Alice in Borderland

Chapter 15 - A drink with the hatmaker

There is almost nothing going on. The only others in this room are a couple on the corner bench and three drunken guys who laugh loudly. I go to the hotel bar and instinctively take a bottle of bourbon and a still clean glass. I look around the room, but the best place still seems here at the bar. I fall on one of the black bar stools and give me a glass. The thought of my parents has thrown me off the rails a little bit.

On the day when everyone disappeared, I had an argument with my father in the morning. We've been arguing a lot lately, but he's never slipped his hand before.

It started with a nonsensical argument, honestly I don't even know what exactly the subject was. But he can be just as hothead as I am and quite stubborn. We quickly got into the argument and biting comments became roaring. None of us listened to the other, we just started talking about it and interrupted again and again. He started to get angry about everything and began digging up old stories. That I would never help him in the budget and achieve nothing. He thought I should finally look for a job just because he started working at the age of sixteen.

At that time, he worked from early to late to work his way up and get up. I admire that he has made it this far. He doesn't understand that the university has such a pitch and thinks that my degree would be unnecessary. But whenever he came into my room and wanted me to help him with something, I interrupted the learning. But I stayed awake all night and just learned there.

With a high red head and a pulsating vein, he approached me. All I could feel was a pain on my cheek and the tears rising into my eyes. I ran up to my room and slammed the door. I heard my parents arguing all the time, but of course she forgave him again. But he did not come to me to apologize, but pretended nothing had happened.

Damn, for those reasons I didn't think about my parents or other things. I just have to get rid of those thoughts. Tomorrow is my next game and I must not get out of hand. If I'm honest with myself, it's been pent up for a few days. Since the game when I saw Light. From that moment on, I just couldn't hide my past.

One night I also dreamed of him and woke up sweat-bathed. I tried to calm down through the turntable and switch off my head, but I couldn't fall asleep until the sun was already on.

Someone rips me out of my mind as he sits next to me on the bar stool and sighs relaxed. From the corner of my eye I recognize a green-blue silk coat and the slightly longer hair. I look slightly annoyed to the side and see the hatmaker's grin. Although it's already dark, he still wears his sunglasses, which looks a little ridiculous. He takes a bottle on the counter and gives himself a drink.

"Hard day?"

I try to look a little kinder, but shake my head in the deny. He loosely takes his glass in his hand and turns to me.

"That's fine, you don't have to tell me"

I try to analyse his voice. He doesn't seem to want to make any advances to me, but rather to look for a friendship-like conversation. I then relax and drink a sip from my glass.

"Why are you here, I thought there's a hotel bar in the presidential suite," I ask him, and he has to laugh easily inside himself.

"There is almost no one left in the hotel because everyone is at the games. More than half the military troops and leadership, almost all residents. And I'm bored alone in my room"

"Thank you again for the record player", I thank you afterwards. I haven't spoken to him since I arrived here. He just laughs warmly and takes off his sunglasses.

"Nothing to thank. You are said to have been successful in the games so far. I've split you up with Ann tomorrow, maybe there's a new key bracelet.

I don't care what number I have and a room move just seems exhausting to me. The only advantage would be to come home earlier, which will still take a while.

"When are you playing again?"

"In four days. But I'm not worried about that, I've solved every game so far," he says with a buzz, but I see a spark of irony, "In the meantime, these games no longer arouse my fear, but my interest. A new way of natural selection. The strongest survive and the weak die"

"A natural selection in an unnatural world"

"Tell me Sayuuri, what draws you back to the world you know?"

I could have enumerated everything: my family, university lessons, cheerleaders, my future, normal life. But none of this came over my lips.

"My friends," I say after a long thought and drink out my glass. Somewhere in my head I flip a switch so I don't have to think about any of it and Keep a clear head. I notice his astonished gaze and give in without prompting.

"Interesting, friends can sometimes be the most important thing in the world"

He seems to speak from experience and easily sink into thoughts. Or rather into his glass, which he drinks in a train. I try to achieve the exact opposite, but I also drink my glass in one go. He gets up and apologizes because he wants to move on. To say goodbye, he puts his hand on my shoulder and presses it amicably.

I'm not sure what to think of the hatmaker. The idea behind the beach is both positive and negative in my thoughts. This place has so much bad in itself, That's what I'm aware of. But, as Izumi said, without the collaboration, she would never have survived for so long, and she will probably not be the only one here. The hatmaker seems obsessive and also naive about the continued existence of this hotel in this form. But he doesn't seem to be a bad person like some others. In any case, he does not seem to me like a man who would simply shoot a woman for no slightreason. I can't say anything about the way he wins his games or with what sacrifices he makes. And that is why I am not judging in this respect.

I only judge how he behaves towards me and treats me, so I try to be kind to him. And I'm not afraid with him that he would just execute me like that on some whim. But you should never be careful enough in Borderland.