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Sou explored the first floor top to bottom and couldn't find a thing, he was getting a little frustrated that he couldn't find anything but he didn't lose hope. He had to get out of here and so far there were no leads, he thought for a second that maybe Gonbee Yamada had information but as far as Sou could tell he was just another player. Although… since nobody had seen him when everyone woke up maybe he did know something more and just hadn't told anyone? It was certainly possible and Sou absolutely couldn't ignore him if he did have new knowledge.
Sou found Gonbee scoping out the vending machine that sold cigarettes, trying to shake the machines to see if they'd drop anything. "Gah, why won't this… ugh."
"We did that earlier and it only dropped a single cigarette, so I don't think it'll get anymore." Sou tried to put on his best smile, tugging his scarf down slightly to show it off better.
"Honestly, why am I not surprised…" He sighed rather dramatically and rubbed his forehead, "Oh well, I'll just try it the other way."
Without waiting for Sou to ask what the other way Gonbee was talking about he pried the vending machine away from the wall and kicked it down to the floor before picking it back up and setting it back up.
"Oh… that's…" Sou didn't know what to say, he'd never seen anyone do that before, especially not just for a cigar.
"Okay, lets see what we got here… hm."
"I didn't know you were such a smoker, Gonbee."
"Ah, I'm not. But according to everyone else they searched all the rooms so I'm looking for clues in unsuspecting places." Gonbee tried searching through the machine but found nothing.
"No dice?"
"None. Although I probably should have expected that."
"Yeah, probably… but why did you think that would work?"
"Oh, I didn't really think there would be something there, it just crossed my mind and I couldn't ignore it." Gonbee sighed and leaned back from the vending machine when something caught Sou's eye. An evil thought crossed his mind, but was it really that bad if it was for the group?
"Well even if your idea was a bust maybe we can take your mind off of it…" Sou reached inside the machine slot and pulled out two fat blunts, grinning at Gonbee as he tried to insinuate what he was thinking.
Gonbee stammered for a few seconds, clearly conflicted about it. "Isn't this a smoke machine? What's weed doing in there?"
"Cigars and blunts really aren't that different, you know… they just swapped the nicotine for marijuana. You wanna try one?"
"That's ridiculous, we're in a game made by kidnappers, who would do something to lower their guard under these circumstances…" It was obvious Gonbee was trying to resist but Sou was fairly certain he could convince Gonbee this was a good idea.
"Maybe people who wanna relax a little and take a break from this place, listen, if you don't want to that's fine but I'm just saying that it could make this seem less terrifying and maybe give you a new perspective…"
Gonbee hummed for a moment, testing out the idea in his mind before sighing heavily. "Uh… um… okay, alright! But… you have to do it with me too, understand?"
"Oh, sure… of course I will." Truth be told Sou had never smoked anything like this in his life, well, besides a few regular cigarettes in highschool with a friend of his but he decided to do it anyway. Taking a lighter out of his pocket he gestured for Gonbee to follow him into the Smoking Area.
Gonbee sat down and put the iron ball he was holding in his lap. When he noticed the lighter Sou was holding he squinted, "Did you always have that?"
"Nah, when I was searching with Sara I found one and gave it to her but later I found one by myself and decided to keep it with me." Sou put one of the blunts between his teeth and lit it up. Gonbee took the other one and inspected it thoroughly, "Gonbee, you were in jail before you were brought here, no? Surely this can't be the first time you've smoked weed before."
"…Is it really so strange? I mean, when I just turned into an adult I was around it a lot but… I needed to be an example to my sister." Gonbee's expression fell when he spoke of his sister. He perked up though and fired up the cigar just as Sou had, blowing out a big puff of smoke.
"What's your sister like?" Sou couldn't help but ask, he needed all the information he could get.
"She's one of the best people I know…" He looked bittersweet for a second but he perked up and cleared his throat, "Uh, actually… Can we not talk about her? It's been a sore subject since I went to jail."
"Yeah, sorry for bringing it up…" He didn't want to push Gonbee too far, he couldn't risk losing his only possible lead. Sou held the cigar between his index and middle finger thinking of how he wanted to play this. Even when Sou was in school he didn't do this too often because it ended up taking a toll on him and made him cough for weeks. Lucky for him though Gonbee didn't know how to pace himself and ended up getting zoinked out of his mind very quickly so he didn't even notice Sou had barely touched his blunt at all.
The two men spent the next two hours just talking, going over a thousand different conversation topics, even sharing some stories from their personal lives. But to Sou's dismay nothing particularly useful came of it, he did learn a lot about Gonbee though— mostly stories from prison but he learned useful facts about him like the fact that his mother raised him as a woman and that he used to be part of band a few years back— which was useful if he ever needed to use his connection to him in the future. Sou didn't know when it happened but Gonbee eventually put out his cigar and fell asleep on his shoulder, the heavy ball rolling out of his lap and into Sou's which made him wince. It was crushing him but he didn't have the strength to get it off him, and he didn't have the heart to wake up Gonbee either when he knew he probably needed the rest.
It had been another hour and Gonbee still hadn't woken up, during that time he was thankful that nobody came looking for them, although he wished Kanna would come bail him out, of course he liked Gonbee but Sou needed to keep looking for clues or he was gonna run out of time to search before the Main Game. So he tapped on Gonbee's shoulder and when that didn't work he tried his best to shake him awake but even that didn't work. Sou was getting uncomfortable with the heavy weight on him but Gonbee didn't appear to be waking up anytime soon.
"Gonbee! Urgh-! Come on, wake up!" Sou shouted but was only met with Gonbee shifting and putting more of his weight on Sou, "Argh! Gonbee!" Sou started thrashing as much as he could, beating his fists against him and that seemed to make him stir.
"Sou… what're you doing..?" He groaned, rubbing his face as he started to slowly sit up, "How long was I out for?" Sou didn't expect Gonbee's voice to be so deep when he woke up, considering he was higher pitched when he was awake so it was trippy to hear him right now.
Gonbee took a few minutes waking up, he looked down at Sou and widened his eyes, "Ah! I'm so sorry, lemme get that for you." He lifted the ball up with ease, holding it with only one hand.
"Ugh, thanks, that thing was crushing me… I have no clue how you hold it all day long…"
"Eh, you get used to it." Gonbee looked around, surveying the area— not that there was much to survey in the tiny hallway— trying to piece the timline of things that happened when he was asleep, "Has the Main Game started yet?"
"No, it hasn't so don't worry about it. But we should probably look for more clues…" Sou was already searching through his mind of things he might've missed, "Gonbee, got any ideas?"
Gonbee was quiet for a few minutes, like he was mulling over something in his mind, "Hey, Sou. I told you a lot of personal things about myself and you did the same… I told you stories I didn't think I would ever tell anyone so I feel like we've grown close in the past… however long it's been."
"Ah..? Yeah, I guess we have become closer…"
"Would you say we're… friends?"
This was a bit strange but Sou went along with it, he smiled and tried to look harmless and meek, "Hm, yes, I would consider you a friend. But why do you ask?"
Sou didn't know what Gonbee was playing at but Gonbee cleared his throat and put his hands on Sou's shoulders, bringing him in close, "Sou Hiyori!"
"Yes!?" Sou was caught off guard by this, was he finally going to get information from him? Was this his payoff for pursuing Gonbee!?
"As my friend I have a favour to ask you… In specifically private settings and for no discernable reason whatsoever," He paused as if giving himself an option to back out but he decided to keep going, "Could you call me Alice Ya…- Yamada?"
Sou stopped everything in his head, there was no way this guy was using an alias too, was he stupid or something? To think, Sou was so worried about being found out before he got out of this place and this guy was just casually ratting himself out the second he got comfortable? It was so funny to him that Sou had to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing too hard, "Hehehe, of course!"
"Eh? What's so funny?" Alice's face fell, he didn't know what he was giggling about.
"Well, Alice… 'in specifically private settings and for no reason whatsoever'… could you possibly call me Shin?"
"Why, yes of course, Shin Hiyori!"
"Just Shin." If he was going to let someone call him that he didn't want his identity to mix with someone else's. It was nice to let someone else in on his secret, even if he was certain it would bite him in the ass later on.
"So… Shin. What do you want to do now?"
"Hm… well, there's another vending machine by the bar if you wanted to search it." Shin said with a wide smile, he might as well commit to being friends with Alice now that the two revealed their names. Besides, Shin was starting to enjoy being with Alice and with the consensus that their real names are private, he could solace in the fact that somebody knew him as someone other than his alias.