“Do you hate me?”
Damon thinks to ask this on the first night. Luck would have him sharing a room with one of the most useless talents to date, evidently with enough of an utter lack of common sense as to dye his hair cotton candy pink. Damon had thought he’d had a clear shot at winning rock-paper-scissors when he’d been paired with pirate extraordinaire Jean DeLamer, since statistics showed guys usually opted for rock; especially stocky guys who had more confidence in their biceps than their brains. But he hadn’t, and the remarkably whiny complaint hitting the airspace a moment later told him he had not gotten his pick for his roommate, either.
Kai Monteago’s room was also remarkably pink; from the walls to the bedding to the light. In terms of living spaces, it was about as comfortable to look at as staring right into a solar eclipse. Damon didn’t think liking a color of all things diminished one’s masculinity and so forth, but bringing up even the slightest hint of an issue was equivalent to asking for a complaint session. Actually, it was more akin to purchasing a first-row ticket to one.
“I thought I’d get that out in the open,” he explains.
“W-Why’d you think that?” Kai already seemed panicked, on brand as always. As much as he could’ve chalked it up to killing game induced stresses, Damon had a feeling he was high strung to begin with. Call it a debater’s intuition.
“What doesn’t lead me to that conclusion?” he responds flatly. “You looked less than pleased when we got matched. And you drew a literal line in the sand. Or line of tape?”
Damon beckons. Influencers were their own brand of crazy, he tried to remind himself, as his eyes met the tape line Kai had created within two seconds of him entering the room. Consequently, he’d been relegated to the smaller half of the room, and by proxy, a flowery sofa which looked about as comfortable as a bag of bricks. Especially in light of his own bed waiting for him, a couple doors away, if only sleeping alone didn’t make him a prime victim.
“Um, hate is a strong word, but I…”
“I’ll rephrase. Are you uncomfortable around me?”
“You make it sound like I’m the unreasonable one.” Considering how nervous Kai looked, one would’ve thought Damon had actually tried to kill him before. “We’re going to be sharing a room, and we barely know each other. Who wouldn’t be cautious?”
“So you think I’ll try to pull something on you?”
“Um, putting it like that, I’m going to get the wrong idea soon.”
“Don’t worry,” Damon says sardonically. “Your tape line will save your life. It’s such a relief it’s there, right?”
“ I’ll scream. I’ll scream bloody fucking murder!” Kai had told him at the time, when they’d broached the topic earlier tonight. Then, Damon wondered if he seriously never considered the possibility the dorms were soundproof; considering the budget of their operation and the general mindset one would need to have to facilitate a killing game, he certainly wouldn’t put it past the behind this whole thing.
“Hey, I seriously can’t tell if you’re kidding,” Now, Kai gives him a look, but it resembles more of a miffed puppy than genuine anger. Impact: zero. “I’m going to say this just for the record, but this is so not the time for pranks or jokes.”
“I wasn’t playing a prank or making a joke at your dispense.” Damon says, realizing only now that on top of all of his pre-existing flaws, the Ultimate Influencer was also a poor judge of character. Since when had he ever cracked a joke within these walls? “So I’ll ask you, just for the record. Are you planning on killing?”
They stare at each other for an uncomfortable beat.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you asking a question like that so calmly?” Kai tilts his head, and adds, “Are you asking because you’re planning on killing somebody? Or are you just a sociopath?”
If he was, why would he admit it? Another mark against him.
“Lots of people display sociopathic tendencies.” Damon replies calmly. “It’s more common than you’d think.”
“And saying that totally doesn’t make me think you are one...”
“Look, what are you so concerned for? We’ve already covered this; it’s not much of a mystery if you suddenly died and I was twiddling my thumbs in the same room.”
Kai doesn’t seem comforted, quite the opposite. “W-Why would I die in this scenario?”
“It’s a hypothetical.” He resists the urge to roll his eyes; just barely. “If I was going to do something, it wouldn’t be you. Happy?”
“Not happy. Couldn’t be less happy.” he grumbles to himself. “There has to be something seriously wrong with you to be hypothesizing murder hypotheticals in a killing game.”
Once again, Damon couldn’t understand him, even for a second. From Kai’s perspective, Damon was the creepy roommate who was leaning more towards being a psychopath than not; why provoke somebody like that?
“Okay, then how’s this? I can probably estimate that nobody will go after you initially, either.”
His tone is suspicious. “ Initially? Why’s that?”
Initially was right. “Because you’re so panicky that you’ll make a big scene if anyone tries anything.” He was lying, but he was also sure Kai didn’t know that. It was precisely that because he appeared one of the most scared participants, it would get him killed. Later rather than sooner, if he was lucky.
But who knew? Maybe he was more self-aware than he presented, and playing it up to try and save his own life. The possibility was impossibly slim, but not enough to dismiss it entirely.
Kai gives him a doubtful look. “Right…how come you have everything figured out, though? Like, you’re already making the assumption we’ll start to kill each other, and then you estimated who will survive longer than others?”
Because I have at least two brain cells to put together, Damon doesn’t say.
“Because I don’t want to die here,” he says instead.
“No shit. Does anybody? You’re so…so…” He flounders for an adjective, ultimately settling on, “Calculative. It’d scare the crap out of anybody.”
“Being calculative is how you stay alive. You don’t think you’ll survive it by being brainless, do you?” Damon suddenly leans forward, and Kai flinches. Despite the ten feet distance between them, and despite everything they’d just discussed. Funny. “You call me calculative, but you’d be plain stupid to not have the thought at least cross your mind. Who’d you go after?”
“Let all social skills go out the window, I guess…um…” Kai throws his hands up. “Fuck it, Toshiko? I can’t really see her putting up much of a fight.”
The youngest and smallest person here. Damon could see it was a fair conclusion to naturally come to, but…
“You’re giving me a look. Let me guess, you have some super smart and convoluted reason for why somebody else is better?” Kai pauses for a second, and holds up a finger. “A-And don’t try to pull some fake numbers out of nowhere, either!”
“I wasn’t going to. And I don’t make up statistics, I’ve just picked up a book at least once in the last decade.”
“I know you’re trying to make me look dumb. I’m just…busy, is all.” Kai shakes his head. “Anyway, we’re getting off-topic. I know I’ll regret asking, but…who’d your target be?”
“Easy. Wolfgang.”
“Kinda out of left field…” he narrows his eyes. “You’re sure it isn’t me?”
“Despite what the internet tells you, you know the world doesn’t actually revolve around you, right?” Damon says slowly. “His talent in itself makes him a threat. You’re more likely to get away with the crime if there’s less…specialized people there.”
More accurately, more intelligent people there. For all of Wolfgang’s character and personality flaws, his talent as the Ultimate Lawyer was probably the only thing to offset that and make him semi-redeemable, in Damon’s eyes. If the dummy trial was anything to go by, the remaining fourteen would probably blunder around like sheep without a shepherd. Kai was just about a perfect example.
“It feels like there’s a not-so-disguised insult there, so I’m not even going to think about it too deeply.” Kai regards him with an apprehensive look. “Have you ever been told you’re kind of a scary guy?”
Kai wouldn’t take him on his word for this, but he didn’t need to. “Believe it or not, I’m not the scariest one here.”
-
Damon actually had three potential murder victims in mind, his ingenuous roommate being only the first. There were pros and cons in getting rid of the person you shared a room with, but the added factor of the dorm rooms being unlocked would be enough to shed suspicion off him; assuming he had an excuse ready and lucky timing. Having discovered the pharmacy a day prior, he’d since been probing the dusty shelves in search of nothing in particular. He was hindered slightly by having no interest or knowledge in pharmaceuticals, but he was sure he could at least rationalize what was deadly and what wasn’t.
“Should I be worried as to why you’re here?” A distinctive voice asks him. Eva.
The bottle he’d picked up read dimethyltryptamine, but what that was capable of was anybody’s guess. Without sparing her a glance, he says, “Should I be worried you’re here, too?”
“No.” She responds a beat too quickly. “I’m here to play gachapon.”
Damon half-expects her to brush past him, since the machine she supposedly had business with was in the next room. But she doesn’t, and he reminds himself that she isn’t actually the Ultimate Liar, but instead the Ultimate Mathlete. For most people, it was like setting off a bomb; immediate distrust compounded on top of the distrust she’d already garnered due to her title. But for Damon, there was a different nuance thrown into the mix, considering they were the only two outcasts left with few other options. It was the turning point of their relationship where under the thin veneer of mutual trust they maintained, it became clear they wouldn’t tell each other anything vital. Damon supposes it was the inevitable result of a relationship borne from necessity rather than choice.
As for her weird lie about her weirder talent, Damon couldn’t pinpoint exactly why she was so ashamed of that, but it was clear the other day that most people shared her viewpoint. Kai, for one, had directly referred to her as just a mathlete on multiple occasions, though Damon couldn’t see what little ground he had to stand on the matter.
“If you’re here to look for something, I won’t stop you.” He tells her, giving up on the medicines for now. Without knowing up from down, his odds of finding something potent were worse than that of a needle in a haystack. Maybe there was a book on pharmaceuticals lying around somewhere…
“Do you think we’re in the same boat, or something?” Her tone was light, but vaguely accusing.
He meets her eyes evenly. “A sinking one, sure. We all are.”
“Clearly, we’re the only two looking in the right places. Doesn’t that put us on equal footing?”
“That depends on why you’re here. Are you in the market for something lethal, or are you genuinely interested in gachapon odds?”
Eva tilts her head, but she doesn’t smile. Damon doesn’t think he’s seen her smile once to date.
“It’s both,” she says deliberately. “You know you can find some pretty deadly things in the machine, right?”
He’d assumed as much, not that his gachapon rewards reflected it. He’d gotten…nothing good, really; a rose, a coffee, one of those zen gardens where you could push sand around with a rake…all of which he’d offloaded onto different people during the long stretches of time where nothing eventful happened.
“Are you speaking from experience?” he probes.
Eva studies him for a moment, probably deciding whether or not to trust him. The fact that they were both outcasts under Wolfgang’s dictatorship probably pushed the needle in favor of the former. She twists one of the locks of her hair between her fingers, and chooses.
“I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but…I trust you.” Her voice is quiet enough, but it still echoes faintly throughout the room. “I haven’t gotten anything good yet, I’ll admit, but I’d tell you if I had. The only reason I know about what’s in the gachapon is because I asked about it.”
Right, because no killing game was perfect without weapons in a coin slot. Damon supposed it only made sense he wouldn’t be the only one asking good questions, too.
“Trust…” he lets the word marinate for a moment. Trust was difficult yet crucial to maintain in games, but he wouldn’t gamble with trusting someone like Eva. She was just too…similar to him. A mirror image, yet with a few alterations for levity. Of course, that didn’t mean he wanted to trust a total idiot, either. “That’s definitely something.”
“You might just die if you don’t trust anyone.”
“I wasn’t disagreeing with you. But…” he pauses. “You’re one of the last people I’d expect to preach about trust.”
“Second only to you, I’d wager.” A beat. “You won’t say it back?”
“Will you be saying I love you next?”
Eva backs down faster than he’d anticipated. “Fair enough. I can’t argue.”
“So you trust me. What’s next?” Damon looks away and his mind halts in limbo between searching more or avoiding this conversation wholly. Returning to his dorm would mean nobody was there to say divisive statements, at the cost of his current investigation. “Aimless trust is meaningless, too.”
“What’s next?” Her eyebrows raise. “Well, lots of things are next.”
He steels the impatience out of his voice. “That being…?”
“Ah…”
The exterior door is thrown open, cutting off her train of thought. Damon could’ve sworn a whole layer of dust settled off the ceiling, making the room even hazier than it was before. A pink head of hair emerges, as does a hand suspended over the door knob.
Kai blinks slowly, seemingly having understood he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. “Were you having a secret conversation…?”
“No.” Damon says immediately.
“Not a secret you’re a part of.” Eva says coldly. Her demeanor seems to have totally shifted, from her usual frosty sentiment to something more…prickly. Defensive even, though Damon couldn’t eliminate the possibility he’d simply imagined that edge in her voice.
“ Okay, whatever you say.” Kai gives Damon a sideways glance as if to say, what’s her problem? He shakes his head a moment later. “Keep your secrets. Anyway, I came here to tell you that everybody’s meeting in the dining hall. Waiting for you two. You didn’t show up for breakfast.”
Damon didn’t see why the group should be invested in his eating habits, but that was probably beside the point.
“What for?” he asks anyway.
“Um, what else? The blackmail? The same thing you didn’t want to show me even after I showed you mine… ” Kai says the last part under his breath, thinking nobody had caught it.
On Damon’s end, the letter he had received this morning had completely slipped his mind. A wedding picture of somebody else’s parents had nothing to do with him, so he’d just let it linger somewhere in the back of his mind. Ostensibly, everybody else had gotten one too, belonging to a different student aside from themselves.
Eva and Damon share a look. “Right.”
Kai starts to close the door again. “If you’re finished with your totally suspicious search party, let’s go. People sort of have a habit of shooting the messenger with these kinds of things…”
-
“I can assure you, none of us are horrible people,” Wolfgang was saying. “So as long as you share what you received with the person in question, in private of course-“
Like father, like son, a sheep’s clothing hides a wolfish mind, the letter he received had read.
“It can’t go both ways.” The words are out before he’s realized it himself.
Wolfgang looks wary, but unsurprised. “Excuse me?”
All fifteen pairs of eyes are immediately drawn to Damon, like spotlights.
“Which one is it? Do you think none of us have anything to hide or should we keep our secrets hidden?” Damon asks, deliberately keeping his tone neutral. “Clearly you've noticed too, seeing as you’ve asked us to keep quiet.”
“Well, I just don’t think we should be needlessly causing-“
“You’re avoiding the question. Your word choice implies that our secrets will cause conflict, anyway.” Slowly, he draws his eyes up from his breakfast plate, realizing he never had an appetite to begin with. “Enough conflict to kill?”
For a moment, brief enough for Damon to have just imagined it, Wolfgang’s face splits off in latent anger. He recovers a second later, adjusting his tie.
Ingrid tries to cut in, her tone firm. “Damon, that’s enough.”
Surprisingly, Wolfgang doesn’t agree. “Thank you, Ms Grimwall, but I’ve got this handled.”See AlsoSystems, Methods and Devices for Augmented Reality Assisted SurgeryHow to Lay Carpet Pad with Moisture Barrier: Simple Steps for a Dry Installation[Updated: January 2025]GRADE 5 Science DLL Whole Year Grade 5 - PDFCOFFEE.COM
Nobody looks convinced, save for him.
“What are you trying to say, Mr Maitsu?” He smiles gently, but there’s nothing kind about it. “ Or is this an attention seeking encore in the same vein as your stunt after the last trial? ”
Fundamentally, Damon realizes Wolfgang was trying to undermine him. The only thing he took issue with was how potentially effective it could be.
“No need to resort to insults…I’ll tell you. Put your money where your mouth is…and explain your own blackmail. To everybody.”
For a moment, everybody had been completely rendered silent. Even Cassidy or Grace, who invariably had something useless to say, broke tradition and stayed quiet.
Wolfgang had the decency to at least feign surprise. “How should I do that? I don’t know the contents of my own blackmail, as that would defeat the purpose of-“
Pulling out the envelope out of his jacket, the rest of the students fall quiet. “Here.”
Damon wouldn’t have been surprised if Wolfgang was internally cursing himself for having such bad luck.
“You have it…?”
“Do us the courtesy of saving the pretend shock. We’re all waiting.”
Grace seems to find her voice - a loud one at that. “Fighting words coming from a soybean…if you have such a big problem with this, take it up privately!”
Delivery aside, it was surprisingly mature coming from the loudest and crudest person in existence. Damon could admit that what he was doing veered petty, but it was that same pettiness that he thought would have appealed to the rest of them. Then again, on the same hand, he was so far removed from their good books that just about anything he did would only further paint him as a villain.
“All of this false bravado makes you look worse, if anything,” Wenona agrees in an ever disapproving voice.
“What he’s saying has merit though,” Eva argues back. Damon appreciated the support, but with her sanding in the group, her approval would probably hurt his argument even more. “To suggest sharing secrets without-”
“Coming from the person with the biggest secret? Forgive us for having a hard time believing you…” Mark says quietly, shooting both Eva and Damon a dirty look. His dislike for them knew no bounds, evidently.
“I still can’t believe it,” Kai says, his smile growing to others’ assent. “Tricked by a mathlete…that’s fucking funny.”
Their conversation was derailed again. Saying much else would just be fighting a lost battle. Without having even opened it, Damon puts the envelope away again. “Whatever you guys say.”
Damon stands up to leave, but feels a hand pulling at his sleeve. He doesn’t look back, but could tell who it was anyway, if the strawberry scented cloud that followed him was any indication.
“We shouldn’t fight like this,” Diana says deliberately, ever the mediator.
Ordinarily, kindness wasn’t a weakness, but put under high pressure circumstances, it could very well get you killed. She seemed like the type who’d agree to a late night rendezvous, in some godforsaken corner of the school. Damon would’ve felt bad for her, but his sympathy would do little for a corpse.
“We should be fighting back against the people who got us in this situation, not each other. We’re all victims, you know?”
“Diana’s right…” Kai says, though he looked markedly less sure than Diana had. “At this rate, none of us will get out like this…”
“Unless you kill.” Damon reminds him.
“Dude, that is so not the point I was trying to make!”
“Let’s stay on topic, shall we?” The cordiality in Wolfgang’s voice was a thin veil over his underlying diversion. More accurately, his hypocrisy. ‘I think it’d be just fantastic for all of you to share your darkest secrets, but me? I’m simply above that.’ Something along those lines, anyway. “Mr Maitsu, as much as I’d like for you to participate in our discussion - as much as I’d think your input would be highly valued moreover , this is unproductive. Will you be staying?”
His tone was hopeful upon first glance, but Damon still couldn’t forget how the same man tried to keep him and Eva out of the investigation a day prior.
“Sure.” He slinks back in his seat, and the conversation continues without a hitch. This was his second time invoking the group’s ire, he’d probably be better off shutting up in future events. Even so, as much as he was inclined to, he couldn’t put up a facade of total indifference, since staying too far away from the group would put him in an even more vulnerable position.
-
“Did you get anything good from the gachapon…?” Damon asks that night, remembering what Eva had told him in the morning but trying to keep his tone light. Today, Kai’s room smelled more floral than yesterday, but he supposed he did seem like the type to be into aromatherapy and skincare and all the rest.
“Hm? When’d you get here?” Kai glances up from the vanity table, seemingly looking for one thing or another. Maybe tonight he’d consider taping Damon to the sofa, should he try anything at night. “I didn’t even notice - like, can’t you make some noise when you come in?”
You’re not too observant, are you? He refrains from asking. Instead, he says, “Sorry. I’ll wear a bell around my neck from now on.”
“I know you’re being sarcastic, but I kinda want to take you up on that.”
Damon shrugs.
“You said something about the gachapon, right? Nothing good, really…some fake money, a Rubik’s cube…and this other thing.” Kai started idly listing his winnings, but only the last thing had caught Damon’s interest. “I think it’s a letter opener, but it’s really dull. Can’t even cut paper that well.”
Bingo. “And…what’d you do with it?”
“I’m not exactly receiving a ton of mail here, so nothing much. I put it in…wait.” he cuts himself off, suddenly holding up a finger. “Wait, you want to use that as a weapon, right? No way…what kind of idiot do you think I am that would let you kill me with something I got?”
“What kind of idiot do you think I am?” Damon repeats, turning it back on him with a flat tone. “Why would I ask you where it was? Your room’s not that big - I’m not so incompetent as to get lost in here.”
He beckons around the whole room for emphasis.
“D-Don’t pull that reverse psychology shit! Oh man, I should’ve asked to bunk with Desmond and Jean…fuck whatever they said about safety in pairs!”
“I’m not going to kill you. Seriously.”
“And I don’t believe you. Seriously .”
At this point, Damon felt the instinctual need to wring Kai’s neck. He was just impossible to have a conversation with, he’d have been better off trying to talk politics with his reflection. At least the mirror would feign to listen, and not start screaming bloody murder out of nowhere. “Why would I give you so many hints? If anything, this conversation should make you feel better.”
“That’s backwards logic at it’s finest…” Kai mutters. “You’re sure you’re not playing mind games…?”
“Yes, I’m not playing games.”
Kai’s flowery sofa/Damon’s makeshift bed creaks ominously under his weight - echoing in the silence that was thick enough to cut with his shitty letter opener. On the other end of the room, past the tape line, Kai’s fingers drum against the white vanity table, creating an unsettling and irregular tapping sound.
It was interrupted only by his soft voice. “Hey, can I ask you something?”
For whatever reason, Damon didn’t feel like answering seriously. “You just did.”
“I hate you.”
“It’s a popular opinion.” Damon says dryly. “Seems to be a running theme today.”
“Only ‘cause you’re weirdly persistent about saying things in that freaking unsettling voice…” Kai looks away, and the tapping is amplified. “So…today, with Wolfgang. What made you do that?”
None of your business, he almost says but catches himself. He wasn’t particularly inclined to say anything to the asshole who couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, but holistically speaking, there were other benefits. Being direct hadn’t earned him any brownie points with anybody in the group, but telling Kai one on one might lend him in a more positive light. Not to mention, even if Kai did run his mouth as expected, having the same information come from anyone beside Damon might work out, too…
“I know you have a major problem with Wolfgang and everything, but…” Kai was saying. “Wouldn’t a dramatic confrontation paint a bigger target on your back? You’re bound to rub people the wrong way by going about things like this…”
“I didn’t realize you cared so much about my wellbeing.”
“No! I don’t. I-I mean, you’re supposed to be super smart and calculating, right? That’s like, your whole personality. So why would a guy like that intentionally provoke people into suspecting him?”
Damon supposes it was a fair question. “I was just pointing out the obvious. Well, I thought it was obvious, but seeing as how nobody else said anything, we probably don’t share the same thought processes.”
“Um, I’m lost. What’s ‘the obvious’?”
“Think about it: Wolfgang acts like he’s the beacon of trust and positivity, but he’s actively suggesting we discuss our blackmail - just not publicly.” Damon explains. “It’s the perfect setup to gather everybody’s information while maintaining plausible deniability. Since none of the dorms can be locked, privacy’s an unfunny joke in this building.”
A second passes, pulling into two. Damon watches as realization slowly dawns on Kai. He might’ve had to spell everything out to the letter; meaning so much for letting people come to their own conclusions, but it meant he wasn’t one hundred percent hopeless. Though the jury was still out for the matter.
“That’s…kind of scary, when you put it that way.”
“Didn’t I tell you I wasn’t the scariest person here? Welcome to reality.” he says. “It’s probably not as pretty as the dreamland you’re used to.”
He swallows. “I’m gonna ignore that…last part. Even so, couldn’t you be a little more…I don’t know,” Kai makes a concerted effort not to meet Damon’s eyes. “...subtle about it?
“Subtle? Like Eva?” Damon raises an eyebrow. Eva’s storyline of how their profiles could be misconstrued into incentive to murder had a premature ending, thanks to people who didn’t take well to being told what to do. “She wasn’t exactly successful, either.”
Mention of Eva seems to strike a nerve, and Kai’s expression darkens. “That’s entirely different. She lied about everything, starting with her talent.” His expression then turns surprisingly thoughtful, and he adds, “You know, I was kidding when I said being the Ultimate Mathlete was social suicide, but…well, you see how things worked out. Funny.”
The resounding silence that followed revealed that his choice of adjective was anything but accurate.
“You know what’s really funny?” Damon didn’t see exactly why he was saying more than he needed to, but something compelled him to nonetheless. Maybe it was because Eva made the effort to defend him earlier, or all because of the irony that two equally obsolete talents were quibbling over meaningless trivialities. “I figured you of all people would be empathetic.”
Kai doesn’t say so explicitly, but Damon had a feeling he had caught onto his meaning. “To…?”
“To why someone might feel the need to present themselves differently. Considering your expertise, and everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? My followers know who I am!” Kai says, somewhat irritatedly, but his lack of conviction speaks volumes. It was almost remarkable how he expressed every single thing he was thinking through his expressions, and while it may have made him successful as an influencer, it was bound to have the opposite effect in a killing game. And this was the same guy reminding him about subtlety. In a lower voice, he adds, “ Seriously , what’s with you and your obsession with talent…?”
“Everyone here is obsessed with talent. That’s the only reason we all have one. But if you want to talk about something else, I won’t push it.”
Kai looks uneasy. “What would we talk about instead…?”
“Maybe your obsession with constantly asking me if I’d kill you. You’re like a broken record.”
“Um, maybe because you keep hinting at it? It’s fucking stressful being near you! What if I get premature gray hair because of you?”
“As much as that would be the end of the world,” Damon pauses for emphasis. “Hypothetically speaking, wouldn’t it be the kinder death?”
“Dude, what is with you and murder hypotheticals? Scratch whatever I said about talents, I’ll take that any day over this. It’s literally all you ever want to talk about.” Kai shakes his head rapidly, causing his pink hair to fly together in a frenzy. “And fuck no, getting killed by you isn’t what I’d call a kind death. So don’t be getting any weird ideas!”
He stares. “I’m not talking about me.”
“Y-Yeah, right, like I’d buy that.” Kai hesitates. “But…?”
“But anyone brave enough to actually start committing crimes would’ve thought it through enough not to be caught, right? Everybody else will die either way, and I’m sure the type of people interested in orchestrating a whole game around killing would be infinitely more sadistic about it.” Damon says, gauging Kai’s reaction with each word. “You’ve said it yourself: I’m smart and overly calculating. But both of those things are reasons one to a million as to how I’ll be getting out of this alive. It might help you too, by being in vicinity.”
Damon pauses for a second, just as a fisherman would check to see if the fish had caught the bait. Hook, line, and sinker.
“Now you’re treating me like collateral damage,” Kai mutters, but he seems convinced nonetheless. “And I never said overly . You threw that in yourself.”
His tone heavily suggests this conversation was over. “Is that my cue to turn the lights off?”
“I don’t like the way you’re putting that, but one more thing…” his eyes narrow. “About Eva. You’re close with her, right? Did you already know about her real talent?”
“I didn’t. And we’re not close.” Damon says slowly at first, while his implication slowly reveals itself. For the first time, like ever, he had no idea where Kai was taking the conversation. “Why?”
“You just didn’t seem surprised.” Kai says, and Damon realizes he was on edge for no reason whatsoever. “If you ask me, Ultimate Liar suits her better. Given the way she acts and everything.”
“That’s only because that was the first thing you learned about her. Kinda sets the tone for everything you learn about her after the fact. It’s because her being the Ultimate Mathlete challenges that perception you have that makes you find it suspicious.”
“That’s because she is suspicious! You know, if the shoe fits.”
“Did you not hear a single word I said?”
“Yeah, but not really,” Kai says, and Damon feels a headache impending. A splitting one. “Psychoanalysis isn’t really my thing.”
“That wasn’t- forget it.”
He shuts the lights off shortly after. Kai’s room falls to complete darkness, once the irritatingly bright overhead light had been snuffed out. No windows…and Damon realizes only then that the entire facility had no windows, meaning no natural light. The courtyard had an overhead geodesic dome, which while it looked just like the real sky, it was just as artificial as everything else in the so-called school. Just like that weird mascot. Just like whatever semblance of normalcy everybody had forged within the last four days they’d been here.
After a long while, long enough that Damon had assumed Kai had given up on him, he says, “I still don’t trust you, you know.”
His voice rings out with startling clarity.
Eva’s words from earlier return to him; I can’t pinpoint exactly why, but…I trust you .
“Good. You’re better off not trusting anybody.” If you want to live, but the meaning was implicit, more effective going unsaid.
“But…” Kai hesitates, and his voice softens as if somebody would overhear. Damon can’t ignore how the security camera blinks red over the hallway exit. “I think I trust you a little more than I do Wolfgang now. Which is…seriously messing with my head.”
It directly went against the fundamental hierarchy Wolfgang worked hard to establish, so that much was a given. “‘Cause the devil you know is better than the one you don’t?”
“Kinda like the lesser of two evils? Something like that…”
-
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry!” Kai’s voice rang over him, slightly muffled by the pillow pressed between them.
The room felt warmer than it usually did, stiflingly so. Stifling enough to snuff out any trace of life.
Damon couldn’t respond. Having a pillow inhibit your breathing typically did that to you. The room smelled like vanilla. It was like stepping straight into a massive Bath and Body Works, distinctly not pleasant.
“I’m not really in a position to be making demands, but please don’t haunt me from beyond the grave! I so won’t forgive you…though maybe in this case I should be the one asking for forgiveness.”
Perfect. Even when he was at death’s door, Kai wouldn’t stop rambling about this or that. Damon had always agreed with the sentiment that the scariest thing about dying in a plane crash was hearing the other passengers losing their minds over it. Wasn’t dying in utter silence more peaceful?
But he wasn’t finished. “I know it’s not an excuse…but I can’t help it. I have to get out of here. You get it, right…?” The pillow gets pushed down more harshly, and his senses nearly shut off like faulty machinery. Kai’s tone changes from frantic gibberish to slow, uncharacteristically deliberate diction. “But you said it yourself. Getting killed is a kinder death.”
Not when he was the victim, though. Hypocrisy knew no ends in this facility, the environment basically drew it out of them.
“Damon? Are you alive?”
Not for much longer, he realized, but his morbid thoughts were being cut off by somebody shaking his shoulder.
He opens his eyes to see Kai hovering over him, looking semi-concerned, all things considered. Just a dream, though it was possible it’d come to fruition soon. And it was hard to look past the irony of having a dream about getting suffocated by your roommate, just for said roommate to be the one to wake you up from it.
He waves a hand over his face. “Damon!”
“Can you lower your voice? You’ll wake the whole floor up.” he asks, acting irritated to hide how caught off guard he was. “Why are you hovering over me, again?”
“It’s not my fault you sleep like the dead! Had me scared for a second. God…” Kai takes a few steps back, heading towards the connecting hallway. He casts an uncertain look back. “The morning announcement just finished, so…I’m heading to breakfast. You coming?”
Damon considers it for a second. “...Okay.”
Kai pauses. “Okay…?”
It wasn’t as if he had anything else better to do. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
-
That was what he’d said, but the minute he and Kai stepped outside of their dorm and rounded the corner towards the dining hall, he felt a shadowy presence behind him. A backwards glance back revealed Eva two steps behind them, a finger held up to her lips.
Damon gives her a questioning look, which she either didn’t see or deliberately chose to ignore. Kai was still telling him about some kind of multi-step skincare routine - or was it the importance of sunscreen? - even as he and Eva descended the stone steps to the basement, wordlessly. The only sound that permeated the corridor was the soft tapping of their shoes against concrete: hers, a squeaky rubbing sound between rubber soles; his, purely leather and metal taps.
Eva pulls him into one of the supply closets, but doesn’t immediately explain herself.
“Did you bring me to the dustiest corner of the school to kill me?” he asks matter of factly, even though he knew that wasn’t the case. “Get it over with, then.”
“Funny.” Eva responds in kind, but she doesn’t crack a smile. Damon was starting to think she was some kind of robot posing as a human, though he was sure he came off the exact same way.
“It’s a fair assumption to make,” he doubles down, crossing his arms. “We have to break this habit of meeting in the most inconspicuous places. It makes us both look suspicious.”
“It’s because I needed to talk to you alone. Duh .”
Damon really didn’t like it when she said that. It was sort of unbecoming, not that he knew exactly why.
“And you’ve gotten me this far.” he realizes too late this approach won’t get him far, and softens his tone. “Go ahead.”
Eva produces a familiar letter from her jacket pocket, and holds it up for him to see. Damon skims it quickly, all the letters were written in the same overtly suspicious monologue, anyway. With his weapons at hand, Desmond guards the only one he trusts.
“Somebody once said that people best put their money where their mouths are.” Eva says, pushing her thin wire frames up the bridge of her nose. Her expression is as unreadable as it always is - Kai was right, her title as the Ultimate Liar was only an effective lie because of how seamlessly it fit into her puzzle. “I said I trusted you, so I wanted to prove it.”
“And now you’re wondering if I’ve decided to trust you, too.”
“It’s a fair assumption to make, isn’t it?”
Another thing, he also really didn’t like it when she used his words against him.
“I’ve got basic courtesy, so I guess I’ll return the favor.” Damon was careful to never explicitly say he trusted her, too. He hadn’t reached the bottom of desperation where he’d tell outright lies just yet. He returns Eva’s envelope and summons his own. She snatches it from him and begins to scan it from top to bottom. “I wasn’t bluffing when I said I had Wolfgang’s.”
She doesn’t look up, and an uncomfortable beat passes them by. Damon shuffles his feet. “What do you make of it…?”
“I didn’t expect basic courtesy to be something you considered.” Eva says instead, extending the letter back to him. Damon supposes she wasn’t in the practice of answering questions she didn’t want to address.
“I’m just trying to make it out. You know, not dead , preferably.”
“We all are.” Her tone was light, but he still got the unsettling feeling she meant something else.
With the way this conversation was going, Damon could suddenly see parallels between this and his talks with his roommate. Unbalanced verbal sparring was inescapable in situations like these, where even something trivial could be the literal difference between life and death. Only in this case, he wasn’t playing himself, very much the opposite. He was placed in Kai’s position; perpetually a few steps behind, invariably unable to understand the other person’s point of view.
It was subtly infuriating; the kind of frustration that crept up on you until it was impossible to ignore. And so, he suddenly thinks of it. “Did you mean it?”
“Mean what?”
“What you said after the mock trial. That Ultimates are the type of people to do anything to further their own goals, which is only exacerbated by our talents.”
“You’d be foolish to think any other way.” Eva says decidedly. It was like speaking to his reflection. “But if what you said at the trial was any indication, you probably agree.”
“Right.”
Again with that. “Duh.”
“Duh…” he agrees slowly. Only one thing was clear from this conversation, despite her trying to extend an olive branch; trusting Eva Tsunaka would be a big mistake.
-
Damon didn’t have much business to do in the dining hall, but he didn’t really have business elsewhere, either. Even as he edged the door open, he could hear a plethora of voices, coming from every angle of the room.
“I know you have it! I’ve already eliminated everybody else as suspects.”
“U-Um, I really don't have it. Please don’t-”
“I don’t want to hear it! Hand it over!”
Grace was harassing Eloise about something or another in a raised voice, while all of the students listened in with mild interest and mildly defusing comments. On the other end of the room, Kai and Wolfgang seemed to be discussing something with intense focus, and Damon strained his ears to listen in.
“I understand you have many concerns,” Wolfgang was saying. “But I can assure you nothing will happen. None of us have enough incentive to act so early, we’ve only been here for four nights.”
Kai looks unconvinced. Damon supposes once the rose colored glasses came off, the saying became true; life is a comedy from a distance, but a tragedy up close. “About everyone’s secrets, though…is telling them privately really going to be okay?”
“Of course. I’m concerned about you, though. Will you be okay?”
“Y-Yeah. I’m just thinking about things I shouldn’t, probably.”
“You should think everything through. I have to ask, though…” Before he says another word, Wolfgang glances around the room and his gaze immediately grows negligibly harsher when he finds Damon. He supposes even their benevolent leader wasn’t immune to the throes of gossiping. Louder, he says, “Will you be joining us?”
But that was an immediate no go for him. Damon waves him off, and immediately turns around. He’d just have to find another way to fill his time.
-
“This has got to be beyond coincidence.” Damon says, nearing a familiar frame in the back of the pharmacy.
He’d had nothing to do all afternoon, so he inevitably returned to the place. Eva was hunched over rows and rows of prescription medications - none of which was behind lock and key, interestingly enough - but her long, monochromatic hair almost rendered her as one and the same with the painted tile floor. It was surprisingly effective camouflage.
“Coincidence? I’d prefer to say great minds think alike.” She brushes him off, standing up at her full height.
Lingering at the counter yet standing so close by, Damon realizes with a start that she wasn’t all that much shorter than him. A one inch height difference meant they were practically eye to eye.
“Do you believe in coincidences?” she asks.
“I can’t say I’ve thought too deeply about them,” he admits. “They’re a phenomenon that’s difficult to actively credit or discredit.”
“Then how likely is it a coincidence we’re both here for the same reason?”
It takes a second for her meaning to register. “Let me guess, you’re here to play gachapon?”
“You too, then?” Eva shoots back. Suddenly, her tone was a lot less effusive.
“You said it yourself, great minds think alike.” Damon beckons in the general direction of the cabinets. “You didn’t seem to be preoccupied with gachapon a minute ago, though. It’s in the other room.”
He points towards the doors leading to the connecting room, but Eva doesn’t look back. She meets his eyes evenly, instead. If he looked down, he noticed a cylindrical shape suspended within her jacket pocket; had he gotten here too late to catch her in the act? But she shoves her hands in her pockets and the indication vanishes just as quickly as he’d noticed it.
“It’s aspirin.” she tells him, in a firm tone.
“Ah. I was just looking at the floor. They’re painted, not tiled.” He replies pointedly, not caring that it was a weak lie. He gestures. “After you.”
Luck would have it that both he and Eva were here for the same reason, yet masquerading as otherwise. Nobody short of a socially unaware person would’ve been able to admit otherwise, but Damon had briefly considered it, if only to avoid the menial task of pretending to enjoy gambling away their only form of currency; Marabucks, which was just as arbitrary as its name.
Now that they were both here, they couldn’t both do as they wanted while maintaining a guise of plausible deniability. And despite their earlier declarations, the lack of trust couldn’t be more apparent. They were keeping each other in check; hoping yet realizing it was inevitable they’d both been made aware of the fact.
Feeling Eva’s weighted gaze behind him, Damon crouches in front of the dimly lit machine, and turns the dial. The machine gives off a little cheerful jingle, and outputs a box with an attached lever. One of those pointless wind up jester toys, if the illustration on the box was any indication.
“A shitty toy.” He holds it up for Eva to see for a brief second, and pockets it without minding if she’d actually gotten a good look. “Well, I’ve had enough fun for today. Have at it.”
She goes through the exact motions he’d done, and produces a miniature game console, modeled after a popular brand’s. Damon would’ve been surprised if its logo had mysteriously been wiped clean and replaced with goat related imagery.
“This has been productive.” She says even though Damon found it to be the singlehanded biggest waste of time he’d spent at the academy to date. At least the other students could take a hint and see he didn’t want to talk. Eva puts the console away, without having much to say about it. “I think I’m done for the day, too. Will you be heading upstairs?”
Damon realizes Eva was right about coincidences. They didn’t exist, at least not in their exact circumstances; and her repeated presence at the pharmacy and having already obtained something she was looking for said enough.
She was going to kill somebody.
There was absolutely no hiding that irrefutable fact.
And at this late stage, he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off her for one second. “After you.”
-
In addition to all aforementioned qualities, Damon’s roommate was also a bonafide bathroom hog. Whoever conjured the stereotype that girls took ages in the restroom had clearly never come into contact with the current Ultimate Influencer, who could’ve given any narcissist a run for their money.
Then again, Damon could’ve used the bathroom in his own dorm, but that was besides the point. There was something weird about taking a shower and making the laborious five second trek back to Kai’s dorm. Moreover, a decent amount of his meager belongings were here, and he masked any peripheral concerns under the suspicion that his things would be inspected.
“Bathroom’s all yours,” Kai tells him, passing him by in a flourish of sweet smelling shampoo. If the clock in the corner of the room was to be trusted, he'd have been in there for two entire hours. His flair for dramatics knew no end, and clearly permeated throughout every aspect of his life.
“With all the water you use in the shower, you could singlehandedly resolve climate change.” He says pointedly, unable to resist. “Ice caps are no match for you.”
Kai ignores him. Damon supposes rooming together for the past two nights had taught him a thing or two.
“Did you ever look in there, though?” he asks instead. “Somebody must’ve felt fancy when they added a whole bunch of amenities and whatnot.”
“Amenities?”
“Yeah, like bath bombs and scented oils.” Kai tilts his head. Just how superficial was this guy? Damon wanted to ask but he got the sense it wouldn’t go over well. “Honestly, it makes the whole place feel like a shitty motel trying to replicate a five star hotel.”
“Bath bombs…” Damon repeats slowly, having zero idea what that was supposed to entail. For him, showers meant nothing aside from getting in, out, and moving on with your life. He just knew Kai felt differently on the matter; which was a relatively small microcosm over how they were paradoxically incompatible. “It’s just another indication of the budget on this whole thing.”
Kai makes a sound of acknowledgement, and their conversation idles into a standstill. It didn’t seem like he had much intention to hold up his end of the piece, having fallen into an uneasy pattern oscillating between talking excessively and eerie silence. As for Damon, he’d never aligned any particular religious faith, but something beyond the both of them compelled him to say something.
“I saw you speaking with Wolfgang earlier,” he says delicately. “Anything interesting?”
“Were you eavesdropping? Seriously?” Kai scrambles to his feet, but changes his tone a second later. “...how much did you hear?”
Damon examines his fingernails. “Not much.”
“How much is not much?”
“Exactly what it means.” he says, unwavering.
“Be as cryptic as you want, but I’m not saying shit!” Not looking an ounce more relieved, Kai tentatively sits back down on the bed, creaking slightly under his weight. The pink atmosphere looks particularly threatening tonight. “Besides, wasn’t it you who said I’m better off not trusting anybody? ”
Kai finishes his spiel in an uncomfortably low octave, which Damon suspected was a bad imitation of his own voice. But he wasn’t interested in squabbling over petty matters, not given the subject matter.
“Wasn’t it you who said you trusted me a little more than Wolfgang?” Damon says deliberately, lowering his eyes. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume that’s no longer the case.”
“No! Well, that’s not not the case, but…” Kai hesitates. “D-Don’t try to make me look fickle!”
“I never said that, did I?” he reclines on his makeshift bed, hoping Kai didn’t notice anything was off. “But you should relax. I’m not trying to pick a fight.”
“You’re always trying to pick a fight…you can’t fight your own nature.”
“Seriously, I’m not.” His eyes flick around the room, trying to find a conversation topic to latch onto. Pointedly, he adds, “You didn’t ask me if I was planning on killing you today.”
“I didn’t. But I'm also not continuing this freaking morbid conversation.”
He could see he would get nowhere through this angle. “Then, your sweater. What’s the meaning of the…butterfly?”
He’d noticed it only a second before, despite the fact that all of their closets were filled with fifteen or so iterations of the same outfit…meaning it looked as though they never changed. In tiny pink thread, somewhere in the upper left vicinity sat a butterfly decal. It was the kind of detail you’d never notice unless you took a close look at him…which Damon hadn’t done prior to exactly now.
“Huh?” Kai flounders around as though he’d find the butterfly anywhere besides on his person. Even so, the question seemed to do the trick in diffusing the situation. “Oh, there’s no deep reason. I just thought it looked cool, so…I bought it.”
“Figures.” He realizes a beat too late; there was nothing diffusing about that comment.
“What’s that supposed to mean? You asked, so I told you the truth.” he looks flustered again. “If you think the truth is so lame, then come up with something better yourself!”
And so he does. “Just say it’s because you’re a social butterfly. At least you’d ward off the superficial accusation for a while.” Though that was not built to last, given his personality.
“Whatever…what about you, then?” Kai gestures, seemingly having forgotten all about it already. Damon supposes it must’ve been nice to have the memory capacity of a goldfish. One that wasn’t all too there, either. “I get the feeling there’s no happy story behind you choosing a snake of all animals…”
Damon glances down, and the green snake on his tie jumps out of him. He chooses a rare truth. “My parents sewed this pattern…that’s all.”
Kai crosses his arms. “And you said my story was boring.”
Irritation ticked away at him. This guy…could never just settle for an easy answer. “It’s because snakes are natural predators. Which is pretty fitting. Happy?”
“Only you would be pleased to be known as a predator,” he mutters. With soft steps, Kai steps over to the lightswitch and covers the room with an uneasy darkness. “‘Night, I guess.”
“ I’ll scream. I’ll scream bloody fucking murder!” Kai had told him before.
Damon wasn’t sure why it was crossing his mind now of all times.
He’d said other things too, like, “ But you said it yourself. Getting killed is a kinder death.”
Well, technically speaking, he hadn’t said that with his own mouth. But that fact was growing more and more irrelevant by the second.
And Eva was almost definitely going to make the first move tomorrow morning. Damon’s own terrible standing within the group didn’t bode well - he couldn’t exactly steer them from the wrong conclusion if they wouldn’t listen to a word he had to say. He’d be beyond useless in a setting that should’ve been his forte.
His head felt more weightless than it had in years. Even the minutes before a particularly contentious debate had never rendered him in this state. Then again, sleeping in somebody else’s room, on a cheap sofa whilst being surrounded by a killing game didn’t create the recipe for perfect sleep.
With his head numb, he silently stalks over to the bed and weaponizes the pillow.
Once again, he felt the same thing compelling him to say something. Sorry, it’s not personal, was already way too obvious and insincere. Though he didn’t know why he felt he owed sincerity - something he’d never had or would give to a single person in this game - to somebody who would be dead soon.
“I was wrong,” he decides on instead. “This isn’t a kinder death. Nothing about death is kind.”
Unsurprisingly, Kai doesn’t respond. He just struggles…until he doesn’t.
He goes limp shortly thereafter.
-
Damon generally prided himself for being pretty articulate; it went hand in hand with being the Ultimate Debater. But for the first time in his life, arguably in the moment he needed it most, he was totally blanking.
To absolutely nobody’s surprise but his own, talking a big game was nowhere near synonymous with seeing it through to the end. But he’d taken the irreversible first step. He shouldn’t have taken it. He shouldn’t have done the only thing he couldn’t take back, especially if he wasn’t going to be able to commit. He was desperate, sure, but everybody was and everybody’s desperation had limits. If Eva was going to kill she should go and get herself killed, like an inevitable fate. Her pride would’ve gotten her killed some time down the line, either way. As would Wolfgang’s distrust, hidden behind his shining veneer. Damon might’ve asked Kai if he hated him a lifetime ago, and he might’ve avoided answering completely, but the answer was now justifiably apparent. Maybe a little hatred could’ve saved them both. In his own case, it wasn’t so much that he doubted his own competency in maneuvering and outwitting the trial. That much was a given. But what was next? Would he return to his normal life, outside of Eden’s Garden Academy? Would he be able to look past what had happened here? He’d said too much. He’d done too much.
But he’d said it himself; what he’d done was irreversible. Short of inventing a time machine between the next twelve hours, there was really no veritable escape.
He places Kai in the bathtub and runs the tap. Turns out, a bath bomb is a sphere colored obnoxious hues, which dyes the water into equally obnoxious colors. Damon really wished it was under different circumstances that he was learning that information, but he had nobody but himself to blame for that. But to the untrained mind, asphyxiation and drowning wouldn’t look like completely adverse causes of death. If the game’s structure was to be trusted, the tablet that contained all of the death’s details wouldn’t spoil the ending, either. Using the wind-up jester toy he’d won from the gachapon this afternoon, he hung it from the top of the door, and wound up the toy such that it would lock the door behind him. After performing some simple calculations, it worked out perfectly. A locked room mystery. The bathroom doors locked, even if the exterior dorm ones couldn’t. In retrospect, he should’ve taken uncomfortable nights in his own bathroom over engaging in the buddy system thing. But for now, nobody would be any the wiser, as long as he secured an alibi properly tonight.
He’d be out by tomorrow morning. He reminded himself of this fact over and over again; he’d be out by tomorrow morning.
-
Damon knocks on Jean’s door - to his knowledge, Desmond and he had been bunking in this room. He was briefly curious about how things would’ve turned out differently if the results of their faraway game of rock-paper-scissors had changed, but he couldn’t afford to contemplate on things that would never happen in reality.
Desmond opens the door a moment later. “Damon, hey. What’s up?”
His tone is casual; once upon a time Damon thought it was forced politeness.
“I have a…favor to ask.” His eyes slide to the ground, and he shifts the bundle of clothes a little higher. “Kai’s taking a long time in the shower…even when I knocked, there was no answer. Do you mind if I borrow yours?”
“Hm? Uh, sure. No problem.” Desmond’s mild smile falters, but returns fully without missing a beat. “Come in.”
-
“It’s not that I mind you using the shower, but…” Desmond says, when Damon finally reappears in the common space. “But couldn’t you have used your own? I’m sure you’d be more comfortable there.”
Jean’s bathroom was bereft of all the fancy additions Kai’s dorm had boasted. Something about its normality was reassuring. Damon lingers awkwardly in the front of the dorm, wanting to leave but feeling he’d have to stay for at least a few minutes. He could almost feel an interrogation impending, though knowing Desmond, it’d be framed as chit-chat instead.
“The water pressure in my dorm is off.” Damon tells him, spinning a new lie in real time. “Sorry for the…inconvenience.”
“No worries.” Desmond holds up his hands.
Despite his easy going front, Damon couldn’t believe Desmond didn’t have some suspicions of his own. That disarming smile must’ve hidden more perception than he let on. Great…he’d better hope his act of securing an alibi wouldn’t prove to be his undoing.
“Uh…where’s Jean?” The pirate guy in comparison seemed infinitely easier to throw off.
Desmond answers him easily. “Moving furniture with Cassidy and Jett.” When neither of them manage to say much else, he asks, “Did you have something you wanted to say…?”
Between the two of them, one of them had always been better and holding up their end of the conversation. Three guesses but you’d only need one.
“Yes, actually,” Damon says deliberately. “I learned something recently. About you.”
His tone maneuvered the thin line between being curious and outright pushy. “That being…?”
“Eva has your blackmail.”
“What?”
“I said, Eva has your blackmail.”
“No, I heard you, but…” Desmond lingers on the word for a second. “Did you see it for yourself?”
He could already tell he didn’t trust a word from him. This day was going from bad to worse. “I can do you one better. I can tell you what it says, word for word.”
Desmond looks mildly amused, if anything. “Okay. Shoot.”
He could see the letter in his head with startling clarity. “‘With his weapons at hand, Desmond guards the only one he trusts.’ ” He takes a breath, trying to relax. “I don’t expect you to share yours, but I just thought you’d want to know.”
Desmond didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned. Effect: zero. Damon was sure it had everything to do with the messenger rather than the material. But he wasn’t here to become best friends forever with Desmond, quite the opposite.
He kills the smile on his face when he realizes he isn’t joking. “Damon, you okay? You seem…kinda off.”
Stifling his anxiety took surprising willpower. Spending so much time with Kai must’ve made him more transparent; he could’ve sworn he was never like this out in the real world.
“Yes.” He replies stoutly, a beat too early.
“You sure?” Gentle probing was still probing, and probing was invasive in his books.
“I’m just…worried about my own blackmail.”
Desmond at least has the courtesy not to call him out on his obvious lie. “I get it. Have a good night.”
But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t go and tell his roommate about it later tonight - or the whole group.
-
As much as Damon had no interest in sharing a room with a recently deceased person, he had little choice in the matter. Staying here tonight would probably be the most compelling piece of evidence that pointed towards his innocence, since no sane person would willingly bunk with a corpse. Except him. Maybe Kai was spot on in calling him a sociopath.
Everything he did was just making things worse for him in the long run, starting with his method of killing and down to his utter failure to unsettle Desmond earlier. Like some messed up version of a butterfly effect.
Sleep doesn’t come easy, or at all. It had felt more like he’d existed in some suspended limbo state between conscious and unconsciousness, maintaining the same weightless feeling he’d felt last night until now. Even so, he opens his eyes to a thunderous knocking on the other side of the door.
Admittedly, it freaked him out. Why wouldn’t it?
It was only Cassidy, though, looking much too chipper for the early morning. “Damon, what is this behavior?”
He puts up an unimpressed face. “What is?”
“You do know that a man’s word is binding, right? Are you a man or not?”
“I am, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t promise anyone shit.” He reconsiders his word choice. “I mean, anything.”
“Uh, what are you even talking about?” Cassidy glances away. “The tourney? How could you forget?”
“Tourney…” Maybe it’d been the events of last night, but any mention of a tournament had been wiped clean from his mind. “Refresh my memory.”
“Oh, you’re hopeless! Point is, Kai put both of your names on the bracket, so we have to go now. Now!”
Under normal circumstances, Damon would have avoided outings like this like the plague. But these weren’t normal circumstances, and the name of the game was getting suspicion off his back. “I get it, so lower your voice. I think you just gave me tinnitus all at once.”
“And there’s more where that came from if you don’t hurry up!”
An idea blooms in his mind. Only, it wasn’t something beautiful like a cherry blossom, it was more predatory like a Venus Flytrap. One of the few predatory - and carnivorous - plants. Damon wouldn’t go as far as to say Cassidy was the fly on the verge of being eaten…but that was the most apt metaphor.
“Okay, okay. Give me a second to brush my teeth, and we’ll go.” Damon knocks on the bathroom door, knowing full well there'd be no response. “Can you hurry it up in there? You’ve been in there all morning.”
An uncomfortable beat of silence trickles by.
“Hello? Are you alive?” He asks again, more firmly. He rethinks that, again, turning to Cassidy. “Sorry, that wasn’t funny.”
She nods along impatiently.
“Answer or I’m opening the door. You’ve got three seconds.” Damon says. “Three.”
He glances back at Cassidy, who seems to give her approval. She seems more concerned with the game tournament than anything else.
“Two.”
She loses her patience. “Out of the way, I’ll just kick the door down!”
“...one.” he mutters, anyway.
And she does. It was sort of surprising how quickly she was willing to give in when it came to invading someone’s privacy. She didn’t even last two seconds, literally speaking.
She does, but it wasn’t effective whatsoever. It seems to have hurt her more than the door, anyway.
“You could only do that last time because the doors were unlocked, remember?” Damon asks, disinterested eyes hiding a flurry of emotion.
“Yeah, but,” she frowns. “Usually people wouldn’t just say nothing at the sound of somebody trying to kick the door down. You don’t think something happened, do you?”
He wants to look away, but he forces himself to maintain eye contact. “...Let’s not jump to the worst possibility.”
But even Cassidy’s careless tone has slipped away and been replaced with a more serious one. “Should we get the others?”
“...Yeah. I think we should.”
Locating Jean, Jett, Mark, Eva and Grace in the dining hall was easy. Even easier yet was convincing them to check out the dorm room. Cassidy returned a few moments later with other students in tow, but Wolfgang and Diana were mysteriously absent. Aside from that, based on the way Eva couldn’t seem to maintain eye contact with anyone - just like Damon couldn’t - told him more than he needed to know. Nothing he didn’t already know, but confirmation wasn’t as satisfying as he thought it’d be.
Nothing about this was as satisfying as he assumed. It was one of the few times his assumptions were off base.
The overhead speakers crackle to life. “A body has been discovered. Please make your way to Kai Monteago’s dorm at your nearest convenience …”