno. “Ruka.” Shingo spoke from the hallway, “We did what we needed, let's go continue. We still have a ton of ground to cover, potentially.”
After blinking a few times, Ruka turns around and follows, “Gah! Sorry!” and the two continue until they get to another corner of the building with multiple ways to go, only to be interrupted by a voice at their feet.
“Hello.” Monomoko teleported to them, “You two are in front of the Lounge right now, do you plan to go in?” Monomoko sits down by Ruka’s feet
“No.” Shingo crosses his arms. “We aren’t focused on exploring rooms. Instead of trying to warn people about the key thing.”
“Oh? But wouldn’t it be better to tell them all at once in a group?” Monomoko tilts her head to the side in confusion, “Would you two like me to describe the lounge?” and before Shingo was going to explode on Monomoko, Ruka interrupts
“It’s a lounge, right! Couches, tables? Maybe shelves with more fake books? Sorry Monomoko, we really are in a rush,” only for Shingo to whisper something along the lines of, ‘Why are you apologizing?’
“...Very well. But do know, there is also a coffee maker in the Lounge. It could be useful in the future,” Monomoko states with her normal monotone robot voice, and teleports away. Shingo and Ruka share a look, but Ruka shakes her head, and the two continue down the hall, skipping the Lounge area. Instead, now coming to two different hallways from one, one hallway leading to a bunch of doors that they originally woke up in, and the other hallway had one door at the back and another door on the side. Walking to the hallway with two doors, Ruka knocks on the furthest door and opens it.
Akiba was the only person squatting by the wall, looking through some paper cabinets. “Hey,” Shingo spoke first this time. Akiba turns his head to face the two at the door, but doesn’t actually stop going through the cabinets. “Ruka and I found an elevator, which is locked by a key. If you find one, go to the meeting room thing…” Akiba only nods in response. That's when Ruka spots a piece of rolled-up paper in Akiba’s mouth, probably to give him more hands to shuffle through things. But before Ruka can say anything, Shingo turns to leave, leaving Ruka to trail after him, only after giving Akiba a curious yet worried look and getting waved off by him, who looks unworried.d
Clearly getting impatient, Shingo goes to the door on the side and opens it, Ruka following afterwards. It opened to the cafeteria. Shingo moves to another door as Ruka pauses and looks at the cafeteria, clean, obnoxious orange tables and seats. Ruka feels bile rush to her throat as she tries to resist throwing up right there on the spot. Instead, she decided to walk backwards to the door, back to it, just looking at the cafeteria. Faintly, she could hear Shingo talking to people in the background of the open kitchen door, but not registering who he was speaking to. When Shingo finally left and spotted Ruka, he raised an eyebrow, walking forward to Ruka. “Hey Ruk-” then he pauses, looking at her a bit more closely. “Hey, Ruka,” this time he spoke gently and slowly put his hands on Ruka’s shoulders, “you good? You look very… pale?”
In response, Ruka could only quickly nod, “Yeah.” Her voice cracks, “I’m good. The next hallway has a ton of rooms, right? We should probably ignore them unless we hear voices coming from them.”
Shingo doesn't say anything or move for a hot second before nodding. The two depart from the lounge and walk down the long hallway. Once they get to around the end, a voice calls out to them from behind. “Huh? Yokoi, Hirose?” Kumada walked out of one of the rooms. Behind her, Mutsuko poked her head out with a friendly wave to Ruka.
“What are you two up to?” Sou asked as he poked his head out after Mutsuko, the three of them somehow fitting in the doorway despite it being small.
“We found an elevator!” Ruka started cheerfully
“But it’s locked with a key,” Shingo continues.
“And we don’t have that key at all,” Ruka trails.
“So if any of you find a key or have a key, just bring it to the meeting room,” Shingo ended.s
The three people they were talking to shared a similar look. Sou hides a smile, Mutsuko laughed from behind her hand as Kumada pointed at them, “You two are weirdos. Why are you guys finishing each other's sentences?”
Kumada was met with silence as Ruka and Shingo simply stared at them, “I didn’t even notice…” Ruka twirled a piece of her messy hair in her finger, “Uhm! Anyways, have any of you guys looked in that room down there?” Ruka points with her other hand to the door at the end of the hallway
“Not yet,” Sou was the one to respond, “Maekawa and Shishikura walked down this way and walked back up from that room. So we thought they investigated it, Kumada poked inside and said it looked like a form of medbay.”
“Then, it might actually be best for Hirose to look in there,” Mutsuko rested her shoulder on the doorframe, “he’s the closest thing to a medical expert, right? If something goes wrong, he has to be able to respond.”
Shingo nodded in response, “Then I’ll go ahead and check it out,” and as he was about to turn around and leave further down the hallway, Kumada interrupted
“Hey, weirdos. I’m going with you two.” Kumada relaxes her hands down to her side as she starts to move more towards Shingo and Ruka. “I want to make sure nothing is going to be messed with,” Kumada glances at Shingo .
“Huh? I wouldn’t ever mess with medicine or anything?! I’m literally under an oath against that. Shingo, all of a sudden, had raised defenses.
“Actually, I don’t think it’s a bad idea,” Ruka interrupted, “I know Shingo wouldn’t mess with anything, but Kumada doesn’t. See it as a way to gain trust in Kumada, Shingo!” Shingo just looked at Ruka like she gained another head, but on the other hand, Kumada looked away from her with a hesitant little nod that was easily missed
“Ugh, fine. Let's go ahead and go look inside.” Now, Shingo, Ruka, and Kumada walked down to the medbay, Ruka frantically waving to Mutsuko and Sou, who both looked somewhat entertained. Once the three make it to the door, Kumada opens it with some carelessness that makes Shingo give Ruka a look of worry, who only shrugs with a smile.
The medbay doesn’t look different to Ruka, a quite large area with beds lining the right wall. A wall on the left that goes out only a little before the middle of the room, creating a semi-cubicle space. That space holds a desk with multiple papers stacked on top, with cabinets littering the desk's actual interior. On the side of the desk multiple IV stands and even a wheelchair this time. A lone black chair sits before the desk, slightly askew.
Shingo immediately moves to the desk and starts to open cabinets, Kumada stalking behind, keeping narrowed eyes on Shingo. Meanwhile, Ruka moves more into the room behind the wall. Behind the wall was a smaller desk without a chair; lying on the desk were open gray cabinets with vanilla folders sticking out. On the wall were shelves that had containers of still mysterious liquid, on the other side of the room,m there were more beds. One bed seemed to have been laid on recently as its blankets slightly hang from the other beds' seemingly perfect formation. A total of sixteenbeds exactly, one for each person, just in case.
Poking her head out from the wall to look at Kumada and Shingo having a silent conversation. Shingo is holding a bottle of medication in his hands while Kumada has her arms crossed leaned forward. “Hey, Kumada, Shingo! Do you think any of these beds have bed bugs in them?”
“What the fuck?” Kumada broke her eye contact with Shingo to look at Ruka, disgusted. Shingo followed her gaze to Ruka with a semi-confused face.e
“Ru k, a what are you talking about?” Shingo hesitantly asks
“Oh! Well, one of the sixteen beds seemed to already be used.” Ruka brings her finger up to the sky as if she were pointing out the obvious. Only for Kumada to bring her hand to her mouth in a thinking position
“As far as I’m aware, Maekawa and Shishikura weren't here long enough to investigate and lay down. Out of the two, Shishikura would be the most likely to lay down” Kumada numbers to herself, still loud enough for Shingo and Ruka to hear as they both share a look.
Shingo sighs, “We’ll ask Shishikura when we meet up again. Though if we have any luck, it won’t matter because someone will have found a key by now.”
-> INVESTIGATION NOTE DISCOVERED
[Used Bed]
Ruka hums in agreement before walking up to the two, “Are we all done here? It doesn’t seem like much is actually in here.” Ruka turns her body halfway around, just enough for her to glance at the back wall. The wall where tunnels lay behind, only for Ruka to know for now. Shingo nods and puts the bottles he held onto the counter, while Kumada glared at him lightly before turning around and walking away. “What… what was that about?”
“…she and I… don’t agree on everything medicine-wise, apparently. And she distrusts me,” Shingo stated bluntly before following Kumada out into the hallway, where she waited for them. Ruka, not giving another second glance at the room, follows close behind.