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The tension in the air is palpable enough to swim through.
Red-brown eyes stare into ink-black ones, an invisible electric current seemingly running through the air between the two.
Slowly, the man with rust-colored eyes opened his mouth, the air around the redhead turning slightly smug.
“Do you have any fours?”
“Darn it!” Dark eyes squint in frustration, the brunette handing over a four-of-spades card. The red-haired stranger opposing him smirks triumphantly, swiping the card from the frustrated Korean’s hand. The redhead then sets four cards down on the table, with each having a number four in the corners.
“Five… no, eights?” The redhead questioned, not looking up while sorting through the cards he’s holdings. There’s not much of them left.
“Go Fish.” The brunette grins, drawing a card out of the deck at the center of the table. The stack was small, the numbers of cards left countable. “Eight?”
The redhead scowls, slightly, handing over a pair of cards with an eight on it. The black-haired man grins victoriously as the redhead’s scowl returns to stoic. The Korean smiles, then continues the game, not setting any cards down.
“Fives?”
At this, the redhead suddenly flashes a very vicious grin. The black-haired Korean startles, flinching back slightly as a scarily smug aura emits from the redhead’s direction.
“I win.”
The redhead hands the cards left in his hands over to the brunette, hands now empty. The ink-eyed man stares blankly at the redhead.
“First one to empty their hands, wins, right? Dokja?” The redhaired man smirks. He watches as a look of realization crosses the Korean’s face, realizing that he had been scammed.
“You-” Kim Dokja sighs, burying his face into his hands. “Scamming bastard.”
“As if you could talk,” the redhead, Cale, retorts, smirking at the grieving Korean. “A deal’s a deal.”
At this, the two simultaneously looked over at the second table in the room. On there, a rather unappetizing-looking dish sat on the table, heat still emitting off of it.
“... Do I really have to eat this?” Dokja pales, turning his head to look over at Cale nervously.
“... It… probably tastes better than it looks.” Cale gave Dokja a light shove. “Loser taste tests that thing, remember?”
Dokja stumbles over to the stargazy pie, a nauseated expression on his face. Glassy fish eyes stares out from the pie, the dead stares unnerving to look at. With the way the fish heads bulges up and out towards the top of the pie, the victims of whoever cooked this unnerving cuisine seemed to be looking accusingly up at the person who’s about to eat them.
Dokja gulped, and looked back at Cale.
Cale gave him a thumbs up.
Dokja gave the redhead a pleading look.
Cale gave him an exasperated look.
Dokja sighed, and resigned himself to his fate. Swallowing nervously, he slowly sliced a piece of the pie, attempting to avoid any of the fish heads.
Plop.
Kim Dokja jolted and took three steps backwards, knife raised to defend himself from the “threat.” From the corner of his eyes, he could see Cale flinching and taking a step away from the pie.
One of the fish heads had flopped over onto the side when he cut the pie, the knife disturbing the dead-fish-corpse’s resting place. The head landed on the floor, eyes now staring eerily at both Cale and Dokja.
[The Fourth Wall has offset some of your shock!]
Cale shuffled towards Dokja, and patted sympathetically him on the shoulders. “I’ll leave this to you,” the redhead said, voice just barely noticeably shaky.
Dokja withheld the urge to just run in the opposite direction of that deeply unsettling dish, and stepped forward.
I may be used to corpses in the apocalypse, but this is still a bit too much-!!
Dokja cried silently for himself in his heart.
Then, carefully avoiding the fishhead on the ground, Dokja mustered up the scattered remains of his courage, and took a tiny bite of the piece of pie he finally carved out.
He chewed for a second, then swallowed.
“Not as bad I thought.”
Cale, having heard that, finally took a couple steps towards the brunette and the pie.
“Really?” He gave the pie a suspicious look.
“Yeah, it’s actually not bad. Just… looks nasty.” Dokja gave the dish another wary look, and continued eating his piece of stargazy pie.
Cale cautiously cut a piece of the pie for himself and bit down. “It’s not as good as Beacrox’s.”
Dokja gave him an exasperated look. “According to you, nothing tastes better than ‘Beacrox’s’ cooking.”
Cale just smiled and changed the subject. “I told you it’s probably not as bad as it looked, Dokja.”
Dokja gave him a nasty stare. “Then you try the next strange-looking dish first.”
“You lost the game!”
“Doesn’t matter!”