Chapter Text
Kaede Akamatsu wants to blow her brains out.
The music won’t stop. It’s a random Nickelback song, the chorus repeating like a broken record. But it’s not broken, because Monokuma is doing this on purpose. To get them to kill. This is the first motive. The music will keep going until someone commits murder and officially starts this sadistic fantasy he calls a game. He’d told them that this motive was an easy one, that he could’ve chosen something much, much worse.
Kaede doesn’t want to know what that “something worse” is.
Everyone’s gathered in the cafeteria, trying to eat the breakfast Kirumi’s made them through the noise. The racket doesn’t seem to be bothering Kirumi herself—she just keeps a kind smile plastered on her face and places Kaede’s bowl of egg-and-miso soup in front of her. Kaede’s thankful, but she’s lost her appetite. She can feel the music in her stomach, her head, her skull. She already feels nauseous; she doesn’t even think she’d be able to stomach the food.
The music had jolted the sixteen students awake at some ungodly hour of the morning and forced them to leave their dorms and start their days. It’s obnoxiously loud, like cymbals crashing constantly in Kaede’s ears. Everyone except Himiko and K1B0, the two who had probably slept right through it, had shuffled into the cafeteria at about four in the morning, seeing no point in trying to sleep. It’s 10AM now.
“Can someone fuckin’ kill already?” Miu yells over the music.
Kaede feels terrible for agreeing.
She doesn’t want anyone to die, but the music is a note away from bursting someone’s eardrums.
[She loves music, but not like this.]
Kokichi tries to stab himself in the eye with the butt of a spoon. Kaede catches his wrist. Nobody is going to die, mark her words. She just can’t let that happen.
“Let me go!” Kokichi groans, trying to wrench himself out of Kaede’s grip. “I’m just trying to put myself out of my misery!”
“Gonta no like this song,” Gonta shouts, his ears plugged with his fingers.
Kaede waves at Miu to get her attention. Kokichi takes this as an opportunity to wrench himself free, but Kaede snatches the spoon from his hand.
Miu cocks an eyebrow at her. “Do you think you could figure out how to turn this music off?” Kaede yells. “There has to be a speaker or something somewhe—”
”Can’t hear you, Tiny-Tits!”
Kaede sighs, losing hope. Her head is throbbing. She hasn’t gotten this bad of a headache from listening to music since Rachmaninov’s Prelude in G Minor.
And just when she's about to give up, the music stops, and so does Kaede's breathing.
Bing, bong, bing, bong.
The TV screen mounted on the wall flickers to life. Monokuma sits on a red, velvet throne, a crown on his head.
“A body has been discovered!”
Everything stops, the only sound in the room Monokuma's nasally, shrill voice.
“Everyone, please gather in the dorm room of Himiko Yumeno, the Ultimate Magician!”
Kaede is frozen in place, the lack of music allowing her to hear her heart pounding violently in her ears. Sorrow seeps into her stomach and brings tears to her eyes.
Someone is dead. She failed.
She hates how cheerful Monokuma sounds. What is he so happy about? Is he a sociopath? Someone just died, and—
"Kaede, come on.”
It’s Shuichi's voice. His eyes are melancholy and gray. He looks defeated, just like Kaede. They’d tried. They’d set up the cameras in the library yesterday, hoping to catch the mastermind and end the killing game before anyone lost their life. It’s too late now.
[It’s too late.]
The walk to Himiko’s dorm is slow. Tenko runs ahead, about a mile ahead of the rest of the class, the soles of her waraji padding against the ground. Kokichi skips, humming a nursery rhyme, a smile on his face. Kaede briefly wishes she hadn’t stopped him from killing himself before pushing the thought out of her mind. She doesn’t wish that. She doesn’t.
“How sad,” Kokichi chimes with mock disappointment. “Our first victim. I wonder how she died.” He starts walking backwards in front of the group, an impish grin dancing across his lips. “Maybe strangulation.” He pretends to choke himself. “Or maybe someone drowned her in the toilet.”
“I did not need that imagery, dude,” Rantaro says, shaking his head. He looks tired, his eyes droopy and his green hair messy.
“How can we be sure it was Himiko that… passed?” Korekiyo questions. “Perhaps someone merely died in her room.”
“Huh,” Katio says, stroking his goatee. “Didn’t think about that.”
"Of course you didn't," Maki mutters under her breath.
Miu scoffs. “Bullshit! Donkey Lips is an easy target. Why wouldn’t someone choke her out?”
The class starts to debate if it’s Himiko who’s dead or not.
Kaede’s stomach churns. She looks down at the floor.
“Hey, you okay?” A soft voice says. Kaede looks up.
“Yeah,” she tells Shuichi, who is looking at her with a concerned expression.
“W-We’ll find out who the killer is,” he says, but sounds unsure. “We just have to—” He’s interrupted by a scream from down the hall. Tenko.
Everyone rushes to Himiko’s dorm room. Kaede hesitates beside the doorframe, then looks inside. It takes her a moment to spot it. But when she does, her stomach drops, everyone's panicked voices blending into muffled nothingness.
[Inky black oil leaks from K1B0’s metal carcass, golden sparks flying in every direction.]