#despairingheights

The silent elevator ride up was gruelling. Painful. It allowed everyone to reflect on what had just happened. Not only did Monomi get executed unjustly, the trial was unforgiving. Stressful. The conclusion everyone had come to was a desperate stretch; nobody was certain that what they agreed on was actually what happened. They were forced to vote without some solid foundation to vote on. Everyone was panicking. Even Nao, who was usually so collected, found himself screaming in desperation. That was something he never expected to show anyone. To top it all off, their guess was correct; Eri had actually committed suicide. That realization wasn’t easy to learn. 

As soon as the elevator door opened, Nao stormed out with a brisk walk and found his way over to the Darkroom, ignoring any attempts from others to stop him. He closed the door behind him and sat alone in the dark corner of the Darkroom. Strange. Not only did he show signs of panic earlier, but he was acting on emotion even now. He never felt that strongly, and he never felt strong emotions for that long, either, even if not much time had passed since the trial’s finale. The boy raised his hand to his chest. His heart was pounding. His breathing was out of control. Eri... The poet was getting through to her. He could feel that he was changing her, and yet, she went and gave in to despair. 

"Abends, will ich schlafen gehn,"

This strange girl seemed to be singing to herself as she sat on the side of the road. She was missing a front tooth, and had fluffed up brown hair, tied back into weeny pigtails.

"vierzehn Engel um mich stehn,"

She seemed to have a rather vicious looking black eye, but didn't really notice as she seemed to be making a small nest out of twigs on the floor. She kept singing out loud, placing stones around the nest.

"zwei zu meinen- HWAH!"

Nao walked into the break room, joined by Tomo, of course. They were literally stuck to each other, much to Nao’s dismay. It wasn’t the fact that he was handcuffed to Tomo specifically; he was one of the better people to be handcuffed to. Nao just wasn’t appreciative of being unable to have any private time to himself. 

The poet scanned over the room for anything of interest. His eyes stopped on a pile of sudoku books. “I could go for some critical thinking right about now. I enjoy working puzzles out. It’s a pity that we have to coordinate like this, but,” Nao stepped towards the table of books, lightly pulling Tomo’s arm behind him to suggest that he follow. “Come on.” He continued towards the table. Once there, Nao looked through the collection of books before pulling one out. “Sudoku’s fun. It might be seen as something that only old men enjoy, but hey, it works for me. I always was mature for my age.” A realization hit him, and he chuckled briefly. “Not that one could easily tell, given my antics, right?”

No. No no no nononononoNoNonOnOooNO-

“.  .  .”

Silence. It was like she didn’t even realize that she was cuffed to Tim as she sank to her knees, shaking violently. Why? Why was this happening? No, she... She had made sure that... There was nothing there... Why.... how... This was impossible...

“No... No no no no no no no... This isn’t real... This... No... I... I refuse to believe it...”

Having just awoken, Nao instinctively attempted to move, but was pulled back down to the floor when something pulled him back down by the wrist. He looked beside him to find his fellow glasses-wearing snow-top. Too dazed to say anything, he looked back over to the centre of the room, at Monokuma, shooting a glare. He listened attentively...

Secrets, huh? Interesting, trivial, and yet somehow... effective. There was little doubt that someone would kill to protect their darker secrets, with the still-present promise of freedom upon a successful murder. The secrets of the two deceased were revealed as ‘proof’ that this Monokuma character knew of everyone’s secrets, but it didn’t quite convince Nao. There was no way that some stuffed animal knew of everyone’s secrets. It must’ve been a bluff. Even so, as Monokuma flipped through the papers that held everyone’s supposed secrets, the white-haired boy’s heart raced. There was that little part of him that felt threatened. Still, even if everyone’s secrets really were in Monokuma’s possession, there was no way that Nao’s secret would be the one revealed, right?

Wrong.

The boy’s purple eyes narrowed as he felt his heart drop. How? How could anyone know about that? He had an alias and everything. Were hackers involved? All of that drama was on the internet for anyone to see, and someone could’ve somehow acquired his real information. What concerned him even more, though, was that now everyone around him knew. Nao looked at everyone around him. Hopefully they weren’t judging him. Especially not Tomo, who was literally handcuffed to him. 

So there was now more to explore, huh? Nao wandered around the halls of the familiar building, contemplating whether to trek over to the newly-available site. There was risk involved in exploring there, after all. It could’ve been a trap. He couldn’t really tell anymore. Everything about these past days was so unpredictable and inexplicable.

Oh god. She watched the execution with a horrified expression, the blood draining from her face as she staggered back, collapsing and passing out. She woke up to her bed, sitting up. It took her a few moments for the recent events to rush back to her. A choked sob escaped her as she curled up into a ball, bawling for a long while. It was a long while until Caren got up again. Her legs were buckling. She needed food. She hadn't been able to eat since they closed the pantry.

She didn't want to be weak and defenceless. Not after seeing something like that. She remembered that she had promised to make Masaaki pancakes, and gave a small internal groan. Heading to the pantry, she grabbed the necessary items, before starting. The scent must have drawn someone, since when she turned around someone was in the pantry with her.

Nao stood at his podium, looking down at the floor. His eyes were shadowed over by his white hair. That... This... This was so surreal. This couldn’t really be happening, right? Not long ago, he was sitting comfortably at home, but now he’s trapped in this place with some strangers that are his supposed classmates, fearing for his life. Why was this happening? And why did Yoshi have to be the killer and be executed? She was a fellow artist, and he respected her. Bianca... Nao didn’t really know her, so he didn’t care as much there, but just the fact that someone he was essentially living with now was dead, was a heavy weight on his fallen shoulders.