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“I’m sorry, Shin.”
He wants to scream in pain. No sound escapes his throat. He wants to reach out for her. Instead of him, it’s her who is crying. It’s stupid. There’s no reason for her to be sad. She shouldn’t be. Kanna is going to live, after all, and he is going to die.
“I’m sorry … I’m sorry …” She is repeating her words like a prayer. Her sister is holding on to her shoulder. The way her fingers dig into Kanna’s shirt looks painful, but Kanna doesn’t protest.
“I’m sorry …”
His laugh sounds hollow. “How does it feel to kill me off, Kanna?” He knows it isn’t fair, but when has it ever been?
He wanted to trust her. He wanted to trust everyone. He wanted to ignore the voice whispering in the back of his mind whenever he met Kugie’s calculating eyes. Of course it was a stupid decision. One he has to pay for with his life.
“She’s not killing you off,” Kugie answers. “We’re just trying to survive. I’m sorry too, but you are the Sage. You were the safest bet.”
Kanna cries out, thrashing underneath her sister’s grip, reaching out for him. But she’s held back. Her apologies ring in his ears. He wants to hate her, he so desperately wants to, but what would he have done in her place?
Exactly the same, he tells himself.
With a start he awakes, and his name is Sou.
It takes him some time to remember where he is. Next to him, a small body is shaking. Kanna. Her eyes are closed, and she is stubbornly holding on to him, tiny fingers clutching his sleeve. She is fully clothed. Nobody here provided them with any sleepwear, after all. The second floor’s dorms, he finally realizes.
Sou feels sweat on his forehead. With his free hand, he wipes it away, realizing he is trembling. He closes his eyes again, but the image won’t leave his mind.
Her voice. Repeating the same words over and over.
He can’t fall asleep anymore. Instead he turns to study her features. She is so small, so helpless. She doesn’t belong here. In her sleep, she has furrowed her brows. The corners of her mouth twitch. With the way she winces now and again, Sou guesses she must be having a nightmare, too.
He thinks about waking her up. He thinks about what she could be dreaming of. Her life before the Death Game? Her sister? The way her sister died?
Kugie … Why does he remember her face?
Two point seven percent. Kanna’s chances of winning are two point seven percent. That’s two point seven percent higher than Sou’s chances are. A little girl having a better chance of surviving than he does.
She’s gullible. Enough so that she believed his claims about losing his memories. While everyone else was watching him with wary eyes, she didn’t. She was worried. Genuinely worried.
Just stupid. An attitude that will make her easy prey.
What would happen if he suffocated her with a pillow right here and now? She wouldn’t be able to defend herself, not even with his lack of physical strength. What would her two point seven percent mean then?
She gasps, her eyelids fluttering open. Tears shine in her eyes. She is still trembling as she notices his gaze, and her grip on his sleeve only strengthens.
“You had a nightmare?” he asks and wonders about the softness in his voice.
Kanna doesn’t answer. She closes her eyes, bites her lip, a silent sob shaking her body.
“Hey. Me too. But it’s over, okay? Nothing to worry about.”
“She’s still dead,” Kanna whispers.
Two point seven percent mean nothing when a burden like this hangs over one’s head, he guesses.
Despite his layers of clothes, he feels cold. They say nothing for a moment, and then she speaks, gently, quietly.
“Don’t leave, okay?”
He doesn’t know what to say.
“I’m selfish.” She opens her eyes. Looks at him. “I promised the others to watch you. But I’m also scared of being all alone. Because … my sister was always with me.” She gives him a small smile. “But now she isn’t anymore.”
Selfish? That’s so stupid. Nothing about her request is selfish. She’s just a child. A scared, innocent child.
“Okay. I’ll stay.”
She blinks at him. “Promise?”
“Promise.”
Her smile becomes blissful. Not a trace of distrust darkens her features. Two point seven percent, he tells himself, and the numbers are etched in his memory, her sister standing at zero percent. He’s thought about all possible scenarios before. Kanna not saving Kugie a single time, Kanna leaving Kugie behind on purpose, Kanna laughing at Kugie as she lets her sister die during the First Trial. Kanna doing anything to survive, no matter the cost.
She moves closer to him, pressing her face against his shoulder, hugging his arm like a pillow. He can’t move.
“Thank you, Sou,” she whispers into his hoodie. “Thank you for staying with me. Thank you.”
He feels like crying.
“Sorry, Shin.”
He doesn’t seem particularly sorry. He never does. It made it hard to trust him. But it was Sara who never let Shin’s doubts get to his head. It was her who looked at him with honest determination when things got rough.
Now she isn’t here anymore though, and Keiji’s stoic eyes won’t let go of him.
“You bastard,” Shin spits out, feeling his knees getting weak. “You’re killing us all, and all you’ve got to say is sorry?”
Keiji cocks an eyebrow. “What else do you wanna hear?”
“You –” Shin is ready to launch himself at Keiji when a hand on his arm holds him back. Nao, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“It’s too late.”
“Nao –”
“Please, Shin. Stop. It’s too late.” She is about to fall to her knees, and Shin catches her, his eyes starting to sting.
“I’ll pick Gin as the second person to escape.” Keiji turns to the floormaster, his voice unchanging. As if he isn’t casually talking about their death sentence right now.
A sob comes from Gin as he presses his plushie closer. “I … I don’t wanna …”
“I know, buddy,” Keiji sighs. “C’mere. We’ll go get some ice cream together, all right? What’s your favorite flavor?”
How absurd. How fucking absurd. Shin wants to laugh, and instead he starts to cry. How could Sara trust this guy for even one second? How could she make all of them believe that Keiji would never betray them?
Nao is still holding on to him, and he wants to be strong, but he can’t.
He doesn’t want to die.
With a start he awakes, and his name is Sou.
Next to him, Kanna is asleep, her face calm, small fingers clutching the phone he gave her. She’s curled into a tiny, fragile ball. For some seconds, Sou watches her. He tries to close his eyes, but it’s impossible to fall asleep again. With as much carefulness as possible, he gets out of bed, puts on his beanie, and sneaks to the door.
He’s tired. So goddamn tired. And yet, he feels too restless for sleep. He creeps around the abandoned hallways, listening for any weird sound, but there’s nothing. Everyone must be sound asleep. His steps echo in the silence. He holds back a yawn, reaching the dorms again, when someone makes him freeze in place.
Keiji is standing right next to Sara’s door, arms crossed and body leaned against the wall.
For a moment, he thinks Keiji didn’t see him. He’s about to whirl around and silently make his escape when their eyes meet. Despite what happened earlier this day, Keiji shows no sign of malice. Then again, other than calm amusement, hardly any emotion ever colors his face.
Nine point five percent, Sou remembers. Nine point five percent, making Keiji the third most likely person to survive.
“Now, that’s creepy,” he calls out, burying his hands in his pockets and hiding the fear in his voice. “Hanging around a girl’s room in the middle of the night? Didn’t take you for such a guy.”
Keiji raises his eyebrows. “You’ll wake everyone up with your yelling.”
Embarrassment threatens to color his cheeks, but Sou smiles nonetheless. “How would you explain that to Sara? Kinda gross, isn’t it?”
Keiji sighs. Somehow, his reaction annoys Sou to no end. “If that’s all you can come up with, you better go and catch some sleep instead of wasting your time.”
With a snort, Sou dares come closer. Nine point five percent, he reminds himself. He keeps some distance between them as he leans against the wall, too.
For a while, both of them stay quiet. No way Sou could go back to sleep now. His nerves are standing on end. Scratching over his cheek, he risks a glance at Keiji.
Again, their eyes meet. Sou feels like he was being stared at for longer than just a few seconds. He shudders.
“What’re you doing here?” Keiji asks.
Sou scrunches up his nose. “Nothing. You?”
With a chuckle, Keiji averts his gaze. “Nothing.” Some seconds pass. “Thought Kanna was keeping an eye on you.”
“She’s asleep.”
“And you’re wandering through the hallways? All on your own?”
Sou resists the urge to gnaw at his lip. He shrugs. “Look. I’m stretching my legs. You’re waiting for a chance to take a peep at a sleeping high school girl. No harm done.”
Keiji barks out a laugh. It sounds cold and hollow and makes Sou shiver from head to toe. “You’re only a kid. Trying to act that high and mighty won’t do you any good.”
Sou’s fingers cramp, digging into the fabric of his hoodie. “Only a kid? So, what, you rather shove all responsibility into Sara’s arms? Why? ‘Cause she’s pretty? That’s just gross.”
Stubbornly, Sou stares at the floor. It’s made of linoleum, cracks spreading over it in senseless patterns. Brown stains tainting some spots. His shoes are covered in dust, dried water staining the edges of his soles.
“Jealous?” Keiji sounds amused.
It’s a stupid reaction. Still, Sou sharply lifts his head, feeling his cheeks heat up. “Jealous? Of her? Are you stupid?”
Keiji is smiling at him, that same nonchalant smile he always shows. “All of us trust her. Enough so that some go without sleep to make sure she is all right.” He looks at Sou, and in return Sou feels his stomach churn. “But no one trusts you.”
“Kanna does,” Sou mumbles. He knows it’s a weak excuse as soon as it leaves his lips.
At that, something in Keiji’s eyes turns icily cold. “Does she?” His words are soft and merciless. “Or did you manipulate her into it? Picking the weakest person of all of us to survive … Seems cowardly, doesn’t it?”
Sou wants to turn around and run. To get as far away as possible. But he isn’t about to let Keiji win that easily.
“I wonder what you found on that laptop of yours.” Keiji cocks his head. He doesn’t move, not yet, but Sou tenses up nonetheless. “I wonder what makes you wander around in the middle of the night. Interesting, if you ask me.”
Sou’s smirk feels shaky and unconvincing even to himself. “Scared?”
Keiji snorts, unimpressed. “Sure.”
Ex-detective, Sou remembers. Ex-detective. A liar. A manipulator. No matter what Keiji tries to tell himself – the only difference between him and Sou is nine point five percent.
There’s no way he saved Sara every single time. There’s no way a person like him has never left her behind. It must be an act. Trying to make her feel safe – just so he can crush her in exactly the right moment.
It’s cruel, and it fits Keiji.
“If I were her, I’d have nightmares about you, too,” Sou says.
Keiji looks at him, his expression blank. He doesn’t respond. Sou forces himself to relax.
“Just saying. What are you keeping from her, Keiji? What would drive you to not give her your tokens? Even though you trust her so much?”
He stays quiet.
“Who’s the real coward here,” Sou’s smirk hurts on his face, and his blood is boiling, and his heart is racing, “Mr. Policeman?”
The answer is silence. With how Keiji looks at him, with how calm he still seems, Sou doesn’t know if he’s really the one holding the upper hand.
He feels like a trapped animal. In a very ironic way, he supposes he is one.
When Keiji sends him another smile, Sou feels his heart thump in his throat. “Got me,” Keiji says. “Can’t sleep most nights because of what’s happened in my past. Don’t really want to expose Sara to traumatizing stuff like that. That’s all.”
Even someone like Keiji with his nine point five percent has nightmares, it seems.
He deserves every single one of them.
“What a nice excuse.”
Keiji shrugs. “Guess it becomes hard to believe people when you’re a good enough liar.”
Somehow, Sou has a feeling Keiji is speaking from experience.
“Guess I should say sorry, Shin.”
He can’t believe it. His hands are shaking. Ever since her lapdog died, Sara has turned into an absurd version of herself. Acting with merciless logic. Killing off one by one. Shin hoped that by drawing no attention to himself, he could slip through her cold grasp.
He was mistaken.
“You’re crazy,” he croaks.
She doesn’t smile, doesn’t stop looking at him. It seems like she has used up all her tears, leaving an empty vessel behind. Sometimes he feels sorry for her. Even if she survives – she’ll get out of here as a broken mess.
Too bad he won’t live to see that much.
There are so few of them left. No one has the strength to cry for him anymore. Maybe she’ll just kill the rest outside the Main Game and end up as the last one standing. Won’t be too hard. In some twisted way, they are all waiting for their own deaths. Even hoping for it in their darkest moments.
Shin isn’t as scared as he’s supposed to be.
“You’re crazy,” he repeats, almost laughing, and closes his eyes. Shielding himself from pitiful, helpless gazes.
Sara’s voice shatters his numbness.
“It’s your turn to die, Shin.”
With a start he awakes, and his name is Sou.
Kanna is whimpering in her sleep, back turned to him, her whole body curled around the phone. She has kicked the thin blanket he covered her with to the floor. His heart is racing. He stumbles to his feet, covers his face with his hands, forces himself to breathe steadily.
Violet eyes are still staring at him.
He feels like he is going crazy.
He breathes.
The room is suffocating him. He doesn’t care if Kanna wakes up as he flees.
They’ve all gone to sleep. Or they haven’t and some of them are still in the medical office, but he doesn’t care. It’s quiet. He knows that someone is whispering behind his back, but whenever he looks over his shoulder, there’s nothing. Only his own shadow following him.
He ends up in one of the empty rooms far away from the dorms. It’s dark, white walls only illuminated by a lamp dangling from the ceiling, and he’s just about to crouch down and bury his face in his hands (and try to calm down he has to calm down he has to live) when a gasp makes him freeze.
Sara is sitting on the floor, legs tucked up, arms wrapped around her knees.
They stare at each other. Everything inside Sou screams to run away. The tears on her cheeks stop him. She sniffs, harshly wiping over her face and averting her eyes.
“What are you doing here?” it escapes him.
“I could ask you the same,” she replies harshly.
Fifteen point five percent, he remembers. Most likely to survive. In almost sixteen out of one hundred runs, she lived. (He died in all of them.) In almost eight out of fifty runs, she lived. (He died in all of them.) In almost four out of twenty-five runs, she lived. (He died in all of them.) In almost two out of twelve point five runs, she lived. (He died in all of them.)
He sits down across from her, never letting her out of sight.
“You should probably sleep,” he says. His voice scratches in his throat.
“You too.”
“I can’t.”
She stares at the back of her hand. “Me neither.”
Dark rings have built underneath her eyes. Sou knows she hasn’t been sleeping well. Then again, none of them have. He also knows that she is seeing things that aren’t really here. It’s an open secret, after all. He doesn’t feel sorry for her. He doesn’t have to, since she has fifteen point five percent to work with, whereas he has not even one.
Alice’s six point six percent weren’t of much use when he died, though.
Sou releases a shaky breath. As long as he can watch her, he doesn’t have to be scared of her. As long as he can see her helplessness with his own two eyes, she isn’t that much of a danger. From time to time, her gaze meets his, but she never holds it for more than a second.
“Stop staring at me,” she eventually whispers. She even has the nerve to sound flustered. It makes him blush too. Out of anger, that is.
“I’m not staring.”
“You are.”
“You could always stand up and go away, you know.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Why?”
Hesitantly, she meets his eyes, looking defenseless and weak and for a second, he even wants to believe her. “I don’t want to see anyone right now.”
He hates himself for feeling sympathy for her. He gives a bitter laugh. “Oh, what? Our leader has had enough of her followers?”
“It’s not …” She clenches her jaw. “How can you be so cold? How can you just feel nothing after Gin almost died? After we lost Alice? Are you really that heartless, Sou?”
He’s done the math. No matter what you multiply zero by, you’ll never get more than zero. But the less people there are, the faster high survival rates increase. Fifteen point five percent have become thirty-four point one percent by now.
He feels like crying, too.
Sara doesn’t look at him, hiding her face behind her hands. “I can’t sleep,” she whispers. “I can’t sleep anymore.”
He knows what it feels like.
“Whenever I fall asleep, I keep dreaming about … about all of them, and it doesn’t stop, and I …”
But while she sits at a survival rate of thirty-four point one percent, his is zero. Certain death. She will never know what it is like to wake up in the middle of the night, feeling the claws of death gripping his neck, squeezing until his breaths become ragged and his mind becomes a hurdled mess.
Thirty-four point one percent, and she still dares feel sorry for herself.
“You’re whining too much.” His voice sounds foreign to his own ears.
Sara’s head snaps up. All despair fades from her face, leaving something akin to anger. “I’m … what?”
“You’re whining too much,” he repeats, unfazed by the look she sends him. “You think that’s what Alice wanted? Or Joe? Sitting around here, pitying yourself?”
He doesn’t know if he wants to hurt her. He doesn’t know if he likes the pain in her eyes. They glaze over, but he knows she won’t cry. Not in front of him.
“You might wrap everyone else around your little finger, but I don’t buy it.” He shrugs at her. “Just so you know.”
“So you’ve come here to tell me how pathetic I am?”
They stare at each other. Sou can’t help but smile. It tastes bitter on his lips.
“I’m having nightmares, too,” he confesses.
Nothing helps. Talking doesn’t, staying quiet doesn’t, waiting for something to change doesn’t. Numbers don’t lie. Sou knows as much. Numbers are objective and cold and tell the truth, even if he doesn’t want to hear it.
Sara’s eyes soften. He hates it. “About what?”
“Why should I tell you?”
She sighs. “All right. I get it. Then just …” She shifts around a bit until she leans against the wall entirely, her shoulders slumping. “Let’s just rest. Okay?”
He doesn’t respond. He doesn’t want to close his eyes. He doesn’t want to give her any advantage over him. Instead of watching her, he looks at the floor, studies the tiles. Fifteen by fifteen centimeters per tile, he guesses. When he lifts his head again, her eyes are closed. Her breaths get deeper and deeper, her cheek has come to rest on her crossed arms, and eventually he realizes that she has fallen asleep.
Sou doesn’t know what leads him to do it, but he carefully stands up. Crouches down before her. She’s breathing through slightly parted lips. Seeing her from up close, he can admit that she is pretty. The hardness she usually shows has vanished from her face. Her lashes are long and contrast with her pale cheeks. Loose strands of hair are falling over her skin. His fingers trembling, he reaches up to brush them from her face.
Then he realizes what he is doing, and with a snort, he sits down next to her.
He doesn’t want to fall asleep. Not with her sitting right beside him. But he still does, and this time, Sou dreams of nothing but blissful darkness.