Wilted Lotus|| fem muitan

IV

^Wonderful art by @MoonBlank^

-recap-

'What is this strange feeling...?'

-end of recap-

Muichiro woke up as early as she usually does and repeated what she did after she awoke the previous morning, trying to create a routine for herself. Whilst she was writing, Muichiro lost track of the time as she started setting up the backstory of the character. Muichiro already had an ending in mind. It was not going to be happy. They say authors write what they know, and all Muichiro knew was pain.

She was still writing when Tanjiro woke up. It was then when Muichiro realized just how long she had been writing her story. Tanjiro never woke up until almost lunch time. "Good Morning, Muichiro!" Tanjiro said in a cheery voice, albeit she just woke up. "Good morning, Tanjiro." Muichiro replied quietly and calmly, still writing the seventh chapter of her book.

She had already gotten two chapters done, and it wasn't even lunch! Well, it makes sense. Muichiro had been up for almost six and a half hours, after all.

"I heard that the other second years are throwing a party today. They invited all the second years, so would you like to come with me?" Tanjiro informed Muichiro, hoping that the other girl would say yes. Muichiro took a second to think about it. She didn't like loud noises(courtesy of her parents) or too many people. No, just people in general. She didn't like people.

"Um... I would like to decline, though maybe another time? I'm just not a huge fan of parties or social gatherings." Muichiro responded, hoping that Tanjiro wasn't too disappointed and would have someone else to go with. Tanjiro nodded before saying, "It's fine! Don't worry."

Muichiro was relieved that Tanjiro was okay with her not wanting to go to the party. "Hey! If you're staying back, how about I stay with you? We could maybe play cards or something!"

Muichiro was surprised that Tanjiro would be willing to stay behind from her, though she didn't want Tanjiro to miss the fun. She knew how excited Tanjiro was when she told Muichiro about the party, and Muichiro didn't want her excitement to go to waste. "Are you sure? I don't want you to miss anything..."

"It's fine! Besides, there will be more parties later this year, so you don't need to worry about me missing anything." The two started planning what they wanted to do that night while most everyone else was at the party. In the end, they decided on just playing cards and some other board games that Tanjiro had brought with her, hoping for an occasion such as this one.

Both were excited and were ready for the day to be over. Muichiro still felt bad that Tanjiro had to miss the party, though that feeling subsided when she saw Tanjiro smile happily whilst planning their night. It was starting to get late, and the two had set up their room for their game night.

There were whatever pillows and blankets that they could find strewn across the floor and a pillow in the middle, acting as a table for the games. They got seated on either side of the "table", and Tanjiro set a deck of cards in the middle of it. They were going to play a game called 31 where you get three cards. The goal is to get a 31 as the sum of all three cards, though each card has to be of the same suit. Normal cards are worth whatever number is on them, face cards are each worth ten, and aces are worth 11. Each turn you have, you can choose to either draw a card from the deck or the discard pile. If you were confident that you would win, you could knock on the table and that would be your turn.

Normally, you would play with quarters and the person with the lowest sum has to pay, but in this version they payed with m&ms that Tanjiro found. Neither wanted to pay actual money for the game, it was just for fun. It is also better to play the game with a larger group, but they didn't care.

They played four rounds of 31, with Muichiro winning all of them. After that, they decided to play a couple of the board games that Tanjiro had brought, Muichiro still winning them all.

Tanjiro was starting to get frustrated; she hadn't won a single game! She decided to bring out a game she always won when playing with her family: chess. What Tanjiro didn't know was that Muichiro had played chess against her father, who was an expert at chess, and almost always won.

The two started playing. Each move was carefully calculated. Moving one piece after another. A white one, a black one. It was almost as if all Tanjiro had to do was blink before her king was cornered by black pieces, about to be stolen. "Checkmate." Muichiro stated calmly, not surprised by her victory.

"I want a rematch!" Tanjiro exclaimed, though she knew a rematch was pointless. The two enjoyed playing games with each other and were up late into the night. They played an additional three rounds of chess as well as some other games Tanjiro had found.

Muichiro had never really had a game night before. The closest she got to a game night was when her father was teaching her chess; really the only good thing he did for her.

Once it was beginning to be early morning, both had decided it was time to clean up and go to sleep. They had both made an agreement to do this again in the near future.

Muichiro had never had so much fun in her life, even if winning every game got boring after a while, she still enjoyed it(is that a run on sentence??).

Muichiro had fallen asleep relatively quickly with a smile on her face as she recalled the events that played out that night. 'I'm excited to do that again...' With that, Muichiro fell asleep.
-・-・-・-・-・

-1018 words-

Hello! Another short chapter, but at least this actually has scheduled updates. I just barely made it on time, though😅. I hope you're enjoying this book! Another thank you to MoonBlank for the amazing art! See you in three days!

-the author