♠ ♦ Alice in Borderland ♣ ♥

17

My first warm shower in ages has ensured that I can find some more peace here. To keep that feeling a little longer, I focus on drying and brushing my hair well. It's still crazy to use electricity and running water. It was weird how quickly I got used to the lack of it.

I can no longer postpone it to deal with the order of the day: what now?

When I get back to the bedroom, I see Soran sitting on his bed thoughtfully. There's a questionable expression on his face, as if he's also thinking hard about what to do next. He hardly looks up when I sit on my own bed and try to contact him. 'How did you sleep?' I ask him. 'Pretty good,' he replies in surprise. 'It's nice to have the heating on and not have to curl up in my blanket to keep warm. And you?' I can tell from him that he is much more excited about this place than I am. In a way I want to be honest, but I don't want to ruin his reasonably good mood. 'Fine,' I reply. I life the corners of my mouth slightly upwards to make sure I'm okay, but of course he sees through that. 'I'm sorry I fell asleep almost immediately,' he says, embarrassed. 'If you couldn't sleep because you didn't feel safe, you could have woken me up.' I shake my head. 'No, that's not it,' I lie as convincingly as possible.

The insecurity I feel due to the lack of door locks did play a big part in my insomnia last night, but my brain kept reeling from last night's game. My cousin seems to understand that, too. 'We'd better avoid them,' Soran says. I don't know if he was just talking about the Suits or Yuki, too, but I'm afraid to ask. 'That Matsu was sneaky enough to get rid of those three in the last round. I wouldn't like it if you came near him.' I give Soran a sarcastic smile. 'Don't worry, I wasn't exactly planning on it.' He seems to hesitate for a moment, but then he says: 'What about Yuki?'

'What about him?' I try to hide it, but he has already noticed the hesitation in my voice. 'We've played three games with him already,' Soran continues. 'Do you think it's a coincidence that he met us twice?' I shrug. 'There aren't that many arenas,' I reply. 'Besides, I think we are pretty similar with our days of visa, so it wouldn't be too odd to see him.'

'Maybe, but...' Soran mumbles, but doesn't finish his sentence. I look at him inquiringly. 'Why do you distrust him so much? I mean, we shouldn't trust anyone just like that, but you seem to have an aversion towards him.' He doesn't go against me. 'Don't you think it's weird? We've only just met him or he's been acting like he's known you for a long time. We even ran into him twice during a game after that and he went with us to the Beach.'

'Maybe he recognizes me from somewhere. I can't remember it myself, but certainly in the past three years many things have passed me by in a blur. Anyway, let's keep the focus on ourselves and agree on how to proceed from now on.' I look at Soran questioningly. 'How do we behave here? I don't want to be in the spotlight, but I don't think it's wise to keep ourselves completely aloof either. For example, we don't know what exactly is going on here and we may let them think that we think we're too good for them. Soon they will treat us extra hostile during a game because of this.'

'I think we should try to mix ourselves with the people and get to know some Beachers,' Soran replies, 'but above all we have to stay sharp and not just trust others.' I agree with him, but I have one more thing to add. 'I don't think it's wise to be together all the time. They'll soon be making a fuss about that again.' He doesn't seem to agree with that. 'I'm not leaving you here alone,' he firmly says. 'That guy from yesterday is a real creep. I didn't like the way he looked at you at all.'

'Me neither,' I sigh honestly. I'm not going to tell him it scares me, because then he's definitely not going to let go of me. 'But I still think it's wise to be around others. Types like Niragi are very aware of how much we care about each other and that you will do anything to protect me. He gets off on it. That makes it even more interesting to try to hurt us.'