Haruhi's twin

Halloween Special #4: Stuck In an Impossible Escape room

Emi's pov

When we were led into our escape room, I was surprised to find that it looked like one of those 1980s old libraries, the whole scene set the backstory of the escape room. There was an attempt on someone's life in the library late one night and the victim was injured during the scuffle he left behind a clue for someone to find for him to be rescued as he had locked himself in a panic room which was further in the library. The Escape Room attendant told us the rules of the room and once everyone agreed, the attendant left and locked the door. I sighed when Akihiko tried to wrap an arm around me, but his hand was immediately smacked by Haruhi. "This place looks so old," Anna looked around, her eyes roaming across the bookshelves. "I know, it's like one of those old British libraries from back in the 80s." Yori crossed his arms, "So what exactly are we supposed to do?" Ian asked, "Did you even listen to a word the room attendant said or are you just an idiot with bad hearing?" Akihiko insulted, I rolled my eyes and sighed as I knew that they were going to start arguing. "I am not an idiot! And I don't have bad hearing either. I just want to be clear on what we are supposed to be solving to get out of this stupid room! I'd rather not be stuck in here with you for another minute." Ian snapped, Akihiko was about to say something when Haruhi smacked both of them on the back of the head. "Will you two quit arguing?! We need to work together to get this riddle solved so we can get the victim help before he dies. Do you understand that?" Haruhi scolded them both, making me giggle silently as I watched.

"Ouch," Ian rubbed the back of his head, looking at Haruhi. "Yeah, I get it." He said.

"Alright, I hear you. I won't pick another fight with him." Akihiko huffed, holding the spot Haruhi hit.

"Why don't I believe that?" York quipped, crossing his arms. "Because no matter what time of day or where we are, Akihiko will always pick on Ian for any and everything. Sooner or later, those two are going to argue again." I explained, "If they do then Haruhi might not let them leave this escape room alive." Anna chuckled, "You got that right." I nodded in agreement.

"Why'd you hit me, though? He's the one who started slinging insults at me." Ian questioned, pointing at Akihiko. "Because you can be the bigger person in this situation and walk away from him. You chose to give in to the urge to argue with him. Next time just ignore him. Or the next time you start an argument, I will do more than just smack the back of your head. Got it?" Haruhi snapped, making Ian visibly tense.

"Yeah," Ian gulped nervously. I hadn't Haruhi that angry in a while but it was well deserved, Ian and Akihiko never bothered to care about how their arguments affected the rest of us. I leaned on Hikaru, who was sitting on the chair right next to the desk that I stood beside. Honey-senpai had dragged Mori off to some corner, looking through the library books on the shelf.

"We need to solve the riddles that are written on this card to get the code for the panic room the victim is hiding in. The code is deciphered through the answers we get from the riddles, for example, if the answer to a riddle was the letter 'm' then.." Kyoya-senpai explained, "You would look through the M section of books until you found the clue that gave us the first number." I concluded, "That would be the correct conclusion." Kyoya gave me a proud smile, as Tamaki took in the information.

"Yeah, but how do we go about doing that?"

"Well, we are in a library. Maybe some of the titles of the books can give us a clue on how to solve the riddles." Tamaki-senpai said as he looked at the card in Kyoya's hands. "How many riddles are we supposed to solve?" Anna questioned, putting a book back on the shelf. "Well, the code to the panic room is six numbers and one of these riddles gives us two numbers in the code... So there should be six numbers altogether." Haruhi concluded, Kyoya nodded in agreement at her assessment. "What's the first riddle?" Kaoru asked, "You'll find me in Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. But never Neptune, or Venus. What am I?" Kaoru read, looking up from the card. Eyes immediately went to Kyoya-senpai, Haruhi and I which made me feel a little uncomfortable with all the attention suddenly being zoned in on us like that. Haruhi wasn't pleased with the attention either, "Why are you all staring at me?" He asked, "You, Haruhi, and Emi are the best at figuring out riddles." Tamaki-senpai stated, making me shake my head. "We're not the only ones good at figuring out riddles. If you want someone who is the best at it, you should be asking Yori." I pointed to him, as he was looking through different library books and examining the room. Yori had always been great at riddles, there was a time we had to decode something for class back in middle school and he meticulously thought out the answer. He was the first one to solve the riddle before anyone in our class and other classes, so most of the time, other students went to him for help when they had to solve riddles of their own.

"Yori?" Kaoru spoke, Yori looked up from the book he was currently reading.

"Hmm?"

"Do you know the answer to this riddle?"

"The answer is pretty obvious. There's only one letter that repeatedly occurs in all 6 planet names while the other two don't have it. Think, what letter occurs the most in those six planets?"

"The letter R." Mori-senpai spoke.

"That's right. All of those planets have the letter 'r' present. Some have it more than once." Hikaru exclaimed, "Look in the section R..."

"But what row number?" 

"There are eight planets in our solar system... So that would be row 6, book number 8." I walked over to the R section with Haruhi, and we were looking for the book when Honey-senpai pointed it out. Mori-senpai reached above Haruhi and me, grabbed the book, and handed it to me. "Thanks, Mori-senpai." I smiled softly at him, I flipped the book open which happened to be about the planets and our solar system. I found a note that said, look for page 86. So I flipped to it and found that it was all about the dwarf planets, "This page is all about the dwarf planets in our system. Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris." Haruhi looked up at Yori, "The first number of the code is five. There are five dwarf planets and eight planets." Yori stated, making all of us gape at him. "Man, am I glad we are stuck in here with a genius like this guy." Akihiko smiled, patting him on the back harshly. Yori glared at him, making Akihiko laugh nervously and back away while Tamaki wrote down the number five at the bottom of the card. 

"I think we'll be out of here in no time," Kaoru stated.