aurum | ko kyung-jun

[8]

Mi-Sun was the kind of person to really get into things and read up on them in her free time. So when her class had gotten into the mafia game because of some K-pop idols playing it, she found herself very interested in the psychology behind the game and decided to read up on it.

The truth, however, disturbed her more than the game could give her joy, so she decided to just stay on the sidelines, not participating but just watching her classmates confirm Dimitry Davidoff's theory.

Dimitry Davidoff, a Russian student at Moscow State University, decided to invent a game in 1987 to prove his thesis.

'An uninformed majority will always lose a battle of information against an informed minority.'

Almost always, the mafioso would win, especially in a small setting with less than 25 kids in their class. The game soon gave Mi-Sun shudders just thinking about it, so she quickly lost her interest and would take naps instead of participating in the breaks between classes.

And now she was stuck here, with no chance of escape for her as she sat on the floor in front of the male communal showers. She could still hear the shower running, her own hair wetting the back of Dong-Hyun's borrowed sweater. She felt much better after the shower, and her thoughts collected as she thought of strategies.

Stage four is the hardest stage. Chaos. While civilians are busy accusing each other of being the mafioso, the mafioso have adapted to their role, making staying undercover even easier for them, just watching the civilians accuse and kill off each other.

The mafioso are proven to best win when they bond with their innocent neighbors and convince them to value that bond over the suspicious behavior they exhibit.

And then slowly, one by one, they kill them off.

United by information, the mafioso are most likely to win. Mathematics has proven that already. The only way for civilians to have a 50% chance of winning is for the mafioso to make up 0.5% of the population.

Impossible.

If this was a game, Mi-Sun would have already thrown the towel.

But this is not a game.

She sighed, distracted by her thoughts, as two red basketball shoes suddenly appeared in front of her, shaking her out of her trance.

She flinched, her head shooting up to look at her approacher.

Ko Kyung-Jun.

"What's wrong with you? Why would you scare me like that?" She blurted out, pressing her hand to her chest to calm her pounding heart.

Though she'd like to think the incident earlier hadn't shaken her, the reality was much different.

The boy only furrowed his eyes and said, "Scare you? I've been calling you from the other end of the floor."

He pointed to her right, where the end of the corridor was visible. About ten meters away from the two of them.

She turned red in embarrassment at her rude reaction to him. "Ah... Sorry?"

She couldn't help but sheepishly smile up at him from the floor.

"Come on, let's have the talk you wanted." He held out his hand to the girl on the floor while not looking at her. Her smile was making his heart speed up a little too much for his liking.

"Oh? Uh, sure, let me just tell Dong-Hyun that I'll be leaving first."

"I'll do that." His face grew dark as she tried to object to that. "Why, you don't mind seeing him naked?"