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Everything changed after the first class trial.
That was to be expected, of course. It was one thing to argue over a murder long past, condemn a faceless assailant, study a dummy covered in fake blood; it was another when the culprit was one of their own, as well as the body.
As they left the trial room, some of Damon’s classmates began to remark that ‘at least they’ll never have to do that again’. Part of him wanted to interject and remind them that that kind of blind optimism was what had gotten Wolfgang killed. He didn’t, though; it would be pointless and only risk him being isolated from the group again. If the idiots wanted to cling to their ideals then they would be make targets than he would.
Together, the class made their way to the dining hall and grabbed a small supper. No one was very hungry, but Ingrid insisted that they hadn’t eaten all day. It was a little unsettling being in the room where the murder had taken place, though Damon supposed every inch of the facility was unsettling.
All in all, supper was a quick and quiet affair. Some of the more optimistic students did their best to make conversation, but most stayed to themselves.
With a glance to the vent, Damon wondered if Wolfgang’s body was still in the boiler room. Probably not since there was no odour; Tozu or Mara must’ve disposed of it.
After everyone was finished eating they made their way back to the dorms; out of corner of his eye Damon saw Diana silently grab Grace and bring her to her room. It made sense, no one would want to be alone at night.
Unlike every other night, Kai made no quips or complaints about their rooming arrangement. Instead, he followed Damon’s to his room as he grabbed clothes to change into.
“You should just bring all your stuff to my room,” Kai suggested. “It’ll be more convenient.”
Damon turned around, raising an eyebrow at the influencer. “Why?”
“You’re going to be staying in my room every night, anyway. This way we don’t have to travel back and forth all the time.”
We.
“Fine.”
Damon didn’t have the energy to argue; not about spending every night in Kai’s room, ‘nor about the use of the word we.
When they finally crawled into bed together, Kai didn’t put up the wall of pillows he had the night before. Damon refrained from questioning this.
“Promise me you won’t go off on your own,” Kai whispered, long after both of them should have fallen asleep.
Damon couldn’t help but ask, “Why?”
“Wolfgang wouldn’t have died if he had stayed with Grace. And I- we- need you. Without you, we would’ve voted Diana.”
“You would have found the truth eventually.”
“I don’t think we would have.”
Damon didn’t respond. Kai’s fears seemed genuine, however the sentiment unsettled him. If anyone else came to the same conclusion, he would be first on their target list for the same reason Wolfgang was first on Eva’s.
“You haven’t promised,” Kai broke the silence.
“I promise.”
It was an easy enough promise to make, especially considering that Kai would forget about it in no time. Besides, having the influencer around could help in deterring any opportunistic killers.
Neither said anything after that. At some point Damon must have slept, for he woke up to Tozu’s alarm, though he couldn’t remember it. Not falling asleep, ‘nor his dreams. Though, the latter was probably a good thing.
It took two days for Damon to admit to himself, for maybe the first time, that he was wrong.
Normally, given his ultimate talent, he could always talk his way into being correct. It was rare that he dealt with subjective fact, yet he had no other way of looking at the situation. Kai had not forgotten about his promise, and had actually been attached to his hip; he couldn’t even take a piss without the other man following him.
The other roommate pairs were similar, though not to the same extent. No one really went off on their own, even if the combinations of the pairs would change. Not Kai and Damon, however.
Unfortunately, the others had seemed to notice.
“So do you idiots shower together?” Grace asked crudely one morning, while they were eating breakfast.
“Damon wishes,” Kai responded before Damon even realized the question was posed to them.
“I really, truly, do not.”
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed! I have many admirers.”
“13 year old girls don’t count.”
“Burn!” Cassidy chimed in.
Kai huffed indignantly, “My followers and admirers come in all shapes and sizes.”
“Whatever, pretty boy,” Grace scoffed. “What would your admirers think about your new boyfriend?”
“I’m not,” Damon interjected instantly.
“Oh, they’d love it,” Cassidy laughed. “There’s nothing fangirls love more than two twinks kissing.”
“I am not a twink.”
“Yeah, we are,” Kai argued. “It’s not a bad thing, though. It just means we’re young and cute.”
“Stop saying we!”
“You know, if you two want a compatibility test, I can always perform one,” Toshiko offered.
“Fuck off.”
“Damon!” Ingrid gasped, “You shouldn’t use that kind of language around Toshiko!”
From behind Ingrid’s back, Toshiko stuck her tongue out at him. Fucking gremlin.
Grace interrupted their bickering, “I’m just curious. I don’t think I’ve seen you two separate from each other once in days.”
“That’s not weird,” Damon defended himself, “We’re roommates.”
“Yeah!” Kai exclaimed, wrapping an arm around Damon’s shoulders “And best friends!”
“No,” Damon shrugged him off.
“Diana’s my roommate, and I have no idea where she is right now.”
Damon could win just about any debate; his brain always gave him the perfect retort to ensure that people would see reason and logic. The only issue is that he was forced to learn to consider how the retort would make the other person feel. Most of the time he didn’t give a shit, no one should be upset by the truth.
Still, he was socially aware enough to understand that ‘and how well did that turn out for your last roommate?’ would be an asshole thing to say.
So, the comeback sat on the tip of his tongue until he could swallow it down.
“Don’t be jealous,” Kai replied for them, unhelpfully.
“Trust me, I have no jealousy for whatever you two are getting up to at night,” Grace spat back.
“We should change the subject!” Ingrid suggested, “Young ears.”
“I’m more mature than most of you!” Toshiko cried.
Thankfully, the conversation moved on from there. Damon continued to consider what Grace had brought up, though.
It was simply strategy to always be by Kai’s side; any would-be murderer would be discouraged by their proximity to each other. Also, being alone with any other classmate had become an unnecessary risk; Kai and he had been trapped together. Were either of them to die while the other survived, the only explanation would be that the survivor was in turn the culprit.
Of course a particularly clever assailant could use this fact to get away with murder, but Damon was certain that none of their classmates had that wit.
It wasn’t as though he had any true desire to spend time with Kai -the man was still as irritating as when they first met- he was simply giving himself the best chance of survival.
There was no doubt that there would be another murder, eventually. Tozu hadn’t given them another motive yet, although Damon knew that didn’t mean much. The motive was fairly inconsequential to the last murder. Eva was pathetic and desperate without the so-called secrets being disseminated, and what had really pushed her into acting was the perk.
If the goat wanted another murder, all he needed to do was pinpoint the weakest willed amongst them.
Sometimes Damon found himself examining his classmates, attempting to figure out who it could be that would snap next. Of course, he didn’t allow his speculation to go too far. He certainly hadn’t suspected Eva, and had he allowed his assumptions to influence the trial they would’ve never made it out alive.
Any of them could be killers if given the right push, he had to remember that. He couldn’t afford to trust anyone again.
That was another reason he couldn’t part from Kai; as long as he never allowed him a moment to be alone and consider his options, he would be safe. Not because of trust, because of logistics.
Later in the afternoon, he and Kai were lounging in the courtyard under a tree. Damon was reading a book, while Kai was attempting to braid grass together.
“Ugh,” Kai whined, pulling Damon’s attention from his book. “I’m bored.”
“Don’t say that,” Damon’s eyes returned to his book. “Boredom is a luxury.”
“What do you mean? Being bored sucks.”
“Not when we’re trapped in a killing game.”
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Kai said. Something in his tone prompted Damon to put his book down and look at him properly. There was a look of contemplation on the influencer’s face, “Are we really in a killing game if no one kills? Tozu said we have to spend the rest of our lives here, so unless we escape maybe this is just life.”
“I think I understand your point. If we all die here of old age with no more trials, then the game sort of ceases to matter.”
“Or, we’ve won the game. By refusing to participate.”
“Interesting.”
“Of course, I want to go home,” Kai looked up at the false sky. “But there are worse prisons, and no matter how boring, a life like this is better than dying.”
As much as Damon wanted to let Kai live in his optimistic delusions, he felt a responsibility to bring him back to reality. “There’s a third option, though.”
“What, escaping? How?”
“Getting away with murder.”
Kai turned to him with a horrified expression. After a pause, he carefully responded, “But you’d have to kill everyone to do that.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” Damon clarified honestly. “Not just from the moral perspective, also from a logical one. Tozu wants a game, and if Eva had fooled us all during the trial, the game would’ve ended. How anti-climatic. No, I think the odds are more against the blackened than we’ve been led to believe. However, most people aren’t going to look at things logically, or rationally. They’re going to react to this situation emotionally. You may be content to live here forever, but not everyone would agree.”
“You think one of our classmates would commit another murder?” Kai’s face had paled.
“Of course. And you do too.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so insistent we stay together constantly.”
Kai stayed silent for a minute, clearly trying to find an argument to that but failing.
“It’s okay,” Damon added, gentler than he’d ever been in his life. “It’s smart. It’s what will keep us alive while other’s die.”
“How can you be so callous?”
“It’s not callousness, it’s realism. To survive these games, you need to outlive the others. We aren’t stronger, or faster than everyone. We can be smarter, though.”
There was another pause, Kai turning to stare at the main building instead. Finally, he said, “So the game will continue?”
“It must. It’s destined, in the same way Eva was destined to get caught.”
“What do we do?”
“It’s like I said; we survive.”
“Tozu said the game will end when there are only two left.”
“Let’s ensure that we’re the two.”
Truthfully, Damon didn’t really care if it was Kai at the end with him. Though, if things continued as they were now, Kai made the most logical sense.
“Maybe I’m right, though,” Kai said as they were getting ready to go back inside. “Maybe there will be no other murders and we’ll survive that way. With everyone.”
“Maybe,” Damon agreed, though he didn’t bother making it sound believable.
Two more days passed without incident, and Damon began to feel antsy. Tozu was a little too quiet for his liking; it had been long enough since the last trial that he would’ve assumed the goat would be throwing new motives at them to hurry along the next murder.
He had an uncomfortable theory that one of the students had already begun planning one, satiated their captor’s bloodlust. Perhaps a new perk had even been taken.
Despite this, he decided not to share his theory with Kai, or anyone else. He didn’t need the would-be blackened to change their target to him out of panic, and he knew that the rest of the students would deny the possibility of another murder anyway. Kai may have understood, but it wouldn’t be worth scaring him.
In a strange way, things felt just as they had before the first trial. Only he and Kai stayed diligent in their buddy system while the rest of their classmates seemed steadfast in their belief that Eva had been the one bad apple that he been thrown out. Wolfgang being the sacrificial lamb was tragic, of course, however he would be the only innocent that had to die.
Horseshit; but better than constant terror, in some ways.
Damon wondered how many of the other student’s carefree attitudes were masks; he had begun to recognize Kai’s false positivity though he struggled with determining which of the rest of them were earnest.
Oddly enough he found himself trusting those who didn’t put up a facade more, like Wenona or Mark. He certainly wouldn’t say he was friends with either of them, but he appreciated that he didn’t need to question how honest they truly were.
Diana was someone he struggled to get a read on; if anyone was being truthful in their belief that things would be okay it would be her. Although in another sense she would be the least likely to be suspected of murder out of all them, and therefore someone to keep an eye on.
Still, she was the only person other than himself whom Eva had tried to frame. After the trial she had thanked him for believing in her, which only served to make him a uncomfortable. All he had done was follow his instinct, certainly not out of any loyalty to her in particular. Loyalty was something that would get them all killed.
“Ouch!” Kai cried, though not in an alarming way. It was a mild enough noise that Damon didn’t even bother looking up.
“Did I poke you in the eye? I’m so sorry!” Diana quickly apologized.
At breakfast, Kai had asked Diana if she’d do his makeup in the afternoon. That meant Damon would be coming with, though he didn’t mind that so much. It wasn’t like there was anything he’d be missing elsewhere.
“It’s okay! Pain is beauty.”
“No, pain is pointless,” Diana disagreed. “You’re plenty beautiful without the pain. Right, Damon?”
“Fine,” he said without looking up, deciding it was easier than disagreeing and beginning an argument.
“Aw! Thanks guys!” Kai cooed brightly, though Damon could tell it was forced.
After another couple minutes Diana cheered, “Done!”
“Wow! You’re amazing, Diana. You made me look incredible.”
“No way! That’s all you!”
“I wish my followers could see this,” Kai sighed. “They’d be so excited to see me doing a collab with the Diana Venicia.”
“Don’t worry,” Diana hummed, “When we get out of here we can collab together all the time.”
Damon resisted the urge to scoff.
“How do I look, roomie?” Kai prodded.
Without lifting his head he responded, “Great.”
“You didn’t even look!” Kai sulked.
With a sigh, Damon took a look at Kai. As annoying as it was to admit, Diana had done a good job. Kai looked hot, but still like himself. If he hadn’t spent so much time with him in the last week, Damon may not have realized that he was wearing makeup at all. It was only the missing freckle under his eyes, and the extra dark lashes that gave him away.
“You look great,” he repeated a little more honestly.
“Thank you,” Kai replied with red-tinged cheeks.
“You know Damon,” Diana practically sang, “If you let me do your makeup I’ll have done nearly everyone’s here.”
“Wow, incredible.”
“You should do it!” Kai encouraged. “It’ll be fun.”
Damon disagreed, “I don’t think so.”
“That’s okay, I won’t pressure you,” Diana giggled. Then, very suddenly, her faces turned serious. “I do have a question, though.”
“What is it?” Kai wondered when she didn’t continue.
“Do you think Tozu’s been quiet?”
That knocked the breath out of Damon. Though he had made the observation himself, he hadn’t expected anyone else to notice. Especially not Diana, who was too naive and stuck in her own hero fantasies to see reality.
“Yeah, now that you mention it! What a relief, huh?”
“No,” Diana shook her head at Kai’s statement. “I don’t think it is.”
She didn’t elaborate any further; Kai seemed a little unsettled and quickly changed the topic but Damon knew what she was implying.
He wondered if he underestimated her; that could be a deadly mistake not worth making.
It would be exhausting but he would have to assume every other student was secretly just as smart as him, if not smarter. They were all Ultimates for a reason, and while he was fairly confident he was the best of them it wouldn’t be good to be caught off guard.
Later, in his and Kai’s room, he felt obligated to tell his roommates of what he had realized after his talk with Diana.
“We’ve been too lax,” he stated calmly.
“Huh?” Kai turned to face him, shift halfway off of his body.
“Think about it. We’ve been assuming that because the two of us are always together that it would be impossible to be killed. But that’s not true. In fact, one of us could be murdered and the other blamed. Or, we could both be murdered by one assailant; that doesn’t seem to be against the rules. Imagine if Diana had laced her makeup with poison today- you’d be a goner.”
Kai stared at him with very wide eyes, looking so shocked that Damon began to regret speaking up.
“Why would you think about that?”
“To give us an edge.”
Damon wasn’t sure when they became an us. Perhaps when he vowed that they would be the two to survive this. Or when he had lost at rock paper scissors and they had been paired up. Or maybe even earlier, when Kai had been the first person to greet him on the train.
No, that was stupid. Damon didn’t believe in fate or any sentimental shit. They were an us because like it or not, Kai was the only person he knew wouldn’t kill him.
“That doesn’t give us an edge,” Kai disagreed, surprising Damon. “That’ll just turn us into paranoid psychos.”
“Alive paranoid psychos.”
“I think if someone resorts to murder again, it’ll be out of desperation. They’ll want the easiest murder with the easiest way to get away with it, and that would be neither of us.”
“Who would that be?”
“I don’t know. I don’t want to think that way.”
Kai made a face, as though being prepared was somehow something bad.
“I just want us to be careful.”
“We are. More careful than anyone here.”
At the beginning of their conversation, Damon was sitting on the edge of the bed while Kai was changing for dinner beside it. Slowly, Kai had made his way over to sit beside him on the bed.
Damon turned to look him in the eyes, but noticed that something felt off. He stuck his thumb in his mouth for a brief moment, then reached over and wiped the foundation off from under’s Kai’s eye. A small freckle appeared.
Then, embarrassment set in. Damon realized what he had done and instantly apologized, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
Damon couldn’t read Kai’s expression; he hated that.
“There will be another murder soon; I know it. I can feel it in my gut the same way I could feel that Diana wasn’t the culprit.”
“Maybe there won’t be,” Kai halfheartedly argued. “Maybe everyone has realized that this life isn’t so bad. It isn’t so bad, right?”
“No, it isn’t.”
Maybe if he were like Kai, it wouldn’t be. He wished he could turn off his brain and trust in blind optimism, however that would be almost like sure ending himself to the game. No, he would allow Kai to live in ignorance and he would shoulder the burden of knowledge for both of them.
Damon felt a weight on his hand; Kai’s hand. A lump formed in his throat as feelings began to bubble up the surface- feelings that he had no intention of acknowledging. Kai’s hand squeezed his, though, and he felt powerless to stop them.
“I-.”
Maybe Kai was the one who had begun to speak, maybe Damon, or maybe even both of them. It was impossible to tell what either would have said, though, since it was all forgotten at the announcement that played over the speakers.
A bell chimed, then Tozu’s gleeful voice announced, “A body has been discovered!”
“Shit.”