Party (3)
“Oh my, my. Looks like I'm the king.”
Ter flourished the paper slip marked with the character for King before our eyes, flaunting her freshly minted authority for all it was worth.
“Ugh!”
“Ah, so mine wasn't it.”
The remaining losers turned their drawn lots over in their minds, mourning that the throne had slipped from their grasp.
“Hurry up and give your command already. Let's move on to the next round.”
“Could you not rush me? Giving commands is my job right now, you know.”
Ter put on a triumphant face, that signature sly grin of hers, and at the sight of it the room went dead silent.
Chloe bit her lip hard, a violent reaction — she seemed unable to hide her anxiety that she might be the one singled out.
“The king names two numbers and issues a command. And that command is absolute, to be obeyed without exception. You all know that, yes?”
“That is the rule of the King's Game, sure. But why are you suddenly reminding us of it?”
“Fufu. I have a feeling at least one bold soul is about to ignore my instructions. So, to nip that in the bud, I'm thinking of collecting a Blood Oath from everyone first. What do you say?”
The Blood Oath. A ritual activated with blood as its medium. Whoever swore it was bound by the vow declared within the ritual, and the moment they broke it, they would have to pay with their life — or a price equal to one.
BANG!
“Don't mess around!”
Chloe's fist, blazing with fury, slammed into the table. Her glowering eyes carried a killing intent so thick my shoulders jumped of their own accord.
“You're stuffing an oath like that into a game that's supposed to be fun for everyone? That's just strong-arming people into playing along.”
Call it keeping the game running smoothly all you liked — this crossed a line. People have the right to refuse what they'd rather not do, and this stripped that right away at the root.
“Calm down. It won't be too late to decide after you've heard me out, will it?”
“...Fine. Let's hear what you're rattling on about.”
Chloe, who had been pressing a hand to her forehead, soon reclaimed her composure and chose to hear Ter out. Had she been curious what sort of clever pitch Ter would produce, rather than a flat refusal?
“Here, an example. Say I'm the king, and I give the order: 'Number 3, grope Number 5's chest.' Do you honestly think they'd listen to me?”
“M-m-m-my chest…?!”
Eva recoiled in horror, both arms clamped over her chest. No prize for guessing — she was Number 5.
Argh, so close. And yours truly was Number 3.
“So can I grope Eva's chest or not?”
“What was that? Did you just announce, with your own two lips, that you want to die?”
The hostility Chloe had trained on Ter swiveled my way. Under the stare of those beastly eyes — eyes that looked ready to tear my throat out on the spot — I escaped behind the rim of my glass.
“See? The game won't move an inch like this. Nobody can enjoy a King's Game in this state.”
“As long as you all keep to the line and don't hand down freak commands, there's no problem.”
“Oh, reeeally? You really, truly won't? Play your cards right, and you could legally get your hands on Eva's chest, you know~”
“...”
Oh, for the love of— look at this girl. The second she gets cast as the main character, she starts striking this careful, torn-by-dilemma pose. Truly the witch who wrecked Academy Yuri Princess — a lost cause if there ever was one.
“There's no need to overthink it. Thrilling amusements always come with risks — that's simply how it is.”
“Even so, forcing people into it is a bit much…”
“It's fine, I'm telling you. Attach one more rule to this, and there's no problem at all.”
Ter took the bottle sitting on the table and tipped it over a glass. Then she held up before us a crystal cup filled with deep crimson liquor, its rich, heady aroma drifting free.
“The one singled out may, at any time, replace the king's command by drinking. Well? What do you think?”
“Huh. Not bad.”
Listening in from the sidelines, even I felt my ears prick up at that.
Drinking games serve plenty of purposes — setting the mood, smoothing relations between players — but at their core, they're about drinking together and unbottling your heart. With a rule like that in place, nobody at the table would walk away sour, either.
“...If that's the extent of it, I can play along.”
Crunch!
Chloe, entirely of her own accord, bit into her own fingertip and filled an empty glass with blood.
Good grief. One hint of legally sanctioned naughty fun with Eva, and the lights went out behind her eyes.
“Oww, ahh… that hurts.”
“I'll cast healing magic on it for you once we're done.”
After her turn came the rest of us, filling our glasses with blood one by one.
“I've also drafted a document laying out the contract terms. Please give it a read.”
The king shall designate two numbers, assigning the roles of subject and object.
The king issues a command to the subject and the object, and the two shall carry out the penalty. This command is absolute and may not be refused on any grounds whatsoever.
Those penalized may substitute the command by each draining the glass poured by the king.
A response must come within thirty seconds. Anyone who fails to comply shall be made to carry out the king's command by force.
No participant may withdraw from the game of their own will. Anyone who loses consciousness to drink shall be eliminated automatically.
“I don't see any real problem here.”
Even the price of the Blood Oath — a gruesome toll for anyone who broke the rules — was, thanks to that forced-compliance clause, effectively sidestepped by default. Grandly named a Blood Oath on the surface, in truth it was nothing more than a temporary compulsion pact, drafted purely so the game could keep rolling.
“Then — game start.”
Ter dropped the contract into the blood-filled glass, and blue flame swallowed the paper whole. In seconds it was ash, crumbling to powder and sifting down into the pooled blood.
The runes of the oath rose upon the back of every right hand, glowing with a soft, lantern-like light — the seal proclaiming that the vow had taken hold.
“Then let's not dillydally — straight into round one.”
The king's command, absolute and binding. And the order Ter, our first king, handed down was this:
Ter came out swinging from the very first round. Fired off carelessly, that was exactly the kind of command to get a friend cutting you off for good.
If it's Number 3…
Ah-ha! It's me.
Come to think of it, my number had already been outed as 3 — which meant some other girl now had to kiss me.
Absolutely not Eva, though.
Her number had been exposed same as mine, after all. She was 5, wasn't she?
“So who's Number 1?”
Waving my number-3 slip, I cast about for my partner.
“I am Number 2.”
“Four.”
Arlan and Marin each called out a different number. Which meant Number 1 was—
“Eyes on mine. Cheers~”
Chloe winked at me, slow and sultry, with a single eye. When had she finished preparing? A glass brimming with liquor waited in each of her hands.
She really didn't want to kiss me, huh. Not one bit.
“Yeah, yeah, got it. Let's drink, then.”
Clink! The glasses met with a bright, clear ring.
Chloe threw hers back and downed it in one clean swallow. The glass, thick with the fumes of strong alcohol, slid down the pale line of her throat.
“What are you waiting for? Drink up, quick.”
“...”
I could only stare, dumbfounded, at the glass Chloe held out to me.
Drink this, and I escape the king's command.
But what if I didn't drink? What would become of me then?
“Ter, let me ask you one thing.”
“Ask me anything. I'll tell you everything I know.”
“The word 'each' in the contract terms — that means both of us have to drink, right?”
“Yep, yep, exactly that. Look at you, understanding perfectly.”
“So then what happens if I dig my heels in all the way to the end—wha—?!”
In that instant my body moved by force, my will be damned. My hands clamped around Chloe's face as though I would never let it slip away.
“Wh— wait a second—!”
Startled, Chloe shoved at me and arched her upper body away, but her resistance was steamrolled without ceremony, and my lips came down hard on hers.
“Mmmph!”
Chloe's eyes flew wide open in shock. She fought to break free, but it was already far too late — my tongue bored into her mouth as if it would never, ever retreat.
Mwah… slurp… smack. The hot tips of our tongues met, sharing breath gone sweet and warm with alcohol as we churned through each other's mouths without mercy.
“Nmmph!”
An act drenched in coercion — one she had never wanted. Her face, mottled with disgrace and humiliation, glared daggers at me, and yet—
Haah… mwah… smack… mmwah!
Ironically, she was clinging to it more desperately than anyone. She hooked her arm around my head and pressed her face tight against mine.
The compulsion of the Blood Oath — of the contract itself — had welded her to the act, driving her to throw herself into the kiss with everything she had.
Mmmh… smack… mwah.
Licking. Enveloping. Sucking. Twisting my body against hers, I plunged my tongue into her deepest reaches.
The harder we tried to tear away, the deeper our tongues tangled. Like two bodies stripped bare and grinding skin to skin, we traded sticky breaths between scorching lips, mingling spit.
“Mmmmmmph!”
Chloe's cry — closer to a sob — poured straight into my mouth.
Pop!
“Haaah…”
Only after drinking in the very last of that lingering afterglow could we finally come apart.
“Mmh… ah…”
“Hhh… sniff… Solis, you…!”
Chloe stared up at me. In her eyes — glistening with indignation, shame, and betrayal — tears welled like dew clinging to blades of grass.
The words just wouldn't come. This was entirely my fault; had I simply drunk within the time limit, none of this calamity would have come to pass.
So what could I possibly say here to smooth her mood over? After much agonizing, I arrived at one conclusion: apologize. That was, more or less, the only road left to earning her forgiveness.
Ah. Of course—
“Your first kiss wasn't Eva! It was me — Solis!”
Unable to hold in that legendary line I'd been dying to fire off, I loaded and launched it in a single breath — and far from earning forgiveness, I only set fire to whatever was left of the mood.
WHAM!
“Gahk!”
Damn. The girl could throw a mean punch.