I woke up breathless and in a cold sweat, my hand clutching the skin around my heart to remind myself how my own pulse felt. Visions of a forest set ablaze flickered in and out of my head like a dying light bulb - Yeah, that’s a pretty apt description for the pounding migraine in my head: Harshly bright and distractingly inconsistent.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” spoke a familiar voice on the other side of the bed. “Most fortunately, it appears that we are still alive.”

  “Speak for yourself…” I grumbled, staring aimlessly at the ceiling of our hotel room. “You’re not the one with a splitting headache right now.”

  A quiet clatter as Shiraki lifted a glass off the nightstand certainly wasn’t making the headache much better. “Be careful dishing out advice that would be better off sent inwards,” Shiraki replied with a mouthful of water. “I, for one, have endured a fierce battle with a headache of my own for some time now. Four paracetamol later, and I’ve barely felt a change.”

  The unimpeded *smack* of my hand against the empty nightstand to my side gave me about the results I expected. “Be careful you don’t overdose, Shiraki. It’s extremely easy to take too much of that stuff by accident.”

  “You fret too much on my behalf, my friend,” Shiraki nonchalantly told me as I heard him unscrew the lid off a completely separate bottle of pills. “Where there is pain to kill, a painkiller there shall be…”

  “I’ll take it that Shiraki Architecture and Finance lacks a pharmacology branch.” After a minute of gazing up at the ceiling, something began to bug me. The branch-like cracks in the ceiling… they’d been patched up. “Hey, Shiraki… did you-”

  “Indeed I have.” In typical fashion, Shiraki had no issue assuming what the rest of my sentence would be and interrupting before he could confirm his suspicions. “Though I may be a first timer, even I could discern such an obvious renovation.”

  I put my hands down on the mattress to push myself up off the bed, finally taking a long survey of the hotel room. Each and every piece of furniture was nearly spotless. The tile in the shower was completely untouched. Even the brown paint coating the walls was a few shades less drab. “Holy shit…” I thought aloud with glee. “Shiraki, our hypothesis! It was spot on!”

  Shiraki followed me into the bathroom to adjust his tie in the mirror. “Shall we upgrade your hypothesis to ‘theory’ status?” He pulled out a small spray bottle and started spritzing his hair with water, fixing his bangs so they would go back to properly hanging messily in front of his right eye. “This marks three successful reversions, does it not?”

  The face staring back at me in the mirror looked just as elated as I was. “I guess it does.” When I returned to the room proper, I found my phone laying face down on the floor. Upon picking it up, a red battery icon flashed at me, obscuring the new face that greeted me in the reflection. This time, it seemed a hair less satisfied with life. “Oh, come on… Don’t tell me I forgot to charge you last night…”

  “I’m feeling quite fine, thank you very much,” Shiraki hollered from the bathroom. “But if you were referring to somebody else, my phone charger is plugged into the outlet underneath the lamp.”

  Following Shiraki’s vague instructions - Seriously, how many lamps does one room need? - I connected the long, white cord to the port in my phone and waited impatiently for the screen to light back up. In the meantime, my eyes continued to wander all around the room, picking up another minute detail with each swipe of the eyes; Slight gothic touches on the trim of the furniture, the way that it all complimented Shiraki’s suit jacket that hung on the coat rack, and a golden insignia carved into nearly everything in the room that looked oddly familiar… but I wasn’t quite sure where I’d seen it before.

  Before I could rack my brain for any longer, my phone screen lit up the whole lower half of my field of vision so brightly that I considered catching up to Shiraki on the paracetamol race. Thankfully, my muscle memory for turning down the screen brightness put a swift end to that problem. I had about two seconds to catch a glimpse of the time before my screen became flooded with message after message.

[Text Message: Aiko Matsuura]

“hey”

“hey hey”

“...don’t make me say it a third time (⦩_⦨)”

[Text Message: Ryu Kase]

“ok normally i dont look at peoples phones but”

“dont tell aiko that shes technically already said it three times”

“anyways, can you and suits meet us down at the lodge”

“im sure you know why”

[Text Message: Taisuke Endo]

“Hey, big shot, pick up the phone, will ya?”

“Come onnnnn, you said you would help me with my physics homework.”

  I had absolutely no memory of any such thing.

“Alright. Fine. I see where I stand.”

“I hope you know that I’m about to break the laws of thermodynamics because of you.”

“Just so you’re aware.”

  God, he can be such a drama queen.

“You can just tell me you miss me, you know.”

“And put my masculinity at risk? Pfft! No thank you!”

“I don’t think you’re fooling anyone, Taisuke”

“Gotta keep up my image, dude.”

“If you have an image, it’s transparent.”

  “I recall somebody not getting any reception out here.” Shiraki stepped out of the bathroom, obviously referring to the endless stream of vibrations coming from my cell phone.

  “Yeah, yeah… Like yours was much better.” Even though I was blowing him off, Shiraki had a point. Looking at the top right corner of my phone screen, I had near perfect reception - and, clearly, so did Ryu and Aiko.

  After a quick shower, I decided it would be a better idea to think about this with everyone else present.

  For the first time, I could see out the windows in the hallway, giving Shiraki and I an excellent view of the garden in the center of the hotel’s main building. The carpets were completely clean and mold-free, the sounds coming from the ice maker were much less frightening, and the elevator finally had a door that wasn’t easily torn open. I’m certain there were dozens of other changes to take note of on our journey back to the lodge, but we’ve definitely kept our friends waiting for long enough as is.

  Stepping through the sleek, automatic sliding doors, I was a bit shocked to find that the lodge appeared largely unaltered. Sure, it had clearly been touched up in some places - namely, the placemats were white instead of brown - but nearly every difference I found was oddly inconsequential. Ryu and Aiko were even sitting in the exact same chairs as they did the previous morning during breakfast, deep in conversation and unaware of my presence. “…good morning?”

  Aiko practically jumped out of her seat like a cartoon character at the sound of my voice. “Gosh… You scared the daylights outta me!” She hurriedly reached up to fix her hair clip with what appeared to be another identical pair of gloves. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”

  “Yeah, probably ‘cause that door doesn’t squeal like a pig anymore.” Ryu sat entirely unfazed, taking an uncomfortably large bite out of an apple. “You know, I really like what we’ve done with the place. Feels pretty chic in here now, huh?”

  “Ugh… please never say that word again…” Aiko groaned as she sank her head. “You’re gonna make me sick…”

  I leaned against the chair next to Aiko and rested my forearms on the back. “Good to see both of y’all in high spirits.” From where I stood, I got a clear view of the front desk which now bore the same gold insignia as the furniture in my room. A golden crown with a pair of antlers… Where the hell have I seen this before?

  “Other than the dull headache I woke up with, I’d like to agree.” Ryu stared off into space while spinning the key ring to their room around his finger. “On the plus side, all our dirty clothes were clean when I woke up for some reason, so there’s that.”

  Aiko was giggling and covering her mouth with her hands. “Pfft… Finally, Genjo did his laundry for the first time!”

  “Hey!” I interjected, purposely messing up Aiko’s bangs. “Why do you keep bringing that up?”

  “Because it’s really funny how red your cheeks get when I do, you goofball.” Aiko started tugging on the sleeve to my red jacket as she blew straight up to reset her bangs. “If you want me to cut it out, you’re gonna have to-”

  All of us turned our heads in sync at the sound of the automatic door at the front of the lodge sliding open and then immediately shutting. Strange. Nobody came through. All arriving at that same thought simultaneously, our heads spun around our necks looking for a person that should’ve butted their way into the conversation by now.

  “…Where’d Shiraki go?” I muttered as if it even needed asking.

  Aiko let go of my sleeve. “Probably to check on the car again, if I had to guess.”

  “Or…” Ryu tapped his fingers against the table. “What if Suits is about to leave us stranded here?”

  “Oh, quit it…” Aiko smacked the apple out of his hand, hitting it up into the air and catching it with her other hand. “Let’s give Jouto a little more credit than that.”

  I sauntered over to the front of the lodge. “Only one way to find out, right?”

  Ryu begrudgingly followed. “Let’s hope he’s not burnin’ rubber out there.”

  As the door slid open, letting in a cool breeze from outside, we became first hand witnesses to Jouto Shiraki… standing there. Just… standing. Even with his gold sunglasses blocking his eyes from view, it was weirdly obvious where his gaze was fixed; He was just quietly looking at the lodge from afar.

  “Hey, Suits!” Ryu shouted from the edge of the parking lot. “What’s the holdup? You're skimping out on us for breakfast?”

  “Oh, that’s quite alright…” Shiraki was uncharacteristically still, leaning against his car in solitude. “My plan was to rendezvous with you three around lunchtime, as matter of fact.”

  Ryu’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “Right… because you obviously have your morning itinerary completely booked.”

  Originally lagging a bit behind, Aiko skipped right past Ryu and I straight towards Shiraki and his car. “Whatcha doin’ out here, Jouto? You’re not ready to leave already, are you?”

  Shiraki started to rhythmically tap his foot against the pavement. “What would be the issue with leaving now? Our mission was accomplished, was it not?”

  “Yeah, but…” I reached into my pocket for an MP3 player that wasn’t inside it. “We all left our stuff in the rooms. Are we not even gonna bother checking out?”

  “Not sure if you recall last night,” Shiraki muttered quietly, scratching at the center of his tie. “But the only… ‘person’ who worked here is no longer present.”

  Aiko puffed out her cheeks. “Jouto, you’re acting kinda fishy… What’s with the rush?”

  For the first time, Shiraki finally turned his head to look down at the freshly laid asphalt. “Let’s just get a move on… alright?” He sounded completely dejected - The last emotion I ever thought I’d use to describe one of the most eccentric people I know.

  “Well, if you insist.” I turned to head back into the lodge, and everyone followed somberly. It was no use fighting it. If the guy who drove us here was ready to leave, who were we to stop him? But why not just grab your bags and leave? What was the point of standing out here?

  Once again, our trains of thought all arrived at the same station. Ryu, Aiko and I all looked up at the roof of the lodge together, and his true motive for coming out here alone suddenly became clear.

‘The Final Retreat - by Shiraki Inn & Suites’.

  We all stopped dead in our tracks. In an instant, countless puzzle pieces fell into place. Only one member of the group continued to walk towards the lodge before stopping, removing his sunglasses, and facing us underneath the roof of the House that bore his name.

  Jouto Shiraki could only bow and let out a deep sigh. “…I suppose an explanation is long overdue.”

~

  Yet, somehow, this explanation was certainly taking its sweet ass time.

  The three of us were all spread throughout the lodge with our luggage at our sides, unsure of when - or if - Shiraki was going to come down and speak to us. Ten slow, drawn-out chimes rang out from the grandfather clock that was sitting uncomfortably close to the fireplace. Little to no words were exchanged during the thirty minutes that we all sat in the lodge - Aiko’s eyes were glued to her phone and the multiple days worth of notifications she’d missed, and Ryu was sprawled in the rocking chair, attempting to get every little second of shuteye he could manage. If not for the obnoxious volume of the grandfather clock, I’m sure he would’ve gotten an incredible nap in during the wait.

  I kept the rear automatic door in the background of my vision as I mindlessly scrolled through the dozens - if not hundreds - of albums on my MP3 player, not realizing until this very moment just how few of them I actually listened to on a regular basis. Half of them I barely even recognized, most likely finding their way onto my hard drive via Taisuke’s various mixtapes he would pass around at school. Fumio and I were the only kids outside of Taisuke’s grade that ever got our hands on them, let alone actually gave them a listen. After a while, one of the teachers must’ve dug up some obscure rule somewhere deep within the student code of conduct, because eventually he was forced to stop handing them out at all. While I don’t revisit most of those tapes now, I felt my eyes start to wet at the distant memory of the last time I found one of those blank CDs in my locker labeled, ‘Bump This, Vol. 13’.

  After running out of notifications to check, Aiko pulled a few sheets of lime green and lemon yellow origami paper out of her handbag and began haphazardly folding it into various unknown shapes and prisms that I think even Dr. Chen in Intermediate Calculus wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the nomenclature for. The longer I watched Aiko recklessly folding the papers together, the more I noticed just how frequently the thin layer of lace fabric acted as a protective barrier between her hands and a thousand papercuts. Nothing about her technique made any sense from afar, but I realize that I was about as qualified to speak on origami technique as I was to officiate a marriage.

  I felt a twitch in the corner of my right eye when the door slid open with a quiet swoosh, bearing witness to Shiraki’s far-from-grand entrance as he picked at the stray hairs that were failing to stick up with the rest of his bangs. My own bangs didn’t appear to look much better via the reflection in the silver casing of his pocket-sized mirror, the difference being that I had spent approximately half an hour less of my morning on mine. Honestly, it was a miracle that he even managed to make it all the way through the door with his luggage in tow with how fixed his gaze was upon the mirror. Given the way that his suitcase rolled alongside his walking pace at almost identical velocity, I doubt this was within the first 200 times he’s attempted this.

  “Oh, hurry up already!” Aiko groaned, tossing her spatially incomprehensible origami prism at Shiraki, knocking the mirror right out of his hand.

  Shiraki let out a high-pitched shriek as he lunged for the mirror before it could collide with the ground, slamming it shut and shoving it back into his coat pocket with a sigh of relief. “I don’t believe that was called for, Ms. Matsuura-”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass if it was called for!” she shouted back, quelling the frustration that was clearly trying to slip its way out through her words. “How dare you make us wait on you, sitting on our asses and twiddling our thumbs while you don’t even have the decency to fix your damn hair first??”  Aiko stormed up to Shiraki, attempting to stare him down from the several inches she stood beneath him. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself for keeping a woman waiting, young man! Ashamed, I tell you!”

  An oddly shaken Shiraki took a step back and bowed graciously, likely doing so to momentarily hide the quiver in his lip. “M-My deepest apologies, my friends. I…” And just like that, he stood up straight once more, not a hint of apprehension anywhere to be seen. “I was simply preparing for what I presume may become a rather… lengthy discussion.”

  “Is it really that complicated, though?” I sat up straight, fiddling with the lock switch on my MP3 player. “I mean, how long could it possibly take to explain everything?”

  Shiraki meandered towards the fireplace, leaning his elbow up on the mantle. “Before we begin, I’d like to set the record straight on one point of contention in particular - While I did intend on discussing this with you all at some point, I’m deeply sorry for my dishonesty, as well as all of the potential damage it has likely done to your trust in me as an individual. For that, I cannot begin to-”

  “Woah, man,” Ryu pushed himself up off the rocking chair, twisting his back from side to side to crack nearly every bone in his body. “Look, we get it. I’m sure you weren’t lyin’ just for the sake of it.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Aiko picked her origami masterpiece off the floor and put it away in her handbag. “What we’re all confused about is-”

  “Why?” I blurted out, all three of us asking in unison. “Why leave out something like that in the first place?”

  Shiraki avoided eye contact with me, his line of sight turning to the golden insignia carved into the mantle above the fireplace and the tip of his finger tracing along the left antler.

  “I mean,” I leaned forward, my face inching ever closer to the heat emanating from the fire. “...You had to have known, right? I really doubt that this place being labeled ‘Shiraki Inn & Suites’ was a coincidence.”

  He raised an eyebrow and slowly turned his head towards my direction. “Well, surely you’ve all heard of ‘Shiraki Inn & Suites’ before-”

  “That’s not the point, Shiraki.” Ryu’s head sunk into his hands briefly. “What he means is… What was the point of keeping that information hidden from us at all?”

  After a fairly long pause, Shiraki clenched his fist, gritted his teeth, and faced me head on. “I think a more apt question would be,”

  “...Why go through all this effort?”

  He paced around the lodge as he spoke, his eyes wandering and fixating on nothing in particular. “I don’t believe he needs any introduction, but my father - Toshiro Shiraki - is the most famous architect in all of Japan. His father before him - Akito Shiraki - served as the Minister of Finance for a record 2,500 days as of his tenure. And his father…” Shiraki stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath before continuing. “My point is, the Shiraki lineage is one of grand accomplishments throughout history, even in the face of adversity and destruction.” He bent down and once again traced his finger along the antlers growing from the crown on the golden insignia on the front of the concierge desk. “...We shed our weaknesses and grow back stronger. Such is the way of the Shiraki name.”

  “My mother - Chisato Shiraki - is of similar upbringing, born and raised by two of the nation’s wealthiest investors who made their fortune during the rise of the booming electronics industry, most notably the unveiling of the Compact Disc in the 1970’s. Most of her family’s wealth can be attributed to many such moments throughout the mid-to-late 20th century. Along the way, she met my father at a business conference in the year 1996, where they both immediately identified the ambition that radiated from one another, deciding right then and there that they would work together to create something the world had never seen before… and thus,” Shiraki took a business card out of his pocket that bore the matching insignia seen all over the lodge. “Shiraki Architecture and Finance was born.”

  “Okay, respectfully, where are you going with this?” Aiko chimed in. “I thought this was supposed to be about the hotel-”

  “Taking advantage of an opening in the hotel market around that time,” Shiraki rambled on, completely oblivious to Aiko. “My father seized the opportunity by designing schematics for affordable luxury hotels all across Japan, the costs kept down thanks in part due to my mother’s expertise in the optimization of production costs by balancing the affordability of resources as well as the appearance of luxury to the average consumer. By the turn of the century, the name Shiraki had gone from one known only to those invested in the world of politics to a household name all across our side of the Pacific. My parents’ business began further expansion into various-”

  “A-Again, not to cut you off, but…” I expressed with as little rudeness as I could manage. “Where does this hotel come in, exactly?”

  Shiraki paused, tapping a finger against his chin while darting his eyes all across the ceiling before continuing. “Ah! That’s right - ‘The Final Retreat’. This resort was my father’s attempt to move into the overseas market, aiming to capture the natural beauty of Lake Tahoe and provide a luxury resort for those looking to stay for an extended period of time on ski trips and the like. A long term hotel was built in addition to various individual and isolated cabin rentals to cater to many different types of guests year round.”

  Why did it sound like he was doing a sales pitch just now? I gently ran my finger along the stitching of the couch cushion. “So… how exactly did the luxury ski resort turn into a… um-”

  “A sex hotel?” Ryu interjected.

  I coughed to clear my throat and release the knot in my chest. “R-Right, a sex hotel.”

  “Quite an interesting development, as a matter of fact.” Shiraki leaned the bottom of his shoe up against the door to the quarters formerly belonging to Ellen Xavier. “Most blamed the global recession, but Shiraki Inn & Suites as a brand didn’t suffer quite as much as you’d expect. Sure, bookings decreased among lower class patrons, but the upper class that got hit rather hard by the economic crisis ended up turning to our brand more often, as it was seen as the ‘affordable luxury’ alternative. This kept our own financial situation from worsening too badly during that period. The Final Retreat, however…”

  Shiraki eventually returned to the area of the lodge surrounding the fireplace, resting his arm on the opposite side of the mantle in which he stood prior. “It was quite the ambitious project from its very conception, and was decided upon during a board meeting that it would be the first asset on the chopping block lest the financial crisis get dire.” He visibly grimaced at the very thought, let alone the upcoming reality he knew he had no choice but to share. “My father was… quite reluctant to give up on the project, to say the least. The cabin rentals were the first to go, as the cost of upkeep was getting more expensive than their net revenue. Consequently, long term bookings became practically non-existent outside of the winters. Most other seasons, the majority of bookings were… incredibly short term. So, in a last ditch effort, my father took an incredible risk by rebranding the resort entirely.”

  Aiko looked up from folding a small yellow origami heart. “So that’s why it got converted into a sleazy love hotel, huh?” she asked with a hint of disgust in her tone, like she was trying to avoid actively gagging as she spoke.

  “My father phrased it rather differently, but yes.” Shiraki silenced a call coming in through his earpiece as he stared into the raging fire. “The ‘House for Heavy Hearts’ was an initiative born out of desperation; One man’s unwillingness to concede control over a project he believed in more than anybody else.” He reached up and quickly silenced another call soon after. “Four years ago, an article from a local paranormal news outlet ‘slandering’ his business was the final straw - the one that made him decide to pull the plug. He never officially sold off the property, but rather abandoned all association with the hotel, severing any ties between it and the Shiraki brand.” Shiraki lifted his head and turned back around to face us. “...and until today, it’d been rotting here ever since.”

  “Shiraki, are you saying…” I took my headphones off and let them rest on my shoulders. “...the reason you chose this place specifically was just to help out your dad?”

  He held his fists in tight balls and his eyes shut, his whole body tensing up. “When I eavesdropped on your meeting that night in the dormitory, the thought of being able to rescue something so important to me - no, important to my father - it wouldn’t escape my head. I knew how incredibly selfish of a request it was to ask this of you all. I was afraid you would perceive me as only using you for my own self interest, but I was frightened at the thought of a world where I didn’t at least try.” Shiraki finally loosened up. “Sazama. Kase. Matsuura. I humbly ask not for your forgiveness, but simply for your grace.”

  “Dude, are you kidding?” Ryu reached his arms high up in the air, stretching them out after sitting still throughout the whole ordeal. “You’re talkin’ like you just robbed our homes and pissed on our floors. It’s alright, man.”

  “He’s right, Shiraki.” I got up from the couch to meet him by the fireplace mantle. “Besides, the moment I should’ve known you weren’t just using us was when you decided to come along with us. Nobody who’s only concerned about themselves would be stupid enough to do that.”

  Aiko nodded her head silently, notably more intensely at the ‘stupid’ remark. “And, for the record, I wasn’t actually that mad at you earlier, Jouto. I just think you need to learn how to do your hair faster.” She stuck her tongue out at Shiraki, very quickly bringing the period of heavy tension in the air to a close.

  “Thank you, everyone.” Shiraki set the keys to our rooms down on the concierge desk and adjusted the sleeves on his suit jacket. “For a mission well done, and for your kindness and understanding. Now, shall we-”

  A hush came over the lodge as the front door slid open. We all watched in silence as a tall, dark-haired man in an eerily familiar uniform stepped inside, the only sound louder than the shutting of the automatic door being the melody he whistled as he walked in. The man seemed entirely oblivious to our presence, sitting behind the desk and setting the two room keys back on the rack on the wall behind him before finally glancing up from his work. “Oops, sorry for the wait,” he spoke in slow, drawn out English. “Do you have a reservation with us?” the man asked as he flipped through the book on the desk.

  “Oh, that’s quite alright,” Shiraki reassured him. “We were actually just on our way o-”

  “Oh my gosh,” the man at the concierge desk yelped out upon seeing our names in the guest registry. “How could I have forgotten such an important occasion?” He was muttering to himself frantically, rushing over to Shiraki to personally guide him to the front desk. “Pardon my horrendous service just now, sir. I should’ve remembered what day it was before I even left the house for work today.” He was speaking much faster now, like he no longer expected us to not speak English. “Welcome back, Mr. Shiraki.”

  Shiraki was, in a word, buffaloed. “Excuse me, I’m not quite sure what’s going-”

  “Psst…” Aiko whispered from across the lodge. “Just roll with it.”

  The man in the concierge uniform, donning a nametag reading ‘Aaron’, began walking and talking like it was in his job description to worship the ground that Shiraki stood on. “I wish more of our staff were here to welcome you for such an important visit. I will do whatever I can to ensure that your stay is above and beyond your company standards, sir.”

  Ryu faintly tapped me on the shoulder. “Dude, no way that guy actually thinks Shiraki’s the CEO… I mean, look at him.” He gestured towards Shiraki’s noticeably young face as if the rest of us were doing any better in that department.

  “Maybe it’s his first day,” I whispered back, watching Aaron practically sprinting across the lodge to load all of our suitcases and bags onto the luggage cart.

  Aaron hurried back to the concierge desk to rummage through the paperwork before realizing that the CEO of the company probably didn’t need to sign it anyway. “Please let me know if there is anything I can do to accommodate your stay, everyone.”

  “Hey, Shiraki,” I whispered into his ear from behind. “I thought we were supposed to head back to campus today…”

  “Supposed to, yes…” A smile slowly began to form across Shiraki’s face as he became hit with the realization of just how much power he held in this very moment. “But now,” he muttered with a growing tone of glee breaking through. “...I recall we still have another day before we need to return home. After all this hard work…”

  Aiko’s head cocked to the right. “Jouto, you mean-”

  “You can’t be serious.” Ryu crossed his arms.

  Shiraki reached for the key labeled ‘Cabin 6’ and waggled it in the air beside him. “Nobody’s opposed to a little vacation, are we?”

~

  “Look, I get that it’s their job, but did he really need to wheel our luggage all the way out here?” Aiko plopped herself down on the bottom of the two bunk beds after setting her suitcase down next to the pillow.

  “Yeah, seriously, couldn’t you have picked a closer cabin?” I wheeled my suitcase over to the couch, taking in the fresh smell of pine throughout the cabin interior. Never in my life did I think I’d find comfort in being surrounded by so many shades of brown, but the air of coziness in here was simply unmatched. “Could’ve sworn we walked almost three kilometers to get here.”

  Shiraki hung up his suit on the coat rack by the front door to the cabin. “There is no such thing as a wasted step, my friends. Your cardiovascular system will thank you when you’re in your late 70s.”

  Ryu groaned, dropping his suitcase in the dead center of the living room. “Maybe we did accidentally book a trip with the CEO… He’s giving advice like he’s been in three wars…”

  “Are we forgetting that I chose the cabin with the most convenient access to all of the outdoor amenities?” Shiraki stated sternly as he undid his tie and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Maybe that’s because you picked the one that’s also furthest from everything else.” I gazed out the window, attempting to spot anything through the thick forest around us.

  “But it’s the closest to the lake,” Shiraki reiterated. “Figured we’d all go for a swim while there’s still plenty of daylight to seize.”

  Aiko’s head perked up like a dog that’d just heard the front door open. “There’s a lake?”

  Shiraki rolled his eyes as he opened his suitcase with the voice recognition lock and rummaged through his clothes. “Did you three not read any of the signs on our way here?”

  “Nope, we thought that was Aaron’s job,” Ryu replied with a shrug.

  “Oh, for heaven’s-” Shiraki pinched the bridge of his nose and took a long, deep breath. “Look; I’m about to change clothing and head down if any of you three would like to join me.” He flipped open a mechanical box and put away his earpiece and eyeglass in their corresponding charging holes. “I have a complete itinerary planned out to maximize our time here, so sticking by my side is advised.”

  I plugged my phone charger into the wall next to the bunk bed and left my phone there to juice back up. “Woah, when did you get all that done?”

  Shiraki tapped the mechanical box with his finger. “During that three kilometer walk. It’s fascinating what this technology is capable of accomplishing in such a short frame of time.” Honestly, I’m sure the same could’ve been accomplished only a few minutes slower with just a pen and paper, but I’m certain that the eyeglass alone was too expensive for me to ever feel comfortable commenting on its usefulness. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he muttered while pulling a pair of neon orange swim trunks that clashed horrifically with his gray locks of hair. “I trust you won’t take too long to meet me down by the water - There’s only one restroom here in the cabin, but I presume you’ll get changed rather swiftly.”

  The door to the cabin bathroom slammed shut behind Shiraki, leaving the rest of us to dig through our luggage for our own changes of clothing. “Eeeek… I’m so pumped!!” Aiko was holding back a squeal of excitement, holding up two equally ancient bathing suits in the air side by side. “I haven’t gone swimming in weeks. This is gonna be so rad!!” She hopped up onto her feet and held each of them in front of her torso. “Genjo, which one do you think looks better on me for this weather?”?”

  Ryu tilted his head to the side and scratched at the peach fuzz on his chin. “Hm, probably the solid red with the white polka dots.”

  “Ugh, I asked Genjo, not you.” Aiko looked intently in my direction as she swapped between modeling each swimsuit so rapidly that I could barely even see anything.

  Tapping into my reservoir of knowledge on women’s fashion - which was absolutely nothing - I pointed at the alternative; A strapless one-piece swimsuit that was form-fitting, solid red from her waist up to just below her shoulders, and white for the remainder of the length down, resembling a pair of bloomers more than a swimsuit bottom. “If you don’t mind dressing like a candy cane in April, I’d go for that one.”

  Aiko appeared quite pleased by my answer, tossing the polka-dotted swimsuit back into her suitcase. “Thanks! I was gonna pick that one anyway, I just thought it’d be fun to let you take a stab at it first.” As soon as the bathroom door swung open, she slid right through the crack before Shiraki even had the chance to fully step out. “Remember: If any of you boys peep, you’ll be sleepin’ outside with the wolves.” Aiko gave us quite the staredown before shutting the door rather aggressively.

  With his hand already on the front doorknob, Shiraki glanced back over his shoulder before looking at Ryu and I with a puzzled expression. “Is she aware that the restroom has a locking mechanism?”

  “I think it was a formality more than anything.” Ryu laid back on the couch, watching as Shiraki walked out the front door with the strap for a drink cooler slung around one shoulder and a beach towel on the other.

  Meanwhile, I sat on the edge of the bunk bed, tossing all of my belongings all over the floor and looking for a pair of swim trunks that were probably never even in my suitcase to begin with. “Shit, why can’t I find them anywhere? Did I not pack any?”

  “Eh, whatever. You can just borrow mine,” Ryu effortlessly reached into his bag and pulled out a short pair of navy blue swim trunks, balling them up and tossing them across the room into my lap.

  “T-Thanks.” As I unfolded the navy blue trunks, all I could think about was how little of my legs they’d be covering once I put them on. Ryu was obviously a few inches shorter than I was, but there’s no way that it was this obvious of a difference. “Hey, man. On second thought, I-”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” Ryu gave a shrug that was half-hearted even by his standards.

  I felt an underlying itch throughout my arms and legs. “Then what’ll you be wearing instead?”

  Aiko’s voice chimed in from beyond the bathroom door. “Hey, Ryu! Why don’t you borrow mine if you liked it so much?”

  He put his feet up on the coffee table loudly as if indirectly signaling his disapproval of Aiko’s teasing. “I told you, I’ll be fine. I’m used to going out on the water in shorts anyway.”

  “That’s a bit different though, isn’t it?” I inquired while looking at Ryu’s pair of cargo shorts.

  Ryu’s eyebrow rose a half-inch. “How so?”

  “Well…” I waited patiently outside the bathroom. “I thought the whole point of sailing was to avoid getting in the water.”

  “...Alright, smartass. You got me there.” Ryu pushed himself up from the couch and meandered over to the front door. “I’m gonna go find Shiraki. If at least one of us doesn’t meet him soon, he’s gonna have a conniption.” He stepped out of the cabin, letting in a harsh beam of light for a brief moment before the door shut behind him, leaving me behind to wait patiently until Aiko finished changing.

  Several minutes later, Aiko finally stepped out of the bathroom dressed like she was ready to gossip with her girlfriends by the poolside about how their televisions suddenly started playing in color the night prior. “Hm? You’re still here?” she mumbled as best she could with her hair pin in her mouth while tying her short hair into a small bun.

  “Yeah, I was waiting for you to get done so I could change after.”

  She put the hair pin through her bun, finally able to speak clearly. “Why didn’t you just change out here?”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  I paused as I placed my hand on the doorknob. “Oh, um…” The stagnant air in the cabin suddenly felt suffocating. “...I was just worried about you walking in on me by accident. Didn’t want you sleeping with wolves tonight.”

  “Oh, how considerate,” Aiko replied, giving a sly grin as she leaned on the wall beside the front door. “You want me to wait for you?”

  “You can go on ahead, Aiko.” My small frame slid through the crack between the door and the restroom rather effortlessly. “Shiraki might be less forgiving if he thinks we both dragged our feet on the way.”

  “Haha, true. Jouto really needs to learn how to go with the flow sometimes, huh?” Aiko sauntered out the door and poked her head through the gap on her way out. “I’ll meet ya down there. Don’t keep us waiting too long, alright?”

  We both exchanged nods and a quick laugh before our heads retreated back through the open doorways. A deep sigh escaped my lungs as the simultaneous *click* of the shutting doors sliced through the tension in my chest like a red-hot knife through a tub of butter. I slowly sank to the ground until my ass landed rather unceremoniously on the wooden floorboards, feeling microscopic splinters getting caught in the cotton fibers on the back of my red hoodie in the process.

  “Fucking hell…” I clutched the pair of navy blue swim trunks as I held it out in front of me like an indecipherable message. A stinging, burning sensation in my thighs and forearms kept me shackled to the floor, refusing to let me stand up again. I threw my head back, slamming it against the door a bit harder than I wanted to, and stared at the faux candle lights hanging from the ceiling that flickered at seemingly random intervals. If it were up to me, I’d probably just sit here in perfect silence until I could figure out the pattern myself.

  But it wasn’t up to me now, was it?

  Once I was able to lift myself off the ground, it didn’t take much time for me to get changed. But as I reached up to gently pull my jacket off my shoulder, my left hand spasmed wildly for the briefest of moments, causing me to let out a hiss of pain as I keeled over, clutching my wrist to keep it under control. With the return of the searing pain underneath the scar in my palm, I fumbled around the restroom for anything I could use to contain the bleeding, picking up a spare roll of toilet paper and haphazardly wrapping it around my hand.

  …but it never turned red.

  In fact, my hand felt completely normal now. Delicately tearing the paper away, I stared into the palm of my hand, only to spot two perfectly healed scars right where they’d always been.

  Wait… two scars? I held my eyes shut, knowing they were currently playing some sick trick on me and that, when I opened them back up, I’d stop seeing things - Which made it all the more puzzling when I saw three. I blinked one more time, and the third had vanished just as soon as it had appeared. With each and every blink, the quantity of the blemishes on my skin kept fluctuating. Two. Then three. Two. Two. Four. Three. Four. Two. Three. Three. Three. Zero. Two. Three, Two. Two. Three.

  After a long, deep breath to settle myself down, I opened my eyes to check again.

  …One?

~

  By the time I had reached the end of the long and winding trail, I was honestly more excited about seeing signs of human activity than the actual lake itself. The ambience of the leaves crunching beneath my feet alongside the dark, heavy guitars blaring from the headphone speakers around my neck kept me calm enough to press on without letting my nerves get to me too much. I couldn’t help but wonder what the purpose of booking the cabin that was ‘closest to the lake’ if it was still going to take almost ten minutes to get there, but when the trail became mostly sand and dirt, I knew it couldn’t be much further to go.

  The lakefront was much more reminiscent of a beach compared to what I was expecting; I anticipated a far more rocky coastline, not an actual band of sand that led directly into the water. On the left side of the area, a cliff edge more akin to what I had envisioned was easily climbable with a long rope swing hanging from the branches of a rather sturdy cedar tree. To the right, a long pier (or a dock, I’m not sure) extended out several meters over the water. A thick wall of trees lined the horizon at the far edge of the lake, so it was comforting to know that it didn’t go on forever.

  “Well, well, well…” Shiraki repeated with a jovial expression, pouring himself a mixed drink using various colorful bottles from his drink cooler. “Look who arrived just in time for lunch.”

  “Yeah, what took ya so long, slowpoke?” Aiko called out as she laid back on a towel that she had draped over a wooden reclining chair, still vigorously rubbing sunscreen into her shoulders.

  I dropped a rolled up bath towel onto the chair beside Aiko’s. I knew it technically wasn't the same thing as a beach towel, but I temporarily forgave myself for not being quite as prepared as she was. “I didn’t know we were gonna be eating out here, Shiraki.”

  He grinned very pompously, hoisting up a medium-sized styrofoam chest that sat on the beach next to a small metal grill that had been cemented into the ground by a metal pole. “Feast your eyes, everyone!” Shiraki lifted the lid of the container, revealing a small school of fish laid upon a pile of ice. “Behold… the fruits of our labor.”

  “The word ‘our’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting,” Aiko butted in, pointing to Ryu as he sat on the edge of the pier with a fishing rod and a dream. “Jouto just offered to handle all of the grilling so he can ultimately take all the credit.”

  “I-I most certainly did not.” Shiraki stammered through his words, taking genuine offense to Aiko’s teasing. “I simply saw no reason to force any one person to burden themselves with the entire workload. Besides, this is my family’s property, so I shall treat you all as if you were guests in my own home.”

  To his credit, I was certainly curious to witness Shiraki’s cooking skills for myself. “So, what does that leave us with?”

  Aiko yawned as she stretched her arms up high in the air. “I dunno. Sit here and look pretty, I guess?” She giggled to herself, flipping around and laying on her stomach. “Ah… It’s moments like this that make me love the patriarchy…”

  “Crazy thing to say during women’s history month…” I muttered just quietly enough for her to hear me, to which she responded via a heaping pile of sand dumped straight into my hood and down my neck.

  “Pfft…” Aiko was holding a hand over her mouth to hold back from laughing too hard. “Okay, I’m sorry, but you were kind of asking for it, still wearing that hoodie to a beach…”

  “Nah, you’re right - I kinda deserved that one,” I replied with a half-hearted chuckle, my fingers pinching the metal pull tab on the zipper and preparing to gently tug down on it, but a growing itch in my arms put a swift stop to that idea. It was an all too familiar itch - One that felt leagues different from the tickling of the sand on the back of my neck. Instead of removing my hoodie, I just reached behind my head and flipped the hood inside out, dumping the pile of sand back onto the beach from whence it came.

  “Hm?” Shiraki glanced over his shoulder after setting the fish box back on the ground, as if the sudden silence behind him spoke a louder message than any other words I could’ve spoken. “Is there anything I could get you to drink, Genjo?”

  “H-huh?” I quickly snapped back into focus at the sound of my name.

  Shiraki rattled a small cup of ice in my direction. “I said, could I interest you in something to drink?”

  “Oh, y-yeah. That’d be nice.” I wiped the band of sweat off my forehead beneath my bangs. “My bad… I tend to space out sometimes, that’s all.” All I cared about when reassuring him of my vague normalcy was that I didn’t seem any weirder than I already did. “Hey, I’ll be right back in a sec, I just-”

  “Ahahahahahaha!! Fuck yeah, baby!” A series of triumphant shouts rang out from the edge of the water, all originating from a blonde boy with a fairly large fish flailing for dear life as he held it up in the air by its tail with both hands. He began sprinting down the length of the man-made wooden bridge-like structure with the aquatic beast in tow. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever seen Ryu this pumped about anything. “Dude! Check it! Can’t believe I managed to catch this sucker at the dock!” (I jotted the term down in my brain for future reference.)

  “Yes! The mackinaw… a gorgeous species, they are…” Shiraki nearly pushed both Aiko and I out of the way as he ran to meet Ryu even sooner. “That’s larger than the rest of our fish combined! Exquisite catch!”

  Ryu struggled and failed to maintain his cool, standoffish persona, too excited to not show it. “I know, right?” The fish, on the other hand, was struggling to stay put in Ryu’s hands, attempting to fling itself out of his grasp and towards Aiko’s beach towel for a chance at freedom. “Shit… We’re gonna need a bigger ice box.”

  We decided the best alternative was to empty Shiraki’s drink cooler and place the trout in there instead. Personally, I would’ve suggested a plan that didn’t result in a fishy smelling cooler forever, but it was Shiraki’s money, not mine. “Phew… Well, I guess that’s that for fishing.” After bleeding out the fish as humanely as he could, Ryu wiped his hands off in the lake water. “You’re takin’ it from here, right?”

  Shiraki was already busy dumping lumps of charcoal into the bottom of the grill. “Hoho… Just you wait. You’ll be singing praises of the Shiraki bloodline’s culinary arts for the rest of-”

  “Come on, boys!” Aiko grabbed Ryu and I by the wrists and started dragging us behind her as she ran to the water, causing me to trip over my own two feet as I ran through the sand. “Let’s go for a swim!”

  Ryu quickly took control of the party, his larger body mass allowing him to drag both of us behind him in a single-file line while running up the path towards the cliff. “Hell, I’m still psyched after that catch… I’m in the mood for a dive right now!”

  “H-Hey!” I yelped out, stumbling over my feet again as we changed directions. “A little warning would be nice next time!”

  Aiko peered over her shoulder as I ran behind her. “Hehe, sorry again…” Even as she apologized, her grip around my wrist tightened while lugging me around.

  We came to a gradual stop at the peak of the cliff, towering nearly three stories above the lake (give or take a few centimeters). It wasn’t the most perilous jump in the world, but maybe that wasn’t a bad thing. Calling the rope dangling from the branch above ‘dirty’ would be an understatement - At least the tree it was tied to seemed fairly sturdy and deep rooted. Ryu snatched the rope and gave it a hearty tug, ruffling the leaves and sending a bird or two on a search for another resting place. “Doesn’t look like it’s goin’ anywhere.” He then gave us a look that seemed like he was asking for a volunteer to jump first. I really don’t know what he expected to happen because, after a few seconds, he got into a ready position to jump anyway. “You guys think the lake’s deep enough?”

  I quickly but carefully inspected the water over the edge of the cliff. “You’re asking that now, Ryu?”

  “Time to find out!” His chest puffed out as he took a deep breath before running off the cliff at lightning speed. The rope carried him a few meters over the edge of the cliff before Ryu let go, all four of his limbs flailing wildly in the air for the few seconds he had to scream until a loud *splash* cut him off. Aiko and I both looked over the edge and waited for Ryu’s head to pop back up to the surface. “Hell yeah!” he shouted as he resurfaced, shaking his wet hair like a dog. “Genjo! Come on down!”

  “Uh, gotcha!” I yelled back, getting up and preparing to head back down the trail before the collar of my hoodie dug into my throat as Aiko tugged on the corner of the sand-covered hood.

  “I think he wants you to jump too, dummy.” Aiko commented snarkily, flicking the grains of sand in my own hood onto the back of my head with her fingernails. “What, are you scared? You’re a lil scaredy cat, aren’t you?”

  My legs started wobbling at the thought of falling from such a great height. It wouldn’t have been the first fall I’d taken this week, sure, but that didn’t make it any easier on my nerves. “No, I’m not.” The underlying quiver in my voice blew my cover immediately, forcing me to come up with another excuse before turning around to face her. “I just… need to take off my jacket and MP3 player. I can’t get in the water with those.”

  “Just leave them up here! We’ll come back up for them later!” Aiko dashed around behind me, put her hands on the sides of my lower abdomen and began pushing me back up the cliff. “Come on, let’s-”

  The moment that Aiko’s palms touched my body, the burning sensation immediately came back with full force. Suddenly, my heart started to pound so strongly that my ribcage nearly burst from the pressure. The entire length of my arms and the whole surface of my thighs felt like they were getting pricked by dozens and dozens of jagged, microscopic needles. My teeth chattered at a frighteningly high frequency, the rest of my body going completely cold as I somehow felt the blue ring in the center of Aiko’s eyeballs piercing straight through the occipital bone of my skull. I instinctively drove my heels deep into the soil beneath my feet, refusing to let myself move another inch.

  Aiko’s pressure against my torso quickly disappeared, instantly sensing that something wasn’t quite right. “Genjo, are you o-”

  “Get off of me!” I let out an almost blood-curdling cry as I pulled my arms forward and held them firmly against my chest, making me hyperaware of the rapidly increasing rate of my own breathing each and every time my lungs puffed up and further shoved my ribcage up against my forearms. My fingers dug into my shoulders which I could feel getting tenser by the second. “Stop it! Please… stop…”

  Aiko could only stand back in complete shock, unsure why her best friend was screaming at her to let go - Especially since she’d already done so before I’d said anything at all. “G…Genjo?” She whispered softly, too cautious to not get any closer.

  I couldn’t answer her, if she was even asking anything at all. I couldn’t hear anything in the first place. I couldn’t extinguish the stinging flames raging beneath my skin, no matter how badly I was attempting to brute force them out.

  A long, distant memory started playing inside my head like a videotape, but in such poor quality that I couldn’t make out a single detail. That’s the most horrifying type of memory: One that you’re fully aware exists, but without a single inkling as to why it’s stayed lodged inside your head for so long, stabbing into your brain and making you wish you could take a pair of pliers and just yank it out already. All I could make out was darkness - Meaningless clutter in the background far, far away from the near silent darkness. Nothing about what was happening or why it was happening… Just that it happened in the darkness.

  So I got up and I ran. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just somewhere far enough away that I would be far from the imminent danger. But somehow, it only grew darker as I ran further and further down the hallway. With every door, tree and living thing I passed, I knew that I couldn’t ask any of them for help - They’d all rather stare.

  …wait, is this still part of the memory?

  I found myself standing in a wide, open clearing in the middle of the forest. One by one, the doors all vanished, leaving me surrounded by the conifer trees. I sat down on the edge of a rotted tree stump, feeling it give way underneath my body weight. My breathing certainly hadn’t gotten any calmer, but at least my thighs were burning for a different reason now - I’d take lactic acid buildup over what just happened any day.

  With the vague, indistinct memory finally leaving me alone, I could finally hear something; The crunching of leaves beneath footsteps that sounded like they were losing their pace slowly but surely, accompanied by the most familiar voice in the world. “Genjo? Genjo??” she yelled, her words getting a bit more desperate each time she repeated my name.

  “Aiko?” I called out back to her, barely lifting my head just enough so I could actually project my voice out into the forest.

  I heard a loud gasp followed by the crunching of the leaves beneath Aiko’s feet getting considerably faster. “Genjo! What’s wrong?” She wasted no time checking up on me, clearly worried sick. “I’m sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t mean to push your buttons too hard, I was just-”

  “No, it’s not your fault…” I placed two fingers on the side of my neck to check my pulse. It was almost on its way to becoming normal, so I guess that’s a sign I was moving in the right direction. “It just reminded me of… something.” The furrowing of her brow told me she needed me to elaborate, but the truth was that I couldn’t even if I wanted to. “...not sure what, though.”

  “Hey,” she crouched down and looked me in the eyes, trying to not accidentally touch me for even a fraction of a second. “I’m not sure I get what you mean, but… I’ll just be careful not to push you around like that anymore.” She gave me a warm, kind smile, hoping it would heal my wounds in the process.

  “Thanks.” Somehow, I still felt an underlying aura that told me Aiko’s curiosity was still less than satisfied. I hated seeing my friends left in the dark like this - Which is why I never let myself end up like this in front of anyone in the first place. But, unfortunately for the both of us, the cat was out of the bag now. “...Aiko, c-can I show you something?”

  Her cheerful smile didn’t fade, not even a little. “Sure!” I couldn’t maintain eye contact any longer, looking down at the stump and counting the rings from the outer edge all the way to the center. It wasn’t until then that she started to understand what I really meant by that question, her smile vanishing in an instant. “Oh, Genjo…” Aiko started to fidget with her hands. “Are you… really okay with-”

  Before Aiko could finish her question and give me another moment to second-guess my trust in her, I grabbed the cuff of my sleeve and yanked on it, clenching my teeth as my entire sleeve rode all the way up to my shoulder. She was completely stunlocked, laying her eyes upon my real arm for the very first time in all its pale, disfigured glory. Somehow, it also felt like the first I’d seen it in an incredibly long time as well. I’d forgotten so many things; Forgotten just how erratic and nonsensical the scars looked with no regard to order or systematic organization, the varying shades of dull white aging them like the rings on the stump I sat upon, even the way the rays of the sun made them itch even worse than my own thoughts did inside my head. I felt the surface of my skin boiling beneath the sunlight, like I had just plunged my arm into a vat of acid that plucked away at the mangled cells of my scar tissue in an attempt to salvage them into something less unsightly.

  Unable to handle the pain for much longer, I quickly pulled my sleeve back down until everything went back to normal. The tension in my jaw ceased as I unclenched my teeth. “...I hope that makes things make more sense,” I whispered, not sure if I even had the energy to speak any louder.

  There was a long, hushed silence in the middle of the forest as neither of us had any idea what the correct thing to say to one another was at that moment. Chills surged down my spine as time froze around us for what felt like a prison sentence. After gradually building up the courage within herself, Aiko reached gently for my hand, waiting for me to give a nod of approval before flipping it over to look at the scar across my palm.

  My wrist flinched from the pressure of her thumb against the paper-thin scar. “...none of those were recent, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I reassured her, knowing exactly what she was about to ask, just like anyone else would’ve. “They’re years old at this point.”

  “Genjo, I…” Aiko placed my hand back into my pocket. “Thank you for trusting me enough to show me something so personal.” No smile could’ve hidden how she nearly choked on the word ‘trust’ on its way out her throat. “If there’s anything I can do to help, you can call me anytime. Capisce?”

  “Yeah. Capisce.” I muttered as I slowly stood up from the stump, wiping the dirt and foliage off the back of Ryu’s swim trunks. “Do you remember how to get back?”

  She started to skip off into the forest. “Eh, vaguely. Why? You forget?”

  “Geez…” I followed close behind Aiko while she wandered and weaved through the trees, knowing it was unfortunately the best option either of us had. “They’re gonna kill us when we get back. The food’s probably already gone cold.”

  “I don’t think we’ve been gone that long.” Luckily, Aiko began recognizing certain spots in the forest and used them to determine our path back to the lake. “Unless Jouto’s itinerary didn’t account for this, we’ll be okay.”

  Thoughts about our other two companions started to race through my mind, wiping away most of the worries that had been plaguing me only a moment ago.. “Oh, by the way… Don’t mention any of this to Ryu or Shiraki, okay?”

  “Hm? I thought you trusted Ryu a lot. You two live together, don’t you?”

  “That’s…” I could smell the aroma of seasoned, grilled fish off in the distance. “...exactly why I can’t tell him. I don’t want him to worry about me all the time.”

  Aiko must’ve smelled it too, because she really picked up the pace. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret, okay?” She reached back, forcibly wrapped her pinky around mine, and then ran up ahead. Putting on my best face, I quickly followed.

  To our surprise, neither Shiraki nor Ryu had even started eating yet. “Oh, welcome back! I trust that everything that’s been causing any distress has sorted itself out.”

  Ryu was scrubbing intensely at the gaps between his fingers. “Yeah, you’re lucky you got to skip the fish gutting.”

  “Right.” I peeked over at the grill, wanting to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Where’d you get the tortillas?” I asked, seeing them hanging down from the grates of the grill rack.

  “Well, you see, our final catch of the day was so massive, we decided it wouldn’t be fair to not distribute the spoils evenly. I called that concierge fellow, quite the lovely individual, and informed him of Ryu’s new plan to grill some fish tacos instead, and thus…” Shiraki showed off a large, brown paper bag as he flipped a segment cut from the largest trout with his tongs. “Voila! You’d be shocked by the quality of room service when you’re the CEO of the company.”

  “A little bit disingenuous of you, wouldn’t you say?” Ryu muttered while he dug through the bag for some wet wipes, only finding bottles of rosemary and thyme instead. “Like, there’s no way he can’t tell you’re not the real CEO, right?”

  Shiraki stuck out a finger and waggled it side to side with a ‘Tsk, tsk…’ before dumping a handful of seasoning on the grill. “But I am the heir - If anything, this is just a small taste of the future that shall await me.”

  “You do know that’s not the same, right?” I reclined in my beach chair, needing to get away from the heat of the grill. “I really doubt we’d be receiving the same treatment if he knew you were just the CEO’s son.”

  “Let us refrain from engaging in hypotheticals that only apply to our past.” Shiraki was too busy preparing the remainder of the ingredients for our meal, letting him easily brush off the idea by focusing solely on his cooking. “Instead, let us applaud our friend, Ryu Kase, for providing us with such an incredible dining experience on this wonderful afternoon!”

  The four of us all thoroughly enjoyed our food together, not forgetting to show our gratitude to the two who were actually involved in the cooking process, but something about Shiraki’s response lingered in my mind, even after we packed up and headed back to the cabin. We all knew that Shiraki kind of had a point, but how much longer could he keep on playing the deflection game? When will the shoe finally drop?

~

  Based on the knocking from the cabin door followed by, “Room Service for Mr. Shiraki!” this whole ‘young CEO’ charade might last a little longer than any of us could’ve guessed. Blood rushed to my head as it hung over the edge of the top bunk to watch while Aaron - bless his soul - wheeled cart after cart of ice tubs filled with bottles that looked expensive enough to trap me into years of debt if I breathed on them incorrectly. “Yo, Ryu… need some help over there?”

  “Nope. Got it all under control,” he stated firmly through clenched teeth while fumbling around the couch in an attempt to unfold the pull-out bed. “Ugh, it’s harder than it looks, alright?”

  “Never said it wasn’t.” To be fair, I couldn’t see where any latches or levers were located either, but at least I could use the excuse that my head was hanging upside down.

  “Genjo, can you check your phone real quick?” Aiko hollered from the bunk directly beneath mine.

  A quick *bzzt* from the floor instead of my right pocket wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear from this high up. “Can’t reach it. Something important?”

  Aiko passed her phone up to me with a sigh of faux annoyance. “I took a whole bunch of pictures today; Lemme know which ones you think look the best!” I took the phone out of her hands and flipped it around to view them properly, swiping through the dozens of photos snapped from various moments of our trip to the lake. Many of them were taken before I’d even gotten there, mainly Ryu with his fishing equipment on the edge of the dock or the countless selfies with various scenery in the backdrop.

  Once I reached the photos timestamped at 2:18 P.M., I started appearing in most of them from that point forward, despite almost never looking directly at the camera in any of them. I looked so out of place, standing awkwardly with my unzipped jacket in the sand amongst the three people who were actually dressed appropriately for the occasion. “Aiko, is there a single photo where I’m not in the middle of talking or sneezing?”

  “And who’s fault is that now, huh?” Aiko clapped back. “Don’t get your boy panties in a bunch over it. I’ll only keep the ones that we all agree look the least stupid.”

  Too much blood rushing to my head, I went back to the intended way of sitting in my bunk and began adding the best of the photos to Aiko’s favorites folder in her camera roll, silently suppressing laughter as I texted the ones where she looked the stupidest to my own phone. This was an incredibly foolproof plan until my phone started to buzz from the ground below, forcing me to pray that Aiko wouldn’t get too nosy. Thankfully, her suspicion never got the better of her by the time I finished, particularly noting the selfie of the four of us about to dig into Ryu’s culinary masterpiece as my favorite of the bunch before reaching my arm over the edge of the bed to pass the phone back to Aiko.

  “Fear not, my friends!” Shiraki came bursting out of the bedroom in a dark green collared t-shirt and slacks, which was surprisingly the least formal attire I think any of us had ever seen him wear. “For I have returned with our plans for the remainder of the evening!” He declared loudly while shuffling a deck of playing cards between his hands like a street magician. “Boredom shall know your names no longer!”

  The shock of the bedroom door slamming open caused me to drop the phone directly onto Aiko’s chest with a loud *smack* followed by a yelp that could only be compared to how Fumio’s dog, Tamago, would yelp whenever Taisuke would step on her tail like the klutz he is. “Ack! Jouto, why do you always enter rooms like you’re commentating a wrestling match?”

  Another trademark Shiraki chortle told us that he took Aiko’s words as a compliment. “The richest way to live is to keep an eye out for all the things that can produce joy, no matter how miniscule. In doing this, you’ll never run the well dry of excitement and whimsy.”

  Ryu had finally managed to free the bed from the pull-out couch. “Wow. Insightful. I always thought the richest way to live was to have a billionaire for a dad.”

  “Rich in spirit, not in wealth,” said the guy who was very obviously rich in both. “Now, would anyone care to join me for a quick round of Roppongi Rascals?”

  “Never heard of it.” I picked the tiny grains of sand out of my sheets before climbing down the ladder to the top bunk.

  “Me neither.” Ryu sat triumphantly on the corner of the fully extended bed. “Is this some rich person's game that the peons aren’t supposed to know about?”

  Shiraki sat with his legs crossed in the center of the living room, setting Ryu’s mess of couch cushions in the corner. “Far from it. My school colleagues and I came up with it ourselves during a particularly eventful week during our summer break last year.” He motioned for us all to come join him on the rug, passing out four hands of cards in a circle in front of him. “It’s remarkably similar conceptually to Daifugo, although there are various rules in play that make it quite unique.”

  Aiko rolled out of her bunk and across the floor until hitting the pile of cards. “Ugh, I suck at Daifugo…” Nevertheless, she picked up the cards and held them closely guarded in her lap. “We’re not gonna be playing this all night, are we?”

  “Oh, this is simply to kill time until sundown.” Shiraki pointed at the gradient of warm colors that slowly started lining the horizon through the back window of the cabin. “Once it's dark enough outside, I thought it would be an excellent idea to construct a campfire and finish the night over some outdoor festivities. How does that sound to everyone?”

  We all exchanged looks signaling to each other that none of us had any better ideas before joining Shiraki in the circle.

  “Splendid!” Camp counselor Shiraki briefly went over the various rules of the game - most of which completely flew over our heads - but we figured it would make more sense as we played. In particular, the ‘be wary of the yakuza’ warning seemed especially odd to bring up during the rules for a card game, as did the bizarre mention of ‘the stench of death is not good for business’. At the end of the explanation, my understanding of Roppongi Rascals was that it was essentially a variation of Daifugo where we larped as the owners of nightclubs that were all competing for customers, which I could totally get behind. “Oh, I almost forgot!” As soon as Shiraki took out a stack of special event cards and set them next to the draw pile, I felt every shred of my understanding of the game vanish into thin air. No matter how many times he promised that it would make sense eventually, the three of us all struggled to believe him until we actually started the first round.

  A few turns into the game, Aiko already had to pass her turn since she had no cards to play to counter Shiraki’s immediate starting hand of a pair of 2’s. “Dang it… already? I told you I sucked at this game.”

  I patted her on the shoulder reassuringly. “Hey, it’s just dumb luck. You’re not gonna get screwed over every-”

  “Don’t forget to draw an event card!” Shiraki butted in, reminding us that this would occur the first time a player had to pass in the round.

  “Jeez… It can’t be that bad, right?” she remarked as she delicately picked up the poorly cut slip of paper from the top of the event pile. Aiko’s heart visibly sank as she read the card’s text out loud. “Your bouncer is caught by law enforcement letting underage drinkers into the establishment. Start the next round with four extra cards??” Aiko nearly dropped the card in disbelief. “Jouto, what the hell is this??”

  “The risks of operating a business, I’m afraid.” Shiraki shook his head sorrowfully. “Don’t worry, this event wasn’t so bad. Some of them are significantly worse.” We all shuddered at the thought of what he could’ve possibly meant by that before continuing the round like normal.

  Eventually, the victor of the first round was, unsurprisingly, the player who’d made up the rules in the first place. Shiraki was designated as the Daifugo, Ryu and I were labeled Rich and Beggar respectively, and poor Aiko was left as the Rascal. “So… what happens now? Do we just start again like in regular Daifugo?” I inquired while reshuffling the deck of cards.

  “Ah, that’s right…” Shiraki stood up and grabbed one of the expensive bottles from the tub of ice. “Nearly slipped my mind. Thank you, Genjo.” A loud crack rang out as he twisted the cap off the bottle of what appeared to be daiginjo sake - the highest grade I’d seen in-person, and certainly higher quality than anything my father had ever brought home before. “I should’ve mentioned this before, but my colleagues and I always had two rules: Rascal always takes a shot, and nobody leaves until the bottle is finished. Shall we-”

  “Yeah, I’m tapping out.” Ryu had already seemed a bit off-kilter since we’d gotten back to the cabin, and now it was fairly obvious why. “You three have fun.”

  An expression of disappointment immediately befell Shiraki’s perpetually overjoyed face. “Oh, my most sincere apologies, Ryu. If you’d prefer, that component of the game can be entirely optional-”

  “Don’t pull your hair out over it.” Ryu tossed a small bag over his shoulder and turned the knob to the back door. “I’ll get a head start on the fire. You know, make myself useful.” With that, he was already out the door before anyone could get another word in.

  An awkward air filled the room, and not just because of the draft that was let in when Ryu opened the door. Aiko and Shiraki both stared at me looking equally concerned but in noticeably different ways - One of them appeared curious yet unsurprised, like she’d witnessed something like this before, yet the other expression seemed completely caught off guard by what he’d just seen but fully prepared to hear that it wasn’t any of his business.

  “...he’ll be fine.” I broke the silence with the best smile I could muster. “The last thing I think Ryu needs right now is us going out there and bugging him about it. Knowing him, he’ll just come get us when it’s nighttime.”

  While Aiko still seemed a bit worried, Shiraki seemed to buy it no problem. “I believe we should focus on the positive - Ryu, knowing that he would not want to participate, selflessly volunteered to prepare the campfire on our behalf. Come nightfall, he’ll reunite with us for the remainder of our time here at the cabin. A small fragment of time to himself isn’t too much to fret over, is it?”

  Shiraki made a compelling case in favor of continuing the game without him. There were few things Ryu hated as much as alcohol, and I figured that knowing he was preventing his friends from enjoying themselves was one of them. It appeared that everyone else felt the same because, before long, Shiraki dealt out the cards into three hands, commencing the second round. Aiko started at a slight disadvantage with her four extra cards, but it wasn’t anything that would’ve been impossible to overcome with some smart strategizing. Unfortunately for her, Aiko had yet to get the hang of the game’s strategy.

  “Argh!!” Aiko tossed her cards down, once again designated as the Rascal. “What the hell is with these stupid event cards?” She picked up the one she had drawn a minute prior, reading it aloud. “A bunch of yakuza storm into the bar. Unless you win this round, automatically finish as the Rascal??”

  “You failed to assert your dominance,” Shiraki replied nonchalantly as he opened the bottle of sake and poured two shots - One for this loss, and another for the previous round. “But don’t get discouraged! There is still time to salvage your business’s reputation!”

  Aiko stared down at the two shots of alcohol with a smile of unrelenting determination, but I knew her well enough to see the underlying fear in her eyes. “Here’s to soaring profits and glowing reviews!” She wrapped her gloves around the glass before throwing it back and downing the shot in one swig like an actor in a movie would chug an entire beer. “Hehe, that was-” Her triumph was quickly interrupted with an involuntary coughing fit as the sake suddenly hit her like a bullet. “Ack! Geez, that was…”

  I wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned for Aiko after watching her do a complete 180° like that, but I still didn’t think that taking another shot in quick succession was the best idea either way. “Hey, Shiraki,” I whispered as I reached for the other glass. “I’ll take this one. If she hadn’t drawn that card, I would’ve been the Rascal this time. Just let me handle-”

  “Nuh uh! I got it!” Aiko shouted, snatching the glass off the floor before I could take it. “My daddy didn’t raise a little princess who can’t hold her liquor, I’ll tell you what!” She quickly downed this shot even more intensely than the previous one, her subsequent coughing fit being immediately followed by a reticent laugh that she unsuccessfully tried hiding under her breath. Whatever she was up to in that noggin of hers, I hoped she was at least having a grand old time doing it.

  During the third round, I was blindsided by maybe the dumbest rule I’d ever heard of in a card game; Apparently, placing down a set of three 4’s was ‘bad luck’ and resulted in an automatic loss and, therefore, an automatic shot of sake. “What the hell was that? How was I supposed to know that would happen?” I blurted out in a fit of frustration.

  “444 is an infamously unlucky number in many Chinese cultures,” Shiraki replied as if it were supposed to be obvious. “The stench of death now permeates the air as a patron of your establishment is found dead from alcohol poisoning due to gross negligence-”

  “Oh, just shut up and gimme the shot already.” I poured the sake into the glass - admittedly filling it up a little bit too much - and took a series of deep breaths before drinking it all in one go, albeit with significantly less flair than Aiko. The sake went down incredibly smooth, the floral aroma tasting rather pleasant for my first true attempt at drinking alcohol besides the few sips my dad let me try back home. “Man, that actually wasn’t that bad. I expected that to be-” Just like that, I was sucker punched with a burning sensation so delayed that it felt like an intentional punchline which I could tell Aiko found astonishingly hilarious. “Fuck…” I grunted out between my short series of coughs. The buzz I felt as the sake hit my bloodstream wasn’t quite strong enough for me to feel noticeably different, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already affected.

  “Ha! Not so easy, is it?” Aiko, on the other hand, was already visibly flushed, her cheeks almost as pink as the locks of hair that dangled beside them. “Get shuffling, would ya?” she shouted, tossing the deck of cards into my lap.

  Shiraki cackled to himself, trying to not let it become too obvious how ecstatic he had gotten from watching us play along with him. “How’re you two enjoying the game so far?” he inquired with the cadence of a game show host immediately following an ad break. “I sincerely hope I’m not the only one having fun tonight, haha!”

  “I’m starting to get the hang of it… I think.” My hands felt like hard rubber as I fumbled around with the deck of cards, my fingers never having been the most dexterous. “Guess that’s why Sui never asked me to join the orchestra,” I pondered aloud.

  Aiko placed her hands firmly on her knees and leaned forward to invade my personal space more than usual. “You need pretty good dexterity to play the drums though, don’t’cha?”

  “Oh, do you play an instrument, Genjo?” Shiraki’s voice rose an octave, his interest suddenly piqued.

  “N-No! I-I-I… Uh, I… Wh- Bwuh… Fuck, I…” I sputtered in between a few nervous maniacal chuckles for good measure. “Listen… We are not talking about this right now.” I dropped the cards onto the floor as I raised my hands up to my shoulders as if admitting I got caught in a lie. Why did she have to bring this up now? “Let’s just get back to the game already.”

  “A pity. I would’ve loved to share tales of my days as a trombone enthusiast with a fellow musician.” Shiraki picked up the deck and shuffled it for me in the blink of an eye before passing out new hands across the floor. “Now, it’s time to start getting serious! I won’t hold back from this point on.”

  My head sank in preemptive defeat. “Wait, you’re saying you were going easy on us?”

  Despite Roppongi Rascals being an almost entirely luck-based game, Shiraki’s heightened enthusiasm is likely what he meant by ‘getting his head in the game’. Event cards were getting passed around left and right, notifying us of various tragedies such as ‘higher tariffs on the number 9’ and ‘Shiraki conveniently gains a subsidy from the local government’. Round after round, he just kept running circles around Aiko and I, emptying nearly half of the bottle into just our shot glasses alone. I had long since tapped out after the third shot made my entire face feel hotter than the sun - but Aiko, who had shouldered the burden of most of the alcohol up to this point, was matching Shiraki’s intensity way too closely as she slammed down a sequence of the eight, nine and ten of diamonds. “Boom! Finally! Take that, stupid!”

  “Aha! Not so fast!” Shiraki’s poker face instantly broke into a sly grin as he finally pulled the finger he’d been resting on the trigger, placing down his own sequence of cards, starting with the jack of hearts and ending on the suicide king, leaving only one card remaining in his hand - as opposed to Aiko’s two. “Time to collect your debt, Matsuura!” As per a rule that had led to my defeat only a few rounds prior, someone playing a king meant that all players other than the current Daifugo had to draw another card. Aiko growled to herself angrily, delicately took a card off the top of the draw pile and slowly added it to her hand, afraid to even look at it as she flipped it around.

  …which made it all the more cathartic to watch her face light up like the sky above a burning fireworks factory when she saw what was on the other side of her card. “YES! YES, YES, YES!” Aiko shot up into the air so quickly as she popped off from her impending victory that neither I nor Shiraki initially even saw what cards she triumphantly flung onto the ground in front of us. “Finally! Suck it, Jouto! I’m the Daifugo now! Not you!” Aiko could hardly contain an ounce of her excitement, jumping around the cabin and shouting to the heavens while we finally shambled together her final move; A sequence of three cards - Ace of clubs, two of clubs, and a joker.

  Shiraki’s ego started to crumble right before my eyes. I wasn’t sure if he’d even prepared for the possibility of losing, let alone to the self-proclaimed worst Daifugo player in the group. “Have I… been bested?” He began to trace his finger along the edge of the joker like he didn’t believe it was actually really in front of him. “No, this cannot be. I-”

  The door to the backyard swung open. “Hey. You three comin’ out soon?” Ryu pointed over his shoulder to a crackling fire and a starlit sky on the other side of the door.

  “Yes, of course,” Shiraki hurriedly collected the cards to put them away as neatly as he could. “Excellent timing. We were just finishing up with our-”

  “Not so fast!” Aiko leapt at Shiraki from behind, her hands planting firmly on his shoulders as she shook him back and forth. “Rule number two: Nobody leaves until the bottle is finished!! Don’t think I forgot!”

  Shiraki wriggled his way out of Aiko’s grasp, clearly struggling to overcome her newfound drunk girl strength and unyielding memory. “N-Not every rule must be adhered to at such a strict degree… Let’s be a bit reasonable here.”

  Droplets of frigid water dribbled on to the floor as I snatched the bottle of sake out of the ice tub. “Bullshit. You penalized me earlier for holding my cards too close to my lap because you ‘couldn’t see them’.”

  “That’s because we had no table to enforce the ‘no cards under the table’ rule!” Shiraki smacked the deck of cards against his palm until they flush with one another and slid them into their box. “The game has ended prematurely; Expecting me to finish half a bottle of sake in one sitting is nothing short of impossible! Ludicrous, dare I say!”

  Aiko was already gently lifting from the bottom of the sake, tipping it over to pour the alcohol into the small glass without me ever letting go of the bottle. “Oh, waaah, waaah… Stop being such a big baby already!” She held the glass up to his mouth, practically ready to pour it down his throat if he didn’t do it himself in the next three seconds.

  “Fine! I concede!” Holding back his unbridled fury, Shiraki threw his head back, downing the shot like it was nothing. “But can you please let me finish it over the remainder of the night?” he declared assertively. “Because vomiting my dignity out is the last thing I should be doing the night before the drive back.”

  Aiko was tapping her fingers together mischievously. “Orrrrrr… you could just let one of us drive your flashy new car instead?~”

  Shiraki tore the bottle out of my grasp, his scowl unshifting from Aiko standing several inches beneath him. “You won a card game, not Wheel of Fortune.”

  Still riding off the euphoria from finally knocking Shiraki off his high horse, Aiko and I went out through the back door together to meet Ryu by the fire. Shiraki stayed behind for a while with the bottle of sake, promising to come join us once he was finished with his punishment. Within seconds of stepping outside, we were immediately swarmed by tiny bugs that had a strange knack for flying directly into our mouths and up our nostrils. Aside from that, I was fairly unbothered by the insects while wrapped up in my long sleeves and blue jeans. Aiko wasn’t quite as lucky, running up ahead at full speed in her light blue sundress and smacking every bug that dared to fly anywhere near her skin. Thankfully, the little creatures finally left us alone once we got close enough to the fire to feel the heat on our skin more strongly than the bug bites.

  A crispy marshmallow sat lodged at the end of a slender, meter long stick that wavered in the light breeze and Ryu’s shaky hands. Just as it looked like it was about to catch fire, Ryu reeled the marshmallow back in and quickly sandwiched it between two graham crackers before using their grip to slide the white, melty goo right off the stick. After slapping a thin bar of chocolate in the middle, Ryu held the freshly-baked s’more in my direction. “Don’t burn yourself. Heat is hot, you know.”

  I graciously accepted the snack from Ryu, my stomach contractions from the alcohol not made any easier by the lack of food since our lunch on the lakefront. “I’m starting to think you’re a better cook than you lead on, bro.”

  “I’m just doing what needs to be done around here,” Ryu answered like he’d said it a million times before. “Hey, Aiko.” Only the top half of her head was visible over the flames from where Ryu sat. “Genjo and I are cookin’ s’mores. You want one?”

  Aiko let out an obnoxiously loud groan, even by outdoor voice standards. “Ugh, you think I’m just a little girl with a sweet tooth, huh? Do ya? Is that… all I am to you?” I wasn’t sure if she sounded like she was about to bawl her eyes out because she was acting or because she was drunk off her ass.

  I glanced over at her for a second before pointing my finger to my head and twirling it in a circular motion. “Just make her one,” I whispered. “She’ll forget that she was even mad about it in a few seconds.”

  “Welp, I guess it’s better than letting her make it herself,” Ryu said with less care in regards to volume than I, getting another marshmallow out of the plastic bag and passing it to me along with the stick - one of the highest honors a man can bestow upon his fellow man. “So… you three have fun in there?”

  I felt the somberness in his words as I gently cast the marshmallow into the fire. “That’s one way of putting it. Honestly, you’re pretty lucky you got to avoid most of Shiraki’s bullshit rules. He was pretty close to taking out a bag of those little green plastic houses before you swooped in.”

  “Haha, yeah. I guess.” Ryu pulled one leg up into the camp chair and rested his elbow on top of his knee. “Don’t apologize to me, if that’s what you’re about to do. I would’ve been out here anyway, with or without the alcohol.” His eyes were fixed on the fruits of his labor; the symphony of snapping and crackling as the wood combusted into a flurry of oranges and yellows was truly worth admiring.

  I reached down for a can of lime soda in the cooler between Ryu’s chair and mine, flipping the tab open with my finger and taking a quick sip to taste any flavor on my tongue other than sake while I waited for my s’more to cool down a bit longer. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that. You sure you don’t mind being by yourself so often?”

  Ryu rested his chin in his hand, picking at his facial hair. “Don’t’cha think I would’ve stopped volunteering to do so by now if it were a problem? It’s kind of nice to get away from it all sometimes.” He grimaced as he plucked what appeared to be a particularly annoying hair out from the bunch. “Although, I can't really complain about a day like this, huh?”

  “You said it, man.” We clinked our cans of soda together and took a celebratory sip. All of the tension that had been building up over the past week felt like it was finally evaporating away into the trail of smoke above our heads. “Guess we gotta thank the rich dad for all this when he gets back.”

  “Ha! If I had a dad this rich, I’d probably never shut up about it either.” Ryu leaned slightly forward, his hair starting to uncurl from the heat. “...Genjo, what’s your read on Shiraki?”

  “Huh?” What an oddly blunt question to be asking right now. “What do you mean?”

  Ryu looked around, making sure Aiko was preoccupied with whatever showbiz tune she was singing to herself across the patio. “I mean…” he brought his voice down to little more than a murmur. “...do you fully trust the guy?”

  I glanced over my shoulder, spotting the back of Shiraki’s head through the window as he took yet another shot from the bottle. “Sort of. After what happened last night, I think he’s been pretty open with us.”

  “Has he, though?” Ryu kept looking over his shoulder like Shiraki would somehow teleport behind him. “Think, man - Luring you out to the club that night with that weird letter, hiding the stuff about the car, not telling us why he chose to take us all the way out here specifically until this morning… For God’s sake, he didn’t even tell us his first name. Aiko only found that out by complete accident.”

  “Ryu, I get what you’re saying, but… Oh, shit!” At the sight of a ball of flame suddenly roaring to life at the end of my stick, I quickly pulled the marshmallow away from the fire and blew on it as hard as I could until all that remained was a charred, rock-hard mess that I knew not even Aiko was inebriated enough to think was edible. I scraped the ruined marshmallow off the tip of the stick and put on a new one, this time trying to pay a little bit more attention. “Sorry about that. I just…”

  “Listen, I’m not saying he’s a completely bad guy, Genjo.” Ryu grabbed a stick of his own to roast a backup marshmallow in case I fucked it up twice in a row. “But doesn’t something about him seem a little, I don’t know…” The green in his eyes flickered with the flames that reflected off his irises. “...desperate?”

  I felt a few cogs in my head start turning as soon as that word escaped his lips. Desperate. Was that too harsh a word? If so, was it because truth in itself is harsh? Assuming the truth is even true at all, of course, is it wrong to question it? A man who’s willing to exploit the perks of being the heir to one of the largest and fastest-growing business conglomerates in the entire country, all for the purpose of treating and impressing three classmates… would you call that desperation?

  As the back door swung open again alongside the bellowing call of someone who sounded no louder drunk than they did sober, I scooted closer to the fire to keep a closer eye on my marshmallow. While I prepared the ingredients to put together some s’mores for when Shiraki arrived, I reached for my own s’more from earlier to take a hearty bite now that I’d finally given it some time to cool down.

  It was pretty lukewarm. Not that it wasn’t tasty - But I learned a quick lesson about the repercussions of waiting too long.