them • kakegurui x female reader

♪⁴⁴

yumeko's pov
(tw for attempted murder, minor injuries)

a laugh starts to bubble in my throat, watching the remains of what used to be the table we had just played chess on underneath the chaos of the last fifteen seconds in a minor form of shock.

the ringing of first the gunshot, then the echoing smash of the glass chandelier on wood, keeps ringing through my ears, as the emotions i had just flown through resurface.

adrenaline surges through me and that laugh tips over, my voice filling the suddenly complete silent room.

maizono lifts his terrified face upwards, still laying on the floor from where he fell. he wanted me to be the one without wits, i can tell, but here i stand over him, laughing at his sorry excuse for a murder attempt.

i didn't know he had a gun on his person, but that doesn't matter now, does it? he doesn't have enough confidence to take another shot to actually get me this time.

he had lost, quite obviously. he was a cheater, he wouldn't have won against anyone important in this school. i'm not sure why he tried it with me.

my breath fails me, i'm laughing too hard, and i double over, gasping for breath just so i can laugh even harder. of the three present, i am the only one who's shock has left them enough to move.

bennett maizono's grand scheme to make me his lowly servant was, first of all, highly flawed. but i assume i must give some of the credit to y/n, and my devotion to her.

his plan allotted on three things, all three of which he had missed entirely. i was supposed to already have been on a gambling high, from the match he assumed i would participate in, the student council one, and therefore already have worked myself into a frenzy i was trying to get down from.

second of all, i was supposed to be charmed and somewhat aroused by the idea of losing my life in a gamble like this, a one on one match, and since i had already been in a frenzied state, my mind wouldn't think clearly.

third, i shouldn't have been able to see through his rigged game so easily. in theory, chess isn't a game you can rig. there is no way of knowing your opponent's move, it's entirely their own strategy. but the modified chess game he had presented me with, that had a single flaw. it took a lot of rooting out, i can grant him that. it was expertly placed together. he must have been so confident that i'd be tightened in his grip.

but here i stand, still a free woman, laughing at his desperate, futile attempt, while my 'slave' stares despairingly up at me.

bennett maizono had threatened to shoot me with his hand-gun. no, he had threatened to shoot the chandelier above my head. i remember how clearly desperate his expression displayed, his fury and rage at my win, and, surprisingly, i could think about is how i think it would be physically impossible for my darling y/n to make a face so horrid.

at my lack of response, he let a suicide shot, the gun piercing through the rope holding the carefully made, very large, and exceedingly delicate glass chandelier fall from the ceiling.

he underestimated how fast i could speed a few meters to the side, just enough to push the completely innocent dealer out of the way and get myself in the clear.

i gave him a push, too, for good measure. an opponent who stakes something and then immediately tries to reclaim it when they loose is an utter disgrace to the face of our world.