Friends With Benefits | Chishiya x Reader

Chapter Three

☆ In which you gain a tall friend and a piece of paper. ☆

You're mildly surprised when a tall woman with dreadlocks knocks on the door to your room. You've seen her around the Beach a few times, usually with a certain Chishiya, and you put two and two together as a straw appears in the opening of your door.  

"Hi, honey! I'm Kuina." She peeks around your door with a bright grin. "It looks like we'll be in the same game today. Let's get to know each other!"

You find nothing wrong with this, and so you allow Kuina to drag you by your arms out of your room. You're swept up in conversation so quickly you don't even have time to think and you're laughing because Kuina is telling you all the ways to down a midori green.

By the time Hatter is finished with his usual big speech, you know about one-hundred-and-one facts about Kuina. You're clinging to each other and giggling like schoolchildren because, let's face it, you really don't have many friends at the Beach - Kuina is a welcome addition to your sad catalogue. You stumble to the car together with linked arms and you pray your game will be an easy one. You still have yet to make one more official friend, and it would really be a shame if you died today.

The game venue is an old office building, and you glance at a neon sign that flickers by the casino nearby. It reminds you of the night before, and your talk with Chishiya.

"Let's do this," you grin at Kuina, and she laughs back. 

"I like your spirit," she replies, and the two of you enter the office building with the rest of the Beach group. 

The game is a simple one - a four of Clubs. You silently praise the Lord as the instructions appear on the provided phone screen: the game will use the office elevator. There are currently twelve people participating in the game and the building has twenty-three floors, including the ground floor. One person will remain on the ground floor and the rest will travel to the twenty-third floor. The player on the ground floor will provide instructions on which floor is safe to travel to at the given time. The game will be cleared when there is one player on each floor, or will end if not completed after the twenty-five minute time limit. 

It really is very simple, until you learn that each room is installed with flamethrowers that switch on and off at random intervals. 

If the selected instructor chooses to do so, or doesn't pay attention, they could send you to a very barbeque-esque grave. 

This is clearly a game meant to give the instructor the power to air their personal vendettas against other players. However, the game is only clear when there is a person on each floor - one death and you're all beyond help. 

And so the ceremony to choose the instructor begins. 

A woman who looks to be in about her early thirties is the first to speak, and you recognise her as another who has come from the Beach. Tentatively, she raises her hand and looks around the room. 

"I'm Setsuko," she says softly. "I could be the instructor, if anyone else doesn't want to volunteer?"  

Kuina eyes her appraisingly, and you scan Setsuko. She looks genuine enough, and she rubs the hem of her shirt between her fingers nervously. Kuina glances at you through the corner of her eye, and you give her a nod. As the resident Hearts player she seems to take your approval into account, and you smile at this woman who you had only just met today. 

"Sounds good to me!" the dreadlocked woman smiles benevolently from where she stands at 170cm off the ground, and the other nine players seem to quickly agree.

 Kuina's height does seem to come with the advantage of being able to (quite literally) look down on others, and it does wonders for her level of intimidation. 

Thanks to this smooth conclusion of deciding the instructor, the rest of the game goes without a hitch. Setsuko, although soft spoken, issues clear instructions on when it is safe to travel to whichever floor. You are one of the last three to enter the elevator, Kuina having left just before you to the eleventh floor. 

"Next person, enter the elevator and press level fifteen. One-five," Setsuko's voice clarifies through the speakers on the floor you currently stand in. The elevator had just made it's automatic return back up from floor eleven, and you step into it. Firmly pressing the number 15, the elevator doors close with a quiet swish and you make your descent. 

Floor 15, for lack of a better description, puts you into emotional shambles. 

It's not as if it's anything particularly upsetting. In fact, it shouldn't even be upsetting in the first place. But the first thing you notice as you exit the elevator is the pink sticky note pasted on the screen of an abandoned computer. 

You move towards said computer and peel the note off the corner. 

It reads, 

Have a good day, sweetie. Lots of love. 

You choke. Oh God, that's heartwarming. 

At a loss for words, you trail your finger across the screen of the computer. Did the sweetie in question ever make it home?

Or is he dead somewhere in the Borderlands?

The thought makes your chest clench uncomfortably, and you wonder why this well-meaning note has the power to bring you teetering on the edge of the Abyss of Devastation. 

Through your haze of misery, you barely hear the announcement of "Game Clear" over the office loudspeakers. 

Kuina finds you on the fifteenth floor tenderly caressing a computer screen, and has to bite back the urge to laugh.