It All Started By One Single Tear (Rantaro x reader x YandereMastermind Kokichi)

Chapter 5 Part 31: Finding the Hidden Room

Rantaro's POV:

Our plan to somehow find a secret route was a success. Kokichi's alibi from my supposed murder was the reason we were able to find the route. I knew most certainly that of Kokichi's decided not to reveal his identity, we wouldn't have been able to find it. If we did so however, it would be by pure chance.
Kokichi revealing his identity to everyone wasn't the best idea on his part, because if he hadn't said anything, none of us would've had the lead that Kirumi gave us before we got here.
We all stood here, face to face with the secret passageway. I knew that we shouldn't enter without precaution, but we needed to make sure this led to the library's hidden room.
"Should we investigate the route?" Kaede asked, "we don't know where this leads. I know that it most likely leads to the hidden room, but we won't know unless we make sure."
"With Miu's device, we should be able to investigate without being watched," Kirumi explained, "Kokichi is probably watching (y/n) right now, so he wouldn't be aware of what we are doing. My only worry is that this route could be trapped."
"No one has even seen this before," Ryoma replied, "why would there be traps in a route someone is sure we won't find? If a culprit is so confident in their abilities, that's when it starts to lack."
"If we do this, we will need to proceed with caution," I said, "we only walk the path. We can't worry about investigating whatever room this leads us to. That is the only way we will investigate the path."
    We had to be cautious right now. We couldn't take any chances investigating the room this led to. If it happened to be the hidden room behind the bookcase, we had to tread lightly. Of course everyone wanted to investigate wherever this led. We couldn't though.
    After I explained what we needed to do to provide caution to what we might stumble into, I could see that everyone was nodding their heads in agreement. Everyone who was investigating this bathroom with me anyway. I knew now that everyone thought of the risks involved with investigating a room that the mastermind may go into.
    "We should be careful," Kirumi stated, "I know what I said about Kokichi is probably true, but we do need to act as if Kokichi is watching us. If we investigate the room this leads to and we move anything, Kokichi will suspect that someone snuck in. I think that's the point Rantaro is trying to give. It would suffice enough to just walk through the room to see the contents aside from moving things around."
    "Even walking around the room we would have to take serious caution," I replied, "do you all recall the additional motive from before I died? Do you all remember the time limit that was put in place? What Monokuma said would happen if someone hadn't been killed before the time limit ended?"
    "If I had to give an answer..." Kaede trailed off, "it would have to be that M-Monokuma making machine thing. We still don't even know if that exists or not."
    "I'm pretty sure it exists," I replied, "Monokuma wouldn't have threatened us if it wasn't real. When he said that we'd be mauled and shredded by his clones, I'm sure he wasn't bluffing. If that machine can conjure up a spare using a remote, the jig would be up. There is a lot we have to consider to make sure we don't get caught."
"If we are not trying to get caught, it would probably be sufficient enough to just gaze the room before going back up. There's a lot that can be discovered with just looking around the room. So that is all we should do, and after that, we report our findings to the others."
"So all we need to do is determine where we are," Kaede muttered, "that seems easy enough."
It felt like we were now all in agreement. We finished up the conversation by agreeing that we would confirm that this led to the hidden room in the library. That was all we were going to do. Confirm and report what we found, and that was all.
A moment went by as we all stared at the route before us. It was a moment before I took the first steps into the route. I walked through the supply closet of the bathroom before entering the hidden route, waiting for the others to follow.
One by one, Kaede, Kirumi, and Ryoma followed me into the route. The supply closet was only big enough for one person to pass through at a time, and we had to make sure not to move anything out of the way. As soon as everyone made it into the route, we all started descending down. There was some sort of slant in the floor, causing us to go down under the bathroom as well as the ground floor. The lighting was strange, illuminating blues while the setting was full of underground pipes and wires that would route through the school building. The floor was made of what looked like old tiles.
As we continued to walk through the passageway, I took note of how narrow it was. It gave me a tinge of claustrophobia that I would never have felt before. Perhaps it was the setting, but I just wanted to confirm if we found the right thing. There was a couple of sharp turns throughout the route, but soon enough, there was some sort of ramp that slanted upwards. At the end of that said ramp, there was a door that looked looked like it would open like the doors in our dorm rooms.
We all stood at the door silently, trying to keep our voices down until we were done investigating what we needed to. It was important that we didn't get caught. For (y/n)'s sake, and for each and everyone else's sake, we couldn't get caught.
I turned to looked towards Kaede, Kirumi, and Ryoma. Just like me, everyone had a look of nervousness on their faces, but each of them gave a silent nod as a silent confirmation to slowly open the door. Hopefully, the machine Miu crafted would keep the sound of the door from getting any attention from in this room. Anything could be in the hidden room, and I was sure this was where we were led to. There was no other possibility.
I pressed the button that would be the opening mechanism for this said door, and it opened quickly and surprising silently, or so I thought. This was as far as we were going to go due to the caution we needed to take.
As soon as the door opened, I peeked me head through the door, allowing myself to scan the interior of the hidden room. Everyone in my group also decided to observe the interior of the room as well. Immediately, I noticed the wide space this room took up. The surface area of the room was a lot bigger than the dormitory, and it looked to be closer to the size of my ultimate lab, which did take up a surprising amount of space, but that's all it spoke in size.
The floor was black and white tiles that created a checkerboard pattern. This checkerboard pattern was evident across the entire room, making the floor choice not so surprising for someone who wore a checkered scarf.
(Throwing shade at Kokichi much, Rantaro?)
The floor was tile, so purple light was reflecting off of it via purple string lights that lined portions of the wall. Those said purple lights made the room look ominous to me, especially the decorations that were placed on those said walls. There were decals that were pasted near the string lights in the forms of large black crowns with purple looking gem designs. On each side of the room, there were five of those crown decals, as well as seventeen decals of deep purple roses. Those decals lined themselves around the string lights, making this look very over the top for a so called hidden room.
The room was stationed with four deep purple couches, two of them on each side of the room with coffee tables separating one couch across from the other, but that's not all there was. In the corner of the room, there was what looked like a monitor with a sleek looking chair in front of it. I couldn't tell what was on the screen because of how far away I was, but there was a Monokuma frame lining the monitor which was pretty arrogant to place there.
'This definitely looks like *his* hidden room,' I thought, 'the design fits the bill anyway...'
There was a center piece in the room that was covered by a purple cloth. The placement of this object was up against the center back wall. The shape of the said center piece was a cylinder with a round top. I could see wires protruding from covered item, leading me to believe it was some sort of machine. From the way it was covered, I could tell it was something of concern. Perhaps *that* was the machine that made Monokuma's spares, but there was no way to confirm that just yet.
The last thing I saw in the room was a trash can that was light purple in color. It looked out of place to me, considering everything else was deeper shades of purple. This was all that was in the room that would be of concern.
As soon as I took note of everything I could decipher, I pulled myself from outside of the door frame I was peeking from. As soon as I did that, everyone else seemed to be done observing the room, so I signaled them by pointing to the button on the door. Kaede, Kirumi, and Ryoma all nodded, so I pressed the button, the door closing after.
In all honesty, I couldn't believe how much progress we were making. This was an easy feat for us four to handle, and it felt like it was *too* easy. This was going too smoothly for my liking, and that was what I was thinking about as we made our way back through the hidden passageway. I knew very well Kokichi wouldn't make this easy. If we made head way in what we were planning, he had something planned to counteract that.
Knowing this made me worry more for (y/n)'s safety. I was behind the other three as my thoughts went into overdrive. We were being as cautious as we could be, but there was still the chance that Kokichi could use (y/n) in some way. It was more likely that he would, and that's what was worrying me.
Kokichi had the upper hand by being able to predict what moves everyone would make next, but there was something going on that could aid in him controlling our actions. While Kokichi could predict our actions, we couldn't predict his. That's what was going to make this harder to pull off.
Moments later, all of us were exiting the passageway, one by one. As soon as everyone exited the passageway, the blue tiled false wall closed behind. When that happened, there was a audible sigh of relief coming from everyone, including myself. Everything was so tense when we were down there, the vibe from the pathway and the hidden room being so off putting.
"W-We did it..." Kaede said in relieved tone, "that was so nerve wracking... I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest..."
"I don't think you're the only one..." Ryoma responded with a flat tone, "even I was nervous about this whole thing... and that is a rare emotion for me."
"I think everyone here was nervous," Kirumi explained, "before we discuss what we saw in there, I need to organize these supplies to look exactly how they were placed before."
    After Kirumi was done speaking, she carefully placed the cleaning supplies back in their proper places, making sure that there was no evidence of us even tampering with those said supplies. As soon as that was done, she stepped out of the supply closet to join the rest of us.
    I took a moment to think about how to discuss what we saw. For starters, it wouldn't be a good idea to speak about this in here, because if Kokichi decided to make his way to the hidden room, we wouldn't want to be there and expose the fact that we found the hidden route.
    "We should probably discuss this somewhere else," I stated, "Kokichi can make his way here at any time, so we need to try and avoid him. This plan won't work if we are caught, yeah?"
    "I was thinking the same thing..." Ryoma muttered in response, "it's not safe to discuss this in here."
    "I guess we're all in agreement then," Kaede explained, "I'm sure we all were thinking the same thing. To keep everyone safe, we have to think about every possible roadblock that could potentially lead to us being found out."
    "Where should we discuss this then?" Kirumi asked, "we could always use the dining hall, but we don't want Kokichi to somehow eavesdrop. Perhaps we should go to my Ultimate Lab. It has a similar setting as the dining hall, and Kokichi shouldn't think of that as a potential gathering place for the time being."
Listening to what Kirumi was saying, it made sense that we would almost instantly flock towards the dining hall for serious discussions. It was the default place for us to discuss strategies. It definitely was possible for Kokichi to try and eavesdrop on the conversation somehow if we had it in the dining hall as per usual.
Kirumi recommended her lab because of fact that Kokichi knew where we all would gather to discuss the progress of our plan. Thinking back on her lab, Kirumi had an area that did feel similar to the dining hall. There just wasn't as many chairs as there was where we gathered to partake in our meals. For now, discussing this up there would be a good idea, but it was also a good idea to find a different meeting place that could accommodate everyone who was participating in helping.
"I think your lab is a good idea to speak in a small group," I replied, "but since you do bring that point up, we should find a different place to meet up, yeah?"
"I think we should discuss this more once we get up to Kirumi's Lab," Ryoma responded, "remember, we can't just do this without exhibiting caution."
"I agree," Kaede replied, "hopefully the others are ensuring that Kokichi hears of the wrong plan..."
    After the small conversation was held, we all decided to head up to Kirumi's Lab. We all quickly exited the boy's bathroom closest to the dining hall. Once we all exited, all we had to do was go left, and eventually make our way to the elaborate staircase that looked more like an eyesore than anything.
    That was what we did. We quickly made our way to the pink, polka dotted staircase, climbing the steps as if it were the normal thing now. With how long we've been here, it was, but that wasn't the thing to for me to focus on right now. My hope was that everyone else was doing what they were supposed to do to.