Page 22 of Forbidden Game

I land a blow on his character, and his hit-score gets dangerously high. I just need to hit him with a special attack, and he will lose his second to last life. He needs to lose this round, or I’m royally screwed.

The game isn’t exactly going according to plan.

Somehow, Aleks and I are tied for last place, while Jackson is magically beating both of us by three rounds. If I don’t beat Aleks this round, I’m going to be stuck paying for Silver Fish, and I know Jackson is going to order the Hokkaido Bafun Uni roll just out of spite. I have nothing against the roll; it tastes amazing. But it’s one hundred and sixty dollars, and Jackson doesn’t even like Uni. In fact, he hates it.

Jackson’s character engulfs mine before spitting it back out, and I watch as my character goes blasting off the screen to its death.

Fuck. I only have one life left.

“You’ve been practicing in secret, haven’t you?” I accuse him with a waggle of my finger as I wait to respawn.

“It’s not in secret, you’ve just been busy.” He shrugs.

“Nope, I agree. It’s been in secret.” Aleks agrees with me as his own character falls to its death at the hand of Jackson.

Thank God. We both have one life left now.

“You’ve also been busy.” Jackson is a broken record and a pain in the ass.

I need to kill Aleks.

My knee taps up and down as I focus on dolling out hits to Aleks’ character, but it’s tough when Jackson is going after me like a dog with a bone. This round is turning into a 2v1 at this point.

A power-up appears on the screen, and I let out a yell when I manage to successfully grab it. I launch my attack, and Aleks’ character goes spinning diagonally off screen. He chucks his controller onto the couch with a curse, and it bounces onto the floor.

I let out a maniacal laugh.

My win is short-lived as Jackson knocks my character off the ledge and then hits me again, so I have no chance of saving myself. I die, but coming in second place was all I needed.

“This is bullshit.” Aleks folds his arms over his chest.

“You lost fair and square, mate.” I shrug.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you were in my position.”

True. But I’m not.

I pull up a new text message to Akari, my Silver Fish contact and Chef Takisawa’s granddaughter. We went to the same international boarding school in Switzerland for a year when we were fifteen. My order at Silver Fish tends to be the same every time, so I just copy and paste my last text before holding my phone out to Jackson.

“Here, type what you want.”

“You can order whatever for me.” He shrugs.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, but I’m sort of feeling like sea urchin tonight. Do they still have that Uni roll?” A wolfish grin spreads across Jackson’s face.

“Why, yes. Yes, they do.” I grin back.

“Come on, guys,” Aleks whinges.

“I’ll just add some rolls on for you while I’m at it, Aleks. How does the Gold Caviar Surprise sound?”

“Fuck no.”

Aleks lobs his body at me, crushing me onto Jackson as he attempts to wrestle my phone out of my hand. Jackson pushes us out from under us, and we go tumbling onto the carpet. Aleks grips my shoulder, and his black nails dig in as he tries to keep me in place while I attempt to wiggle out from under him.

“You’re breaking skin, asshole.”

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