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“I’ll shuffle.”
Sting snorted. “Oh, I think not,” he retorted, snatching the cards from Rogue and beginning to mix them up. “Don’t think I don’t remember the last time you shuffled.”
Rogue gave the blonde mage a deadpan look. “I have to give myself every advantage: I’m terrible at card games.”
“ Terrible sleight of hand isn’t going to help with that, Rogue,” Lector berated from beside Sting, who started shuffling the deck and distributing. “ Everyone saw you switch up the cards!”
“Besides, this game isn’t that difficult.” Minerva smiles. “You’re just exceptionally poor no matter the game.”
“Thank you for the reminder.”
“Alright, alright, let’s start.” Sting collected his dealt cards and squinted around the table. “Now let’s see which of us can actually keep a poker face this time. I’m looking at you, Frosch.”
The Exceed’s immediate reaction was overzealous hurt and 100% genuine. “Frosch can so keep a poker face!” Frosch cried, their face scrunching up in protest. “You’re just too good at reading faces!”
Laughs came from around the table, and Minerva was then chosen to start them off. Placing her cards face down into the discard pile, she leaned back in her chair without so much as a smile.
“Cheat!”
Sting rolled his eyes. “Please don’t do that every time we put down cards,” he sighed, glancing sideways at Rogue, who cocked an eyebrow.
“But that’s the point of the game.”
“Only when you think the person is bluffing.”
“Well, I think Minerva is bluffing.”
Snorting, Sting laughed. “Okay, smart guy, pick up the cards!”
The cards, in fact, were a pair of aces.
“Dammit!” Rogue chided himself as Sting cackled, Minerva chuckling as well. Grudgingly, and stewing all the while, he put the cards into his hand, upping his count and pushing victory further away.
With a last roll of his eyes, Sting took a look at his hand. Unfortunately, there was no pair of twos to be seen. He would have to keep his cool then. Staying away from the three sevens in his hand, he placed his two cards in the middle, careful to remain impassive. With luck, his berating of Rogue earlier would keep the other man from calling Cheat this time.
Rogue luckily remained silent, but it was Lector this time that called him out.
“Cheat!” the Exceed cried, grinning like a maniac. “I saw that from a mile away, Sting!”
“Oh, come on!” the mage shouted back as he snatched up the cards. “How did you do that?!”
“I know you too well!”
“Now that’s cheating!”
“Come now, boys,” Minerva intervened smoothly, that dangerously knowing smile on her face once more. “Why don’t we all play nice, hm? It is just a game after all.”
~
“Cheat, dammit, Cheat! ”
“Ha ha!” Rogue all but cackled in reprisal in the face of a fuming Minerva. “Not this time, Minerva! Not this time!”
“Damn!” the woman cried angrily, slamming her fist down as she picked up the discard pile, along with the pair of tens on top from Rogue’s last turn.
All five players around the table had gained incredible expressions throughout the course of the game, from Rogue’s triumphant look with his four cards, to Minerva’s anger boiling over to rage with her nine cards, all the way to Sting’s horrified look with twenty-three cards.
The only ones that didn’t look all that worried were the Exceeds, both of which grinned nonchalantly.
The players had gained a crowd as well as cards and expressions. “Sting’s up next!” Orga announced loudly to the crowd of mages once Lector and Minerva had played. “Let’s see what he’s got!”
Oh no, was all Sting could think as he looked at all the different cards in his hands. He needed a pair of jacks for the next turn. Did he have them? No, not even close.
As he tried to remain under the radar of the crowd raving over Rogue’s almost inevitable victory, Sting slid down his chosen cards and nodded at Frosch to take their turn.
Luck was on Sting’s side this round as Frosch placed their cards down just as quick. Sting, with nothing to lose at that point, cried, “Cheat!”
Frosch paused, and the crowd went silent as the Exceed looked up and stared Sting in the eye. Their smile had gone darker, and it didn’t take long for Sting to start squirming under that gaze.
“Are you sure, Sting?” Frosch asked slowly, never losing the smile. “Are you absolutely sure?”
All eyes turned to Sting. He gulped, took a breath, and said, “Yes?”
Frosch’s eye twitched, but they nonetheless flipped the top two cards of the discard pile.
An eight, and a four.
Cries of disappointment and dismay rose from the crowd as the Exceed swiped up the discard pile into their hand, but Sting breathed a sigh of relief. He had survived another round; for now, he was no longer in last!
~
“You cheated.”
“I did not.”
“You know I don’t believe you.”
“That doesn’t mean I cheated, Sting: it only means you don’t believe I played fair.”
Sting cocked an eyebrow, a smile breaking over his face. He leaned closer to Rogue from where they had been left at the table after the game. “What, so did you actually win then?”
“...I had some cards in my sleeve.”
“I knew it!”