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"I called it, I freaking called it! What di-" Kaito didn't get to finish, drowned out by the shocked cries of their classmates. It was the typical dramatic disbelief that anyone could be so heinous that were always a little over the top but good for shifting suspicion.
"Alright, let's calm down for a second. We're wasting time. Why'd you call this meeting, Kaito?" Kaede chimed in, successfully placating everyone.
"I've been walking with Rantaro this whole time so he's my alibi, and everyone knows I promised to protect him this round cause he's been dying first this whole time, and I told him, didn't I, Rantaro? I said it had been way too long and if anyone was dead with no reports, Kokichi had to be the Imposter!"
"Oh, come on , don't be mad that I've perfected my hiding skills, Momota! I recall your girlfriend hunting me down for sport last round, so excuse me if I'm playing it safe right now." Kokichi ranted, clearly irritated as he sensed another fast ejection around the corner.
"And now she's dead. This is a story of revenge, guys!" Kaito insisted.
"Hey, Harumaki, tell me how it felt to be the one skewered for once? Was it super fun?" Kokichi interjected and Shuichi could just picture the wicked grin on his face, imagining how much his taunting voice was probably pissing Maki off right now. It was time he stepped in before it got out of hand, though. They truly had been picking on Kokichi all day, barely letting him play. Which was why Shuichi had done this at the very start of the round.
"I'm sorry, Kaito, but it can't be Kokichi. I watched his Medbay scan before he started hiding. He's clear," Shuichi sighed into his headset.
"Well, who do you think it is then, sidekick?" Shuichi paused. They didn't really have much evidence so he just scanned the names, looking at the two grayed out at the bottom.
"Well... they got both Maki and Iruma right off the bat so they must be pretty nondescript, right?"
"Okay, but did anyone actually see anything weird or suspicious or can we all skip?" Kaede said, probably just in time to avoid another pointless bickering battle between Kaito and Kokichi.
"I do think it's weird that there've been no sabotages at all so far, but otherwise no. I've just been doing my tasks." Kiibo sighed contemplatively.
"What tasks specifically , Fellow Crewmate That I Tooootaally Believe Isn't a Bloodthirsty Maniac Among Us Innocent Civilians?" Kokichi chirped, leaning back in his chair with his feet propped up his desk far enough that Shuichi could see him despite the divider they'd put up in their apartment. He was clearly having way too much fun actually getting to play for once.
"You were in electric almost the entire-"
"Excuse me, your brilliant hiding place was Elec? "
"Listen, okay. It's a graveyard so obviously, no one goes there! Duh, it's like science to go to the worst possible place."
" Anyway ," Kiibo huffed, "you were with me almost the entire time, Kokichi, so you know what I was doing!"
"Hm, really? I don't recall... Are you suuure ?" Kokichi crooned, giving Shuichi a flirty wave past the divider. Shuichi just shook his head with a fond smile.
"YES! WE talked about the function of a rubber duck-"
"Oh my god-"
"and I tried uselessly to attempt to discourage you from using them in a prank, you have to remember," Kiibo explained passionately, ignoring all the interruptions completely.
"Well, I remember that you are a lying liar that I'll never trust unless I can see the state of your nose with my own two eyes. Quick, send me a selfie right now otherwise no one will ever believe you!!"
"I think what Kokichi means is that anyone could have been talking in Electric and pretending to do tasks. So can you tell us what your actual tasks were?" Shuichi stepped in finally, tearing his gaze away from Kokichi's pouting face as the other boy mouthed 'spoilsport.' Worth it to avoid the rest of the group getting worked up and voting Kokichi off for dominating the conversation with his silly hijinks.
"Diverting power, calibrating the distributor, data-"
"Hold up, hold up. Divert? Calibrating ? What psychopath knows the actual names of the tasks?? It sounds like he just has the wiki task list pulled up on a different tab and is reading off it, which is a super Imposter-y thing to do. My votes on Kiibo." Kokichi said and the voting flag showed up next to white.
WHAT?" Kiibo shrieked.
"Well if anyone cares , Angie didn't see anything at all, but her tasks are all done and she will be making sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to next round!!" Angie piped up.
"I didn't see anything either, I guess. But I've just been in Caf the whole time, I'm having a snack so I don't fall asleep, sorry." Himiko said, not sounding sorry at all as she talked around her mouthful of chips.
"So can we all skip, please? Unless anyone has real info?" Kaede begged, sounding like she was developing a headache.
"Nope, I'm good!" Rantaro said, "I can verify that I was with Kaito the whole time but that's all the info I got. We were just in admin trying to get through card swipe."
"Bro, you promised not to say anything!" Kaito cried out in betrayal.
"Guys, please skip before the timer runs out! I don't wanna get ejected because Kokichi is being a brat again," Kiibo begged.
Everyone skipped at the very last moment, sending them back to the main area, around the table in the cafeteria. Most everyone went their separate ways: Rantaro with Kaito, Kiibo with Angie and Kaede, leaving only Kokichi, Himiko, and Shuichi.
"Hey, Himiko are you there?" Shuichi prompted with no response. That, of course, didn't really mean she was AFK because Himiko played like that a lot, but Shuichi didn't care. He wasn't planning on skewering either of them yet anyway.
"Come on, come with me. I'm gonna protect you since everyone's giving you a hard time. But you have to promise to play nice, okay?"
"Awww, anything for handholds with my beloved," Kokichi cooed, sending his avatar prancing around Shuichi's black one.
“So what tasks do you have left?”
“What do you have left? I noticed you were weirdly quiet in there. No alibi past saving my ass. What’ve you been up to in all that time between watching me scan, hm? I noticed you didn’t scan, don’t think I missed that.”
Shuichi didn’t panic, as much as he wanted to with Himiko possibly listening in on this convo. “I just followed a bunch of people around last round, sorry. You know I like to watch and wait for people to slip up before I reveal all my cards, right?”
“That’s my detective! So you haven’t done any tasks? Wanna go to Medbay first?”
Damn, Kokichi really was pressing this. His boyfriend was so brilliant, catching on so early. But that would spoil the fun, so Shuichi just shook his head. “Nope, let’s do Weapons. I wanna save my scan for later when a lot of people can vouch for it. I’m sorry to say it, but no one is gonna buy you clearing me.”
“Don’t be worried about hurting my feelings. It’s very true since I’m a liar. I try really hard to make sure they don’t believe anything I say, you know? Okay, a date in Weapons it is! How romantic, you better light candles for me and feed me candies or I’ll cry for a thousand years from heartbreak.” Kokichi shrugged, and Shuichi could somehow picture his avatar skipping like Kokichi always did in real life as they ran to weapons.
It had been a safe call. Just like he’d thought, the large group had run to the top right, and they were still there. Kaede, Kiibo, and Angie were chitchatting as Kaede counted off her asteroids jokingly as flimsy proof she wasn’t the Imposter.
“ Shuichi, ” Kokichi whined. “There are people here. This was supposed to be a date!!”
“I’m sorry, Kimchi. I’m sure we’ll find somewhere to be alone soon. Let me get my asteroids done and we can leave, okay?” Shuichi said apologetically, letting his anxiety seep into sincere-sounding regret. He needed to be fast.
Luckily, his partner had his back, the lights going out before Shuichi could even pull the map up on his screen. The confusion was exactly what he’d been aiming for, everyone running around trying to decide whether they should finish their task or risk being ambushed at lights to fix them. Someone passed through the decreased radius of sight he had, light-colored and decidedly not Kokichi so Shuichi hit his ‘kill’ button as the group opted to head to lights. After all, two imposters couldn’t kill five of them!
They left the body behind, everyone chattering too much to notice Kiibo’s silence. It really helped that Kokichi kept wailing for Shuichi to be his personal bullet-proof vest. The run to Electrical didn’t take very long and the lights were quickly flipped back on, but the damage was already done.
“Wait, where’d Kiibo go? He ran with us to lights, I thought I saw him…” Kaede trailed off, sounding confused and worried. This was only excellent news for Shuichi.
It was risky, hoping that no one would fix lights in all that time, but it had worked out. And now he had confused, false testimony from Kaede to blur the truth.
“How’d you see anything with the lights off?” Kokichi pressed. “Only the Imposters have increased vision, you know?”
“Well, yeah, but he ran over me. We crossed paths, I’m sure of it!”
“You mean when you killed him?” Angie backed up Kokichi, much to everyone’s surprise.
“Woah, hang on. Can we just go find him? Maybe he got caught up talking to someone or didn’t want to risk the ambush after all?” Kaede stressed.
“No body, no crime, right?” Shuichi shrugged. “Let’s see if we can look for him.”
“Or you two will double kill us when your cooldown is up. Angie doesn’t think so.” Angie argued, starting to back up.
“Wait, no. Listen, I don’t think it’s them. Shuichi had plenty of opportunities to kill me.” Kokichi flipped last minute, probably uncomfortable being supported by someone so quickly for no reason. Watching the way he reacted was most of the fun for Shuichi, really. It was the honest reason he’d made sure to keep Kokichi alive the whole round the second he’d seen his own red name. That, and of course letting Kokichi actually play for once. Kokichi was unpredictable and, most importantly, having a good time.
“Of course you’d third imposter for your boyfriend. Angie’s gonna go off looking for the others, make sure they’re okay. Have fun hunting down the corpse~” Angie sang before running off as quickly as possible.
They didn’t get very far before an announcement flashed across all of their screens, signaling a body had been reported.
“Well, well, well. Anyone wanna confess to killing the nicest person here? Hm?” Rantaro hummed, a dangerous note in his voice. Shuichi was in so much trouble for this one. It's not like he’d been aiming for his partner’s boyfriend! Of course, that wouldn’t matter much to him and there was no way for Shuichi to communicate that to him.
“Obviously this had to be Kokichi, right? He failed to get him ejected last round so he killed him!” Himiko suggested, not sounding even a little bit interested in her own theory.
“ Guys, I said that Kokichi was clear, remem-” Shuichi huffed in slight aggravation.
“Shuichi you be upfront with me right now: Are you simping for him?” Kaito demanded.
Shuichi choked but responded in front of whatever Kokichi was trying to say. “Listen, I’m always going to simp for him, but in regards to this game? No, he’s definitely a Crewmate! I clicked on the scanner while he was on it and it told me to wait so… I think that’s all the answer you need!”
“Well, you would know, wouldn’t you?” Rantaro commented sourly.
“What? What does that mean, Rantaro? Do you know something?” Angie asked eagerly.
“Can we back up for a second, I’m a little confused about why Rantaro and Kaito were in Weapons together instead of helping to fix lights.” Kaede hummed and Shuichi didn’t like that tone much but could only mentally thank her for the diversion. Would Rantaro really throw the game over this?
“We heard you all going to fix it and figured that there were plenty of people so we were heading to Weapons because Kaito had wires.”
“Okay, I’m almost certain that Kaito and Rantaro are the Imposters,” Kaede said decisively.
“Uh… why?” Himiko asked, actually sounding vaguely intrigued for the first time all round.
“It’s not like Kaito to just accuse someone out of nowhere with absolutely zero evidence! He usually has at least a little faith in people until they’ve done something, even if it’s small. Also, I think it’s really weird how they called the button after two bodies and then ‘found’ Kiibo when the rest of us were at lights.”
“You think I would murder my boyfriend?!” Rantaro demanded, voice shaking with outrage.
“Well… no. This could have been all Kaito, but you sounded pretty upset at the start of the round and kind of like you just… knew who it was and were indirectly calling them out? I don’t know, did anyone else get that vibe?”
“You have got to be kidding me!”
“Kaede, I appreciate you have so much faith in me but-” Kaito started.
“I’m down to vote Kaito since I couldn’t find him at all last round no matter how hard I looked, and I was in Admin. We can get Rantaro next round in honor of the death of Kiibo?” Angie said, a voting flag appearing next to yellow.
“WHAT? Hold on, you’re not even gonna give me a chance to defend myself? And that’s like… the flimsiest argument I’ve ever heard!” Kaito squawked, his mic cutting out from the volume.
“We have to vote soon or the imposters can just double kill us and win the round!” Angie reasoned.
“No! No, there are seven people still! Besides, two people dead are the ones we’re dating! Why would we kill each other’s significant others?”
“You killed Kiibo ‘cause ‘Taro killed your bitch-faced girlfriend, duh!” Kokichi pointed out and Shuichi had to bite his tongue to keep his nervous laughter inside.
A voting flag appeared next to brown and Kaito lost his mind. “Himiko!! Who… Who did you just vote for?”
“Look, we’ve been playing for 3 hours straight and I want to go to sleep. I will vote for whoever ends this game the fastest so... You?” Himiko sighed dejectedly.
“I have done nothING?? WHY? ”
“Wow!! Ganging up on Kaito real?!?! Oh my God, well I gotta participate!” Kokichi crooned gleefully and Shuichi could see him lean in close to his laptop, the chair legs hitting the ground with a soft thump.
“Wait, okay slow down for just a second. Kaito likes to spam sabotage, he rarely kills and especially not so quickly. This isn’t his style at all ,” Shuichi said because he suspected his silence was the entire reason Kokichi hadn’t actually voted yet. He was being too suspicious, especially if he didn’t speak up for Kaito. Besides, he was pretty sure they could win this without voting anyone off. And if Kaito was alive, he would shadow Rantaro and keep him from being able to hunt down Kokichi.
“Hm… that’s true, I guess.” Kaede hummed thoughtfully. “Well… do we have any better evidence to go off of for anyone? Really no one has seen anything all game?”
Everyone was silent.
“Hhhh… Wanna just free vote randomly?” she huffed after a moment with no response.
A vote for Rantaro and Kaede and two for Shuichi and Kaito later, they all started back in the Cafeteria. Shuichi’s eyes flicked to the little 25 in the corner of his screen, watching the seconds tick down for a moment before trying to figure out the best way to protect Kokichi and still win.
“Uh, Kimchi? You wanna go on that date now?” Shuichi asked nervously, not certain why everyone was just running pointless circles around the table.
“Aww, sure thing, darling!! Better be nicer than that last place, though! I said rose petals, not stinky corpses” Kokichi sang, dancing off towards Medbay. Shuichi knew where this was going but it was too late so he just followed along. “Nobody follow us! Voyeurism is a sin and you wouldn’t want to be the next Iruma! Replacing her so soon after her death is just cruueeel!”
Shuichi chuckled a little, running after him trying to be relieved at the sounds of the others arguing behind him. Maybe Rantaro would be too distracted to murder Kokichi!
“Alone at last! Wanna see what’s hiding under these suits? I’ve heard a rumor that they have a huge bone for such a little-”
“Kokichi,” Shuichi cut him off with a fond sigh, glancing up at the divider. He couldn’t see Kokichi’s face since he wasn’t leaning back anymore but he could be certain the other boy was wearing a wicked smirk.
“Fine, fine. Down to business! I like that about you. Go on and prove you’re a crewmate to me or I’ll go tell everyone what you really are.” Kokichi said, voice dropping an octave, quiet and a little rough. Normally, that would send shivers down Shuichi’s spine but he was too busy swearing internally.
“No need! I’ve got all the proof you need,” Rantaro said neutrally, running in from the top of the screen, Kaito not far behind.
“Rantaro, look-”
“Nope, too late!”
“Uh? Wait, do you really know something? You could’ve kept them from voting me off last round?” Kaito demanded.
“You didn’t get voted off!” Kokichi reminded him helpfully.
Shuichi and Rantaro were too busy with their indirect staring contest. “It was an accident, Rantaro.”
The other boy laughed dryly, not sounding even slightly amused. “Ha, well uh… oops?”
The green character darted forward, sliding across Kokichi’s white one. Shuichi could hear himself, Kokichi, and Kaito all screaming but it didn’t matter as the body fell limply to the ground.
“WHA- You were marin- ” was all Kaito could get out before Shuichi pressed his kill button on him.
He was pretty sure if he listened very closely, he would be able to just barely make out Kaito’s distant screams of betrayal through the walls of their apartment complex.
“That wasn’t very nice.” Shuichi sighed dejectedly with a shake of his head, watching as Kokichi unplugged his headset and started walking into the main part of the room. Kokichi just stood in front of Shuichi’s laptop staring him down. Shuichi just shrugged at him, not sure what else to do before reporting the bodies.
“So Rantaro just killed right in front of me, can we vote him off please?” Shuichi said with as much sadness as he could manage. “I mean… my own boyfriend. This is a real betrayal, Rantaro.”
“YEAH RIGHT! IT WAS SHUICHI THAT KILLED IN FRONT OF ME!” Rantaro cried belatedly.
“... What about the second body?” Kaede said slowly.
“I think it was a vent, I didn’t get a good look at them.” Shuichi managed quickly, determined to at least get Rantaro voted off for this.
“Good enough for me!” Himiko chimed in, and two flags appeared, Himiko and Kaede’s.
“Well, Angie thinks it’s both of you! We should vote one and then the other!”
“I’m fine with that. If it’s not him, vote me after.” Shuichi agreed readily. So long as it was Rantaro first.
“Go ahead I don’t even care, it was worth it. I would do it again!”
Avocado was ejected.