The Mastermind's Lies | Mastermind Shuichi AU

Chapter 19 - A Good Action

I jumped a little.

I didn't expect that at all. I thought they were still at that café place.

"Uhhh, what were you doing Shuichi...?" asked Kaito.

I forced a frown on my face and just started walking past them, shoving my hands into my pockets.

"Shuichi... You didn't tell me you played the piano..."

Kaede's soft voice forced me to turn around to face her. She was staring at the floor, a sad frown on her face.

"Yeah... It was an old hobby of mine." I said before I quickly walked away. I walked back to my room without looking at them, ignoring Kaede's calls, and slammed the door behind me.

...

'Oh no no no no no'

I had fucked up real bad.

I grabbed my head with my hands. The man would definitely not be happy with this. Not only did they discover about my old hobby but I had actually said something relatively nice back to Kaede.

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

'Hopefully he doesn't do anything...'

[...]

Another entire week passed, without hearing a word from the Team. This week was pretty uneventful; except for the fact that I'd been working more than usual.

We are all running out of money very quick. I've been sneaking around to listen to their conversations when they spoke in the kitchen and they've been saying they only have about thirty thousend yen left. The generous amount of food Keebo and Tenko had to buy for everyone was eating up all of the budget. Gonta and Miu had also caught a cold last weekend after it had suddenly started to rain when they were tending to the garden, so they had to spend money on a med kit and other pills for them to take.

But today was the day I would receive my paycheck. It was Friday, which was payday for my uncle's agency. I'd worked 70 hours in the last two weeks so luckily I would get a good amount of money.

I finished up a case and opened a document to start writing the report. I yawned and stretched my entire body, getting up right after.

I looked at the pile of beige folders as I changed myself out of my usual dress shirt and navy suit. There was only two cases left for me to do, including the one I was finishing, so I was hoping to go back to my uncle's apartment to give them all back to him this weekend. Needless to say he was impressed by the reports I had sent Sero; it made me happy to know he was satisfied with my work. The cases were pretty boring and repetitive but if it helped my uncle, I didn't mind at all.

I put on a black hoodie and jeans, grabbed my cap and a mask, and headed out of my room. It was Friday night and I wanted to go get some food at a restaurant for once, but I had to wear a mask because I didn't want people to recognize me, like what happened in the train station the first time I went out in public. It was a disaster, people were begging me for autographs and pictures and it was super overwhelming.

When I passed through the kitchen to go to the front door, everyone was sitting at the table, eating as usual. But I noticed how there was much less food on the table today.

My eyes met with Kaede's as I scanned the table.

She weakly smiled at me. I felt my eyes widen from surprise. This was the first time someone's smiled at me in the house...

"Shuichi?"

I turned to face who had called me. It was Kirumi. She had a neutral look on her face and she held a two thousand yen bill in her hand.

"If it's not too much to ask, could you please buy some sleeping pills on your way back...?"

She had a hopeful face mixed with worry as she stared at me, waiting for my answer.

I just turned around and headed to the exit, not saying a word. I couldn't take their money for this, I would simply use mine instead. As I walked towards the exit, I heard her sigh.

"What a fuckin' jackass!" shouted Miu.

"Give it up Kirumom! He's totally never going to want to be our friend." said Tenko.

"Yeah, you shouldn't put your focus on him like that." said Rantaro.

"Shuichi isn't who we used to know, unfortunately." stated Korekiyo.

I opened the door and left, slamming it harder than I wanted to behind me. At this point, I'd gotten used to all of their gossip, but I still hated it. Every time, even if I try to ignore it, I still felt miserable and sad afterwards. It's horrible, I truly hate gossips.

I shuffled through my pockets and got out the three thousand yen bill I had taken with me. I headed to the pharmacy and got the pills she asked for, but unfortunately, I barely had anything left for myself. I went to a little café not far from here and bought myself a bagel. I ate it on my way back to the house.

I'd been barely gone for 20 minutes, so when I got back, they were all still sitting at the table, talking amongst each other. They had gotten all pretty close to each other, especially in their bedroom groups. Even Kokichi got along well with them, after he told me inside the game that everyone was boring and he didn't care about them at all.

I pulled my cap down and entered the kitchen. All eyes laid on me as I dropped the bag with the receipt and pills on the counter, turning around quickly to go back to my room, hands in my pockets.

I took a deep breath as I entered my room and closed the door behind me.

I opened my case file and started my report.

I felt... happy.

I felt happy that I had just helped. A smile crept its way onto my face as my fingers slid across my laptop keyboard, hitting the keys repeatedly.