Chishiya

It was already very late when I arrived at the Beach, but still I found Kuina sitting at our table in the cafetaria, together with some others. She waved at me and beckoned me to come closer. 'Hi Shuntaro! How was the game? Come here, sit with us!' she yelled in excitement.
I shrugged: 'hello, Kuina. It was an easy one.'
She pulled my arm when I came in her reach. 'Sit with us to play!' she smiled. 'It might be your last chance,' she followed, whispering.

I looked at the table and saw some dice and a cup. They were clearly playing a game of Yahtzee, one of my forté's. I rolled my eyes but sat down anyway. One game wouldn't hurt. Kuina's smile got brighter as she handed me a piece of paper and her pen. 'This is Tatta, a new friend of mine! And you already know Arisu, Usagi and An. You can start,' she giggled while shoving the cup and dice in my direction.
'Thanks,' I smirked, rolled the dice and started writing down the smartest moves.

'Sooooo what was your game of tonight like?' Kuina asked.
I told her it was a solo braingame with riddles, and she hummed interested. How was she able to make friends and sound interested so easily? She kept asking questions about it while playing and I occasionally glanced at the entrance of the hotel to see if Niragi came in.

'I go to the bar to fetch us some drinks. What does everyone want? A round of beer?' Arisu proposed.
Everyone yelled in agreement and I proposed to go instead of him: 'I'll go get the drinks! Have to stretch for a bit.' I stood up and walked to the bar at the pool, looking around for Niragi. I started to get worried a bit. What if something happened? I didn't hear from him since he told me it happened. But what happened specifically?

'Uh, next one?' the bartender said with a loud voice.
I snapped out of my worries and shook my head. 'Six beers, please,' I said.
He gave me a platter with beers and frowned at me. 'Anything else I can help you with?' he asked.
I shook my head again and turned around, but had second thoughts and turned back to him. 'Actually... You know that asshole, Niragi, right? Did you see him tonight? I still have a bone to pick with him,' I said in a relaxed way.

He thought while tapping his finger against his chin: 'hmm, no. I haven't seen him in a while. But to be honest, you could better not search for a fight with him. Especially not with your posture!' He laughed and I rolled my eyes while going back to our table.

Everyone grabbed a beer and thanked me while I sat down again. 'Let's have a toast on many more good evenings like this!' Arisu said and he raised his bottle. Everyone followed, as so did I. Even though I knew this would probably be the last one for me. Tomorrow at this time, I was long gone. Together with Niragi. Or at least, I hoped so.

'Sorry to break down your ideas, but rumors are going that the Beach will collapse soon...' An interrupted Arisu's excitement. It was silent at the table. 'Wh... what?' Tatta asked.
'Yes! Yes, Chishiya has his theories about that too! Right, Shuntaro? Tell them!' Kuina said while looking around the table. Did she really have to tell everyone that?
'Well, I'm not sure. I just noticed that tension between the militants and Hatters party is getting bigger and bigger...' I replied.

An nodded in agreement and everyone started chattering reciprocally. That was enough socializing for today. I said Kuina goodnight and stood up to leave. I took al walk around the Beach one last time to look for Niragi, but ended up sitting in his room to wait for him. After a while, I fell asleep.

Niragi

I plopped down on the border of the sidewalk after searching for five hours straight. 'What do you think you are doing?' Aguni snatched at me.
I looked up at him. 'Resting. We've been looking for so long. Who knows where they are? They might even be dead by now. They weren't the smartest militants in your team,' I reacted. Aguni frowned and sat down next to me.

I looked around and saw a game shop on the other side of the street. A street lantern shone a dim light into the shop windows and I recognized a copy of the newest game I worked on during my job as a game developer. That seemed like a lifetime ago. 'You are right. We are wasting our time,' Aguni sighed. He started cleaning his gun with a dirty handkerchief. He looked at it and seemed lost in thought.

I knew Aguni from the moment I came into the Borderlands. At first, he was thoug but kind. But thinking about it, he had changed a lot since then. He became more inhumane. Like he is capable of losing it every moment. 'Let's go,' I broke the silence. He didn't react. I touched his arm and said it again. He jumped up and pointed his gun at me before lowering it again. 'I'm sorry, I was daydreaming,' he said and we walked back to the Beach in silence.

The first rays of sunshine broke through when we arrived. Was this the last day at the Beach for me? I closed my eyes to take in the sun and stumbled through the hallways. I entered my room and bumped into a sleeping Chishiya.

I smiled and went into the bathroom to take a shower. I wished in silence that Chishiya would join me, but he was sleeping so peacefully that I didn't want to wake him.

I felt the warm water run over my back while daydreaming about our journey together. How we went from enemies to... Could I call it 'lovers'? Even though I confessed my love to him, he never said something like that back. Maybe it would come. Maybe he was less like an open book; he needed more time.

I turned off the water and opened the cabin. I dried myself and put on some clean clothes before going downstairs to fetch us some food. He could better not get used to breakfast in bed, but I would love to give it to him for one last time.

[End of chapter twenty one]

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Hii! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thanks for voting and commenting! And thank you so so much for the 100 votes! It means so much to me that people like my story and vote, it really gives me motivation to continue this book! :D

Photo from the Alice in Borderland series on Netflix