I grabbed him by the wrist, and dragged Sugai through the hallways. He didn't reply, just stayed silent as I brought him around. Furuya tried her best to keep up, but fell behind a bit. I brought him into the singing area, and sat him down in one of the chairs.
Furuya ran in a moment later. She was panting, as she slowly approached the seat she'd been in when the meeting this morning had started. I sat down in my chair, staring at Sugai. Sweat dripped down my face. Maybe it was the stress of learning about his broken finger, or maybe I just wanted to make sure he didn't run away and do something else dangerous. We waited for awhile, before one of the groups arrived back.
"Hey you guys!" Arima said, a bright smile on his face. Kajiwara and Kawata followed closely behind.
"Oh th- thank goodness..." I replied, sighing in relief. The three of them looked at me, puzzled. "Um, S- Sugai broke his finger..." the three of them looked to him with varying reactions. Kawata looked concerned, Kajiwara was unimpressed and Arima had a look of astonishment.
"Oh my god! How'd you do that!?" Arima said, running up to him, excitedly looking at the wound on his hand.
"Heh, I jumped on Hirano's back, and when she fell I rolled into a table." He responded, almost as if it were some sort of accomplishment. Arimas head immediately spun around to make eye contact with me, being bright eyed and cheery. A pleading look in his face, as he jumped up and down.
"Hirano you gotta let me do that!" He yelled. I stared at him, an expression of pure dread plastered on my face.
"W- what!? No! I wouldn't w- want to happen again!" I said. Arima frowned.
"Oh... um... I guess that's okay..." he replied, pulling a chair back and sitting down and staring at the ground, a sad, almost depressed look on his face.
"W- what!? Why are you so sad about th- that?" I yelled out.
"Sugai, come with me." Kajiwara said, grabbing him by the wrist.
"Hey! Where are you taking me!?" He cried out, as Kajiawara dragged him out of the room, right past Naito.
"Um, what was that about?" She asked, walking into the room with Otani and Tengan.
"Sugai broke his finger, so Kajiwara is bringing him to his Ultimate Lab. At least that's where I think he's going." He said.
"Ultimate L- lab?" I replied. He nodded, looking to me.
"Yeah, I'll explain it to everyone when they get here. Let's just wait for a moment." Kawata said.
"I could bake something while we wait!" Otani said, enthusiastically walking to the kitchen.
"That won't be necessary. Everyone should be back shortly." Tengan replied. Otani stopped, and sadly walked to his seat and sat down. Tengan pulled back her own chair and sat down, keeping her strong posture. Slowly, everyone came back into the room, some in arguments and others with smiles on their faces. Still, Yamazaki and Taguchi weren't here.
"So, shall we begin?" Kawata asked.
"Yeah, that'll be good." Taguchi said, walking into the room and pulling a chair back, before sitting down and resting his feet on the table.
"W- wha? You're here Taguchi?" Kawata replied. The hustler laughed, making eye contact with him.
"What? Am I not allowed to join everyone here? I mean, I gotta know what you guys are gonna try and do to avoid me!" He explained. Suddenly, a newspaper slammed down onto his feet, making him so surprised that he leaned back to far and his chair hit the floor.
"No, you're not allowed to be here! You're just trying to be a nuisance, which I don't appreciate. Now get out of here before I'm forced to grab you by the wrist and drag you!" Imamura screamed, standing up in front of him. He stood up, angrily grumbling to himself.
"Well that's rude! Can't you have some decency to at least escort me out!?" He said. Imamura suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him away.
"Wait! Just let him join us!" Sazama yelled, racing after them. Yamazaki passed by them, walking into the dining room.
"Oh... um, so you're joining us now Yamazaki?" Kawata said. Yamazaki stopped, and looked to all of us, his hands stuffed in his pockets.
"No, I'm just hungry. Leave me alone." He replied, walking towards the kitchen, and quickly entering before anyone could say anything. Everyone stayed in the silence for a little bit, trying to comprehend what was going on.
"Th- they're being pretty intense..." Shishido said, twiddling his thumbs back and forth.
"Tell me about it..." Miyazaki replied, rolling her eyes.
"Um, basically Imamura is really upset at Taguchi, and-" he began.
"I didn't mean literally!" She yelled back, silencing him. Sazama walked back into the room, with the two following behind her.
"I brought them back." She said, happily walking over to her seat. Taguchi had a sly grin on his face, with Imamura angrily looking away from him.
"Okay, let's just start. If you want to leave, do it now." Kawata said. No one got up from their seats. He took a sigh of relief. "Okay, I'll go first. Arima and I explored with Kajiwara outside. We discovered one of the other buildings, that houses Ultimate Labs. Ressa appeared and told us that he'd just finished building all of them, so we went inside. Every single Ultimate Lab is open to inspection. The thing is that all of the Ultimate Labs have some sort of weapon in them. For example, mine had a taser inside that can instantly kill someone." He explained.
"Mine had a baseball bat. Also, all of the labs have a key to them, so you don't need to worry about someone stealing a weapon. Well, unless you lose your key. Then you'd be in trouble." Arima chimed in.
"Right. So, what did you find Hirano?" Kawata asked. Suddenly, all eyes diverted to me. I took a deep breath, trying my best to calm my nerves. I need to think of it as if I'm teaching someone. I closed my eyes, making myself focus on the task at hand.
"So, we investigated the kitchen. There they have a bunch of cooking utensils and ingredients. There were also icicle molds in the freezer, and knives on the wall. We tried to get rid of them, but Ressa appeared and came up with a new rule that destroying weapons, if you're not a blackened, is prohibited. We also went to the office room, which didn't contain anything out of the ordinary. But please know that the metal pipe holding up the jackets in the closet is broken, so be careful." I said. I slowly opened my eyes, seeing everyone staring at me. My face turned a bright red. "I- I'm sorry, did I d- do a bad job?" I asked. Kawata shook his head.
"Nope! You did splendid!" Kawata said. I smiled, losing the pink from my face.
"Okay, I can go next." Naito said. "We walked around the hotel to see if we could find any other rooms that were open. But Araigu explained that they're all locked, except for specific rooms."
"The rooms that we were allowed to enter were the two side by side game rooms, different closets and the storage room. Of course, we didn't see everything, because we had to return back here before we could check every room." Otani followed up. Everyone looked to the next people to speak.
"I brought Miyazaki and Morita back to the wall to inspect it. Like I discovered yesterday, it shocks you whenever you touch it. We thought about checking if we could dig underneath it, but Ressa told us that the wall goes three miles down." Imamura angrily said.
"U- um, Sazama and I decided to look around outside. W- we ended up finding a couple of other buildings, but only one of them was o- open, which was the one with the ultimate l- labs. The rest were covered in b- big tarps, and Araigu said that they were u- under construction." Shishido said. He looked to Sazama. "S- so, how did I do?" She smiled.
"You did a great job! See, I told you that you could do it!" She said, slightly punching his shoulder. His face turned a bit pink, a nervous smile plastered on his expression. Everyone turned to Taguchi.
"Oh, I was supposed to say something? Well..." he said, beginning to stand up. "I didn't discover anything. Thanks for telling me about everything, I didn't really feel like exploring!" He explained, beginning to walk out of the room.
"What!? You haven't found a single thing!?" Imamura yelled. "You can't just steal all the information and mosey on out of here!"
"Well, I can just do that. But, I guess if you're really determined to get something out of me, I'll tell you all. But I warn you, after you hear it, you'll all be upset." He said.
"Just spit it out, we can take it!" Morita replied. Taguchi chuckled, a glint in his eye.
"Alright, don't say I didn't warn you." He responded. "Someone here is already planning a murder, and they're planning on executing it soon..." He said, an evil smirk on his face. Everyone stared, not a word coming from anyone's mouth. "Have a great day everyone... I hope I'll see your faces alive and well in the morning..." he said slowly, taking his time, before leaving the room.
"R- really? S- someone is already planning a m- murder!?" Furuya said, a face of despair staring at the group.
"O- of course not! He's just trying to scare us..." Kawata reasoned.
Yeah, there's no way! No one is going to murder anyone here. But... there's no way of knowing that. So... is he... telling the truth?
Words: 1658