Mr. Clean Is On the Scene

They had gotten it wrong, and Mitsuki was incredibly relieved. After everything, he wasn’t… he wouldn’t lose… no one else was going to die. No one who the janitor saw as anything but deserving, anyway.

It was a horribly selfish thing to think, but for once, Mitsuki didn’t feel the need to start guilting himself over it. No, he felt… free. Happy. Because he’d been so scared, so convinced that things weren’t going to work out the way they should have in the wake of everything, so afraid of… of what would happen if things had been different… but it didn’t. It didn’t, and it was dirty, and it was unjust, but he was glad… he was so glad.

(Truth be told, Mitsuki Arai had never felt more human before this moment.

Perhaps embracing the negatives as well was what it took?)

Mitsuki shot a small and weary-looking but still very genuine smile in Shirou’s direction as if to say “We did it!” or maybe “You did it!” was more appropriate, because so much really depended on Shirou, Mitsuki had just played support, but even that meant something, and…

…he wished he could cry physically right now, because tears of relief would be fitting, but of course, that was an impossibility, so Mitsuki settled for looking ahead, resting his chin in his hands, as Shirou rattled off rather familiar information, save for… he didn’t understand how that was possible, it didn’t sound logical, but very little about this place was, so instead of questioning it, he simply followed Shirou’s lead in voting for Hanzo and Aoi.

(Mitsuki would have followed Shirou Sonozaki off of a cliff if he’d ordered him to. It was a blessing that he’d never been ordered to.)

And now? He’d wait, Mitsuki supposed. Wait, and… well, one would pray in these circumstances, right? Or at least just hope for the best. And Mitsuki expected nothing but the best possible outcome, if only because he had invested so much faith in Shirou and wasn’t about to stop now.

As Aoi spoke up, Mitsuki shot her a cold glance (as cold as someone like him could manage, anyway) and delivered a curt, matter-of-fact

“You’re right. You would be.”

They… really weren’t getting anywhere, were they?

Perhaps it was to be expected, with how few of them there were left, Mitsuki mused absently. And there really were so few of them left… that one of them should be him, a machine who merely tried his best to be human, was downright tragic, a machine who could barely focus at the proceedings at hand at the moment  was downright wrong.

(Which meant that logically, he should-

-but he didn’t want to, he was afraid-)

Mitsuki watched the back and forth between Shiroi, Shirou, and Aoi without so much as a hint of surprise on his face, save for a concerned glance shot in Shirou’s direction when he brought up his encounter with that demon. Either what he was hearing really didn’t phase him much, or he was just that out of it. Maybe it was a bit of both.

But finally, after asking Maru a question and getting a somewhat… disappointing response, Mitsuki finally spoke up.

“Do you think… maybe it might be safest to vote for one of the mastermind suspects?”

Well, if now wasn’t as good of a time as ever to finally bring this up, what was?

“At this rate… it looks like the safest option, I think. Assuming the Aoi mastermind didn’t kill Kumi-san, which is looking likely, I mean. And even if they didn’t kill Kumi-san, they… have a lot of blood on their hands, so…”

He also really didn’t care about avenging someone like Kumi, who had just as much blood on their hands as the masterminds, but even someone as socially inept as Mitsuki Arai tended to be knew full well that this was an opinion best kept to himself. So he’d keep silent on that end.

“Like I said… we have to vote for someone, so…”

Strange, coming from Mr. ‘I Vote For Myself at Every Trial’ but again… there were so few of them left, and…

Mitsuki would love to say that he had been listening attentively to the details of the trial thus far, but that was not the case. The janitor spent the first moments of the trial as he had the investigation - staring out into space, eyes lidded, mind off somewhere else. It felt warm again. Too warm. Uncomfortably warm. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like… any of this.

Still, as much as Mitsuki wanted to lay down and go into sleep mode right on the trial floor, it wouldn’t be right, not when there were so few of them left, not when so much counted on… no, it wouldn’t be right at all. So after a long stretch of silence, the janitor finally spoke up, nodding in Shirou’s direction.

“I also received flowers, Sonozaki-san… here, see?”

He held up his keycard (and wow, Mitsuki sure did look a bit appreciative there - guess the castle’s resident robot really appreciated botanical gifts out of nowhere) revealing… yes, that sure was a bouquet of flowers right there. Amazing.

And then Shiroi mentioned drinking the ether, and Mitsuki just stared at her, one visible eye widening slightly in alarm. Why would she… why did humans have to be like this, he really didn’t understand them at all.

“Please don’t do that. It’s not healthy.”

Thank you, Mitsuki, that was really helpful.

And then, to Aoi

“There was no one Kumi… Nogitsu-san particularly trusted, I don’t think? But… I tried to avoid their company. So I didn’t see much of them outside of announcements and such, sorry…”

He trailed off quietly into silence as he had very many times before… and then remained that way for a few moments, mind having temporarily blanked out (let him rest) before he spoke up again.

“I… don’t think I found anything useful myself, sorry. Nothing that would point to a definite culprit, I don’t think.”

Here, Mitsuki shot a concerned-looking glance in Shirou’s direction.

“What… do we do if we can’t find the culprit? We have to execute someone, so…”

Mitsuki barely seemed focused on his surroundings, be it the fact that the forest was aflame or the fact that the rest of the class was as intact as they had been in the wake of the last trial despite there being a body discovery announcement. Between his utter spaciness and the unsteady, somewhat unbalanced way he moved as he and the rest of the class drew towards the site of the body, the janitor far too exhausted to pay attention to much of anything, assuming a robot could feel exhaustion.

It seemed to take Mitsuki a moment to even register who had died. Sure, he was looking in the direction of the corpse, but his one visible eye seemed more fixed on the look of the floor around said corpse than the corpse proper for a while there. But finally, he appeared to notice who the deceased person in question actually was, and he-

“…good riddance.”

-made absolutely no attempts at dressing up his feelings about the victim. Sure, he had lost a great deal of respect for most of the humans here, but they were victims of manipulation, weren’t they? And here laid one of the manipulators now, a victim of their own disgusting game and the only person Mitsuki outright hated. He would not miss them.

Nor would he miss this place once he was out of here, Mitsuki mused. And he and the others would be out of here soon, this he had faith in. 

But-

He wasn’t going to think about that, Mitsuki told himself. It would work out. It would have to work out. He would make it work out. It was the least he could do after weeks of uselessness. He was a machine built to help humans, after all. He could never, ever forget that.

Mitsuki had been uncharacteristically quiet, which was really saying something, given how taciturn the janitor usually was. After what he had unwittingly revealed about himself during the motive, he just didn’t feel worthy of speaking, let alone drawing attention to himself. Shirou still liked and respected him, but the others? There was no telling with them, and thus, Mitsuki decided it was in his best interests to keep his head down.

(The general populace wouldn’t understand, after all, that was what his mother told him over and over. They weren’t ready, not quite yet, and so they wouldn’t take it well if they knew he wasn’t human. They weren’t used to the fact of his existence like she and her co-workers were.

And yet that hadn’t stopped them from constantly talking about him in such… detached terms like he wasn’t even in the room, had it?)

Only when shoe sizes were asked for did Mitsuki pipe up, and even then, his voice was quieter than normal. He was just barely managing to make eye contact as well.

“…I wear an 8 ½ in men’s. So, fairly close to the footprint, it seems.”

He was only restating what Shirou already knew, but he had to be helpful. Useful. He was a machine who had been built to serve humans, no matter how jealous he could get of them, how much they’d let him down, how disillusioned he was with them. He could never forget that.

“Al Amari-san’s shoes were damp, I noticed. Does that mean anything to anyone, maybe? If she was killed near where there was water or attacked near such a place, I… wouldn’t know. I’m programmed not to go near lakes and such, sorry. I can’t go near them. I’ll break if I fall in.”

Stating it so bluntly felt uncomfortable, but Mitsuki could no longer hide behind any pretenses of humanity. They’d all hate him more if he did, wouldn’t they?

“Sorry, I… didn’t find anything that hasn’t been covered, it seems. But Sonozaki-san is right. We need to think about a mastermind vote. I don’t want anyone else to die, not when there’s so few of us left." 

Mitsuki nodded stiffly in Shirou’s direction before adding

"I’m willing to leave that to you, Sonozaki-san. The theorizing, I mean. I… really don’t know much beyond what you shared with me, so…”

Three people. That was all that remained of the sixteen students who had once occupied Mitsuki’s side of the castle. Three, counting him.

“…”

That wasn’t right, he mused, staring down at Akemi’s lifeless body. It wasn’t right that so many of them were dead. It wasn’t right that he was one of the only ones remaining, and he was certain that the other people left alive here agreed with that sentiment. 

After all, he was just a machine and would always be little more than a machine in the eyes of most people, most everyone here included. Mitsuki knew that full well. He might have fooled them into thinking he was human, he might have tried so hard to become human, but he was still a machine. And machines could be rebuilt. Machines could be repaired. Machines could be replaced. Humans couldn’t.

(And yet… Mitsuki was still glad he still lived. That was why he’d never volunteered himself, even when he knew he should have. He was afraid to die. Perfectly reasonable, coming from a human, but from a perfectly robot who had multiple backups of his AI, it was ridiculous.

And yet, the fear persisted. What a very… human way to react. He could almost be proud of himself for that, were it not for the knowledge of how many humans must have hated him for living on when they hadn’t.)

Still, machines had an obligation to be useful. To achieve their function. Such was the case with Mitsuki Arai, who had literally been created to take a load off of humanity’s shoulders. Sure, he also helped because he enjoyed helping, because being thanked and feeling appreciated and being personally satisfied as a job well done had made him feel just like any other human worker in the past, but first and foremost, he had to do that because it was his function. He couldn’t forget that.

Especially now that everyone knew what he was.

“I will work harder. I promise.”

And with his (thoroughly unemotive) piece said and a sharp nod delivered to Akemi’s body, Mitsuki set off to work. He did not bother approaching anyone for help… there was only one person he definitely knew that did not hate him, and he didn’t feel worthy of approaching him at the moment. No, he would work to find the murderer himself.

like have u felt a laptop while its working? its kinda not exactly cold yo

tbh any piece of machinery thats working hard to function is usually not cold, the only time its ever cold is when its turned off

although like i hope they’ve actually improved cooling tech by the time they’re building androids bc my laptop can actually get so hot it makes THE ROOM hot and it’s only the size of a laptop so potentially an android who was thinking very hard would be a veritable furnace 

think too hard, overheat, faint

humans who insist on holding a parasol for their robot friend on sunny days

a robot draping herself over a fainting couch in distress and a bunch of worried humans mobbing up to fuss and fan her and bring her some cool water and pat her hand and gallantly offer to beat up whatever alarmed her

After everything that had gone on in the past few days, from four people dying in one night to the revelation that yes, people could kill their friends and lie about it, Mitsuki was just barely holding together. That so many of the new areas were surrounded by water and ergo impossible for him to so much as get near was not really helping things. He knew why he was so terrified of water, he knew it was necessary, but he felt so useless- 

(His mother would be disappointed, between that and everything he had picked up… all the… this would be considered unnecessary, would it not? At the rate he was going, he… what if they… he didn’t want to think like that, he wanted to see her better than that, but what if they…)

Being summoned to a meeting almost never meant anything good, but Mitsuki welcomed the particular contents of this meeting nonetheless. Even if he couldn’t taste any of what was being served, even if he had to imagine what the food and drink before him might have tasted like as he always did, it was still something he needed, and that aside, getting to eat together and talk (however few words there were on Mitsuki’s end of any conversation) with everyone like this, it felt… normal. Maybe not his normal, but the ideal normal, the normal Mitsuki wanted to aspire to.

(He just wished he could stop focusing on how few of them there were left.)

That aside… this was a meeting for a motive, and Mitsuki was sure to keep that in the back of his mind while he was eating. He had to always be vigilant, always be mindful that no matter how he felt about it, any of the people here could…

…what were those three doing.

Mitsuki cocked his head to one side in bafflement as three of the parties present proceeded to share information in what seemed to be an overly straightforward manner. And then Kumi spoke up, revealing that the golden liquid Mitsuki and the rest of the class had imbibed was…

…but he was, well, himself, so… he really should at least play at…

“I see. But it’s not going to affect me, I don’t think.”

Wait… that.. wasn’t what he had meant to say… had something gone wrong? Had he drank too quickly and… no, he… another try. Come on, Mitsuki, another try. Everything is alright.

“After all, an android like me can’t-”

“…!”

Mitsuki clamped a tight hand over his mouth the moment the words had slipped out, but it was too late to take them back. He had just… he had just… because… he had… years of planning, two more years of hiding and obfuscating and lying and he had ruined it all in the space of seconds like the utter failure he was-

The next few moments passed by in a blur for Mitsuki, both because his mind (or the processing unit that served for his mind, who was he kidding) wasn’t quite working, and because he didn’t want to focus on what little he could process. One moment, he was still present, unable to meet the stares of anyone else in the room, the next he was fleeing as quickly as his legs (sturdy, functional, but never made as graceful as they should have been), stumbling a few times and almost bumping into something once after that. 

And then? Well, at some point  he’d ended up in the courtyard, slumped on a bench and staring blankly out into space, looking less like a human and more like a broken marionette. And why not? Wasn’t he far closer to the latter than the former? He’d never been human, he couldn’t become human, he didn’t even understand humans-

Mitsuki had spent the final few moments of the trial burying his head in his arms, internally kicking himself for not having anything that could help Akae, for not having anything that could have helped in general, for not having the good sense to at least try offering himself as…

…and then the trial came to an end, and Kumi announced the verdict, leading Mitsuki to straighten up and snap to attention.

“Congratulations. You’ve correctly deduced… both the killers.”

Both. Correctly. Killers. Deduced. Both.

Akae had… she had… Shun… they were close, and she’d still… and… and then she lied, and… he… stupid, trusting excuse for a… he’d believed-

Mitsuki stared hollowly ahead, his expression going blanker than normal (and slightly slack) for a moment, his posture going rigid, and his eyes losing focus as the world around him blinked out of existence. It was almost as if the boy had… malfunctioned somehow for a moment there.

But only for a moment. Seconds later, the world roared back into existence, and he was still here, faced with someone he trusted, someone who had killed her friend, and he…

…no words could describe what he was feeling right now in the wake of what had just happened, what he’d just learned about people. And he couldn’t face Akae. Or the rest of the class, after he’d tried so hard not to make the same mistakes again and he… just couldn’t deal… with this…

…so he didn’t. Instead, he slowly sunk to the floor, behind his podium, remaining eerily motionless as he stared out into space. He hated this. Hated them. Hated himself, both for being useless and by association and because he was thinking these things at all, not when he was supposed to regard them… regard everyone the same way people regarded the sun.

Mitsuki frowned, his eyes dropping to his podium when Akae brought up the fact that the angle of the stab wound could be faked. She’d said something like that before, during the second trial (how long ago that seemed…), and she’d been wrong then, but… he was the one who had presented planted evidence last time, wasn’t he? 

…true, he didn’t really believe that what he had found was fake, but he hadn’t believed what he’d found last time was fake either, and he’d helped the class mistrial (if he hadn’t caused it), and well, other people knew best, so…

“I’m sorry… I didn’t even consider it could be fake. I guess we can disregard the height thing and the glass, then? I don’t want to cause another… sorry…”

Mitsuki’s voice was barely audible to begin with, and it kept getting quieter as he spoke, to the point where anyone who wasn’t particularly close to his podium wasn’t having to strain to hear him. He had managed to make eye contact with Akae at some point, but he was barely managing even that.

“But… if the angle is fake, and the glass is fake… is there any way to find out who killed Nagase-san? Did you find anything that pointed to Kato-san or anyone, Kase-san? I didn’t, and… I don’t know what else we have, so…”

He fell silent for a few moments, before speaking up again, addressing the entire class this time as opposed to just Akae.

“Anyway, I can corroborate Kase-san’s claims. I saw her with gauze a few days ago. It wasn’t taken recently. And besides… Kase-san and Nagase-san were very close friends, I think. She wouldn’t have killed him. People don’t do that.”

Even after all this time, it seemed Mitsuki hadn’t lost some of his idealism. Hopefully, it would manage to pay off this time.

Mitsuki’s eyes widened in awe at Arashi’s self-introduction, deflated or not. This person was the future leader of the world? That was… no one had informed him about this development, but then maybe it was supposed to be a public secret? Either way, it was quite impressive… sure, Mitsuki himself was supposed to ‘revolutionize society’, but he definitely wasn’t meant to lead anything. He… needed to talk to this person soon, clearly.

Sure, Mitsuki had done nothing to investigate the other side of the castle, but it sounded like he could do at least a little to help there after all. And help he would. Obligations aside, he knew what it was like to lose a friend himself. So he shot the other boy a small smile as he spoke.

“It is fine, Fukui-san. Trying to work on both cases at once might be more efficient anyway, I think.”

With that said, Mitsuki also went off to prove that he too was not possessed of yaoi hands. Thank you, Mitsuki. Afterward, well, he still had a few things to contribute, so contribute he did.

“Speaking of that… could I get everyone’s height? I stand at exactly 167 centimeters, and I know Nagase-san was a bit taller than me. Which means I could have killed him as well, I guess…”

He trailed off awkwardly before adding

“I definitely did not, though. I do not mind proving that if I need to. But yes, anyone who is not taller than Nagase-san could have killed him and Lee-san as well, probably.”

'Probably’ nothing, from the sound of it, that fit together perfectly logically. But then, Mitsuki had never liked speaking in absolutes, lest he be wrong about anything. And someone like him was bound to be wrong about a lot of things.

Soon enough, Mitsuki found himself entering a new and unfamiliar courtroom with a few new and unfamiliar students. But no matter how new his settings might have been, what was being asked of him was becoming painfully routine, the janitor mused as he took his place behind his podium, frowning slightly as he took in the painfully empty courtroom. He knew what was expected of him by now, and he needed to do better at it than he had before. He couldn’t cause any more problems. He couldn’t screw up as badly as he had before.

And sure, maybe he was losing a great deal of faith in these people at this point, but he still had to try his best for them. It was why he was here, and it was what he had strived for once, and Mitsuki would remind himself of that as many times as he felt he had to, he mused as he addressed the class.

“For those I have not met, I am Mitsuki Arai. Super High School-Level Janitor. It is nice to meet you.”

Mitsuki followed up this declaration by bowing stiffly and politely, his expression about as blank as it always was. From there, he idled for a moment, running what he was about to say through his head - and shooting a slightly apologetic-looking glance at Akae - before adding.

“To start with, I’d like to point out that I checked the angle of the stab wound on Nagase-san’s throat, It was made at a slight upward angle… meaning that the person who killed Nagase-san was shorter than he was. So if you’re taller than Nagase-san, you can be ruled out, I think.”

He paused thoughtfully for a moment before adding

“I found other things, but it would be best to go ahead and throw that last bit out before everything else, I think. It will eliminate a few people right away…. at least from being suspected of killing Nagase-san, anyway.”

Mitsuki frowned slightly, rolling Kumi’s words through his head for a moment, and then rectified what he’d said just a bit.

“Or Nagase-san and Lee-san, most likely. There was blood coming from the door to our side of the castle, but none coming from Nagase-san’s body, so…”

The presence of murders themself was hardly surprising at this point. He’d largely abandoned the idea other people would have the moral clarity to avoid such things, though this time was especially nonsensical. Why kill two people when the chance of saving everyone left alive was on the horizon? Well, he just didn’t understand it. What was there to be done but try and work out this one too? And actually succeed this time.

But God in Heaven, if two bodies was pointless enough, four was even worse. The first was…. unsurprising, given the last events of the trial, seeing a second wasn’t a shock even if the level of grief surrounding it was enough to make him set his jaw and turn away with grim-eyed determination, but the third was sickening and four was right out, even if he didn’t know either of the victims.

He let out a sigh. His back slouched more than usual– it felt like the weight of the world itself was bearing down on him. How were they supposed to sort this out? Why did they have to? Before he could pursue any further philosophical thought, something else came to his attention.

Mitsuki Arai was not moving. Shirou couldn’t help but wonder if it might’ve been shock– and so, he walked up to the other boy.

“Arai-san…”

He kept his voice soft.

He had even expected two bodies, he had told himself as he and the rest of the class were taken to behold Shun’s corpse. (He looked away sharply at the sight of Akae sobbing, not because he didn’t care, more because... well, someone like him wouldn’t know how to help.) Kumi had stipulated that two people had to die for the murderer to collect on the motive. It was still awful, but experience had proven repeatedly that people would rise to the bait, so...

...and then the class had been taken to the other, unfamiliar side of the castle to see yet another body, and Mitsuki... ‘felt his insides twist’ was probably the term he was looking for. Three people were dead. Three people were dead. One motive had claimed the lives of...

...the class was summoned somewhere else, and immediately, Mitsuki visibly flinched. Both because no, it was four people, four were died, and for... well, they’d said pool... and he couldn’t handle... he wasn’t meant to even be around... but if he didn’t, people would be upset, and maybe this time he could overcome that... maybe this time he could handle...

Thus, Mitsuki dutifully followed everyone else to the pool, but he wasn’t able to get within a yard of it. The janitor looked a bit queasy going inside, and the minute his eyes met the water in front of him, he froze in place, his expression going completely blank and his posture going rigid, as if he’d just shut down then and there. 

It took Shirou’s question to bring Mitsuki back to the world of the living, and even then, it took a few moments more for the now visibly-uncomfortable janitor to formulate a response to the other boy’s question, and even then, he sounded slightly off.

“I... really can’t handle water, sorry...”

Shirou would understand why, surely, and thus Mitsuki left it at that, both because he was surrounded by other people. and because at the moment, he was physically forcing himself to stay in the pool room when every part of his brain was telling him to get out right now.

“I’m fine, I just... I need to not be here. We can split up again, maybe? I’ll handle our class’ side, and you can handle the other one? Because I know I won’t be of much use here.”

Mitsuki hated being summoned to yet another motive announcement like this. It served as yet another reminder than even though he could leave the castle now, even if he had more room to move outside (that lake aside…), even if a handful of new people to interact with now, he was still trapped. He was still in danger. (Not that it should have mattered for him, but…) He was still cut off from the outside world and his grandparents, and unless he worked harder, he might very well rust away here.

(His grandparents would be so upset. His mother… his mother would see it as a terrible loss of resources. But then, much of what he’d picked up here wasn’t useful, not for who he was supposed to be, and he… didn’t want to think too hard about this… not right now…)

But the motive itself?

“…”

It meant nothing to Mitsuki. If anything, it meant even less to him than that fear motive had. At least that one had ending up hurting at least one person in the end. This one held no risk to anyone here if it failed to be acted on. Kumi had acknowledged as much.

But someone would still kill (two people at once? had he… interpreted that correctly?) over it, because that was what people were. That was what people did when you threatened them, no matter how low-risk the threat was.  Mitsuki now knew that. The him that had seen everyone here as inherently pure, that had seen murder as some vague concept that he would not have to directly confront was long gone.

(And if he was still around after it happened? He would work hard. He would work so hard. He couldn’t fail so horrendously again, he couldn’t…)

So Mitsuki left, hoping to find some way to make himself useful or at least find something he could clean, or he would have, had a voice not caught his ears and…

…what was that girl doing…

…why was she…

…had she just…

…was that Maru person…

…oh god.

“…!”

Mitsuki stared in mute horror at the sight of the girl’s body slumping to the floor. He really should have been used to watching people die in front of him at this point, after all of the executions he’d witnessed, but he had not expected something like this. Or for one of his classmates to react in that manner. What had even possessed her to…

Just… why were people like this? He didn’t understand. Every week, everyone around him gave him even more not to understand. And the more he saw things like this, the less certain he was that he wanted to understand, the janitor mused as he finally made his exit, forcing himself to keep his eyes fixed forward.

(Ah, for the days when the humans around him were an unreachable ideal, when becoming like them was unquestionably his dream. 

▵ It was a long day. After spending so much time with Shun, she realized how utterly exhausted he was by the evening, despite taking a nap earlier in the day. Akae, while she didn’t sleep last night at all due to the trial, was up and about just because she took a nap earlier. It was infuriating.

▵ At least there were a lot of new places to explore. She checked her map, and while the other side of the castle did seem intriguing, she would rather go about checking it out with someone else- just in case she got lost and the Midori Kids heard about what kind of person she is. She already had half her class at her throat, and her at theirs- she didn’t need any more enemies.

▵ Taking a stroll through the zen garden, Akae looks up at the buildings near the main area and realizes that there is an apothecary. Might as well explore there- besides, the forest looks rather frightening after sundown.

▵ Opening the door, she peeked in and saw a familiar face- someone who at least didn’t upset her during the last trial. Stepping in, she waved,

▶ “Hey, Arai-sa- oh?”

▵ She couldn’t move. Or, she could, but there was a tugging on her bag. Looking down, she had realized that the bandages and gauze that she had put in there earlier wasn’t all that well put in there, and it had caught onto the handle of the door, in a loop. Akae laughs to herself.

▶ “What a way to make an entrance, huh. Gosh…”

▵ Reaching over, she unhooks the loose roll of gauze from the door handle, and stuffs it back into her bag.

▶ “Sorry about that. That was weird, I didn’t even realize it was out of my bag. Ugh, I’m going to have to roll it all up again…”

▵ Stepping deeper into the apothecary, she tilted her head.

▶ “H…How are you doing?”

Unfortunately, his mind didn’t want to go anywhere particularly good. Instead, Mitsuki found himself focused on the fact that while he could now go outside the castle and had more space to roam outdoors, he still wasn’t anywhere close to being out of here and back to his grandparents. (And there was that lake too... just knowing that was there made Mitsuki deeply uncomfortable.) And there was still the matter of what he’d helped cause last trial too, on top of that.

He had to make up for it, he told himself. He had to make up for failing Kayo, for being gullible, for being insubordinate. He would make himself useful and help everyone get out of here. And so Mitsuki decided to attempt to do just that, via an investigation of the new areas.

It took a moment for the janitor, who was currently scrutinizing the bottles on one of the apothecary shelves to realize that he was no longer the only person in the room. But eventually, he registered that yes, someone was here, and that someone was addressing him, and it would behoove him to respond to them, and so he abandoned his perusal of the shelf to face... Akae Kase. 

The art historian’s gaffe with the gauze drew a quizzical tilt of the head out of Mitsuki, but his confusion over that situation was replaced by worry, which showed all over his face for a moment before he assumed his usual neutral expression. Akae certainly sounded casual, but he still worried, after what he did...

“Ah... that is unfortunate, Kase-san. I’m sorry about that. I can roll it back up for you if you want?”

Casual. He was going to be casual about this if she was. That would be the optimal way to handle this kind of situation, correct? Even if part of him wanted to supplicate himself in front of her and apologize profusely. That was something one did when they erred that badly... wasn’t it?

“Anyway, I am better than I was at the trial. I don’t do well with staying up too long, so getting rest helped. And now that I’m feeling better, I am trying to make myself useful by investigating.”

His eyes briefly flitted back to the apothecary shelves before he added