Chapter 8 - Gamble

I give Sohee a look--I require her assistance to make this plan work. I skim closer to her, making her tweaks then I whisper, "take out your phone and start a voice recording."

Sohee wants to ask why but I quickly turn away to the girls. With a sigh of understanding, she takes out her phone.

Carrie looks at us with a squinted eyes, "this is giving me a bad feeling…my pro gamer intuition is alarmed rn."

I say, "well, first I think you should say 'right now' instead of rn. Second, you are a professional gamer you say yourself, does it means you wouldn't back down if I challenge you for a game?"

"Hmph, not easily." She raises her chin, "what kind of game?"

I smile, "before I tell you that, let's talk about the winner's reward."

As if we were having a study session now, the girls are paying close attention. It feels as if I'm a real tutor now.

I continue, "if I win you have to say, 'I accept you as a tutor' and change your vote to yes."

Carrie raised her eyebrow, maybe catching a glimpse of doubt. 'Weird way to make me vote you but okay." Thank god she brushes it off, "What if I win then?"

"RTX 3060."

Carrie loses her balance on the couch almost drops down on the floor with her game console. She looks up at me with a pair of sparkling eyes, "are you for real? You know that's super expensive…for you to just say that casually..."

"Ah yes," I shrug, "if you win I can give it to you, not so expensive when I look at the price online."

That's a bluff.

Carrie cleans her mouth and locks her eyes with mine as if afraid the deal is canceled, "now tell me what's the game."

Again, Mei interrupts us. "W, wait. Ca--Carrie if you lose the game then…"

"Urg," Shizuka rolls her eyes, "then she'll be on my side. For god's sake pro gamer, are you stalking me or something?"

Carrie bits her lip. Her sparkling had lost its light. She ponders it for a minute then decides, "you, you're right...This is unfair for everyone. I don't want to be the one carrying the responsibility."

"I thought," I say, "your name is carryyourash? Why can't you carry a game solo?"

As if I hit her spot, she stammers. "Tha, that's in video game's name! I--I…I don't want to deal with real life's burden."

So Carrie's that type of gamer who thinks all they have in this world is video games. Video game escapes you from life; escapes from responsibility; and your relationship with other's living thing face to face. Online is a great way to be a ghost, invisible to everything. You can hurt other people and get away from it and delete anything you don't like.

If I can delete Life and Death I'd be happy too, but the reality is…oh come on, if you say cruel then that'd be blaming the world. Reality is fast; time ignores everything and everyone. There is nothing like right and wrong about our world, it's just what it is. the world is what it is.

The world is what.

Don't you see what it is? A pure holy blank. Don't you feel what it is? A smooth tickling touch. Don't you taste what it is? A little paint of acid. Don't you hear what it is? Crackling is so easy. Don't you feel what it is? Doubt and misery.

Where am I?

No one answers.

But answer not only voice.

Time ignores.

...And time moves forward.

Time ran over.

Time is a murderer.

"Sunbae?"

Room of fives girl. I am here.

I look at Claire who's weirded out from my earlier act--I think I just blank out maybe for five minutes. Who knows why a voice captured me for the moment there, a question for Her.

"Er, yeah." I awkwardly clear my throat, "back to our challenge, I never intend to make the game solo. What if everyone plays it?"

"Huh?" Carrie tilts her head.

"I tell you the game." I take out the deck box and slips out eight cards down, "as you can see among these cards there are two jokers."

Slowly I begin to explain, "At the start of the game I will give one of you a chance to shuffle and place the eight cards anywhere respectfully. Then each of you takes a turn to choose two cards. That would leave out two cards. That'll be my cards then."

"How do we win?" Shizuka asks.

"I'm about to get into that part. So for me, to win I have to get the two last cards to be the jokers. It means if I get any other type of card on the table...I'll lose."

The girls keep their silent but I know they were shocked. With rules like this, I would never get to win.

Shizuka rubs her finger, "Hm, so if any of us got the joker then you will instantly lose?"

"That's it…"

"How can we trust this? You are the one who brought the cards and these weird rules…that's a flag to us."

I shrug, "I will not be touching any cards or get my hand near the table, how would you expect me to rig this? If you want to make sure, check the cards."

Carrie did and no matter how hard she scans, with her gamer's eyes all over each of the cards, there is nothing wrong with them.

Sohee take the chance to ask me, "are you sure, Sunbae?"

"I'm sure…"

She shakes her head, "no, it's just--by this rule, you only have…one over sixty-four chance to win. It's most likely you will lose…"

What's with that fast probability maths? It's that worse? "Er…" I think I'll break before I can get out of this loop.

But it works, Carrie smiles as if she found a prey to scam.

Sohee continues, "are they really important for you to go this far…"

I look at the negative girls--all beautiful and cute and dying. I have no other option, my fate is tied with them.

I nod, making Sohee blush. Heh, I may look heroic to her. But heroes always have a choice to save someone. I got forced into this shit.

"It's my first and important step," I say.

A first and important step to die.

Shizuka licks her upper lip, "I like the sound of winning with sixty over sixty-four chance. I'm on."

Oh wow, look. She can do maths all right.

Mei corrects her discreetly, it's 63/64 but Shizuka shrugs and says it's the same thing.

"How many rounds would we play?" Carrie asks…it seems her lights beginning to come back.

"One."

Mei gasps. Thank you, Mei, for making me cool and main character material, nice support.

"You wouldn't be a chicken would you?" Shizuka asks, intending for Carrie.

Carrie snorts but her speech gets shaky when it's Shizuka's asking, "of, of course, I'm game, too."

The bewildered Mei couldn't refuse if the two agreed, "I--I'm on, too. Whatever happens next, let's de-deal it together..." She says strongly. Perhaps not to let Carrie and Shizuka carry the guilt if they lost--which will happen...a looong time ahead from now.

Carrie smiles, "then we all accept the challenge. Haha, that RTX is good as mine already."

Too bad, Carrie. I can't give you that RTX if we're still in this loop. Too bad....