The Secret Room

"It's so frustrating!!!" shouted Aoi as she sat in front of Jason, and a chessboard at the table in front of them, with Jason winning again, for the 10th time. That was Jason's way of helping Aoi with what he promised to her. When he asked Aoi what was the thing she hated the most, she said that she hates to lose, so Jason decided to have her play chess against him, and every time, he will purposely let the game take longer time, let her get closer to victory, only for him to beat her again, and she's not allowed to let the disappointment and frustration of the loss to show on her face, and every time she fails to do so, he will throw a donut, which was her favorite food, into the trash can. However, if she succeeds, she'll receive the donut.

Normally, he wouldn't throw food to the trash, but since he hates junk food, and he sees donut as a junk food, he doesn't have any problem to do so, especially when it wasn't homemade, and the one who delivered it to him wasn't someone he knew, but the mastermind.

"You shouted. This means another donut to the trash..." Jason said and threw another donut to the trash, to the dismay of Aoi.

"Now, let's have another game until you stop expressing your frustration..." Jason said, and another game began.

~~~ Time Skip ~~~

27 games. It took 27 games for Aoi to finally stop, and Jason decided that he had enough of that for the day, and went to take a bath at the bathhouse.

When he came out of the bathhouse, he saw Kyoko walking towards the school building. Normally, he wouldn't pay attention, but while she kept on a stoic expression, Jason could see she was walking faster than usual, indicating that she's in a hurry. Find it uncharacteristically of her, Jason decided to follow her.

He followed her, as she went through the first floor, went up to the second floor, and then, to Jason's surprise, she entered the most unexpected place he thought she will go into - the boys' restrooms.

Jason waited for a while, but when he saw that she doesn't come out, he decided to enter the restrooms, and there he found out that it didn't have any surveillance cameras and monitors in it as well! He looked under the stalls, to see which stall she was in, but to his surprise, she wasn't in any of the stalls. The only other place she could've been in was the storage room in the back.

Now that caught Jason's attention. He never saw her come out of the restrooms, so she has to be in here, but why would she go into the storage room and stay there so much time? There is also the fact that there aren't any surveillance cameras and monitors in here, like in all of the other restrooms. Then, Jason heard the sound of something move from inside the closet, and quickly entered the closest stall. He could hear the sound of the closet door open and see someone's shadow going past through the stalls, probably Kyoko's, and then heard the sound of the door to the restrooms open and then closed.

He then came out of the stall he was in and went immediately to the storage room. He would never suspect that something was wrong with this storage room unless he heard the sound of something move from inside the closet. It wasn't the sound of Kyoko's steps, it was more like the sound of... a revolving door!

Jason immediately touched the back of the closet, and as he suspected, the back wall was like a revolving door and revealed a secret room in the back. There were a lot of yearbooks in the room, which was in fact, Hope's Peak Academy student registries of every year since the founding of the school.

'Would you look at that... Kirigiri is now transferred into the possible enemies list... I don't see any reason she supposed to find this room since as a girl, she would never think of looking inside the boys' restrooms, which opens up two possibilities:

Either she knew about this room beforehand, which indicates that she has her memories, which means that Ikusaba lied to me, which means that Kirigiri works with the mastermind, and the other possibility, is that it related to her unknown ultimate talent. From what she displayed until now, I'm sure that Kirigiri's ultimate talent is one that makes her extremely cautious and very competent to solve mysteries, that she'll even look inside the boys' restrooms for clues.

I hope that it is the other possibility because if it is, it truly shows that she's the Queen on my board...' Jason thought, and then looked for the student registry of their year, which was the only one without dust on it, indicating that someone touched it recently, but when he looked through it, he noticed that Mukuro's file was missing, and saw that someone tore a page of the book, and understood that someone tore off Mukuro's page.

'In neither of possibilities regarding Kyoko, she doesn't have a reason to tear the page off. In the first possibility, if the mastermind didn't want any of us to find this page, then they would tear the page off even before they started the killing game, instead of taking the risk of someone to find this room before Kyoko tear the page off. As for the second possibility, Kyoko wouldn't tear the page off, to prevent the possibility that she'll be discovered with the page, which will be bad in either the case the mastermind discover it or the other students, to prevent them from getting to unnecessary conclusions.

I have no doubt that the mastermind was the one who tore the page off, as they don't want Ikusaba to be discovered. It also means that all of the information in here is useless, seeing that the mastermind probably took all of the important information, like Ikusaba's file, out of this room. It is just a bait for us to waste time...'

Seeing that it is a waste of time to stay in the room, Jason decided to go back to his room, but the moment he stepped out of the closet, he was greeted by the stoic expression of Kyoko.

"...If you knew I was following you, you could've just said. I nearly punched you in the face" Jason said

"Why did you follow me?"

"I'll tell you if you'll tell me how did you find this room. I find it very hard to believe that a girl will just go into the boys' restrooms, touch the walls, and find the secret room..."

"I merely was being cautious, and when I found that there are no surveillance cameras and monitors in here, like in the other restrooms, I naturally assumed that there is something in here"

"I was cautious as well, so when I saw that you were in a hurry, I assumed that you either was going to murder someone, or that you have something important to do, so I followed you"

"I see. Are you going to tell the others about this room?"

"There is no point to do so. There is no useful information there, as there is a page that was torn off. The mastermind already took out all useful information out of that room"

"I think that it still worth to investigate the place more properly before you make assumptions like that"

"That is your choice. I won't tell the others about the room, and about the fact that you were the one who found it, so you can investigate as much as you want, or at least until the mastermind will let you to. If you want help with something here or any other clue you find, you can ask me"

"I'll keep that in mind"

'In other words, I don't trust you...' Jason thought and left back to his room...