Survival Of The Fittest

Play along ... but with what?

“Sorry that our ‘date’ was cut a bit short, babe, but I’m sure you don’t mind Kaede joining us for a swim, do you?”

Wait, what? But, it was practically freezing outside. Who would want to get in the water? And the closest thing she'd done to a romantic encounter involving anyone was writing a story where she and Dani walked in on themselves in the act and got quite befuddled, only to reveal that the entire turn of events was a story written by Kaede being read to Dani. And that was meant to be more trippy than sexy.

"Not a problem. Welcome to the party..."

Jack motioned to the water, which actually looked like it wouldn't freeze the three of them into human Popsicles.

"Well...er...shall we?"

Kaede smiled. Well, tried to. This was the first time she had been invited to anything that wasn't related to dance classes or school activities.

Dani smiled at Jack, giving his knee a squeeze with her free hand. She stood up, taking off her jacket and carefully placing it next to her bag. That jacket was expensive. She didn’t want to damage it accidentally by dropping it to the ground. She looked over to Kaede and gestured to her to come stand with her.

This was probably the only time she’ll get to truly unwind during this whole death game thing. She may as well enjoy herself.

Without any further thinking she began to disrobe.

((Dani Bird continued Megaphone…))

Jack also began disrobing, looking forward to the breather from the rest of this...mess. He definitely felt the cold on the ground as he took his shoes (and socks) off, and his scramble into the water was almost comic.

When he slipped into the water, however, he was able to smile and close his eyes.

Man, this feels good...

Kaede and Dani looked at each other, then the pair of themselves on the bed, then themselves again as they backed out of the room, closed the door, and nodded to each other with wide eyes, taking a permanent vow of silence on the matter.

This was only slightly less trippy. Two people were stripping into a spring in the middle of the winter in nothing but their underthings. They were going to freeze to death any minute now.

Jack visibly relaxed.

Yep. Any minute now.

They weren't freezing. Kaede stuck a finger into the water and ...

Okay, so that's why they were in their underwear. The water actually felt good on her skin. She just nodded, and started removing most of her clothes and extricating a towel from her bag, before going in herself and oh, thank you God.

((Kaede Tsurumi continued in The Draft Pick))

Jack smiled as he relaxed in the waters of the hot spring with two girls, grinning and making a bit of small talk. For just a bit, he could just not think about what was going on...he could relax.

It wouldn't last...he knew that on some level. But at least now, at least for a little bit, he was able to decide not to care about all that.

To hell with this show...

Spotting what he thought was a camera, he added a languid thumbs-up to his relaxed smile and closed his eyes again.

((Jack Anderson continued elsewhere...)