Alice in Borderland ~ Chishiya

54

Although it sounds like the explosion happened miles away, it still wakes my body.

Reflexively, I jump up from the couch and am startled at the fact that I'm not alone, but that someone's sitting close to me. My brain regains consciousness later than my body, but then I finally understand that it's safe, because it's Chishiya.

Chishiya!

My heart starts to beat faster when the images from yesterday come back. The things he had said to me.. The way he touched and kissed me.. Then, the images from yesterday's game come back and I go into a rollercoaster of emotions. I lower myself back onto the couch and sigh.

'Am I that scary?' Chishiya asks with a grin. I look at him for a moment and notice that he has been awake for a long time. I manage not to deal with my feelings and think about the situation. 'That explosion,' I begin, 'that couldn't have been anything other than the king of spades, right?'

'I think so,' he replies. If so, it would mean he's not close to us right now. But you never know. Maybe he's moving quickly or there's some other reason that something has exploded. Maybe it's an arena! Raiden.. No. If Raiden has started playing a game at all, it's the jack of clubs, the arena that can be viewed from here. But what if the previous group is still in and he moved elsewhere?

'Hey..' Chishiya moves a little closer to me and puts his hand on my knee. 'The games from that part of Tokyo have already been played. It can't be an arena and I don't think players are pelting each other with explosives. It must be the king of spades. He's not here, you can calm down.'

'If you want me to calm down,' I sigh, 'you shouldn't do that.' I look at his hand on my knee, which causes a warm feeling to spread through my leg. He doesn't seem to understand what I mean by my comment. He probably thinks I don't like it, because I can feel his hand slipping away. Just before he can pull it back, I put my hand on his. 'No..'

'I'm confused,' he mumbles. 'Me, too,' I sigh before I start laughing. Then, I look at him shyly. 'I meant that my stomach is doing all kinds of flips when you touch me, but that isn't a bad feeling.' A smile appears on his face. 'Oh,' he says. I slide a little closer to him and feel his shoulder against mine. His warm energy makes me nervous, but it also calms me down. He must be right. The king of spades is stuck there, out of reach at the moment.

'What do you want to do?' Chishiya asks me. 'Would you like to wait here until the card is collected or available again? And do you want to participate in the game? Maybe Raiden will do that and we can help him.'

'I don't know if I feel like playing another game so soon,' I sigh, 'but I think we'll have to.' Chishiya looks at the ground. I can tell that he's thinking back to yesterday, to the mind games Enji played with us, but he shakes his head and gets up. He walks to the window and pushes the curtain back a little. 'The card is still white.'

'Would they have played all night long?' Chishiya shrugs. 'I can't see from here what games are left. Shall we go and have a look outside?' I get up and nod. 'Maybe we should keep moving, too, just in case. If that psycho really has a GPS device, he might think we're an easy target.'

'Hm,' Chishiya replies with a slight grin, 'too bad, I liked this place. Especially that couch was very nice.' I roll my eyes, but can't suppress my own grin. 'I'm sure there are more houses with nice couches,' I say. Or a bed. My thought scares me a little. Luckily, I didn't say it out loud.

What's the matter with me? How could I have suddenly changed so much? I didn't want to think about being close to someone, having physical contact with someone and feeling a hand on my skin. But now that I look at him like that, I just long for it. That thought and feeling scare me a little bit, but at the same time it makes me happy.