FINGERS CROSSED, yuzuha usagi

CHAPTER SIX

"They're coming for us!"

The Queen team had jumped off their starting line the second a siren gave them the permission to initiate the game. They ran as if the huffing valves were light snores they heard every other night and the steaming was part of their hot and airy breathes; they hopped and skipped their way up the structure knowing where to step and where to swing their bodies towards to land safely; they had all hiding spaces and shortcuts memorized, like the plans of construction of a house meant to live at.

It didn't matter how fast Yasuko tried taking the turns and looked for any possible escape route close to her, she could tell the third round would be her last. And she didn't have the stomach to take it, to hear Ikehara's voice in the back of her head cussing her out for being so selfish, so uncaring, the same way he had been. She could've fought someone to death, she could've fed herself with her own blood and ocean's salt, she could've skinned herself raw layer by layer, but her hands never stopped trembling and her voice always cracked just like her eyes blinked away every want and anger captive inside its depth.

Blood-drunk, rage, banished. Those were Yasuko's favorite words.

ROUND TWO. . .
STARTING THE CHALLENGER'S TURN, NOW. . .

"This is bad!" Arisu's voice came from a level below the one she was on. Peeking down, she faced his hawk's sight as he turned his head upwards sensing movement on her floor, "Have you seen all the red?" Yasuko nodded.

"At least her turn is up." Usagi walked next to him.

"Right, let's get back the ones we lost," He said, confident as only he was, "It's not like the new pawns are going to want to work for her, they'll rejoin us."

Yasuko had never denied Arisu's bravery. She envied it. She was jealous of the way he stood for himself and his friends without hesitation, without fearing being beaten up, without waiting for them to return the favor. Yasuko became bitter and untouchable the day she stopped being a daughter and instead was reborn by the sea. He was so brave and quiet she often forgot how much he had been suffering all that time, a pain she had transited too and still carried between the tangles on her hair and the curve of her shoulders.

"What's she doing to him?" Usagi halted abruptly in their way, crouching down to look at a Queen Team's player and one of their own be a scribble of hands and legs, fingers that pushed each other and feet that backed off in every try to step ahead.

"She's stopping him from tagging?" Yasuko asked, making herself a space between the two to get a better view of what was going on below them.

"The rules didn't mention anything about that."

ROUND THREE. . .
QUEEN TEAM'S TURN BEGINS. . .

"We gotta split up." Arisu and Yasuko said at the same time. Given the narrowness of the game venue, staying in groups was disadvantageous on the opponent's turn. The ideal was to separate and keep moving to avoid being captured, and hopefully, get back the players they'd lost one by one.

"If we do, maybe we won't find each other again." Usagi's hand found his arm and wrapped her fingers around his flesh. There hadn't been anything more intimate than that, lonely touches shared by the same meaning. She quickly understood it, why they had always been those that let their hands hold and caress the other's; Yasuko had first thought it was about possessiveness, but it wasn't until then that she realized it really was all about the contact. It was about speaking without words. It was about I want you with me and don't go. Phrases that could be squeezed and kept warm on their palms, instead of getting them freezing on their eyelashes, damp and rotten on their eyes.

"After each turn, a siren goes off." Arisu took her a couple steps forward, away from where Yasuko stood, watching them attentively, "When it does, come to this side, we'll be able to check on each other." Whether they looked up or down, the staircase's yellow railings seemed like a watercolor painting mixed with dots of blue and red moving all over the place. But she was only focusing on them, on how close they were and how much she desired it had been easier for her to speak up.

And she knew he noticed, 'cause Ikehara did too, and Aguni did too, and Niragi did too. Everyone except her.

"Yasuko?" He called.

"I'll get going first!" She turned around, "See ya."

The three of them didn't meet again after that. Yasuko hadn't even tried to, either. Bad news summed up one after the other as the red and blue team's turns changed faster than the round before and the Queen team was playing dirty.

With players constantly changing teams, keeping their loyalty started to be extremely difficult as they were persuaded to join the already proclaimed winning group. In order to survive, anyone would've done anything, including running away from the last hungry blue fireflies dancing blindly in the dark.

It wasn't a surprise that she would end like that: cornered on a no way out hallway.

The man in front of her laughed coming to a stop.

"You're slow! You should just switch sides!" He stepped forward. She stepped back. "No one's gonna be mad at you, you know? Joining us on the Queen's team is your best option."

Yasuko's eyes were blank as she stared at him without moving a muscle, without saying a word.

"If you stay in this arena, you don't have to play the other games and the King of Spades can't kill you either." She almost giggled out of exhaustion and embarrassment. Ikehara had been right about it. "I played this game last time and won by sticking with the Queen. She's strong, she never loses!" The man outstretched his arms, "So if the Queen never loses, then her team gets to keep playing, get it?"

The Queen's team got to survive in that place as long as they wanted if the Queen won every of her games. No one bothered them and they only had to make sure their team was victorious every time they had guests, a cycle that never ended, where confort built itself a fort and the night's breeze became a second skin, warmer and thicker.

THREE MORE PEOPLE UNTIL CHECKMATE. . .

ROUND THIRTEEN. . .
STARTING QUEEN'S TURN. . .

"What do you say then?" He offered his hand.

The moment her back met the cold wall she realized how tempting the idea was, how cozy it could be to know a place by memory like they did. But she didn't think it could've worked for her again. She was angrier, she had accumulated more fears than the ones that had followed her to The Beach and installed with her on her bed. No, it won't work, she thought as she saw Arisu's figure running in the distance.

Stepping ahead, she tried to recall something to use against him, yet his smile growing was starting to piss her off. Perhaps it was that what made her remember. Two can play dirty.

Without any sign of surrender, Yasuko sprinted at him, catching him by surprise as she sneaked her arms around his waist and tackled him into the ground, the same way she had tried to do many times before to Ikehara. That was the type of contact she was used to, the one that pumped the adrenaline up her veins and marked her skin with red. It was her body pinning him down, desperate to finish that game alive, and her fist diving towards his cheek bone one, two, three, four times, staining her knuckles.

When his eyes got dizzy and his hands attempted to grab her throat, Yasuko got ahold of one of them and twisted it until she heard it crack.

The siren went off. His time was up.

"Let's see how fast you are with one hand." She whispered into his ear.

The red button on his back turned blue.