FINGERS CROSSED, yuzuha usagi

CHAPTER ONE

Loyalty was mortifying, insistent. It was a sudden flash of pain and adrenaline running down to her wrists, calcifying itself into the numbness on her knuckles and her fingers locked in place inside her fists; it was bodies laying on the floor delimited by red-wine auras, bleeding out their last names. Yasuko could've even described it as gunshots consuming their flame as fireworks taking off in the distance, all below the shadow of a blimp eclipsing the sunlight.

Covered in bruises, mouth full of cherries, too weak to fight back the soreness, she let her gaze travel over the rifle's scope and land on him again, just like the six other times it happened before. Loyalty, she couldn't help thinking, also had the shape of Ikehara; it hid inside his pupils dilating, between his shoulder blades relaxing against the roof cornice.

No matter where someone looked, he had it tattooed all over him, except his name.

Ikehara had never been a trustworthy guy. She learned it the hard way, the same Aguni did after Hatter's death, after The Beach was left cold and breathing ashes. Ignorance was the closest they were to each other, a silent agreement that crawled through every layer of skin and pores, pushing a little deeper the knife into their throats, like a constant reminder that the past wouldn't be easily removed. They were the same and, at the same time, they weren't. It was known in the vibrations of their voices, in the force with which they spared. And it will always be there, screaming back at them they had no return from what had been done.

Nonetheless, she wondered when would she be able to say his name and have it mean only that. A word that belonged to them alone.

"I don't get it, how do you tie a knot in a stem with your tongue?" Ikehara started, but Yasuko shushed him instantly. About to complain, he swallowed his words at the sight of Yasuko furrowing her eyebrows at something in the distance, quickly positioning herself onto the rifle's objective in an attempt to find the source of the sound interrupting the city's quietness.

Somewhere in the area, the streets purred along the roaring engines and rolling tires of a group of vehicles entering the old Shibuya's station. Yasuko peeked at the billboard chart once more. The game's announcement hadn't changed, but it felt as if it grew hungrier and hungrier as time passed by.

NEXT STAGE START. . .

She moved the ocular towards the players joining the center of an upcoming storm, one she was hoping they were safely far away from. Their shadows didn't stop the uncomfortable nausea sinking in her stomach at the concerning idea of what was coming for all of them as she made a yield over her eyes to squint at the last group on earth she wanted to cross paths with again.

"Beach people?" The answer was right in front of his eyes, on Yasuko's hands shaking the slightest, a trail of goosebumps reclaiming her entire body at its mercy for a moment. Still, she nodded bitterly. "They're many, I don't think this game will have a participant's limit."

"We'll have to wait." Yasuko gave Ikehara a worried look.

It didn't feel right. The quietness, the absence of an introduction, the face card pacing in the sky the same way they danced around each other, trying to get the other's guard down no matter what. Yasuko was certain that if their eyes met anew, she would be done fighting her anxious beating heart waiting for something to happen.

It took it a beat, a single blink, maybe even Yasuko standing up from her chosen spot to stretch her arms above her head, to free chaos out of his cage and into the streets. One second calmness overflowed the ambience and the next only gunshots and horrified screeches flooded from every direction they turned to.

The cool breeze suddenly became a warm heat that freezed her to the core. It installed itself inside her flesh, tearing it in two in hopes of more space. The teeth marks of panic and the ignition of a merciless tongue darted out to taste her, staining her shirt in a wicked hum.

"Get down!"

Like a sandcastle falling apart, Yasuko didn't have time to absorb her surroundings as Ikehara yanked her body backwards. She tripped over her feet barely conscious of the open wound sticking her hair to her skin and mixing fluids with her sweat. Neither of them needed to look over the cornice to know the situation they were in, despite curiosity being stronger than Ikehara's will, Yasuko stiffened against the wall.

Inhaling deeply through her nose, Yasuko's eyes stayed fixed on the rifle next to the cherry's plastic bag as she ripped part of her top's bottom fabric and wrapped it around her neck, putting enough pressure into her gash to stop the bleeding. She didn't even look at Ikehara before launching herself forward.

"Are you serious?" Ikehara ducked in time to not receive a bullet between his brows and watched her slide the rifle to the emergency exit with a single movement.

"C'mon!" She held the door open for him.

The throbbing on her body made her hiss in pain as they made their way out of the building through the rusty stairwells, yet she didn't say a word about it. Both of them limited themselves to run as fast as they could, evading whoever and whatever that had been abandoned in the streets until they were out of sight from the shooting.

"No rules!" Ikehara folded over his abdomen, placing his hands on his thighs, and looked back at her. Trying to regulate his breathing, he gaped around as if the answer to her statement was written anywhere in between the trashcan containers or the grass growing from the asphalt's cracks of the alley. "No rules, no time limit. Nothing." She repeated breathlessly.

"The blimp was moving too, I guess that's not a coincidence either, is it?"

Realization washed away the previous worries swimming inside her gaze, and he knew exactly what it meant, even though he wished he didn't.

"The whole city is the fucking game arena." He flicked his bangs off his eyes, already frustrated, "Cool, awesome."