…

Raise. Fold. Call.

There wasn’t any point in doing heavy mental calculations at this stage of the game. Based on Kai’s decisions, it didn’t appear as if he was doing anything that clearly showed he was using his [Scanner], either because he didn’t need to, or because he didn’t want me to find out.

Stella seemed to be the most unpredictable one, raising weird amounts of chips each time.

Tina revealed the turn card.

—Two of Diamonds

Neither a necessarily good nor bad card for me.

“Check.”

“Check.”

Looking anxiously at Kai, Tina flipped the river card. There was a moment of silence, in fact, no one moved.

I looked up at Kai, who seemed to be controlling his expression seamlessly.

I guess we’ll see how this goes. These next plays were going to have several layers in them. I wonder how far Kai would be able to see.

—Ace of Hearts

I sure was pretty lucky today. There was a straight in my hand.

“Check.”

I couldn’t take for certain that Kai could see my cards using his [Scanner], but if he did decide to, his check would be an attempt to bluff me into thinking he had a strong hand. Otherwise, he would’ve simply folded.

However, the fact that he didn’t raise or go all-in likely meant that he was trying to keep some subtlety to his manoeuvre.

Sigh.

It would be more of a hassle to me right now if I won, but I guess I could make it a little less obvious.

“Raise.”

His expression changed ever so slightly. I guess he was trying to read me.

“All-in.”

He had already lost.

If I wanted to, I could simply call his all-in and win. I guess this was his last test for me.

“Fold.”

I dropped my cards on the table.

He looked at me in shock, pulling himself up from his seat. The girls around the table all stared at him with concern. I guess he doesn’t make expressions like this one a lot.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

There was a moment of silence.

He dropped his cards on the table as well.

“Akira, why did you fold?”

“I guess it was just a miscalculation.”

“That’s not possible. No normal person would fold with a straight in their hand.”

“I’m just not that familiar with poker, that’s all.”

Kai turned to Josephine.

“Switch with Wendy and go get us something to drink,” he changed his attention to me, “do you want something, Akira?”

“I’m fine.”

“Seriously, anything.”

I might as well get something then.

“I’ll just have a coffee.”

“A coffee it is then. Josephine, get one from the vending machine.”

“Alright, and the usual for you?”

“Obviously. Now go.”

Tina began to shuffle the cards again.

Since it was getting a little hotter in the room, Stella took off her jacket and hung it on the back of her chair. That’s when I saw what was on her arm.

It was a tag—0067—from the Ideal Human Project.

Was she showing that to me on purpose?

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

[Josephine POV]

Why is Kai being mean to me again, I don’t think I did anything wrong during poker. Did he not want me to fold so early? I don’t know…

I started to run, quickly making my way through the halls. I didn’t want to make Kai wait for too long. I thought he’d started to like me, but now it’s like the first time we met all over again. He didn’t make any sense.

How am I supposed to make him like me?

Oh no, they changed the drinks in the vending machine again!

I scanned through the drinks a few more times… the coffee was definitely gone. It still had Calypso Sweat—Kai’s drink, but he definitely wouldn’t be happy with just that.

This Akira guy, I don’t know why Kai is so interested in him.

It was almost like Kai saw him as an equal—a friend, even.

Ah… I’ll have to go down to the 600th floor to get the coffee. That’s going to take so long… what am I going to do? It was expensive too.

POINTS

Your current points: 4,295

Current Rank: #73,581

I only had the leftovers from the last time Kai asked me to buy something. This definitely wasn’t going to be enough to get a coffee from that floor, I might be able to afford one on the 150th floor, but I don’t remember.

I guess I’ll just go down and see…

The vending machine silently pushed a Calypso Sweat down into its collection area. I stuck my hand inside the little flap and grabbed it out. The cold condensation on the edge of the bottle covered my hands. Ah, it’s slippery too.

I ran to the elevator and took it down.

*

“…I’ll just have a choc-chip muffin and an orange juice, thanks.”

“…That’ll be…”

The boy in front of me was ordering something, I could hardly even hear what they were saying.

Ah, I have no idea if I have enough Points. There were so many people lining up that I didn’t have time to look at the prices. Why did it have to perfectly be lunch time right now?

What was I going to do if I didn’t have enough?

“…hello? You there, what’s your order?”

Ah, shit, I didn’t even realise they were waving at me.

“U-um, yeah, I’ll have a coffee, please.”

“That’s 5,000 Points.”

Oh no…

I’m really going to cry.

No, I can’t, that’ll be so embarrassing…

But I could already feel the tears welling in my eyes.

“—don’t worry, I’ll cover it.”

Huh?

…

Everything was a blur in that moment. But I was sitting beside this blonde-haired, pretty girl who had just bought the coffee for me.

I didn’t know why she did that… but it saved me.

“T-thank you so so much. I don’t know what I was doing, I-I—”

“Don’t worry about it. You seem to be struggling. I’m Erika, what’s your name?”

Erika, you’re an angel.

“Thank you very much, Erika. I’m really sorry but I need to go somewhere now.”

“Ah, that’s alright, take care of yourself!”

Take care of myself?

How could I possibly do that?

I just want Kai to like me.

Do you really like him?

Or do you just want his attention?

Weak people cling to the strong, after all.

[Josephine POV END]