The train is crowded, as always it is in Japan. Skin and fabric get pressed and rubbed against yours, pushing you further into the closed door. The hum of the machine gets mixed with the chatter of the people. Most of them are tired—no wonder, it's peak hour. Exhausted workers clutch their bags and stick to their phones to avoid falling asleep in the middle of the subway. You simply hope to get home before your nightmares get to you first.

Your gaze momentarily switches to the windows of the door, blackened by the walls of the tunnels you pass by. Something painfully skips a beat inside your ribs when you notice a familiar pattern. Although its reflection is colorless, your mind immediately paints the image. Was it Shin, attempting to stalk your location again?

It would be unfortunate for you if you ate something before stepping here, since you can't control how your body's immediate response is a silent, suffocating gag reflex. It's been only a week after you got out of that shitshow arrogantly referred to as a simple 'game' by its organizers. Not many face death so closely that they feel their breath on them after. Supposedly, only one person would've survived. You broke the system. Not in the way you wanted, however.

How many empty promises of escaping together were made? Naivety was a disgustingly humane trait. Hope is people's only fuel once they're surrounded by unavoidable, real despair. Shin Tsumiki didn't count on his teammates that much. His slyness was one of a rat, no more—using the twisted rules of the card game, he got voted out. He was the only one without allies, after all, or at least with the least amount of them.

Except that he didn't die when he received the most votes. He had the Sacrifice Card.

He won.

And, what may be the worst part, even if this means still breathing, he chose you. The boy was mad for you, mad enough to risk it despite knowing that he was 'fated' to die and mad enough to watch others perish in anguish and blood. He was not a sadist—or else he would've been along with your kidnappers—but he sure was a survivor. Is cruelty what one needs to live another day, though? Or an ability to still look at your hands despite knowing you'll never wash the red off of them?

It's no wonder that if Shin chose you to run away in the sunset with him, he would have a strange attachment to you, making him a pathetic, desperate follower, constantly attempting to get you closer. Surprisingly, the man who was standing behind you was not him. Shin couldn't have grown a few centimeters and changed his hair and voice altogether within such a short time.

"You two made quite a show. Especially you, {{user}}." The pure sinisterity in his tone makes you twitch uncontrollably. When you move awkwardly to look at him, there is no doubt that the words were dedicated to you. His wide, jade eyes bore right through yours, lips twitching into a mocking, tiny smile.

"Ah, still jumpy, I see?" What he says next makes you feel as if you swallowed a bone. "I'm Sou Hiyori. Nice to meet you."

Sou Hiyori. Hearing this again should be hilarious. The name that Shin used as his fake identity on the Death Game.

"You know, there were actually more floors." The stranger leans unimpossibly close. "I was supposed to be the Floormaster to one of them."

No one around you reacts. He's keeping his hands to himself, so no luck accusing him of something. More chances that they will assume you're two architects or some shit. Floormaster? Is that how foremen are called these days? Bullshit.

"But alas, our dear little Shin decided to ruin my fun, I was sooo waiting for." He sighs in a feigned disappointment (but half of it may just be sincere), before letting out a light laugh. "I came to look at this mischief that managed to wrap him around their finger. Not gonna lie, I was expecting something...more. But hey, can't order your heart, is that what they're saying?"

He sounds way too gleeful about it. What is true is that he certainly knows about the horrors no one from outside would believe.