Roll the Dice With Me
The day after Lua’s gacha spectacularly tanked, she came up beside me as I returned from lunch.
“Lua?”
“Jinwoo, you free?”
“Free for what?”
“Something to do during lunch.”
I hadn’t planned on studying this lunch period. I wasn’t going to hit the gym either. So that left…
“Probably just hanging out with the guys?”
Yeah. I’d be talking and goofing off with friends.
The same outcast crew I’d been tight with since first year was still in my class, so if I wasn’t with Lua, I was almost always with them.
Lua puffed her cheeks a little at my answer, then immediately grabbed my arm.
“Lua…!?”
Maybe it was the way her small, soft hand closed around my arm—I called her name in flustered surprise—but she didn’t say a word. She just tugged me lightly along.
And just like that she started walking somewhere, leaving me no choice but to get dragged after her.
Honestly, if I’d really wanted to dig my heels in I could have. I just didn’t feel like using any strength against Lua. Besides, when she acted like this, there was usually a reason.
Following her like that eventually brought us all the way to the far end of the second-year floor.
And what was at the far end of the second-year floor?
“…The counseling room?”
The counseling room—the classroom they called Wee Class—was right there.
Lua walked straight in and announced, as casually as if she were just clocking in,
“Teacher, I’m going to use that board game I mentioned this morning!”
“Sure~ Use the empty classroom over there, and clean up properly afterward, okay?”
“Yes~!”
One hand holding a board game box, the other still holding me, Lua marched right into the empty classroom inside the counseling suite.
“Lua, this is…”
“Yacht. You know it?”
Yacht—also called Yacht Dice, or Yahtzee.
Basically you roll dice, complete poker-style combinations, and score points…
“You’re playing this with me today.”
Out of nowhere she decided we were doing this.
“With me? Just the two of us?”
“If you play with more than three people it takes forever.”
“I know that, but… just us two? Why bother with this?”
“What, you don’t want to?”
I shook my head immediately.
As if I could not want to. This was playing a game with Im Lua herself.
I was just flustered, that was all.
“Sit down. Want me to make you coffee or cocoa?”
“…Why are you acting so at home?”
“Oh… you didn’t know? I was on the counseling club last year.”
Yeah. I had no idea. Zero idea.
“Plus I’m pretty close with the counseling teacher, so she told me if I ever wanted to play a game or grab a snack, just say the word.”
“So you’re going to abuse that power for playtime?”
Lua shrugged at the question.
“One day won’t hurt, right?”
“…Yeah. One day should be fine.”
I finally surrendered and sat down next to her.
The second I did, Lua gave a soft little smile and started staring straight at me.
“Okay, want to go first?”
“…I’ll go first.”
I took the five dice and the cup she handed me.
Rattle-rattle-rattle-rattle…
Shaka-shaka-shaka-shaka…
I dropped the dice into the cup, covered the mouth, and started shaking hard.
The clacking of dice against my hand and the plastic cup made a pretty nice sound. I listened to it, and the moment I figured they were mixed well enough—
Wham!
Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter!
I dumped every die onto the board.
Click! Click! Click! Click!
The dice tumbled and knocked into each other inside the tray. Listening to that, Lua and I both checked the faces.
And…
6 / 6 / 6 / 6 / 4
We were staring at a completely broken timeline where everything but one die had come up six.
“Pardon?”
While Lua was so shocked she even slipped into polite speech, I calmly set all four sixes into the keep and pulled only the four out.
In Yacht you get three rolls total. You can lock any of the results and re-roll the rest.
So even though it looks like pure luck, there’s actually a ton of mind games and skill involved…
“No cheating! Stop cheating!!”
Lua immediately flipped into full pouty-Lua mode and started yelling at me not to cheat.
It wasn’t real swearing—more like scolding—but still.
That secretly cute version of her made me smile as I answered with absolute confidence.
“Mm~ skill issue~”
Wham!
Clatter-clatter-clatter…
Tunk.
I rolled the last die and it came up six. Holding that final six, I wrote 50 in the Yacht box at the very bottom of the score sheet.
Lua watched and started grinding her teeth hard enough to spark.
“Uuuuugh… Seo Jinwoo, you cheater…!”
“I’m not a cheater. I’m just good.”
“Cheater!”
“Ah-ah, skill game.”
“Ssss… I am not this unlucky of a person…”
Grumbling, she started rolling.
Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter…
Click! Click! Click! Click!
Just like I had, Lua shook and dumped the dice, then stared holes through the board. Before long the dice stopped moving and showed their results.
1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 6
One, two, four, five, six.
Pretty numbers, but awkward in every way that mattered.
If it had been me, I would’ve locked four through six and only re-rolled the one and two, aiming for at least a Small Straight and hopefully a Large Straight.
Four in a row is a Small Straight, five is a Large. They’re surprisingly hard to land, so you want to secure them early when you can.
But Im Lua, this absolute madwoman, made a choice that completely blew past my imagination.
She kept the two… and only pulled out the one.
“…Uh, Lua?”
“What.”
“If you pull only that… it’s Large Straight or total bust, right?”
“I know!”
She snapped back like she was about to explode, so I put both hands up in surrender.
“Okay, okay. Go for it.”
“The odds of what you just did for Yacht and what I’m doing now are exactly the same. So I can do it too!”
Technically she wasn’t wrong. On my first roll I’d locked four sixes, so I only needed one more six on either the second or third roll. Pure probability: one in three.
And Lua only needed a three on her second or third roll. Also one in three. Same on paper.
But there was a difference.
I’d already had four sixes. I could have dumped them into the Sixes box for twenty-four points, or even into Four of a Kind for twenty-four-plus. I had insurance.
Lua right now had zero insurance. Bust meant bust, and she knew it.
“Hey, Lua. Forget the one-in-three all-or-nothing. Just lock four through six and roll two dice. At least take the Small Straight for sure.”
“…Jinwoo, the second you landed Yacht I already needed a Large Straight or I’m dead.”
It sounded almost reasonable, but that didn’t erase the point of my advice to keep at least some probabilistic safety net.
Still, there was no talking to her now. No matter what I said, the odds of her yelling “I don’t care, just roll!” were sky-high.
Knowing that full well, all I could do was sit there staring blankly while she chased a Large Straight with a single die.
Then Lua dropped that one die into the cup…
Whirl! Whirl! Whirl! Whirl! Whirl! Whirl!
…and shook the cup and die with absolute violence.
Only a moment later—
Wham!
Clatter-clatter-clatter…!
The die she had been shaking flew out onto the board.
It tumbled and rolled, and when it finally stopped, Lua’s face filled with pure rage.
“Aaaaagh! A one! A one!!”
“You’ve got one more.”
“Uuuuuugh…”
Lips jutting out, Lua rolled the die one last time…
…and it came up four.
“Ssssss… for real… I must just be unluckyyyyy…”
She stared at the die with the most devastated eyes. I slipped out for a second to cheer her up.
After getting the teacher’s okay, I brought back a pack of jelly and held it out to her.
“…Jinwoo?”
“Eat this at least. Something tasty might help a little.”
“Mm…”
She gave a tiny nod, tore open the bag, and started chewing.
Even while she munched the jelly, she kept glaring at the dice with angry eyes. And somehow… she was ridiculously cute.
Her birthday was later than mine, so technically she was the little sister, but even accounting for that I’d never really found her cute before. If anyone was cute it was Lulu.
But in this exact moment, Lua was so cute that Lulu didn’t even cross my mind.
“Want to finish the Yahtzee?”
“Yeah, let’s…!”
Jelly-fueled and mood improved, Lua dove back into the game…
“…Seo Jinwoo, you trash! Get away from me, you cheater!!!”
……I crushed her completely.
Weird. I’m usually unlucky. Why was my luck so good today?