Chapter Text
Chapter 1 - A Fateful Game
The woman opened her eyes, finding herself somewhere… unfamiliar. She looked up at the ceiling, and saw a dull grey. She tried to stand up, but felt her arms and legs restrained. Her head was also locked down. She breathed heavily, and it quickly became apparent that there was one more restraint around her neck. Suddenly, a voice echoed through the room. “The First Trial will now begin.”
First… Trial? Where am I? Why can’t I move? Her thoughts flew through her head at an unbearable speed. The voice continued. “Mai Tsurugi. Your restraints will soon be unlocked. On the table in front of you, you will find two guns. One of them is real, and the other is a high quality replica. The door will unlock once one of the guns, pointed at your head, is fired. You have a time limit of 5 minutes, before the door is locked forever.”
Guns…? Locked forever?! What is going on?! Suddenly, Mai felt as her arms, legs, and head all became free. She still felt something tight around her neck, however. With her newly freed arms, she touched her neck to feel… some sort of collar? She sat up, seeing nothing but a table in the room. Like the voice said, there were two guns sitting on the table. To Mai, they looked exactly the same. She reached out to the guns, and saw her hands, or rather her lack thereof. Her hands were covered with gloves, which she hadn’t noticed in her state of panic. She was still in her work clothes. She felt her hat on her head as well.
She remembered where she was before this… “Trial.” But she didn’t have time for that. Her time was ticking down already. She picked up the two guns, and looked at them closely. She couldn’t see any major differences. Her panic was intense, but it was overridden by a deep survival instinct. She took off her gloves to see if the guns were made from a different material. Once again, she felt nothing. She slipped her gloves back on. Suddenly, tears burst from her eyes. “I… I can’t tell the difference! I’m going to die here!”
She stared at the guns closely, looking for the slightest difference. The differences were there, of course, but Mai was no gun enthusiast. She was a baker. She put a gun to her head, but her finger was shaking on the trigger. She put the other one up to her head, but still couldn’t find it in her to fire it. “No no no…! Why does this have to happen?! How could I possibly know which one’s right?!”
She cried out in agony, but of course, her pleas for help fell of deaf ears. Someone was watching her closely through a camera, but they didn’t care about helping the poor girl. “I can’t do it! I can’t fire these things!”
Hot tears ran down her face, falling on her dress. She kept lifting and lowering the guns, not being able to settle on one or the other. She sniffled, when suddenly, the tightness around her neck grew tighter. The voice spoke up again. “Halfway point reached. Make your choice soon, before your options are taken away forever.”
“Ow! The collar’s tightening?! Stop it! I can’t breathe!” Her breathing became heavier, which wasn’t that good for her, due to the tight band around her throat. “I’ll fire! So stop it!”
Left. “Oo….” Right. “Oooo….” Left, right. “Oogh…” Left, right, left, right, left, right. She couldn’t choose. She kept screaming. “Ooooogh!” Left right left right left right leftrightleftrightleftrightleftrightRIGHTRIGHTRIGHTRIGHT- “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa….”
The guns clinked to the ground, and Mai’s limp finger uncoiled itself from the right gun’s trigger. The real gun’s trigger. There was no pain. Her voice silenced itself as she no longer had a brain to tell it to keep screaming. She fell to the floor. The man watching her turned away to go inform the others of Mai’s failure.
Mai went limp on the ground. The door opened, although the only ones who would use it were the workers coming to collect her body.
Mai Tsurugi was dead.
But this isn’t the story we came to tell.
In reality, Mai Tsurugi shot herself in the head. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, nobody has to die. Many would go to participate in the “Death Game,” although it wouldn’t end well for most of them. But we don't have to tell that story. That story is for someone else to tell. Our story begins on a regular day. In that other person’s story, this would be the day that Mai would be kidnapped before her fate met her. However, in our new story, this would be the day Mai met someone far kinder than fate. Shall we begin our new story?
New Chapter 1 - New And Old
Mai Tsurugi was a 24 year old woman. Her skin was oddly pale and smooth, but not to a sickly degree. She looked like many women her age, except for the fact that her eyes were an odd color. She had red eyes, although they appeared slightly orange in the light. Her hair was a dark brown, and she kept it a tad messy on purpose.
Mai owned a bakery, where she worked every day and baked for every night. She didn’t have much time to herself, but she was happy. Baking was her passion, and devoting her life to it was something she’d be willing to do. She worked her whole life to own this bakery. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do to keep it running.
Mai’s schedule was simple. Every morning, at 5 AM, she would wake up, get herself ready, put on her outfit, and walk a few blocks from her apartment to her bakery, where she would open it up and prepare for her workers to arrive. She couldn’t do everything by herself, obviously, so she had to hire some willing people. It was mostly teenagers in need of a job, but they worked for her, and that’s all she needed. From there, she would keep the shop up and running until 8 PM, after which she would lock everything up and go home. She would prepare bread and pastries to restock the store until 10 PM, and after that, she would go to sleep.
Mai followed this schedule, and it worked. Some days she would come home tired, but she would still get some work done. This was the schedule Mai had followed almost every day for years, and it was the schedule she would follow on the day our story begins.
Just like every other day, Mai woke up, did all the things that everyone does every morning, put on her clothes that she made specifically for the bakery, and walked to her bakery and opened up. Her workers, also in uniform, arrived soon after like they always did. The shop ran smoothly like always until 3 PM, where I can truly say our story begins.
Mai was helping someone pick out the right pastry, when 2 men walked in the store with the unmistakable stench of alcohol following them wherever they went. Mai had dealt with types like them before. It was impossible to avoid, especially when the outfits all the workers wore looked the way they did. When making them, Mai was going for “cute” rather than “hot,” but it was unavoidable that the clothes looked sexier than Mai intended. Mai politely asked the customer she was helping to wait, before moving over to the men. “Can I help you today, sirs?”
Both of the men were obviously having trouble standing up, and when they spoke their words were slurred. The man on the right spoke up first, saying “Sure, what do you charge?”
“That depends on what you’re ordering.”
This time the left one began to speak. “I wanna order you, baby girl…”
One of Mai’s workers made a note on some sheet of paper. When the girls realized that the men who came in were entirely uncreative with their catcalling, they began a game. They recorded all of the most common lines they heard and added a tally mark every time one was said by a rowdy customer. “I’m afraid I am not for sale. If you could please leave-”
“Damn girl, no wonder you work in a bakery with buns that sweet.”
The men laughed, thinking they were creative. Mai’s coworker made another tally mark, knowing they were not. Mai was ready to escort them out, when something unexpected happened. A tall man with red hair and a matching beard walked up to the men. “Hey, you leave her alone!”
The red haired man spoke in an odd accent, but that wasn’t the reason Mai was surprised. Compared to the two slouching drunkards, the man was massive, and his muscles were also fairly impressive. People hardly ever helped Mai out when she had customers like this, so to see someone that physically strong assist her was a new experience. The men turned around to see the red haired man, to which they quickly walked away out of fear of being punched through a wall. The red haired man sighed before turning to look at Mai. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s fine. It happens all the time.”
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’m fine, don’t worry.”
“E-er, the name’s Q-taro in case you were wonderin’…”
Now, Mai didn’t talk to customers like this often, but he did help her, so it was only right to show him some kindness in return. And although Mai would never admit it to her workers whenever they asked, she did take a liking to him because of his impressive physique.
“Q-taro, you say? That’s not a very common name.”
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Not as bad as my last name, though.”
“And what is your last name, Mr Q-taro?”
“It’s, uh… Burgerberg.”
Mai tried her hardest to stifle a laugh. The hardest part of customer service was keeping a straight face, without laughing or getting mad, no matter what. However, she quickly realized that Q-taro was expecting a reaction, so she gave him a small lighthearted giggle. Q-taro was beginning to interest her, so although she knew she should’ve gone back to helping customers, she kept talking with him. “What brings you to my bakery today, Mr. Burgerberg?”
“Oh, ya own this place?”
“Indeed. My name is Mai Tsurugi. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Burgerberg.”
“It’s nice ta meetcha too. And just Q-taro is fine.”
“My question still stands, Mr. Q-taro. What brings you here?”
“Ah, it makes sense you’d wonder about that. I don’t seem like the type to enjoy pastries ‘n’ stuff, right?”
“No,” Mai said. Yes, Mai thought.
“Well, I’m a baseball player, ‘n’ we’ve been doin’ pretty good this season, so we’re having a party to celebrate. We’re each supposed to bring somethin’, so I decided it’d be a good idea to bring a cake. D’ya got those here?”
“Of course, right this way Mr. Q-taro.”
Mai led Q-taro over to the cakes section, and the search began. About halfway through, Mai realized she never finished helping that other customer. They’ll understand, Mai thought. A job like this is busy. Mai was in a bit of a trance thinking about it, but was quickly brought back to reality by Q-taro’s loud voice. “D’ya think it’d be too basic if I brought a baseball cake?”
“The decision is up to you, Mr. Q-taro.”
Q-taro pondered which one to pick, eventually settling on a large circular cake with frosting that looked like a baseball. Mai knew it was probably the one he would pick. She brought him over to the register, he paid for his cake, and he left. By all accounts, it was an entirely normal business transaction. Q-taro left, cake in hand, and the rest of the day went normally.
Mai was closing up shop for the day. Their newest employee, Nakama Eri, had already gone home for the day. “What’s the score?” asked Miyata Makoto.
Okita Saki, Mai’s first employee, was over by the register. “That’s a 15 for ‘order you’ and 11 on ‘buns’,” she responded.
Okita made another mark. Mai noticed this, saying, “Hey, what was that?”
“What was what?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Okita. I saw that.”
“Ooooooh, thaaaaat. Yeah, I made my own tally of every time you get a crush on a customer.”
“Wh- I did not get a crush on a customer!”
“Really?” Miyata said with a cheeky smile. “So you weren’t checkin’ out ‘Mr. Q-taro’ earlier?”
“I was not!”
Okita put her hand on Mai’s shoulder. “Mai, girl, I’ve known you since you opened this place. I know all your little tells… and preferences.”
Okita was right. She was essentially Mai’s right hand woman. They knew each other well, and Mai had no doubt that Okita knew both of those things.
“Ugh, fine, I cave. I liked him. Sue me.”
“Mhm.” Another mark.
“Wait, what was that?!”
“That is another tally I created for when you deny something I say, and I end up being right.”
“And what's the score for both of the ones you created?”
“14 for the crushes and 23 for when I’m right.”
“You can’t be right that often-”
Okita made another tally, and Mai quickly realized she should stop talking, lest she condemn herself further. Miyata chuckled. “But seriously, Mai, I haven’t seen you crushing this hard on someone in forever,” Okita said.
“I am not ‘crushing hard’, and you can make your tally if you want!”
“Oh I can, and I will.”
Miyata chimed in, saying, “I agree with Okita on this one. Last time I saw you act like this was when you first met Reco from Samurai Yaiba. I will never understand how you actually managed to go on a few dates with her…”
A different voice appeared from the door. It was Nakama, who said, “Wait wait, hold the phone, Mai over here actually dated Reko fucking Yabusame?”
“Yes, I did. Why are you here, anyways?” Mai was desperately trying to change the subject to prevent further embarrassment.
“I left my phone, but it appears I came at just the right time. I want all the details on this juicy story.” Nakama booped Mai on the nose before grabbing her phone and turning to face Mai. Everyone in the bakery was facing Mai, in fact.
“It’s really not anything special…” said Mai.
“I don’t care,” Nakama said with a chuckle. “I still wanna know.”
“Ugh, fine.” Mai acted like she was tired, but Okita knew she was just messing around. Nakama wasn’t sure which it was, but didn’t care either way.
“She just… came into the bakery one day. Of course, I couldn’t believe a rock star was actually buying from me. I struck up a conversation, and for some reason I’ll never understand, she gave me her phone number. Next thing I know, we were on our first date, then our second, and so on. I could hardly believe I was actually dating THE Reko Yabusame, but it got hard to deal with the bakery when people kept coming in to ask me about my relationship with her. I had to tell her, and she understood. I still have her phone number. We chat occasionally.”
“Wait, you’ve still got her number?!” Miyata said in awe.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think you can set me up with Wonderland?” Miyata asked half-seriously.
“Wonderland?! You have no taste,” Nakama said with exaggerated disgust. “I could understand Stronghold, but Wonderland?!”
“He’s cute. I like his blue hair.”
“It’s a rock band, Miyata. They’re supposed to be hardcore and tough, not cute,” Okita said.
“Well then you can have Stronghold, and I can have Wonderland all to myself.”
Mai interjected, saying, “I am not setting anyone up with any members of Samurai Yaiba. I don’t think Reko would like me just giving out her and her brother’s phone numbers to whoever, anyways.”
“Did you two kiss?” asked Nakama.
“They did more than that,” Okita said with a sly smile. She secretly pulled out her phone and dialed Mai’s number. Mai took her phone out of her pocket, and in that moment of confusion, Okita snatched Mai’s phone from her. “Hey, give that back!” Mai shouted.
Unfortunately for Mai, Okita had the height advantage, and just held the phone so that Mai couldn’t reach it. Okita put in Mai’s password (Mai constantly regretted telling her, but she had no clue what to change it to if she changed it), and scrolled through her photos. She selected one with a cheeky laugh, and showed Nakama and Miyata.
“You’re joking,” Nakama said.
Mai grabbed the phone, and saw that Okita had pulled up a selfie Reko took… of the two of them, lying in bed together. Mai was asleep but very clearly naked. Luckily, nothing was shown, but it was still explicit enough for the photo's implication to be clear. Mai’s face turned beet red.
“Ignoring that, why did you break up with her?! If it was because of the bakery like you said, why didn’t you just sell the bakery? She’s a rockstar. She’s fucking rich.”
“Baking is my passion, Nakama. It’s not about the money.”
“You sound like an anime protagonist.”
Mai rolled her eyes. Nobody had much else to say after that, so they finished their duties and locked up for the night. When she was baking that night, she reflected on the events of the day. Had she really crushed on Q-taro that badly? She hadn’t thought about Reko in ages. She hadn’t been in a relationship in ages. How long had it been since she broke up with Reko? A year?
As if the gods decided that Mai would be their jester for the day, she suddenly received a notification on her phone. A text. From Reko Yabusame.
Sup Mai, been a while. Kinda miss ya! I know we ain’t a thing anymore, but I wouldn't mind meeting up with you more often. How’s it been since we last talked?
Mai was amazed at the timing. It was like Reko could read her mind. She decided it was about time for a break anyways. She picked up her phone and typed out a reply.
-Can u read my mind? Was talking about u with some coworkers today. Haven’t thought about u in ages! Miyata wanted to know if Alice was open, lol~
-You’re joking!
-Nope, lol
-You’ve been on my mind recently as well. How did I worm my way into your convos?
-Okita was making fun of me cuz I was apparently crushing hard on some big guy that came into the store today (not true, for the record). Miyata said I hadn’t acted like that since u came in. Nakama came in at just that moment, and begged me to tell her all about u.
-Ha! What did this guy look like?
-Tall, muscular. Said he was a baseball player. He had a funny accent and red hair to boot.
-You say that like you don’t have the weirdest eyes on the planet.
-Don’t act like you don’t love them~
-I do. But my point still stands. How tall and muscular was he? Scale of 1 to 10
-9
-Still a sub, I see
-Oh you little
-;)
-You have your preferences in men and I have mine, leave me alone
-Fair. But your preferences in women seems to still be “big titty goth gf”
-Oh my god you’re unbearable
-You know it
-Y’know Okita stole my phone during that convo and showed them a picture you took of us in bed. I thought I deleted all of those
-Did you delete that one after?
-Nah, too embarrassed lol
-I can give you another one any time if you want. ;)
-Eh, maybe
-I wasn’t being entirely serious but I’d be down if you’re down. Unless you’re too busy with Mr Baseball~
-Shut upppp
-Alright well it’s gettin a bit late and I’ve got shit to do in the morning. Been nice chatting tho! Keep me updated on Mr Baseball.
-Will do. Night
-Night
Mai put her phone down. Reko hadn’t changed. Even though they weren’t together anymore, Mai still did like Reko. If the both of them had more free time, it could very well be a friends with benefits type deal. She was about to go back to her baking when her phone made another noise. Another text.
For the record, Alice is single. I’m sure I could set this Miyata gal up with him if I asked him nicely~
Mai laughed.
Don’t bully the poor man. But tell him that she said he was cute, and she liked his blue hair.
She set down her phone again, and went back to baking without interruption. Her routine went as normal, just like always. But she had two people on her mind the whole time. The first was Reko, obviously. But the second was Q-taro Burgerberg himself. Maybe she was “crushing hard” after all…