DR★F3: Despair RPG

Chapter 6: Who's the bad guy?

The first thing that followed after we discovered a dead body wasn't panic, as I would have expected. It was more like confusion; we were all just standing around the body not knowing what to say or do.

"Alright, who the fuck did this?" Jin finally broke the silence and tearfully looked at everyone else. I expected the others to look around for any suspicious signs, but Maria interrupted that by bursting out in laughter. It wasn't a pleasant laugh, though, just a few short breaths caused by the absurdness of the situation. "You really expect the murderer to just reveal themselves?"

It looked like it really wasn't going to be so simple. "Why would anyone even do this?" thought Fubuko, to which Ikiru turned to Goro. "Hide really disliked Goro, didn't he? Maybe it was him who killed him."

"Nonsense!" Goro stepped back. "I told you eliminating people outside of contest results isn't good for the game!"

"But maybe he attacked you and you killed him in defense? It doesn't make sense for anyone else to kill him, because that would increase their chances of losing!"

Akihiro stepped in before more accusations were made. "Hey. Don't jump to conclusions. We have to take a closer look at the body before we can say who did this."

He followed to investigate Hide's body from up close. Only those of us who could handle the smell dared go as close as him, which was just Usashi and Fubuki. They shared their findings out loud, so after a few minutes we had a general idea what happened.

Hidekishimaru was killed around midnight or sooner, because he was cold and started decomposing. There was a single giant stab wound in his stomach, so he was probably killed with a knife. He actually held what seemed to be the murder weapon in his right hand, which confused us. It looked like he stabbed himself. And his other hand was bloody too, but only the tips of the fingers, so he may have written the words "DIE DIE DIE" and "I'm sorry" on the wall before he bled out.

When confronted with the idea one of us was a murderer, we jumped after the possibility it could have been a suicide. As Akihiro concluded, Hide was incredibly depressed after he failed to protect and avenge Cho, so he took his own life. I wanted to believe this, but I had a bad gut feeling for some reason...

Sakari let us know how angry he was. "What an idiot! He could have lost the contest on purpose and save one of us at least!"

"That was probably exactly what he didn't want." Usashi corrected him. "Hide must have blamed us for Cho's death, too. That's why he wrote all his wishes on the wall. He wished for us to die, and he only apologized to Cho."

That was such an incredible explanation it left me wondering how they figured it out, but I didn't question it. Usashi and Ikiru agreed to move the body to the sewers and we were all supposed to just forget that this incident ever happened. It surprised me how well the others could do that, I guess we've seen so many people die the last week that it didn't feel so foreign anymore. 'Just another one who bites the dust,' I could see in their faces.

I was so consumed in thought that Maria noticed it right away when I arrived to the arts and crafts room for our rehearsal. No matter what, the thoughts about Hide's death creeped in my head and I couldn't concentrate at all. "How are you feeling, Tomomi?" Maria sat next to me, I could tell she was going to try to cheer me up or something. But I wasn't really worried about myself.

"I was... thinking. What would you do if I died, Maria?"

"You mean here?" she sighed and answered as honestly as she could. "I guess I would try to move on. I would try to survive and honor your memory the best I could." After hearing that both completely honest and heartwarming answer, I had to admire Maria's speaking skills. She convinced me that suicide and spite weren't the best way to deal with guilt, and that we should always remember the ones who died for our sake.