I did as she asked and placed the two glass cups on the table. Since the sofa had been claimed, I sat in a tasteful chair on the opposite side of the table. Like the couch, it was comfy and relaxing.
As I sat there recuperating, she moved the plastic bags to the floor and produced a bottle of amber-colored liquid. She filled each glass about halfway, then topped them up—right to the brim—with a clear carbonated drink from another bottle. She stirred the drinks, completing this mysterious concoction.
I asked, “And this is…?”
“Plum liquor mixed with club soda. I hope I got the amounts right.”
“I almost said something at the motsunabe place, but you do know you’re still in high school, right?”
“I’m not trying to show off,” she said. “I like alcohol. Are you going to have some?”
“Well… I wouldn’t want to make you drink alone.”
I brought the glass to my lips, careful not to spill. It had been a while since I tasted alcohol. It smelled refreshing but tasted sickly sweet. My drinking partner downed hers, seeming to enjoy every bit of it as much as she said.
She spread out some snacks on the table and asked, “What kind of potato chips do you like? I like them savory.”
“Anything but lightly salted is criminal,” I said.
“We really don’t have the same outlooks, do we? And here I only bought consommé flavor. Sucks for you.”
I looked at her enjoying herself and took another drink. It was still too sweet. I’d had a fairly large dinner, but snacks havd a way of summoning an appetite. I crunched on the heretical chips and tipped back my glass again.
After we both finished our drinks, she made us seconds and proposed the following.
“Let’s play a game.”
“A game? Like shogi?”
“I barely know how all the pieces move. I bet you’re good at it, though.”
“I like shogi puzzles where the pieces are laid out and you have to figure out the winning moves,” I said. “I can play those on my own.”
“Sounds lonely. I brought cards.”
She walked to the bed and retrieved a deck of cards from her backpack.
I said, “A card game with two people—that’s what I would call lonely. Tell me what game you’re thinking.”
“President?”
“With all the revolutions, there’ll be no citizens left to survive.”
She laughed, then hummed in thought and pulled the cards free from their plastic carton. She shuffled them, swaying her body side to side as if she was thinking about something. I didn’t interrupt her, instead choosing to eat a stick of Pocky from the table.
After she shuffled the deck about five times, she stopped. She seemed to have come up with an idea she liked, as she nodded to herself in approval and turned her glittering eyes to me.
“We’re drinking,” she said, “so let’s run with it. How about truth or dare?”
I squinted. I didn’t recognize the name. “What’s that?” I asked. “Sounds philosophical.”
“You’ve never heard of it? I’ll teach you the rules as we go. The first rule is the most important: You can’t quit the game early. All right?”
“If I agree to that, it’s like agreeing not to flip over the board while playing shogi, right? All right, I won’t quit the game. I wouldn’t be so uncivilized anyway.”
“Okay, you said it,” she said with a mischievous grin.
She moved the snacks from the table to the carpet and deftly spread out the cards face down in the shape of a ring on the table. She was obviously making a show of force, an attempt to intimidate me using our gap in experience—I could see it plain on her face. That gave me all the fire I needed to knock her down a peg or two. This was going to be fine. Card games almost always came down to thinking and luck. As long as I could follow the rules, experience wouldn’t matter.
She said, “We’ll use these cards since they’re handy, but rock-paper-scissors would work just the same.”
“I’ll take my fire back.”
“I already ate it. Okay, let’s start. Pick one card and flip it over in the middle of the circle. The bigger number wins. The winner gets privileges.”
“What kind of privileges?”
“They get to ask truth or dare. Oh, and we should set the number of rounds. Let’s go with ten. Now, pick a card.”
I picked a card and turned it over: It was the eight of spades.
I asked, “What if we draw the same number of a different suit?”
“Don’t overthink it. We’ll just draw again. Just to be clear, I’m making this part up. It doesn’t have much to do with the actual game.”
She took another drink and flipped a card: jack of hearts. I didn’t know what was going on, but losing the draw surely put me at a disadvantage. I remained on my guard.
“Yay,” she said. “I get to ask. I’m going to say, ‘Truth or dare?’ and you say, ‘Truth.’ Okay. Truth or dare?”
Hesitantly, I said, “Truth… Now what?”
“We’ll start with… Who do you think is the cutest girl in our class?”
The question was so out of the blue it took me a moment to react. “What are you talking about?”
“Aren’t you following? It’s called truth or dare. If you don’t want to answer, you can choose dare instead. Then I’ll dare you to do something. You have to do one or the other—the truth or the dare—no matter what.”
“That’s awful. Who came up with this?”
“Don’t forget, you can’t quit before we’re finished, either. You agreed. You wouldn’t want to be uncivilized, would you?”
She gave me an awful smirk and took another drink. I kept my expression neutral. I wouldn’t give her the pleasure of seeing that she was annoying me.
No, I told myself, don’t give in so fast. There must be something I can say to get out of this.
I tried, “Is this an actual game? Or did you just invent it right now? I said I wouldn’t quit the game—if it’s not a real one, then it doesn’t count.”
“Do you really think I’d leave you with such an easy way out?”
“I do.”
“I’m sorry to tell you that it’s a real, legit game. I saw it in a movie once, and I looked it up. It’s been in a lot of movies, actually. But I appreciate you giving me your word a second time now—that you won’t quit.”
Her laugh belonged to a devil, and her eyes glimmered with wicked intentions.
She had ensnared me again. How many times did this make now?
“Let’s keep this clean, all right?” she teased. “When it’s your turn to ask me truth or dare, you’d better keep that mind out of the gutter.”
“Shuddup,” I said.
“Jerk!” she said.
She downed the rest of her glass and began making herself a third. Judging by the half-grin she now wore, the booze must have been taking effect. For my part, my cheeks already felt hot.
“Back to the game,” she said. “My question was: Who do you think is the cutest girl in our class?”
“I don’t judge people by their looks.”
“I’m not asking you to judge them as people. I was just wondering whose face you find the prettiest.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Let me add,” she said, “if you choose a dare instead, I won’t go easy on you.”
I didn’t see anything good coming from that.
I tried to think of the best way to get through this with minimal damage, and I saw only one choice: to answer the truth.
“You know the one who’s good at math? I think she’s pretty.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “That’s Hina. She’s one-eighth German, you know. Huh, so that’s your type. She’s pretty, but I don’t think she has a boyfriend or anything. If I were a guy, I might pick her, too. You’ve got good taste!”
“Egotistical much? Just because I agree with you doesn’t mean I have good taste.”
I took another drink. It was beginning to not taste so good.
On command, I drew another card. Nine more rounds, and it would be over. I didn’t see myself getting out of this earlier than that, so I prayed I would get the high card from now on. But my luck didn’t cooperate.
I drew the two of hearts, and she drew the six of diamonds.
She said, “The gods would favor the kind-hearted girl, after all.”
“I think I might be an atheist now.”
“Truth or dare?”
I thought for a moment, but my position remained the same as before. “Truth.”
“If Hina is the cutest in our class, then what place am I? Just by looks.”
I took a drink from my glass in search of liquid courage. She raised her own glass to her lips and took an even bigger drink than I had.
I said, “My answer is limited to the girls whose faces I remember, but you’re number three.”
“Wow. I know I asked, but now you’ve made me feel embarrassed. I didn’t think you’d give me a straight answer.”
“I just want to get this over with. So, no more fighting it. I give.”
Her cheeks were bright red. It was probably the alcohol.
“Let’s take our time, [Boy I’m Getting along With]-kun. We’ve got a long night ahead.”
“That’s a good point,” I said. “Time does seem to stretch out when you’re not having fun.”
“I’m having a lot of fun,” she said as she poured the plum liquor into both glasses. Since we’d run out of club soda, she filled them to the brim with the thick liquor. The smell had turned overly sweet, and the flavor even more so.
“Well, well,” she said. “So, I’m third cutest, huh?” She gave me a boastful laugh.
“That’s enough of that. I’m drawing again. Queen of diamonds.”
“Don’t you at least want to try to have some fun with this? I’ll draw mine. Ah, the two of diamonds.”
Seeing the look of disappointment on her face filled me with hope. My best defense in this game was to take as many turns from her as I could. I swore to myself once we were through these ten rounds, I would never again participate in whatever nonsense she claimed to be a game.
“Well,” she said impatiently, “go on.”
“Oh, right. Truth or dare?”
“Truth!”
“Okay, well then, ummm….”
I tried to think of something I wanted to know about her and found it right away. No other question even came close.
I said, “I’ve got one.”
“Now I’m getting all nervous.”
“What were you like as a child?”
She blinked. “Are you sure you want to go with that one? I was prepared to have to tell you my bra size or something like that.”
“Shuddup,” I said.
“Jerk!” she said.