Page 40 of A Soul to Touch

What would be the easiest game to get what I want?She needed one that could be quick, easy to learn, and wouldn’t look suspicious if she kept... losing.

Mayumi hadn’t asked him to play just to be cute. The snowstorm gave her an idea.

Chess?she asked herself, before immediately shaking her head.No, that’s too complicated. Shogi?She almost snorted a laugh.That’s even more complicated.

Her father had been a big fan of playing shogi. It was a game like chess but also vastly different in the fact that once an opponent’s piece was taken, it could be re-entered into the game by the person who obtained it.

The original antique her ancestors brought to these lands was packed away in a special box to preserve it, and her great-grandfather had commissioned someone to make a new one for them to be careless with.

What about checkers then?she thought when she was crouching and came across it in the pile. She dumped it to the side when she realised that she’d never really found checkers any fun as a child.

Ah ha! Perfect.She picked up the game she wanted and headed back to the main area of the house.

Mayumi paused.

Faunus was standing off to the side, staring at the fireplace with his orbs a startling colour of white. Blue momentarily shifted into his glowing orbs before fading back to white, but she could see his breathing appeared laboured and heavy by the way his shoulders lifted and fell.

“Faunus?” she asked warily.

His orbs turned yellow like she’d brought him out of a trance, and he turned his face to her.

“Yes?” His snout tilted down slightly, showing he was looking at the box in her hands. “Found something you wanted to play? You were taking a while.”

“Yeah. I thought backgammon would be simple enough to show you. I loved playing it when I was young.”

And if she could play it when she was eight, she was sure he’d have no issues considering he was more intelligent than what she’d thought a Duskwalker would be.

She placed it on the ground next to the fireplace and walked over to where there was an assortment of chairs. Behind the unused leather chair, which had a wool bag seat resting in it, was a small coffee table resting on its side up against the wall.

“Do you want some assistance?” Faunus asked when she picked it up by herself. She slammed it on its four legs in the middle of the house and gave him a glare. “It appears not.”

“Come, sit here.” She gestured to the opposite side of the table while she sat on the ground.

Obediently following her command, Faunus approached while she placed the game on the table. She unclipped the metal lock on the side of the wooden box to reveal fifteen round, sandy-coloured, oak timber pieces and fifteen round, reddish-brown, walnut wood pieces. There were also two sets of matching dice.

Mayumi explained how to play the game as she set it up, giving him the oak pieces to be in control of while she took the walnut ones.

“-and once you’ve rolled the dice, you just choose if you want to add the number you’ve rolled together to move a singular piece, or you can split the two die numbers and move two different pieces. I’ll help you in the beginning if you roll a double.”

For a long while, Faunus stared at the game before him. He was seated cross-legged, his limbs so long and large that his knees easily poked up higher than the table, whereas her knees fit underneath it.

She couldn’t help smiling when he appeared far too big within her home. He dwarfed everything, from the table to the die he examined between his thumb and middle finger to herself.

She’d been surprised that he could sheath his claws, but that only made her focus on how thick and long his fingers were.Kitty can hide his claws, huh?That wasveryhandy to know.

His hand was covered in dark grey flesh with white knuckle bones protruding so that they appeared to be sinking under his skin. It was so taut around them that in the light she could see a few thick veins crisscrossing over the back of his hand.

She nibbled her bottom lip as she examined them. She didn’t know why, but she’d always found strong, veined hands attractive. The fact he had a large pair with those features was even hotter, and they were so big that she knew two of her own could easily be held within one of his.

I’ve seen dicks smaller than just his middle finger.

Being so distracted, it took her a while to notice that Faunus was turning a die within the pads of his thumb and middle finger, looking at each surface of it.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know how well I will be able to play this game ofbackgammon. The pieces seem rather small, and I have never done anything like this before. It seems rather complex.”

Complex?She thought while looking down at the game.

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