That Wasn't Supposed To Happen

Hooke's Law

Yesterday had been eventful for Chihiro, to say the least. It had started normal, as normal as it could be with a motive active. The normalcy had disappeared when Chihiro for once in his life decided not to be weak and stand up for himself. He asked Mondo to meet him in the locker rooms, again. This time, however, he actually went.

It had taken Chihiro a lot of courage, but he finally told Mondo his secret. He told him that he was a boy.

Mondo was weird about. While he was supportive and told him that "That's cool, little dude.", he also was weird. Like he couldn't fully support him. He did promise him to help him get stronger, so that's a plus!

They did part after that and Chihiro didn't talk to him for the rest of the day. While Chihiro did want to talk to him, it seemed like he needed to get his thoughts together.

Sometime after that he went to the library, hoping to apologise to the other boy, only to be shut down. And there was the story that Byakuya told him...

Chihiro stayed in the library after that, since Byakuya left. He stayed there until dinner where he talked to Makoto again. Chihiro found Makoto genuinely nice and there was also something special about him, though he probably wouldn't admit that.

Nothing else had happened that day and Chihiro was grateful for it. With a motive active, the change of a murder happening is high. Luckily, nothing like that happened.

This brings Chihiro to today. A day that should have been a day just like any other day.

Until he entered the dining hall and saw Taka, Hina and surprisingly Byakuya. There was also the fact that Byakuya was sitting next to Hina. Without his usual jacket. And he could see a red under the white shirt. And Hina seemed to be avoiding looking at anything. Taka just seemed uncomfortable until he saw Chihiro enter.

"Ah, Chihiro! You are incredibly early! As you can see only Hina and Byakuya are here! They even arrived before me."

"Yeah, I guess I just got ready fast."

"If only the others did the same, then we could start the meeting much earlier!"

"Yeah..."

The conversation died soon after that and the tension became Hina and Byakuya seemed only to grow deeper.

While Chihiro made some breakfast for himself, he could see Kyoko enter. She took the seat next to Byakuya and simply raised an eyebrow at his arm. He said something in return, though Chihiro couldn't hear what exactly.

Nobody else entered for some time and it was eery quiet. The only sound came from Chihiro eating his cereal.

Luckily, the other students arrived shortly after, with Hiro being late as usual. The only one who seemed to be missing was Makoto...

The tension had mostly evaporated since the students were chatting amongst themselves. The conversation between Hina and Sakura seemed almost forced in a way. Byakuya still sat at the table with everybody else, Chihiro now seeing that that the red looked like blood. Before Chihiro could bring this up, somebody else did.

"Byakuya, man, like what happened to your arm? You're not wearin' your jacket which is really weird." Hiro said.

"I was waiting for everybody to arrive, but if Makoto is incapable of doing something as easy as arriving on time, I suppose I can tell you now."

"This night, I was attacked by Hina. She tried to kill me using a knife and while I did unarm her, I didn't manage to dodge everything before that. She sliced me in my right arm. I cleaned the wound after that and kept an eye on her the rest of the night," Byakuya said, voice devoid of any emotion.

"Whaaaaaaaat! Miss Asahina attacked you?"

"Yes. Were you even listening to a word I just said?"

Before Hifumi could respond, Kyoko cut in.

"I'm more interested in the fact that you didn't tell us until now. You said you were attacked in the night but chose to not tell us until now. It seems out of character."

"I didn't want to cause any distrust. If people were woken up in the middle of the night just to be told that somebody tried to kill another student, they might have tried to do the same. And no- I did not do this out the goodness of my heart or something like that. Like I told Hina, it would be boring. Without a plan, the murder would be easy to solve."

There was a tense silence after that, even with so many students present, nobody dared to speak for some time. Eventually, Taka spoke up.

"Right! That you for... explaining! Now, what must we do with Hina... letting her walk around freely..." Taka uncharacteristically trailed of.

"I can watch over her." Sakura volunteered.

"Hmm, yes! That could work!"

"Really? I say we vote on this, after all, thing is a matter that concerns all of us."

The vote ended up being five to three. Byakuya, Hifumi and Hiro all voted against Sakura guarding Hina, the rest voted in favour of her guarding Hina.

"Now we, um, settled that issue, shouldn't we look for Makoto... I mean if he hasn't woken up yet..."

"That's a clever idea Chihiro! I will check his room!" Taka left after that.

When he came back a few minutes later, it was without Makoto.

"I rung his doorbell many times, but he didn't answer! His room was locked so I didn't get to go in, though I don't think he is in there..."

"Though, that means he is probably just somewhere else! Let's all split up to try and find him!" Taka's optimism was slowly fading with every word he said.

"Do you still think that? It is obvious that Makoto is dead, though I suppose we should look for him, well, his corpse." Byakuya left after that. Somehow always having a dramatic entrance or exit.

The others split up after that. Chihiro went to the third floor with Hiro and Kyoko. They hadn't found anything. However, when they entered the art room, they found a small trail of blood that led to the room in the back.

When Kyoko opened the door, they saw the body of Makoto Naegi, with multiple carving chisels sticking out of him.