Survival Of The Fittest

"I'm sorry I led you down the path of foolishness. You regret it yet?"

The water was willing to accommodate them, unlike the ground they'd left behind. It moved as they sat, forming what would be a cocoon but for the chilliness. Ace's hands were in reach, as was the rest of him if she were so inclined to.

That can could be kicked just a little further down the road.

He looked at her and the shore, their things and herself. She knew because he had all of her focus, at least the her that refused to be anywhere else.

Her hands shook, they went in the water too. Nodding in the affirmative, Sakurako scooted behind him and plopped down again. He didn't mean right then? Maybe he should have tried this with someone who wasn't afraid of losing their nerve.

Ivy, she certainly wasn't. Thomas? Even less so. He was so practical he was a little mercenary.

Was his body cold? Lonely?

It was her responsibility, and her fault, but it had been his choice, his right to ask. There was the past, and presently she had a task. Sakurako was happy then, as she began to scrub at the base of Ace's neck.

She had never loved anything like working with her hands, and nothing in her life had ever loved her so unconditionally. A nearly-naked football playing musician was a big plus, but still behind the act itself. His skin was an expanse, and she was sure to... yes, be especially careful tracing where the bullet had pierced his skin.

"Still sensitive?"

“Since birth,” he replied with closed eyes, “Prolly till death.”

How much of that was an act? How sensitive was Ace? He had murdered Parker in cold blood. Beats had cheated on Meilin with little hesitation. Ace had stood up to Myles out of selfishness. Ace had heard Saku talk about killing her boyfriend and then somehow, someway weaseled his way into snuggling up with her. What type of honor did he have, really?

He hadn’t shed tears for friends or for lovers after Ramsey had died. He gave no thought but to his enemies, his failures and moving forward. Ace moved like shark—the only thing he knew was eating and moving. Did he have the stomach for suicide? Absolutely not. Did he have the stomach for murder? Absolutely.

When he had killed Parker, Ace hadn’t known his name. He was a mysterious boy, a faceless classmate. He was there one moment and gone the next. That should’ve taught him how precious and fragile life was—it should’ve made him value life more. Instead it was the opposite. What did that say about him? How sensitive could he really be? He could kill and steal without shedding a tear. Beats was lying to more than Saku when he said that—he was lying to himself.

And the lies that you tell yourself, the ones that you truly believe, were the most dangerous indeed.

“Oh, you meant the wound…”

Her hands felt good on his body—surprise, surprise. He was still red blooded, as the world could see. His eyes opened and found the water, they stared at his own reflection in the wavy surface.

“Yeah, it feels a bit better. Still pretty tender, but like, it does feel good to be in the water.”

He felt silly and stupid...

"How's your leg? How long it been like that?"

Good news? A sign that they'd done good work.

"It's been a week. I was headed back to the house with the purple door... we were headed there to get out of the rain, then I got caught in someone's trap. Tomtom and Sean saved me."

Her hands rested against Ace's back, as she tried not to bring the outside in. Or her inside feelings out. What a hopeless person she was.

"Both of them totally had my back in their own way, and I can't even bring myself to go after the people responsible for their deaths. I don't even care it would make me a bad person, it's just-"

Killing wasn't something she wanted. If violence was her aim, Sakurako wouldn't take something as simple yet brilliant as a life. Her exchange would be even less fair: agony with each step and breath. The rest of their short lives filled with nothing but regret.

She didn't know who she was, not in full, but she knew what she wasn't and she still had the will to cling to that. There was nothing else of real value left to her.

No, there was nothing else she had that she could keep.

"But yeah, I could feel it snap. I can feel the grinding when I step on it the wrong way. My walk is kind of cool though, if you squint."

Quietly, she moved again, this time turning around so her back faced his.

"Your turn."

She felt more naked than ever, all her usual playfulness going with the wind. He wasn't the first to see her bare back on this island, but-

They were both monsters, and she'd liked him when she'd been human. She was only human, and she liked him still even though they were monstrous. Her heart thrummed in a way she was sure he could hear in the water.

TomTom and Sean. She had been with those two most of the way and they had both been killed in the span of two days. Saku had put the final exclamation point on the end of her group. Ace had been moving around a lot more—his loyalties were less defined and often fluid. Tom had been announced today. Ivy as well. Meilin five days ago. Meilin was supposed to be special, Ivy was supposed to be the exception—Parker was an accident and with Myles he had just gotten carried away.

Or maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t like that. Maybe, just maybe, Ace was a user and an abuser and he didn’t care about much other than how he was viewed for it. What did Beats enjoy more: doing the bad or wallowing in self-hate afterwards? What was more intoxicating? The thrill of victory or the sobering, sad shroud of defeat? The heat of the shining sun or the shade of the dark cloud?

Maybe he just wanted his cake and to eat it too—but that was fair, right? That’s what you were supposed to do with cake.

“A deal’s a deal.”

They shifted and spun in the water, repositioned so he was behind her. She was built different than Ivy—no duh. Bout as tall as Mei—but stronger, sculpted. Sakurako had put an obvious effort into her body and not like, Zumba effort. Weight training effort. Ace could spot it from a mile away, didn’t need to be elaborated on when he was mere inches and had his hands and eyes all over it.

Those same hands cupped into a bowl, he raised them up from the water and dumped them on her shoulders before he began rubbing them with a gentle tentativeness. If it looked awkward, it was because it was and somehow, even though he was okay before, he began to shiver himself. The shore, Saku, the shore, Saku.

This felt good and good didn’t come free out here. Ace was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You pull off the pimp limp with a degree of finesse, it’s true…”

This was bad and he was bad at conversation. This was stupid and silly and Ace was far too prone to getting carried away.

“You ever think about like…,” he lowered his hands from her shoulders to her mid-back, "Y'know," massaging and rinsing with the cool lake water, "Uh, like," scratching dirt away with dirty nails, “The end?”

Elephant in the room, huh? Was it even polite to bring that shit up when you had a person by the back? Arms already close to their neck? While they were in peak drown-me position? This was a fucked up power dynamic that Ace didn't mind exploring or taking advantage of. What else was new?

“Winning, I mean.”

"Maybe if I ask real nice, Mister Danya will let me go to the Player's Ball!"

But her wicked murderfather would never let her free, and she'd never get to discuss Bishop Magic Don Juan's sartorial choices with the man himself. Ah well.

(She had gotten to meet GACKT once but that was more big sis Minako's story than hers.)

Her back was straight as an arrow, nearly stiff. It was in stark contrast to her wiggly toes, her shaking hands, her frantic thoughts. This felt nice and more than nice and what had she been thinking? What a fool. The hills were alive with the sound of baka baka baka...

With people who weren't freaks, having killed their dearest friend would put on the guilt emergency brakes. But romance had always been weird for her, she loved her friends in a way that the word platonic didn't cover.

Thinking of Thomas. Being with him. Frantic but careful but comfy but easy, like kissing him was. Just the once. All they'd gotten.

"Winning? With all you eye of the tiger people around, with your goals and your working legs?" Her laughter was a silly, reckless thing in her mouth. "Going home would be... so wonderful I can't even dream of it, but being the last one alive still feels miserable to me."

The ulitimate in zero-sum games.

"Can you imagine the therapy bills? And the PT for me, I'd probably need a rod all up in my leg. The worst thing is that eventually I might even be able to move on mentally, and that would be like killing everyone twice over."

Princess was still out there. Ace was still right here. She wasn't arrogant enough to think that everyone alive deserved to die, and since there were people she wanted to live that was fine. But there were also people whose deaths she was ready to party about.

Her life to take out one of theirs, if she made it close to the end with people she wouldn't hate winning? That would be her good deed for the trip. Done and done.

"But living is still kind of nice, so I don't want you to choke me, daddy." Her laughter was more wicked then, a little unhinged.

This was insane so of course it was fun. She'd missed fun.

"What's more tempting? Killing me or kissing me?"

“I mean,” he sputtered and stammered, “Like,” damn, he hadn’t been expecting that angle and it was like, considering the situation? Honestly the most expected angle ever, so what the fuck was he thinkin’? This was the fifth time this shit had happened to him on this island, he couldn’t be surprised anymore, “I mean, y’know…,” how’d you respond to this shit--in this situation? He was all out of life lines and he couldn't phone a friend, “We both know what the smart answer prolly should be. I wanna go home too.”

He tugged at one of her braids playfully, like a kindergartener would. House and doctor were the games we used to play but now it’s real Jazzy Belle. Rap lyric for everything. Saku wasn’t at prom, was she? She never saw Ace pull off his Andre 3000 impression, the kilt and everything. Meilin didn’t really get it. Saku would’ve. That shit didn’t matter, not in Chattanooga and not out here. He still found himself captivated by the petty, the small and the silly. That shit still mattered to him.

“Let's keep it a buck tho, we also both know that I’m kinda dumb.”

He turned away from her. Now they sat back to back sort’ve. This wasn’t smooth. This was drastic. Choke me daddy? Do you want to kiss me? This was pretty much Ivy walking out butt ass in that infirmary part two. Saku was a nicer person than Ivy, right? The type of girl his mother would like? A theater geek? She had been dating Thomas for a few days and Ivy had been fucking Wyatt and Bret at the same damn time. There was less weirdness there. So why was he all of a sudden willing to say no? Because of the magic power of Lori’s drug water? He felt a shiver down his spine--what if he wasn't the user here and instead was the one being used? Why was that shiver followed by relief?

“Not that it ain’t temptin’,” there was a tremble in the baritone of his voice, “Both of those options, really. But lookin’ like you look right now? Option B definitely. I’m a dumb jock and you’re a hot chick—that’s peanut butter-jelly time, cha-cha slide shit,” he seemed apologetic, sad almost, “It’s a dumb idea Saku. Y'know?”

This was the truth, wasn’t it? Turned away from her but still close, his hands now holding his face, he rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“I don’t trust myself to make the right choice,” he finally admitted, “I’m just wastin’ time until someone makes one for me. That goes for kissing and killing both.”

Pulling her hair was childish, so of course it was endearing, and her giggles settled into girlishness. Ace kept calling himself dumb, but the smart people here were probably dreadful to be around. It was better to be lucky than smart, anyway.

He stopped touching her, and it didn't suddenly clear the storm in her mind. Of course. Nothing was simple anymore, not even being barely clothed around someone she-

Sakurako sighed.

To herself, barely audible:

"I'm a hot chick?"

Ten days on this rock would dull the prettiest person's shine, and she'd never put herself in that category. Maybe a nice clotheshorse, but that was all in her mind. None of that mattered anyway.

"I'll take being kissable enough to not wanna kill, that's probably a first for this place." Score, she guessed. "But... I don't think there are many choices here left that are as straightforward as being wrong and right."

Kissing her was a dumb idea?

Yeah, but-

"You shouldn't let people make choices for you, that's how you end up alone and unhappy. At least if you choose things, that's shit you can own."

Both of her partners in clout had been brave in this way. Neither of the objects of their affections had deserved it, her least of all. But because of that, Sakurako knew it was time for a really funny joke.

"I've liked you for years. Even though it turns out you're kind of a jerk, that hasn't changed."

Ace had a crush on Meilin since his Sophomore year and he never acted on it. Not until Prom. A few weeks before school was over.

He would see cheerleaders and girls look at him and give him attention--he'd ignore it. His teammates would trade locker room stories and boast--Ace would play it cool. When a girl looked at him? He’d look back, of course. He’d put on a friendly smile and turn on the charm—but never more than that. Flirting and teasing. Nothing serious. He went to school, he went to practice, and he went home. Beats had bigger dreams than high school sweethearts. For the majority of his senior year, after he got the scholarship to Memphis especially, he had no regrets about that.

The last month or so though, those thoughts and that loneliness had begun to creep in. Was missing out on that great young love a bad thing? Had he wasted the best years of his life waiting on the best years of his life? That reality existed beyond this island and this game. That reality provoked him to ask Meilin out on that regular May day after two years of crushing and longing.

Meilin had been willing to die for him after dating him just for ten days. Ace was willing to replace her with the first person he saw who was willing to be a replacement. Ivy, had put herself out there for him and had sowed distrust and discord with her best friend—for his sake. She died for his sake too. She also had been replaced within a day. Ace hadn’t loved Meilin. He didn’t love Ivy. He loved ideas and pictures and perceptions. He had bigger dreams—Beats wasn’t gonna let something as trivial as the truth get in the way of his story. If he needed to create slights and rivals to upset him, he would. If he needed to create damsels in distress so he could pretend to be a hero? Well, fuck it, bring on the damsels.

There were the lies you told the world and the lies you told yourself. One against yourself meant as much as one thousand against the world.

She had liked him for years? Saku? Theater geek? Three lockers down?

She had liked him for years? What could he say to that shit?




But, however honest that would’ve been—it also would’ve been cruel. And Ace had gotten good at silencing his more cruel and callous nature. Especially after letting it run wild the last few days. The coldness in his heart was warmed up by the fire in his belly.

“We’re lucky we cute then,” he said with a chuckle before he turned around and reached towards her arm to turn her towards him, “Because we’re both stupid.”

She was facing him now and dark eyes met green. This was real eye contact, none of that fake, sneaking glances at tiddies eye contact he did earlier. Ace stared at her and studied her face before bringing a hand to her cheek and rubbing it. Saku didn’t love him. Saku didn’t know him. Beats was a picture and an idea—a varsity jacket and a SoundCloud page. This was a bucket list thing. Ace was like seeing the pyramids or some shit—that’s why she was so quick to jump in his lap and show off her own peaks.

“I’m gonna disappoint you, y’know?”

Oh come on, no way was he turning her around and calling them "we" let alone "cute", right? Sakurako was prepared for rejection, not...

Ace being cool with it?!?

What. The actual fuck was happening?

Was this how Thomas felt, back then when she insisted on them having a chance? He had better be wingmanning for Sean in the afterlife after the whole "shooting his shot at Beryl" business that also better be going on.

(Even if she was still awful enough to feel a way about that)

Her face was being cradled in one hand, and it felt impossibly warm. Romance was all questions and no answers to her, and this was something even more nebulous.

Had she just joined the basketball team?

"Yep!"

Heartbeat jumping like a disco, Sakurako boosted herself up with her good leg and made Ace's choice for him.

((Darlene SIlva continued from What Do I Hear, What Do I Hear?))

Since leaving Amelia, it had felt like Darlene was drifting in a haze. She'd ended up in some other clearing she couldn't even remember the details of, panting and crying and hating how her legs and lungs and the palms of her hands burned, and then she'd found some other bush—one with fewer spiky brambles and no obvious spiders and a bit more space this time!—and had slept for what felt like all day.

It hadn't been. She was up and moving before the announcements, and so was suitably boggled when it was revealed that Kelly had killed Lucas. This was a surprise because, first off, after this many days Darlene had thought it finally safe to consider the girl had been maybe telling, if not the truth, at least a story she was committed to, and second, because Darlene was absolutely positive that Lucas had already been announced killed the day before. Probably there were a few Lucases, she guessed, which wasn't that uncommon but she'd never met another Darlene so the idea of sharing a name got away from her sometimes. In any event, her other immediate thought was that Jonah and Max would be very disappointed if they heard what had happened after they trusted the girl, and then she remembered that that was a pretty darn improbable "if." So it fell to her and maybe Arizona to shoot Kelly, then, or... something. It was sort of unclear if it actually mattered.

These thoughts and a vague inclination to follow an almost-familiar path brought her inevitably back to the lake (the phrase "commodius vicus of recirculation" had scared her off a classic novel in the first sentence but had stuck with her somehow and seemed to maybe apply in some metaphorical metaphysical way?) where she had found Jonah for both the first and second times. There would be no third, but knowing that logically did nothing to change the emotional expectations bubbling in the back of her mind. The lake was where she went for reunions.

She was not disappointed, even as she was.

It took Darlene a moment to figure out exactly what she was seeing, because it was a ways out and she was coming out of the trees around the lake and had to squint even though her glasses weren't so bad right now (one of the things she'd taken to doing in her scattered state was getting a little spit on her fingers and cleaning the lenses again and again, with the result that both glasses and fingertips were comparatively spic and span). There were figures, there was movement, it was someone taking a bath? How long had it been since Darlene had taken a bath? Had she showered the night before they left? She thought maybe not, maybe she'd been lazy and thought it was just a bus ride. Her legs and armpits were prickly by now. But then there was more movement and, no, it wasn't one person taking a bath, it was two.

A boy and a girl. And they were taking a bath, and that meant they were wearing not much of anything Darlene could see.

The quest to figure out what was going on had, for a few moments, overridden both fear and conscious planning. She hadn't even really felt the plodding steps that carried her ratty sneakers over dirt and pebbles. She hadn't really processed the change in scenery as she stepped out of the dense, concealing foliage and into the wide-open lake shore with nothing to hide behind. She hadn't really taken in that there was stuff in front of her, stuff like bags and a hat and assorted articles of clothing, maybe fifteen feet in front of her just lying there. But even now that was kind of secondary in her focus, because she was turning bright red as she sussed out what her attention was actually fixed upon.

Oh no. She was back at the party!

It was all just the same, the beats all matching perfectly. Darlene was awkwardly off to the side, watching as her classmates got way braver and more crazy than she could ever ever be, and there was a girl with her breasts just out for everyone to see, and there—there!—was a familiar figure in a familiar state of shirtlessness himself.

She'd touched his sweat.

They were distracted with each other (Darlene hoped they were just kissing, she couldn't see them from the waist down, she hoped they were just kissing) and maybe the best choice, the right choice, was to turn around and run straight away yet again, especially because she didn't know names and it wouldn't have mattered if she had, but what if they were hiding guns? What if they saw her and thought she'd been messing with their stuff?

She was thrown for such a loop that the obvious options (pulling out her own gun or actually messing with their stuff) didn't even occur to her. Her hands were doing their own thing, twisting around each other, fingers tugging at knuckles because her feet were too frozen to make circles.

Oh no, and now if they saw her and she hadn't said anything they were going to think she was a pervert! It was like being in the auditorium slumped down low in a chair reading and then a couple came in and didn't see you and started licking each other's tongues behind you, except this time Darlene wasn't here first.

She opened her mouth and called out, and it was a lot louder and more weirdly pitched than she'd intended, sort of looping up over the course of its one brief syllable.

"Hi."

What was that supposed to mean? Why was he thinking about it now? Ace had been so arrogant--he was still so arrogant. Especially so when it came to matters of the heart--doubly when it came to matters of self. Ace Ortega: the virtuoso! So talented, so deep. A football player but different, a murderer but with like subtext. Give us a fuckin' break. How full of shit was he?

'Bout as full as his mouth was with Saku's tongue, 'bout as full as his hand was with Saku's chest. So much for bein’ a murderer with subtext.

She kissed him, he kissed her—even the back of the class could do the math, right? This was a familiar song and dance at this point, wasn’t it? Prince playing Purple Rain, Michael in the red zipper, Whitney hittin’ the note on ‘I Will Always Love You’, peanut butter-jelly time and cha-cha slide shit—this was Ace playing the hits. Move along, nothing to see.

When he needed to take a breath, he separated from her with a flushed face and a gasp. A dumb grin plastered where his expression used to be.

“Goddamn," he couldn't help himself, he was such a teenage boy, "Holy shit! What the fuck...?”

A voice answered. A greeting that brought his brain back to the beat of a familiar metronome: Saku. The shore. Saku. The shore. Saku. The sho—

The shore!!

He turned his attention to where he came—not so far away. Less than 40 yards. 40 yards was less than 4.5 seconds for someone like Ace, maybe 5 because he was in the water. Those weren’t such bad odds, were they? Beats could give the world five seconds, couldn’t he?

What the world gave to Ace was a small girl. Short and mousey with glasses. She didn't look like much and she didn’t even do much of anything. She just came up and said 'hi'. Like she was supposed to be there. Like it was all normal. Saku had caught Ace by surprise, but he had some warning, some way of prepping his brain for her actions. He was not such prepped for this new arrival--his reaction showed.

"GODDAMN! HOLY SHIT!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!"

He hissed and screamed as he separated from Saku and then launched himself backwards with a large splash.

You give a boy an inch, he'd take the chance to put his hands on your boobs.

He'd stick his tongue in your mouth.

But as much as that made her shiver, the dazed way Ace looked at her pleased Sakurako the most. Like she was really something, if only the kind of something that made your insides twist. He wasn't getting a clever remark out of her, that was-

A big, hair-ruining splash! Someone saying hi! Ace losing his shit completely!

"Ummm... hi!"

Her hair was going to frizz up and never be tamed again. She was going to die looking like a creature! It was going to be horrible! This was... who was that, anyway? She couldn't tell from here.

Folding her hands over her chest, she slowly moved closer to the shore. The water had been too good to be true, but she'd forever be grateful. Even if her hair was ruined and she wanted to cry about it.

The moment was dead too. Resquiat in peace, bath with Ace, let angels sing thee to thy rest.

"Just gonna get decent, okay?"

Asking the strange girl not to peek would be beyond stupid, but when she'd taken her clothes off she'd expected it to stay between her, Ace, and the endless amount of camera viewers. Was nothing sacred?

Those were two very different reactions. Darlene hadn't been prepared for either.

She hadn't been prepared for anything, really. On some inexplicable level, it had felt like there was the world on one side of some impregnable barrier, and then Darlene on the other, just observing it. It was like one of those special mirrors they used for psychology experiments and interrogating dangerous criminals, or else like all those wild old television sets she'd seen at the Newseum on that trip that felt so long ago, when she'd been with Bert and... that other girl, whose name she'd forgotten, who were both probably dead. She remembered them being dead, but she remembered a lot of things, and sometimes they were wrong.

Anyways the boy shouted curses and flailed backwards splashing up water and the girl returned the greeting and started moving towards the shore while covering herself with her hands and Darlene started to panic a little. This was not being on the other side of a screen. This was not just a calling out resulting in them becoming aware of her presence and therefore her officially exonerating herself from being a creeper. This was about to become an interaction with two (mostly? fully?) naked people who were just feeling each other up seconds ago and were now coming towards Darlene.

She wished she was smart and fast like the goats, and could see something unsettling and freeze for a little but then when that wasn't working take off super fast and be gone before anyone could even tell where she was going. And maybe she could run? The lake would make it slower to get close. But she was too busy being frozen.

Darlene's breathing was going kind of fast again and she managed to at least turn her head a little so she wasn't staring at the girl given the request she'd just made, but also she wrenched her right hand free of her left and raised it in a particularly limp and uncertain wave.

"Hi," she said again, but very small and quiet this time. "Okay."

She moved two steps to the left, to be a little further from all of their things so she wasn't standing there looming as the girl got dressed because that would feel even weirder, but she hadn't really gone far enough to even matter. Her hand fell back and bounced off the side of her bag and she let her fingers grab at the fabric. They ran along the now-familiar seem and zipper, the little metal teeth scraping past her fingernails. Should she get the gun out? Probably not, because then she'd scare them more. But they were coming, or at least the girl was, and what if she had guns? Darlene should look for guns among all the stuff but she was too busy splitting her attention one-third boy-in-the-water to two-thirds her own feet.

It should definitely have been a whole lot scarier that she did not know these people's names and whether or not they had killed. That was supposed to be the focus here, and what she was preparing herself for. But they didn't seem like they'd been murdering just now, and without knowing their names there was no way to be sure, or even if she did know their names because she'd forgotten almost everything from the announcements. Meanwhile, she was absolutely positive they weren't wearing enough clothes! That was a guaranteed problem weighed against more nebulous hypotheticals.

She looked towards the boy again for half a second and then back to her feet. She had to say something else.

"Why are you never wearing a shirt?" she called in his direction, a bit louder.

Her right shoe was crushing a few sprouts of something kind of like dandelion. She looked intently for wiggly bugs to focus on, but there just weren't any immediately visible.

It was a jump scare, okay? And jump scares were cheap tricks! Everyone knew that! Flinching at ‘em didn’t mean that you were scared—it just meant you had eyes! They didn’t count!

Teflon Saku though, right? She could take anything with a smirk and a saying. She played it cool. Was there any doubt who the better kisser was? Ace was left to sputter and flounder and Saku was off playing the diplomat. She had left him in so much of a daze that a mere hello was enough to send him flying. That wasn’t fair, that probably should’ve been illegal.

He eyed the shore and Saku walking towards it. Wet panties clinging to her well sculpted backside and water dripping from her shoulders. She looked more irked about her hair being wet than them being interrupted…

Them being interrupted was why he didn’t immediately get out of the water—he needed a minute. Maybe two. The new arrival, the mousey girl with the glasses, asked a question. Why wasn’t he ever wearing a shirt? What kinda question was that? He didn't always not have a shirt on! Just, like, the last couple of days. And Swiftball. And pretty much every day at one point at football practice...hmmm...

“Not never!”, he shouted back, red in the face and weak in the knees, “Just whenever I see you!”

Ace paused…

"Also," he took a breath, "Like," he tried to think of what to say, "How do we know each other...?"

Yeah, Ace really was thinking long and hard on that one. That was likely the problem. He shouted at Darlene and tried his best to keep his cool and remain focused. He also, for no particular reason, became intensely determined to silently name all the winners of the Heisman trophy in reverse order. Just for kicks.

Luckily for shore girl, Sakurako wasn't completely naked. Modesty panties were in effect, thank you very much.

Unluckily for for shore girl, not only was Sakurako not able to scurry or hurry, she didn't want to put back the same clothes she'd been wearing. Maybe it was a vanity thing, or delayed guilt, but being wet in a sweater sounded super icky. Also, Thomas's pistol was under the sweater, and it would just be kind of rude to pull a gun on someone for the crime of having the worst timing since Violet for random pop-ups.

Ace's bag was the closest non-rigged one, and she dug in it for a shirt. A shirt that wasn't there. Did Ace even own a shirt?

Sitting down on the shoreline and wiggling her toes in the dirt, she looked up at the other girl. They had some random scattering of classes together, and that was it. She didn't look like someone actively playing the game, but she without a body count would have to cast the first stone.

Dar...ia asked Ace a funny question, and he gave a funny answer. Tsk tsk, what a shame.

"Maybe he just has a hanger management problem..."