Danganronpa Zero

Chapter Twelve (part one)

When I finally opened my eyes, there was a ceiling above me.

It seems I fell asleep somewhere, but since, being forgetful, I always forget the circumstances I've fallen asleep in, I wasn't especially confused. I calmly turned my eyes from the ceiling and saw a window. A clear beam of sunlight came in through a gap in the curtains, illuminating the white room I was in. It seems it was morning.

This room... It was a room I couldn't remember. But that's the same as always, too.

Anyway, my first order of business should be to calmly confirm the situation in "Ryouko Otonashi's Memory Notebook", and so I calmly tried to rise up from the bed - and then realized that I couldn't.

"...What's going on?"

My body was firmly tied to the bed with a sturdy-looking rope. It was a magnificent knot I could only describe as "craftsmanlike", and it bound me so tightly I could hardly move my body at all. I couldn't even turn my neck well, which made looking around the room impossible. At this point, I finally started to feel panic at this incoherent state of affairs. In other words, I went from "What's going on?" to "What's going on?!!".

"W...What's going on?!!"

But, no matter how much I struggled, all I could do was shake and rattle the bed. Not only did the diligently tied rope show no signs of becoming looser, it seemed to actually be getting tighter.

"S...Someone...!" I started screaming, carried away by fear. "H...HELP MEEEEEEEE!!" Once I started, I couldn't stop.

"PLEEEEEEEEEEASE!" I screamed and screamed and screamed. "SOOOOOOOOOMEONE! HELP MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Then, after my earnest calls for help has been going on for a short while -

"You're being too loud, dung beetle."

The words were abusive, but my heart started beating even faster than it already was!

"Eh? Matsuda-kun?"

"If you want to scream, do it more quietly, you dullard."

"It is you, Matsuda-kun!"

From the moment I knew for certain that the mocking voice belonged to my beloved Matsuda-kun, my only desire was to rush and search for him. But since my head was tightly tied to the bed, I couldn't even look around.

"Where are you, Matsuda-kun?" I called, frantically. "Where...? I'm right under you, isn't that obvious?"

"Huh? Under me?"

"I'm under the bed you're lying on, you cheap woman."

Even disregarding his cheap woman comment, what he said was most unexpected.

"Eh? Why are you under the bed?"

"I'm doing mental concentration exercises to subdue my anger."

Being in the midst of a bondage situation I couldn't confirm it with my own eyes, but his voice certainly seemed to come from the other side of the bed. It seemed that he was, in fact, under it.

"......Um, are mental exercises usually done under beds?"

"For me, they are."

It seems Matsuda-kun is a man of many colors.

"Hey, Matsuda-kun. If something is troubling you, you can always come to me. I'll listen to your troubles anytime." "I think I'll take you up on that offer, then..."

Matsuda-kun breathed deeply once, and then suddenly started talking his mouth off.

"On the dawn of a sleepless night, I was informed that an ugly friend of mine went missing. So, I had no choice but to go searching for her all over the place. But when I came back to the lab I suddenly discovered her ugly, dirty body lying on top of my bed, sleeping like a log and snoring to boot. Care to tell me how best to handle the anger that had engulfed me then?"