Red Strings ¦¦ Chishiya Shuntarou x OC

Thirty-Seventh String

He could have a worse weekend, if Niragi were to be honest.

If he was asked two years ago how he would be spending his weekend, Niragi would most likely say gaming in his den or maybe drinking in a club. Never in a million years did he think he would be the third wheel with another person on his roommate's date night.

It was a little awkward, since Niragi only knew Chishiya. He never had a proper conversation with Kurenai because every time she came to their apartment, it was to have sex with Chishiya. The other person in this little group was apparently her friend, and Niragi had no interest in getting to know her.

"What should we do now?" Kuina asked, looking at the time on her phone. "We still have a little time."

"Is there anything around here we can do as a group?" Kurenai asked.

Kuina typed on her phone, scrolling through the results she found on the internet and clicked on one that popped out at her. It led her to a website for escape rooms, and it was only about ten minutes walk from where they were.

"Looks like they have a variety of escape rooms with different difficulty levels. Sounds like fun. I've never done an escape room before," Kuina said, reading through the website. "They're quite the trend these days, aren't they?"

"Eh, sounds like a drag," Niragi grumbled. "I'm already stuck here on a weekend with you guys, now you want me to be stuck with you in a locked room?"

"You can leave if you want," Chishiya said.

He was taunting Niragi, really. Chishiya knew that his roommate had nothing better to do anyway, and since this was an all expense paid night by Kurenai, he was not going to miss out on such an opportunity.

And Niragi hated the fact that Chishiya saw through him.

With no other complaints or protest, the group headed toward the establishment. Although they did not book a time, they had one room left and offered it to them. It just so happened, however, that it was the highest difficulty level and apparently the scariest room. After payment, the staff led them to the room.

"You are trapped in a haunted house where rumours of encounters with ghosts and monsters were reported. Look for clues around the room, solve the puzzles, and find a way to escape the room or meet your horrible fate like everyone else. You are allowed three questions if you are stuck, please use them wisely. You have four hours."

After the brief introduction, they were allowed into the dark room dimly lit by one lightbulb in the centre. The staff member closed the door behind Niragi, and they were officially trapped in the room.

"Well, they certainly got the creepy feeling right," Niragi mumbled, walking around the room. "Hey, it looks like there are several lightbulbs around the room. Maybe the first thing to do is find a switch."

Kuina walked up to the middle of the room where the only lit lightbulb was. Underneath it was a table with newspapers and magazines sprawled all over the surface. She sifted through the mess, discovering a button under all the mess in a clear box with a number lock on. "Found something," she said, gathering the group. "Maybe this is the switch."

"Four digit code," Kurenai said. She looked through the newspapers and magazines too, and one particular one caught her eyes. All the others were tattered, missing a cover, and looked like they had been through a tornado. This one, however, was pristine. She picked the newspaper up, finding a sudoku puzzle on the back with four squares greyed out. "Solve this and we'll get the code."

Chishiya grabbed a pencil off the table, taking the newspaper from Kurenai and under the one lightbulb, started solving the sudoku puzzle. They were only given a few numbers to begin with but that did not stop Chishiya as he wrote down number after number, solving the puzzle within a couple minutes. Then, with the four numbers in the grey squares, they unlocked the clear box and pressed the button.

Another area of the room was lit up and they migrated over to the new unlocked area together. There were five different coloured boxes, all locked. It seemed like the button for the next area was in one of the boxes, and they had to solve Einstein's puzzle in order to find out which box it was.

As Kurenai was solving the puzzle, she was directing them to put the boxes in the correct order. She got the code for the first box and when they opened it, there was a key with a number written on it. The key unlocked another box that also contained another key. This went on until the fifth box which was unlocked using the numbers on the keys, providing the code.

They moved on quickly to the next lit up area.

There was a little bickering, mainly between Kuina and Niragi as they berated each other for being 'incompetent'. Although, when it came down to it, they worked well together and they were breezing through puzzles after puzzles like it was a walk in the park.

In one area, they had to find clues in a game and could only unlock the button after they beat the game. And Niragi did so in under a few minutes. In another area, they had to get higher than a particular score on the punching machine and Kuina achieved that and beyond with just one try.

With Kurenai and Chishiya around, all mind teaser puzzles were no match for them. Even the ones in English.

The last button opened a hidden compartment in the wall where the key for their escape was kept. Kuina grabbed the key and tried it on the door, unlocking it and thus, securing their escape. As they were coming out of the room, however, the four of them felt somewhat unsatisfied.

"That's it?" Kuina asked.

"A little underwhelming," Kurenai commented.

"Didn't they say this was the most difficult room?" Niragi frowned, looking back at the room. "Didn't feel difficult at all."

Even though they solved the puzzles and escaped, they could not help the feeling as if they had done something wrong. They could hear other people in the other rooms, screaming and shouting at each other, groaning when the puzzles were too difficult for them to solve. Yet here they were, standing in the hallway.

They did not even get to use the three questions provided.

Walking back to the reception, the staff member of the establishment was shocked to see the four of them. Just twenty minutes ago, they walked into their hardest escape room. They were given four hours to solve and escape, but they were already out after twenty minutes.

"D-did you guys break the lock? You know that's against the rules, right?" they asked. They did not even have time to check on the group on the CCTV inside the room, how could they be out already?

"Dude, your room is bullshit," Niragi frowned. "And wasn't it supposed to have ghosts and monsters? There was nothing in there."

"The first ghost doesn't appear until you're in there for thirty minutes..."

After double checking the security footage of their room, the staff member confirmed that they did not cheat and really beat the room in twenty minutes as opposed to the average two and a half to three hours.

As the new record holders for that particular room, they had their pictures taken for the Wall of Fame, and they were each given a plastic medal to commemorate their achievement.

"You alright, baby?" Chishiya asked.

Kurenai had been quiet since they left the place, staring at the medal with a little frown on her face. "Yeah..." she muttered, handing him her medal and placed her head on his arm, holding his hand tightly as they walked together. "Just...have this weird feeling that I've done this before."