Golden maple trees shed their leaves to blanket the school grounds in an autumn haze, their slimmer boughs swaying in the gentle breeze. The night's rain had left the grounds scented with rich petrichor.
Yuki kicked through the piles of leaves before she reached a picnic table and tossed her backpack onto it with a thud.
Ethan looked up sharply from his book, brown eyebrows drawing together. Despite being a robotics nerd who probably had a Lego Millennium Falcon built at home, he didn't wear glasses. Yuki had to imagine them onto his face, to give him the proper studious air. "Not interested. Whatever you're going to say next, I don't want to hear it."
Instead of answering, Yuki slapped two fortune slips, both hers and Ethan's, down on the page of his book. Herd Mentality marked the top of the page while the rest depicted a lone blue blob person standing against an army of red.
Picking up her fortune, Ethan clicked his tongue. "I'm your Lie. You're out of luck, Yuki. You don't even have lucky numbers." He compared the two papers, though hers was significantly smaller than his.
"I can help you get Sophia," Yuki said, watching Ethan slowly tear up both the fortunes piece by piece before sticking them in an empty chip bag.
Ethan pulled up the hood of his green cable-knit sweater. "I'm not going to wear anyone's ring and play Era's game. Give up. You're not going to convince me." He closed his book with a sense of finality, displaying the cover: Introduction to Psychology.
Ethan might not want to play Era's game but Yuki would get him to play hers. She slid onto the smooth bench opposite him and leaned forward to whisper, "What if you don't need to wear a ring? What if I just need to borrow yours?"
With his moment of pause, Yuki knew she'd snared him. "How do you have my fortune?"
"Picked it out of the trash. Listen" —Yuki flipped her ponytail out of her face before the hair could blow into her mouth and adjusted the blue ribbon tying it— "if no one wins their Lie, then who would Era give the presidency to?"
Ethan punched at his cheek with the eraser end of his pencil, dark eyes lowered and glimmering in thought. "You or Rhett. Most likely you."
A few students walked by, roaming Zenith's private campus for the rest of their free hour for lunch. They were headed in the direction of the dragon building where she'd have Poli sci next. She waited until they were past, eyeing them instead of meeting Ethan's gaze. "Say I don't want to be a puppet dancing to Era's fiddle either. We play along, subvert the game, and win by default." We make the unexpected move. No one will ever see it coming. Not even the fortune cookie president.
All night Yuki had lain awake in bed, thinking and staring at the only decoration on her bedroom wall. After the massive debts her parents incurred were discovered and the bank seized their assets, it was the most priceless thing left to her.
A large glass case held a thousand paper cranes, half gold, half silver. For her parents' wedding, her father had folded them all and arranged them in a joining of their family crests. The Kobayashi crane and the Hime wisteria, two interlocking circles to symbolize their eternal union.
Her father loved her mother enough to become mukoyōshi for her, abandoning his family name to take hers and preserve the dying Hime line.
And now it was dead, no matter what Era said.
"If we manage to win this," Yuki said, following the script she'd run through all night, "then I'll make you vice president and we won't have fortunes ever again." She'd found the clear line from A to B while staring at the cranes. Now she intended to follow it.
"Why am I listening to you?" Ethan groaned, digging his nails into his scalp, as if he could dislodge the ideas she was putting in his head. Mind games were more Era's style though. This was plain, common sense. "We're playing Prisoner's Dilemma. We're going to lose."
"Lose what, Ethan? There's nothing to lose." Yuki watched Ethan's mental suffering and stretched out her hand to grip his arm. "We're going to win this together."
A lie. She was going to win this and Ethan would be an unwitting, almost unwilling, accomplice.
His forehead hit the table with enough force to make her wince. That might leave a mark. "Maybe you don't care, but these are people's hearts we're going to mess with. Their feelings and love is at stake here. Doesn't that bother you?"
"Yes," Yuki answered quickly. "Yes, it bothers me." Not as much as it should, but it does. She heard an echo of Rhett singing in her mind and knew that at some point, she might give in and let him in. This wasn't a game she could win without trampling on her better instincts. Anything to live down the shame of the past and make a new life for herself. A new life with a new name.
"Is there anything I need to do besides give you my ring? What are you going to use it for?" he asked, words muffled by his sweater sleeve.
"As far as anyone knows, you aren't playing," Yuki said. "I approached you but you refused to buy in, so now you're in a prime position to find out everyone else's fortunes. We break up any Lie and Truth pairings and try to put Truths together." She tilted her head. "We're missing something."
"Lie on Lie pair." Ethan sat up, shaking his head. "Era didn't really say what happens in those cases."
"Well then, we avoid it as best we can. As for the ring—"
Ethan reluctantly pulled a silver ring out his pocket, setting it between them on a knot in the wood with "E + P" etched beside it. Several hearts with letters scarred the table, but this combination had a star that looked like it'd taken awhile to cut. "It was taped to my locker this morning. I meant to toss it."
Yuki took a similar one off her thumb, turning it so the letters of her name inside the metal circle caught the light. "The markings are hidden while wearing it, so if Rhett gives me his ring, I can switch his for yours before the end."
"That's devious." Ethan placed a palm over his ring, shielding it from her clutches. "You're as cold as your name implies, Yuki. How do I know you're not playing me for a fool like everyone else?"
Lying was a drug Yuki had taken one too many sips of. She knew the thrill she got out of it would leave her emptier each time and craving more, yet she couldn't stop. And like any addict, she promised herself she'd end the toxic relationship later, once this game was over and she had the presidency and scholarship. The snipped off piece of her fortune burned in her dress pocket, yet she smiled at Ethan, the adrenaline pumping fire into her veins.
"I'm not going to break your heart if that's what you're afraid of."
Maybe it was the smile or something else in her tone that flipped a switch. "I've changed my mind. I don't want to be involved besides giving you this." At the genuine fear in Ethan's eyes—the sudden closing off as he picked up his book—Yuki hesitated.
But the moment passed and she squelched the guilt and doubt, snuffing out their weak cries. "Let me know if you change your mind," she said as she slipped the ring out from under his hand.
He didn't stop her.
When she glanced back, leaves once again crunching under her boots, Ethan sat looking defeated. The chip bag blew off the table, scattering paper scraps to the wind.
Mossy stones dotted the manicured lawns and old-fashioned iron lampposts stood like sentries throughout the grounds, making the school feel like an old castle out of a story.
Raising her eyes to the tower that housed the extensive library, Yuki found Era sitting on the ledge of the open window, a boba drink in her hand. If she squinted, that might be the Mango Madness logo of a cat with a mango hat...
Era waved to her.
It was an innocent enough gesture, but it sent chills racing down Yuki's spine. How long had the queen of Zenith been there, watching them like a stone sphinx? Another unsettling thought occurred to her. If she'd tried to enlist Ethan, how many more students would be willing to do Era's bidding and spy for her?
After standing under a tree for a few minutes flipping through a folder of homework, Yuki looked up. Era was gone. Later, when she visited the library, she'd need to see if the maples obscured the bench from view.
For now, she pushed Ethan's ring deep into her pocket, yet another secret to keep.
She'd seen it on his locker this morning and thought about stealing it.
But she was a liar, not a thief.
Chapter Word Count: 1506