“It’s probably fine. Let’s just wait a few minutes.” Yori stepped in as a calming presence. He’d picked up on the rest of the group feeling anxious and calmly put them at ease. As if on cue, the door creaked open.
“Now that you’ve all had a chance to catch up, I’ll explain the rules of the next game.” Keiko handed out a sheet of paper with the rules.
“Wait, before you do that, I have a question.” I spoke up. Keiko warmly smiled in response.
“What is it?” She continued handing out the rules.
“How do we know this 1,000,000 yen prize pool is real?” Keiko’s smile disappeared as I asked the question. Her face immediately stiffened. She finished handing out the sheets of paper and started swiping around on her tablet.
She showed us a picture of a house.
“What?” The picture startled Osamu. Keiko ignored it and silently continued swiping.
Each house was accompanied with another reaction.
She then started showing us pictures of people.
Family members.
Our houses.
Our family members.
“We have the funds to investigate you all in depth, and to get these pictures. I can promise you that the prize pool is real.”
There wasn’t any celebration.
“I’m sure you’ve all figured this out…” Keiko paused. “But it would be unwise to report us to the police. We will find out.” She scanned the room and picked up on the eerie atmosphere. “There’s no need for anyone to get hurt. I strongly suggest that we move on as if this conversation never happened.”
Everyone else was too shocked to speak, so I looked at the sheet she’d given us as Keiko read out the rules.
Rules
General Information:
- Every round, players will vote on which player a given prompt will apply to.
- There will be eight rounds, for a total of eight prompts.
Voting:
- To vote, use your phone and tap on the person you want to vote for
- Once you are ready to vote, click the “vote” button
- Once three people are ready to vote, the voting will begin. You will have 30 seconds to vote.
- Everyone will give their votes at the same time
- You won’t be able to see how other people are voting while you vote
- If you don’t vote, you will lose 5000 points
- After everyone votes, the votes will be revealed
- You’ll be able to see who everyone else voted
- If the votes are a tie and there are any ‘wasted votes’ (votes on other players), the vote will be redone. The only players you can vote for are the tied players. (Players with the highest vote)
- This will keep repeating until players reach a decision. If no decision has been reached after 3 rounds of voting, we will randomly decide the winner of that vote.
“Any questions?” I quickly analysed the rules. I didn’t notice anything missing.
“Seems simple enough…” Yaeko was the first to speak.
“Yeah, the last game was way more complicated.” Mei agreed. So did I, but I preferred to stay quiet. To stay observing.
“If there’s no questions, then let’s get started.” As Keiko said this, a notification came up on my phone.
“Round One Prompt: The player that wins this vote…”
“You should all have a notification on your phones. Please click on it to read the prompt.”
I looked around at everyone. I hadn’t read the prompt yet, but I wanted to see how people would react to reading it. I watched Osamu and I noticed his face stiffen. I didn’t want to draw any attention by taking too long, so I tapped on the notification.
“Round One Prompt: The player that wins this vote will be forbidden from speaking until the fourth round’s prompt has been read.”
Murmurs broke out while people started staring. It was obvious why. If there was any clear choice, it was obviously Osamu. He’s the least talkative out of all of us. Everyone knows it. The question was, who was going to advocate for Osamu to win the vote.
No one wants to become the “bad guy” and risk making enemies. Not after Keiko made an entire show about forming alliances. That was masterfully done by the show. Now no one wants to speak up, even though the correct choice was obvious. Even though they all glanced at Osamu, none of them spoke up. I took the opportunity to take control.
“Hibiki. You’ve been staring at Osamu. Do you think he should win the vote?” As expected, everyone looked at us. Some of them looked at Osamu, only to then glance away.
And he noticed.
It didn’t matter what Hibiki said. I just needed Osamu to know what everyone else was thinking. Hibiki scratched her neck as she looked away.
“Erm… I’m not saying that I think it should be Osamu… but… it has to be someone, right?” She looked at the group, but Yaeko was the only one who met her eyes. She stared at Hibiki with a fierce intensity. Hibiki tried to look at Osamu, but couldn’t. “You’re the quietest out of all of us. If anyone should be silenced… it would have the smallest impact on the group if it was you.”
There were murmurs of agreement. Osamu looked at me, but I met his gaze head on. He didn’t look away. I could tell he wanted to participate, but he couldn’t fight the decision.
Sorry, Osamu. But I can’t help you just yet.
“Really? I think that we should silence you, Hibiki.” Yaeko fired back, her voice filled with spite.
“And why’s that?” Choko stepped in. Her unwavering voice was a clear contrast to Yaeko’s emotional response.
Keiko glanced at me and I met her eyes. I was taking a completely different approach as I was during the first game, so I wasn’t surprised she was watching so intently. In the first game, I intentionally turned up the theatrics to shake Yuto and to challenge his ego. Here, I’m intentionally working in the shadows to hide my capabilities to the group.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
More importantly, to hide them from the traitor.
“And of course you’re defending her, it should be Hibiki beca-”
“Yaeko. Stop. You’re just gonna hurt them if you speak before thinking.” Osamu turned away from Yaeko and started speaking towards the whole group. “I get that you want to protect me, but I don’t need that protection. It makes sense. I’m ok with being voted here.” He looked at me again and hesitated. “It’s the logical decision.” He tapped his phone, presumably saying he was ready to vote.
Why was he looking at me?
“The vote is now beginning. You have 30 seconds.”
There wasn’t much to think about. This round went by pretty smoothly. I managed to make the game progress without taking a role in the spotlight.
That’s what I thought, but Osamu’s glances indicated otherwise.
Based on everyone else’s reactions, I doubt they’d noticed. They were too busy dealing with the awkwardness of choosing Osamu for this prompt. He was the only one who could stay focussed on the bigger picture and realise that I’d forced Hibiki into condemning him.
“The voting phase is now over.” I looked down at my phone and saw Osamu had seven votes. Yaeko voted for Hibiki. I looked at them both and saw Yaeko staring at Hibiki while Hibiki stared blankly at the centre of the table. The tension lingered for a few seconds before Keiko broke the silence.
“With seven votes, the winner of this vote is Osamu. From now until the fourth round’s prompt has been revealed, he isn’t allowed to speak. If he does, he’ll lose 5000 points.”
5000 points was a steep punishment, but I guess that’s how badly they wanted to enforce the prompt. I saw another notification as Keiko started speaking.
“Please check your phones for the next prompt.”
“Round Two prompt: The player that wins this vote can’t have the fourth round’s prompt applied to them.”
I looked around. Nobu and Mei both sympathetically looked at Osamu, while Choko looked at him with indifference. Yori watched as Hibiki and Yaeko stared at each other. The game had barely started and we were already playing into the show’s hands.
I decided to put a stop to that.
“Well, I think it’s pretty obvious who should win the vote.” Mei and Yori nodded in agreement.
“Don’t tell me you think it should be you.” This was the first time Yaeko had taken her eyes off of Hibiki since the votes got revealed. She redirected her anger towards me.
“Of course not.” I really wanted to win the vote. The fact that Osamu’s silence ends as the fourth round begins, and that there’s a prompt offering immunity for the fourth round… the fourth prompt must be something big. I don’t enjoy heading into the unknown without some insurance, but this move made more sense. After all, the fourth round’s prompt can only affect me if I get voted. With Yori and Mei by my side, as well as the tension building between Yaeko and Hibiki, I should be fine.
“I think it should be Osamu.” Everyone apart from Yaeko nodded in agreement. It was clear that my proposal surprised her. I’d successfully defused the immediate tension, but there was a second reason I made my move.
“Osamu willingly allowed us to silence him because he knew it would be impossible for the group to choose someone. Whatever this fourth prompt is, I get the feeling it’s going to be something big. It’s only right that we repay Osamu by giving him immunity to that prompt.”
I made it sound like Osamu was making a noble sacrifice, but in reality, he was going to be voted anyway. I distorted the narrative to gain some of his trust.
Yaeko didn’t say anything, but she sat back in her chair. A sign that she was happy with the outcome, but didn’t want to give me any credit. Before we could discuss it any further, Keiko spoke up.
“The vote is now beginning. You have 30 seconds.”
The first reason I made my move was to take Yaeko’s heat off of Hibiki. The second reason was because Osamu looked at me earlier. I determined that standing up for him here would go a long way for shaping our future relationship. I still had time to think, so I decided that I’d be quiet in the next round. I’ve opened up the conversation in these first two rounds, and I don’t want to draw any extra attention.
“With seven votes, the winner of this vote is Osamu. The prompt in the fourth round can’t be applied to him.” Keiko finished her announcement as we got another notification. “Please read the prompt for the third round.”
“Round Three prompt: The player that wins this vote will lose 5000 points.”
Just as I thought we’d done a good job at avoiding conflict, the game threw a curveball at us. The show likely used this prompt as a failsafe. Just in case any groups got by the first two rounds, this would be sure to wreak some havoc.
I stuck to my plan of being quiet, letting the others make the first move. They all eyed each other nervously, and Nobu was the first to break the silence.
“Is there anyone who wants to volunteer?” His question was met with a series of head shakes. Obviously, no one wanted to sacrifice themselves.
“Well, this vote might be a bit difficult, huh?” Yori chuckled. His joke was met with a few sighs and some blank stares. “Well, I have an idea that I think is the most fair.” He started raising his voice. He knew he needed to be as stern as possible.
“It should be Yaeko.”
Everyone turned around to look at Choko. She’d interrupted Yori. Her tone wasn’t cold, but it was still unsettling. Why did she put herself in the line of fire?
And why did she do it in such a confrontational manner?
“Excuse me? Who asked you?” Yaeko got defensive. It was understandable. I immediately looked at Yori since I knew he’d be the next to speak. He knew just as well as I did that if Choko goes one on one with Yaeko, neither of them would back down here. The show wanted to design a situation exactly like that. While Yori doesn’t know we’re on a show yet, he knows that he’d need to be the one to calm them down.
“Choko, please correct me if I’m wrong, but Yaeko… the reason why she said it should be you isn’t anything you should be getting defensive over. To put it simply… you have the most points… so you’d be affected the least-”
“Oh I see, it’s the logical solution, right? Just like it was the logical solution to silence Osamu?” She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. “I see what this is. You guys are targeting us.”
Osamu tightly grabbed her arm to get her to stop. He couldn’t speak, but the prompt didn’t forbid him from communicating non verbally. The shock from how tight he grabbed her was enough to calm her down a bit, but she kept going.
“You know what Nobu, you asked earlier if anyone wanted to sacrifice themselves. Why don’t you do it?” They were sharp words, but they were valid. Everyone waited for Nobu to speak. He hesitated, and avoided eye contact. He leaned forward, and I could tell he was about to apologise for being a hypocrite.
I could tell he was going to sacrifice himself.
I wasn’t going to let him.
“No, Yaeko. Don’t attack him.” I raised my voice, I needed to make myself a source of authority. “You get harmed the least by winning this vote. That is a simple, undeniable fact.” Right now, my goal isn’t to make her sacrifice herself willingly. I know she won’t. I wouldn’t waste my time on that.
My goal is to show her that she won’t simply get whatever she wants if it goes against the group’s interest. This will stop her from acting out like this in the future. “You’re accusing him of acting selfishly, but aren’t you doing the same? You shouldn’t be forcing someone else to sacrifice points when they have 9500 points less than you.”
Yaeko looked at me, and then at Nobu. Osamu grabbed her arm again, but this time, it was gentle. He was pushing her to accept this as the logical choice, and she knew she had no other choice. I’d trapped her and removed all of her exit routes.
“That’s rich, coming from someone who hid his point total. Now why would you hide that in the first place?”
Everyone looked at me.
I was arrogant. I expected her to give into my argument without fighting back.
I should've seen this coming.