Work Text:
“Where are we going again?” Pink haired figure asked, looking around in the pitch late November darkness.
“It’s supposed to be in this building, but where is it exactly–” Another taller figure exclaimed, looking at the map on the phone which was getting rained on “And Bachira isn’t coming as well.”
“Of course he’s not,” The guy scrunched his nose. “Ever since the two started going out, one can’t join without another.”
“Damn it, Isagi!”
The four guys met in their university’s football club during the first year and became inseparable ever since, all coming from different faculties but with one shared love for football, their teammates and everyone around them dubbed them “The Egoist 4”. Until two of them Bachira and Isagi began going out, leaving third year history student Chigiri Hyoma and third year athletic training and science student Kunigami Rensuke riding the third wheel. All. The. Time.
Unless, of course, one of the two lovebirds are busy or sick or something, then the other coincidentally is busy as well, leaving the two alone during their scheduled hang out session. Which is what happened today when the group booked an escape room experience and Isagi woke up with a fever.
“Welcome, come on inside!” A nice lady in the reception invited the two in as they finally approached the right entrance.
“Good evening,” Kunigami said as Chigiri was still struggling to fit his backpack into the loker.
“We have a reservation for 7:30pm for four people, but two are absent. Someone on the phone said it’s still alright?”
“Yes, our rooms in this location are made for a team of 2 to 5 people, so you should be just fine!” Sweet worker lady replied. “Just please remind me which room you got?”
“Serial Killer.” said Chigiri after winning the battle against the tiny locker.
“Amazing!” Worker smiled. “Please leave your phones here and follow me.”
They obliged the orders and walked behind the worker into the grey corridors, still smelling of fresh paint. After getting led into the bar from a 50s detective movie looking room, a sweet worker instructed how the room works and how to use the help phone which was not that much newer than the time this small room was trying to imitate.
“Good luck, your hour starts now!” Sweet worker waved as she shut the door from the outside.
“We should have dressed for the occasion,” Chigiri said after sitting down at the barstool while overlooking the room.
“Maybe next time,” Kunigami overlooked the huge wooden cabinet on the wall that was obviously the entrance to the next room. “Now will you help or not?”
“Fine,” Chigiri rolled his eyes, jumped off the barstool and looked around, noticing or hearing the first clue he pointed at the wall in front of him, covered in seemingly random photos. “See these?”
“Yeah?” Kunigami was already mindlessly pushing the buttons next to each photo and getting lights turning on red.
“The sounds we are hearing correlated to events in the photos, that has to be the way to go” Chigiri pushed Kunigami who’s stance was way broader to the side and began pushing the corresponding buttons. All was going well until he pressed the fourth button and.. Lights turned red again.
“You idiot, that was totally page flipping and not paper being ripped,” Kunigami laughed. “You are a history nerd, you should recognise that- ouch!”
“Well sorry for mixing up that with shredding my notes in distress! But I had the right idea,” Chigiri began listening again. “Now shush.”
And thus, the first challenge was completed with minimal trouble and friendship still intact. One of the doors in the cabinet opened up, reviewing a number board, requiring a code. That was followed by 20 minutes finding random codes and locations to put these codes in all around the places, the codes not matching and light yelling as being a good team on the field doesn’t always translate to other situations. Apparently.
“These markings in that box align with those knobs on the safe, so it should work, why does it not?!” Chigiri yelled at Kunigami, who was hunched behind the bar.
“I am trying, it does nothing!” A frustrated voice yelled back, before the clue phone started vibrating with the frequency of a plane, petrifying both young men.
The markings do align with the knobs! A soft voice said from the other side.
“We know, it just doesn’t work.” Much more politely responded Kunigami, who was the first to jump to the phone.
Try being more precise.
After another couple of attempts, the knobs unlocked a safe where there was another pin pad located. This time they had only one code left. That code unlocked the last cabinet door, revealing a thick rope that had to be pulled to open the very obvious secret door, leading to the next area that was a dark corridor with more puzzles. Chigiri pulled the door open letting Kunigami go in first. Only because he was closer to the entrance, definitely not for any other reason.
“This wheel, Chigiri, look!” Kunigami pointed, as Chigiri joined him. “These letters match the ones on those glass bottles we didn’t use..”
“And the shapes of the bottles were under the bar, that has to be the correct order.” Chigiri continued.
“And when you turn the wheel, cogs turn and land on these symbols, they look familiar.”
“Focus, Kunigami, look at this switch dock, these are the symbols in question!” Chigiri pointed excitedly to the dock full of small switches. “Oh, ew.”
“Let’s not put our hands inside, alright.” The dock was on the box that held a gruesome looking bloody saw, reminding the two their escape room theme.
Another ten or so minutes have passed of nothing making sense and room not cooperating, them arguing and running back and forth between the two areas, trying to make sense of this one puzzle.
“No, you idiot! I told you this was 6 and not 9 and it correlated with bottle B!”
“No, Princess, I’m pretty sure you said 9 and this,” Kunigami pointed at the symbol cog. “These three dots are pointing up!”
“No, if you can’t see, the dots shape a triangle and two dots on the bottom means down!”
“How does that even make any sense?!” Kunigami threw his hands up out of frustration.
“It does, okay! Now reset the switches and try again!”
Success! After many more tries of course. And at last the doors opened again, this area looked like a shed, with various saws and bloody trails covering the wall. In the front there was a board with multiple mugshots and on their left was a prison cell.
“Kunigami look, there’s a locked door and–”
“Another set of pin pads.”
“Bleh.” Shivers went down Chigiri’s back remembering the first room. Kunigami went inside the cell and left Chigiri all alone.
Chigiri went on mindlessly pressing the buttons until he pressed the big red button. The shed filled with fog, the room turned red and the sounds of banging, chainsaws running followed by screaming and then sudden silence.
“Good job, buddy, you killed someone.” Kunigami sarcastically slowly clapped, peeking his spiked orange head out the cell entry way, only to see Chigiri staring at his direction with the look that could be described as half terrified, half ready to continue the murder streak and Kunigami is next. “You alright?”
“Yeah, all fine.” Chigiri dusted himself off, took a deep breath and turned to the mugshot wall while Kunigami went back to the odd pin puzzle.
“I have 5 gloves, a long list of 5 numbered pins and a matching list of random x’s and o’s, got anything for that?”
“I think I do,” Chigiri looked closer at one specific mugshot. “There are out of place windings of a glove plus nose, I guess it is time to use the sense of smell.”
“You might be right for once,” Kunigami nearly avoided being hit again after Chigiri had entered the cell. “Some of these gloves have a smell of something and others don’t.”
“Okay, then tell me the order and I will match it with the pin.” Chigiri stood over the huge wall of numbers and the two deciphered it quickly, unlocking one of two locks, connected to the doors next to ones where the murder happened. For another lock, the two had struggled, although unlike before, this time there was no screaming, just being deflated by their lack of success and timer going down faster than they would have wanted. After a while, the hint phone started vibrating again, this time inside the pocket of Kunigmi’s hoodie.
Try closing the cell door and look at the shadows, casted by the numbers on it!
“Yo, Chigiri, how did we miss 15 calls?” Kunigami looked at the phone he barely remembered how to use from his early childhood years.
“Wait? Are you serious?” Chigiri's eyes are yet again filled with confusion after completing the puzzle with direct instructions given by the hint person. “Do we suck that bad?”
“I guess so,” Kunigami laughs softly. “I wonder if we would have been any better with those two.”
“Hard to say.” Chigiri leaned towards the newly unlocked door. “We would probably get out in 20 minutes or be stuck forever in the first room.”
“I guess so,” Kunigami followed behind. The next room was cold and small. It was an installation of a morgue with a beheaded body laid on an autopsy table.
“Three lightbulbs–” Kunigami looked around.
“Means three more puzzles–” Chigiri walked back to the mugshot wall.
“And no time to spare,” Kunigami noticed a small window in the wall and leaned towards it.
“Kuni, I think I got it!” Chigiri quickly walked back to the morgue.
“I got something too! Look!” Kuginami gestured for Chigiri to look through the small window. “It’s a person you killed.”
“Wow,” Chigiri couldn’t help but roll his eyes and cross his arms in disapproval. “And I see the code.”
“Yeah, that as well I guess.”
“No pin pad this time, so the code has to be for these bigger nodes, right? Let me try twisting them and you say it out loud, I already forgot the numbers.” Red head moved toward the light bulbs letting his friend back to the window.
“Alright, it’s 6…3…8… and 2, did it work?”
“Hold on,” Chigiri struggled with an old looking technology, but eventually one middle light bulb turned on green. “Success!”
“Now what did you see outside?” Kunigami questioned Chigiri once he walked towards the dead body.
“On some of the mugshots there were graphics of saws and other tools that look just like the ones on this table. Seems like you need to connect these to the electric generator.” Chigiri grabbed the first wire and snapped it to the medical saw on the wall.
“Seems simple enough,” Kunigami spat out, connecting the second one to the axe. “Still gruesome.”
“That is true, the ambiance is immersive,” Chigiri connected the last wire to a huge nail going through the body and another lightbulb turned green. “Would be better if we had more time.”
“That marking puzzle was not our fault, we knew what we were doing,“ Kunigami got a little bit too defensive. ”The puzzle just simply didn’t work.”
“Sure, whatever you say,” Chigiri began working on the last puzzle which was a good old simon says on a rotary phone. “You still sucked back there.”
“As if you didn’t,” Kunigami attempted to get revenge, but he lost his balance mid hit and fell on top of Chigiri, who was able to catch himself on a wall. Kunigami caught Chigiri mid fall and thus the two stood there in a back hug position for what felt like an eternity.
Chigiri could feel his cheeks quickly warming up, this felt oddly nice. Kunigami couldn’t let go, for some reason he froze up as soon as he touched Chigiri’s body.
“So um, the puzzle.” Kunigami finally jumped away, as far as possible from Chigiri without leaving the morgue.
“Yes, you’re right.” Chigiri still felt warm and shocked, which felt and was extremely noticeable due to the cool air in the room.
Chigiri finished the puzzle, the last lightbulb turned green and the sound of doors unlocking filled the awkward silence.
“Congratulations!” A sweet worker greeted them as the doors opened up. “You managed to escape in 58 minutes and 54 seconds!”
“I thought we took much longer.” Kungami pondered out loud while Chigiri still couldn’t say anything.
“Maybe you miscalculated, it happens!” Worker shrugged, knowing so well that she stopped the timer before these two reached the last room, for no good reason. “At the front desk you will get certificates of completion, will have a chance to take a photo and I hope to see you next time!”
Taking a photo felt a bit awkward and uncomfortable, considering what had just happened, but both of them thought that they managed to hide it well. Then they packed everything up, said goodbye to the staff members and went outside to the dark and humid parking lot.
“I’m starving,” Finally mustered Chigiri after a prolonged moment of silence. “Wanna grab a burger, I saw a place that is open all night on the way here.”
“Sure, let’s go.” Kunigami let Chigiri lead the way.
They walked to the bus stop and hopped on the first one that would take them to the destination. The awkward silence disappeared as quickly as it began once Bachira and Isagi called, asking about how it all went. The group talked even after the food was made.
“Chigiri got scared of the little bit of sound. It was so funny, you guys should have seen his face!” Kunigami laughed, expecting a kick to the shin from under the table and only receiving a look of Chigiri being done.
“Well, I’m glad you two got to have some fun.” Isagi hoarse, being stuck in bed with his cold worsening.
“Yeah me too!” Bachira jumped, followed by the sound of books hitting the ground.
“It was quite fun.” Out of all things that happened today, somehow Kunigami’s mind went straight to the accidental hug, making his face flush up. He quickly ended the group call, gaining an annoyed remark from Chigiri for not letting him say goodbye to the rest and quickly excused himself to the bathroom.
What was that all about? Freezing up there while odd, is one thing but remembering it again is so much worse. That shouldn’t be happening, not at this time of year when exams are just around the corner and yet he has to accept it. Kunigami has a crush on his best friend and that best friend happened to be Chigiri. Fun-fucking-tastic, isn’t it.
After too long of a time Kunigami finally freshed up and got back to his friend who had already begun to worry ever so slightly.
“Everything’s alright?” Chigiri asked as soon as Kunigami sat back down in front of him.
“Yeah, I’m alright, sorry about that. What were we talking about before?”
“Oh before you rudely hung up on Bachira and Isagi? Yeah, we were talking about today."
“Oh, okay.” Kunigami grabbed some fries.
“I did want to talk about what happened in that last room, right before we finished the very puzzle.” Chigiri was looking down at his feet.
Fuck.
“Look man, I just tripped, sorry about it!” Kunigami tried to act normal, but he failed miserably.
“You know that’s not what I mean–” Chigiri looked up directly at Kunigami, his deep pink eyes shimmering with so many emotions.
“Listen–” Kunigami was interrupted as soon as he opened his mouth.
“I don’t know what it meant or what it was, but–” Chigiri looked back down at his feet. “I really enjoyed it.”
“Yeah, me too.” Kunigami sighs in relief, knowing Chigiri well enough to understand it.
“Maybe we should hang out more, just the two of us?” Chigiri barely looked up.
“Ha, so needy right away, Prin-ah!” There’s the striker kick in the shin Kunigami was waiting for.
At least that made Chigiri smile and Kunigami was glad for that.
Fortunately, Kunigami and Chigiri both lived on campus, just in different dorm buildings. They had to take a bus back. During that time they talked about upcoming football matches, their shared elective and such, so from the surface nothing has changed. Except Kunigami has been holding Chigiri’s hand for the whole bus ride.
The two began ditching Bachira and Isagi more often and became serious not long after and “The Egoist 4” became “The Egoist 2+2”. At least now there are no third wheel situations.
A few months later, the whole friend group returned to the escape room to test themselves on a different theme and yeah, they didn’t make it. At least they got to dress up and fit the theme of a room much better. They got stuck in the middle and were only able to leave with the most direct hints possible. Thank you, sweet worker lady!