“I mean, wow.” The white-haired boy set a freshly washed glass on the drying rack and wiped his hands with a hand towel. “Figured you were pretty oblivious, but you really outdid yourself this time. I spent three days trying to get your attention, you know.” He hung the towel around his shoulder and leaned towards me, putting his elbow on the bartop. “You need a drink?”
At a loss for words, I simply pulled out one of the stools and sat down. Too many questions were racing through my mind to make out any of them individually. A garbled mess of ‘who is this guy?’, ‘how does he know who I am?’ and ‘what the fuck is this place?’ compiled together to form a phrase that sounded more like ‘how does what know who this place is??’. The answer to that question? ‘I need a drink.’
The boy waved his hand in front of my face. “Nobody home, huh?” He walked over to a massive shelf of bottles, selected two of them, and started pouring them into a tall glass filled with ice. One liquid took up about three-quarters of the glass, and the other simply topped it off. After mixing them together, he dropped in a thin slice of lime and slid the drink across the bar to me. “Gin and tonic. Lemme know how I did.”
Taking the first sip from the glass felt like an incredibly bad idea. Mom and Dad always told me to never take drinks from a stranger, but I did watch him pour the beverage right in front of me, and I’m pretty sure I saw him break the seals around the caps as well. There’s no way he could’ve done anything to it, right? “...Thanks.” I raised the glass and took a long sip - approximately one-sixth of the glass - and set it gently on the bar.
…It tasted awful.
I heard the boy hold back a chuckle as I choked the drink down. “Oh shit, you actually drank it.” Laughter quickly took over him as he bent over and clutched his sides. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice that I put in three parts gin instead of one.” Nearly out of breath, he stood back up and wiped off the tears that ran down his face. “You really are oblivious, huh?”
I felt my ears become hot from embarrassment. “I’m not.” The aftertaste felt even worse once I started speaking. “…I just don’t drink, okay?”
“Mhm. Didn’t think so.” The boy poured me a glass from a bottle that was conspicuously labeled ‘water’ and set it next to me. “Wash it down.” Feeling a bit more skeptical, I grabbed the glass and took a quick whiff of the liquid inside. It didn’t smell like anything. The boy smiled. “Clever.” He picked up the bottle and ripped off the label, revealing another label underneath reading ‘Strychnine - 0.5 M’.
“Didn’t expect you to try and poison me so soon. Nice try.” I picked up the glass from the bottom and looked through it from the side. “Colorless and odorless? You’re lucky I know my stuff.”
The boy simply grinned. “I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you.” Without any warning, he snatched the glass out of my hand and started chugging the whole thing.
I quickly jumped out of my seat and stepped away from the bar. “Holy shit, dude… are you a fucking lunatic?”
He wiped his mouth off with the cloth napkin that he rested around his shoulder. “Maybe.” He ripped off the Strychnine label and revealed a third one reading ‘water?’. The boy crumpled up the old labels and tossed them in the trash. “Maybe not.”
I cautiously sat back down on the stool at the bar. “If you’re trying to get me to trust you, you’re not exactly doing a great job of it.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to trust me… ever think of that one, boy genius?” He threw his napkin back around his shoulder. “People around every corner are always trying to lead you astray, you know.”
“Like you, right?”
He scoffed. “That’s not for me to decide, is it?” After he finished laughing, he held out his hand. “Name’s Daniel. Whether or not you choose to trust me is up to you.”
I shook Daniel’s hand. “I’ll give it some thought. I’m-”
“Genjo Sazama, right?” Daniel’s eyes narrowed as I tensed up even more. “I know what you’re thinking… and no, I’m not a psychic or anything like that. Think of me as… more of an overseer of sorts.”
“That… doesn’t exactly help, Daniel.” To be honest, he was only making his case worse by the second. Something told me that he definitely knew more than just that.
Daniel let go of my hand. “Genjo, let’s put our thinking caps on for a second.” He unwaveringly downed the rest of my gin and tonic and started washing both of our glasses. “Wouldn’t somebody who’s trying to con you be doing a much better job of seeming perfectly trustworthy? If anything, this would be the worst possible way for me to manipulate you.”
He’s right. While I still don’t think he’s exactly trustworthy, at least he doesn’t seem to be trying anything sketchy. “…Fine.”
“Good.” Daniel pulled a deck of cards out of his pocket and started shuffling them in his hands. “You play blackjack?”
I was so mesmerized by the efficiency of his shuffling technique that I nearly forgot to respond. “Oh… yeah. I’ve played a few times.”
Daniel silently passed me my cards. I looked in my hand - the ten of spades and the six of clubs.
“Hit.”
He passed me a third card - the five of hearts. 10… 6… 5…
I threw my cards down on the bar in front of Daniel. “Twenty one, sir.”
“Not bad.” Daniel took the three cards back. “Don’t get too cocky, now.” He reshuffled the deck and dealt two cards to each of us. “You’ve got some competition now.”
I checked my new hand. Once again - the five of hearts… and the ten of spades.
I tapped my finger on the bar. Daniel passed me another card.
…the six of clubs.
I put the cards down on the bar, feeling incredibly uneasy. “Twenty one… Daniel, you’re sure you shuffled these, right?”
“You saw me, didn’t you?” He began reshuffling again. “Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you, are they?” He passed out two more cards each once again. “There. Enough proof that I’m not doing any card tricks?” My hands shook as I picked up my new hand.
Jack of diamonds.
Joker.
“Hey, what am I supposed to do with-”
Daniel slid the next card to me without me asking him to. As I picked it up, it felt different.
I flipped the card to reveal a shining blue hue that looked all too familiar now. The symbol upon it: The Scales of Justice. The scales themselves weren’t balanced - the scale on the right was tipped slightly further down than the left.
“So you finally get it.” Daniel placed his cards on the bar and flipped them over to face up, revealing them to be the second joker and a blue card of his own. It bore a star - in fact, it looked exactly like mine… I reached into my back pocket for my wallet, only to find that it was no longer there. With a quaint smile on his face, Daniel slowly took my wallet out of his own pocket, lifting it up to show it off like a trophy. “Is this a good enough reason for you to trust that I’m on your side, Genjo?”
“As if.” I quickly swiped at my wallet, attempting to snatch it out of Daniel’s hand before he gracefully moved it just out of arm’s reach. “How the hell did you get that?”
“A trickster never reveals their secrets.” Daniel’s smile turned devilish in a way that I can only compare to Taisuke when he’s about to say or do something incredibly stupid. “Genjo, why do you keep looking for explanations where they simply don't exist? The sooner that you accept that sometimes things just don’t make sense, the better.” He grabbed all loose cards off the bar and started reshuffling the deck. “You want it back, right?” Daniel slid the entire deck of cards over to me. “Deal me a hand. If I bust, you can have your wallet back.”
Ugh, this guy pisses me off. I passed Daniel two cards, which he looked at with an oddly exaggerated expression of disgust. He begrudgingly tapped the bar, prompting me to deal him another. Daniel looked even more annoyed.
“Reshuffle them. And for God’s sake, remove the jokers, please.”
Shit. I forgot to do that, didn’t I? I did as Daniel asked and passed him a new hand. Daniel stared calmly at his hand for a few seconds. A few seconds became a minute. A minute was starting to test my patience. “Hey, are you gonna play or not?”
“Let a man think, would you?” Daniel’s eyes were glued to his hand, almost like he was in a trance. He started lightly fanning himself with the cards, despite it not feeling all that hot inside the tavern. “Say, Genjo… I’ve got a question. Sorry if it sounds a bit odd.” Daniel finally looked up from his hand. “What are you afraid of?”
Those words sent a chill down my spine. Where had I heard them before? “Well…” I didn’t know what he wanted me to say. Part of me wondered if he already knew the answer before it even left my mouth. I didn’t like the look in his eyes - the emotion in his gaze was difficult to discern. It made my whole body feel frigid. “…a lot, I guess.”
He rested his free hand underneath his chin. “That’s one hell of an answer, don’t you think?” He briefly glanced back to his hand, although it didn’t seem like he cared all that much about it anymore. “At least gimme something, dude. You just… look like you need to talk about whatever’s on your mind.” For once, his expression finally looked genuine with concern. Why did it suddenly change so dramatically?
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My eyes were drawn to the spot where my star-bearing card rested on the bar. “…things just haven’t been making sense lately.” I felt myself falling into a trance of my own as the rays of fluorescent blue light invited themselves into my eyes. “I haven’t even had time to get a grip on living on my own yet, and before I even got a chance to breathe, I had a run-in with those phantoms.” My fingers started subconsciously fiddling with the deck of cards. “Nothing’s felt normal ever since. It’s like I couldn’t even figure out my old life, and now suddenly I have two lives that don’t make any sense at all either.”
Daniel set both of his cards down a few inches apart from each other. “Don’t worry, I’m still listening.” He tapped the bar twice. “Split.”
“You can do that?” Confused, I slid a card to each of his hands. “Guess I don’t play enough blackjack.”
“Damn right you can.” Daniel briefly took a look at both of the new cards before quickly setting them down. “Anyway… what were you saying about two separate lives, again?” Two taps on the bar later, Daniel’s hands had become even more full. “They might seem so distant from one another, but they’re much closer than you might think. Take these cards, for instance. Yes, I turned one hand into two, but I could only do so because I was initially dealt a pair of identical numbers. Those two lives start at the same place: you. It may seem daunting to manage two sides of yourself, but…” He revealed the cards in his right hand - twenty one. “...success is completely within reach if you play your cards right.”
I started picking up the cards from his finished hand. “You do realize that this metaphor only works if your other hand is successful too, right?”
Daniel leaned forward, still being cautious to hold the cards in his left hand close to his chest. “Who said that those two lives have to be perfectly balanced?” One more tap - one more card. “Sometimes one life takes a bit more effort than the other to reach the same result. Maybe you don’t understand yourself yet, or maybe you stumble along the way. Regardless…” Daniel set the cards down face up. I had just dealt him the Jack of diamonds - it was a bust. His demeanor noticeably shifted. “…sometimes certain obstacles seem to always be in your way.”
“Were you making that up as you went along, Daniel?” I stared intently at the Jack of diamonds… Why do the same cards keep coming up?
“Heh, believe whatever makes you happy.” Daniel slid my wallet and my star card to me. “I promised I’d give them back, didn’t I?”
I carefully put both items in my back pocket and buttoned the pocket shut in case he tried to steal them again. “You know, it says a lot about my week that you’re only the third weirdest person that I’ve spoken to.” (Well, I’d be hard-pressed to call Paramélisi a person, but this guy is still somehow more normal than Ms. Dokuro, at least.)
Daniel laughed as he collected the cards and put them back in their box. “I’ll take that as a compliment, actually.” He grabbed another glass off of the drying rack, polished it clean and started pouring another drink. “Thanks for playing with me. You have no idea how lonely it gets here.”
A deep, female voice from downstairs rang throughout the entire tavern. “Oh, does it now?” Footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs as the individual spoke to Daniel from afar. “I know you need your alone time, but you can at least act like you miss me.”
Daniel filled a separate glass with liquid from the bottle formerly labeled ‘Strychnine’ with a scowl written across his face. “I already do that. Don’t give me any more reasons not to, Luna.” The look in Daniel’s eyes told me that, if there really was poison in that glass, he was debating whether to give it to her or to drink it himself. “Don’t just ignore our guest and then get angry when we don’t talk to you.”
The girl that Daniel called Luna reached the top of the stairs, where I noticed that the white hue in her hair perfectly matched that of Daniel’s. She walked with an incredibly composed and sharp posture, but I wasn’t sure how much of that you could attribute to the restrictiveness of her black and white one-piece dress. “You say that like you even told me that the guest would be here today.” She walked behind the bar and stood in front of Daniel, towering over him by at least 3 inches. “The way that you’ve been actively avoiding making any sort of plan with me for the past few days is really getting on my nerves, Daniel.”
Daniel nervously laughed and scratched the back of his neck with his left hand. “Hey… let’s talk about this another time, shall we?” I could see the sweat start to bead up all across his face. “We don’t want to make our guest feel unwelcome, right?”
I gently waved in their direction, being careful to not add any more fuel to the fire that was burning in front of me. “You know, I think I’d still be just as confused with or without any plan - if that helps you feel any better.”
Luna let out a sigh that sounded like she was venting out an immense amount of built up anger. “Don’t give my brother too much benefit of the doubt - I can’t remember the last time I saw him explain anything straight to anyone.” She picked up the glass sitting in between her and Daniel, hesitated for a moment, and proceeded to splash it in his face. “You and your stupid strychnine trick. Just when I thought you’d grow up for a change.”
Daniel could barely retort as he hurriedly wiped all the liquid off of his face. “Bleh… stop treating me like a kid, Luna.”
“I’ll quit treating you like a child when you finally stop acting like one.”
I rushed to cut the tension that had built up in the room. “Okay, glad introductions are done! Let’s take a look at the itinerary and oh my goodness, it’s time for everyone to tell me what the fuck is going on.”
The two siblings immediately stopped and took a moment to regain their composure. “Apologies. This was far from the best introduction.” Luna pulled out a stool and sat facing me. “My name is Luna. Daniel, as you may have gathered, is my younger brother.”
Daniel dragged his stool next to Luna’s, creating obnoxiously loud noises as it scraped across the floor. “Not that much younger. She likes to pretend that I’m still a child.”
Luna continued, completely ignoring her brother. “Any further questions, I’m afraid… we can’t exactly answer them.” She picked up a bottle of her choice and made herself a small glass of wine. “The truth is… Daniel and I know very little about who or where we are.”
“She’s right.” Daniel grabbed the wine and started drinking it straight out of the bottle. “We’ve lived in this tavern as long as we can remember - which is admittedly not very long. Neither of us really like going out much. I just get an itchy feeling that I’m not supposed to leave.”
“Which is why it was a stupid idea for you to try leading him here by making him follow you, Daniel.” Luna took the bottle out of his hand and set it down on the side that was furthest away from him. “Anyway, if you came here looking for answers, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.”
I was still struggling to process anything at all. Every single time I think I’m getting somewhere with these two, things just feel even less logical. I only had one lead to go off of. “Hey, Luna…” I took my star card out of my pocket. “Do you have one of these, too?”
Luna didn’t seem fazed at all. “You know at least that much about us, it seems.” I’m guessing that she somehow knew that Daniel had already shown me his. “Is this what you’re looking for?” Luna held her card between her fingers, displaying an illustration of a regal woman in a robe. A large coin rested in the woman’s arms.
Daniel abruptly jumped back into the conversation. “Personally, I think mine looks cooler.”
Luna smacked him on the forehead with her card, quickly shutting him up. “Genjo, what do you think the purpose of these cards are?” She slowly flipped her card through her fingers to examine the illustration. “None of us are quite sure what they do.”
I explained Ryu’s theory about the cards and how they allow us to summon our facades.
“That’s certainly a theory. However, neither Daniel nor myself have one of these ‘facades’. Surely they have some other purpose…”
Daniel leaned back against the wall out of boredom, knowing full well we weren’t making much progress. “My siblings and I have been stumped about these things for days. At this point, I’m just worried about whether or not the glow is bad for my eyes.”
Wait… siblings? “Daniel, what did you-”
A door creaked open from the other side of the upper floor. I swiveled around my stool and saw a much shorter person slowly meandering towards us. Unlike Daniel or Luna, this person wore an oversized hoodie and long, baggy pants. Their arms didn’t swing as they walked - they were wrapped around their torso, like the person was trying to keep themselves warm. Seeing the unkempt white hair atop their head was no longer a surprise to me.
Luna stepped out from behind the bar. “Oh, I forgot to mention…” She made a glass of juice and grabbed a plate of pre-made food. “This is Cleo, our youngest sibling. They don’t talk much, and they don’t really come out of their room often, either.” Luna approached Cleo, crouched down and handed them the plate and juice. “Sorry if the chips aren’t good. Daniel couldn’t find your favorite ones at the store, but we made do with what we had.”
Cleo nodded and let out a soft “mhm…” before taking the food from Luna. Their facial expression changed very little.
After handing her the food, Luna gave Cleo a light rub on the head, ruffling their already messy, short hair even more. “Let me know if you need anything.” Cleo simply turned around and walked back to their room before shutting the door. “Oh, I don’t know what to do about that child… I wish I knew what was wrong.”
“Ah, don’t beat yourself up, Luna.” Daniel opened a drawer and grabbed a bar of chocolate from inside before running over to the door to Cleo’s room. Without knocking, Daniel slid the chocolate bar underneath the door and ran back to sit with Luna and I. “The kid’s gonna be alright.”
“Daniel, I thought I told you to stop giving Cleo candy every day.” Luna closed the drawer and gave her brother another scowl. “It’s not good for them to eat so much, they’ll get sick if we’re not careful.”
“Nah, stop being such a buzzkill.” Daniel snagged a beer can from an ice chest and cracked it open. “They deserve a bit of joy in life. I just want Cleo to be happy.” He took a sip of the beer and savored every drop of it. “If they can’t leave their room, I wanna bring everything from outside to them. You know, to show them that the outside isn’t so scary.”
Luna held back a look of frustration. “But we need to eventually help Cleo learn how to overcome their fear. It’s not good for them to stay so cooped up in there, and we can’t just baby them forever. They’ll never want to leave if we do.”
Daniel stepped closer to Luna, trying his best to show dominance over his older sister. “That doesn’t mean I should let them be miserable, Luna-”
Their argument was interrupted by the sound of Cleo’s door opening once again. This time, they slowly walked over to us with an empty glass and a finished plate. Cleo dumped them both into the sink, turned around and walked back. They stopped right as they passed me. Cleo looked up at me, completely expressionless. One of the arms that clung tightly to their body reached out to give me a gentle wave. I waved back and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Cleo.” I tried to not speak too loudly in case I accidentally frightened them. “Take care of yourself, okay?” Cleo stopped waving their hand and instead held it out to shake mine. I gleefully accepted. When I shook Cleo’s hand, I felt a bizarre jolt of electricity shock me. I recoiled back while Cleo gave me a hint of a smile - the first shred of emotion we had seen all day. They waved again before silently returning to their room.
“Wow, Genjo.” Daniel patted me on the back. “Congrats. You did the impossible… you made Cleo smile.”
I brushed his hand off my back. “Don’t count on it happening too much. I’m not all that great with kids. My sister was always better at that than I was.”
Luna handed me my own glass of juice. “That doesn’t matter. What counts is that you did it at all. Be proud of yourself.” I graciously took the juice and drank it in one gulp. God, it was refreshing to drink something today that didn’t taste like hand sanitizer. “Sorry we couldn’t help much more than this… we’ll let you know if we learn anything else. And if you ever want to help out with Cleo, we’d appreciate your help.”
I nervously scratched my neck, feeling a strange tingling sensation as I did so. “I’m not sure if I-”
“Sure you can.” Daniel lightly slapped me on the shoulder. “Even if you don’t wanna, you’re always welcome here if you just need to get away from everything. How about it?”
I thought hard about Luna and Daniel’s offer. On one hand, Daniel’s tricks and pranks can be unbearable sometimes… and Luna’s argumentative nature doesn’t exactly make it any better. But… something about those two is different whenever Cleo is around. I’m not sure why, but the tavern felt a lot cozier when they came out of their room. Daniel and Luna even quit bickering with each other when Cleo was around. Maybe if I helped Cleo become more social, it could be better for both of their siblings’ sakes.
“I’ll do it.”
Luna and Daniel smiled. It felt like the first time that both of them were happy at the same time since I had met them. “Thank you,” Luna said with a soft, gracious tone. “Oh, and Daniel… Please learn how to play more card games…” Ugh, I should’ve known that vibe wasn’t going to last very long. “I'm sick of you only playing blackjack every single day. If I have to hear you tapping on that counter one more time, I think I might pop a blood vessel.”
I left before I had the chance to be subjected to another one of their sibling squabbles. I don’t even think they noticed that I had left amidst their arguing. When I stepped outside, the sky was pitch black. Shit, was I really in there for that long? I stumbled my way out of the alleyway and jogged back to my dorm.
When I swung open the door to my room, Ryu was already fast asleep. I tried to sneak in as quietly as possible and prayed that he hadn’t left anything on the floor for me to trip over in the darkness. I silently climbed into bed, popped my sleeping pills and fell asleep in only a few minutes.