As if on cue, everyone started looking around. As I watched, it became clear there’d be three main groups. The first group would be the obvious one, Yaeko and Osamu. The second would be Hibiki and Choko. The third would be myself, Yori and Mei. Nobu, someone trusted by all, would be more of a freelancer. He’d be able to act as a good mediator for us. If he’s the traitor, that wouldn’t be great, but it would be hard for him to openly manipulate situations without us noticing.

  The bigger concern is that if he’s innocent, the traitor could manipulate him into doing their work.

  “I understand that you guys will want to discuss how your games went, and that you will want to start forming alliances. I’ll leave you alone for a bit.” She stopped speaking and placed a red buzzer in the centre of the table. “When you guys are ready, someone needs to press the button and I’ll come back to announce the rules of the second game. If you have any questions, I’ll answer them when I come back.” She glanced at me quickly before leaving. What was that about?

  I ignored it for now. This gave me another hint about the nature of this show. It isn’t a coincidence that they gave us a circular table and that they made a show of talking about alliances. They gave us a circular table to subtly encourage conversation. The circular table also meant that everyone could hear everyone else. They were pushing us into their game.

  I already knew how carefully they planned the kidnapping. I knew how detailed the rules of the game were. But if they paid attention to even the small details like this, then they really know what they’re doing.

  And that’s terrifying.

  But I didn’t have time to worry about that. I needed to discourage any alliance making right now. It would increase the group’s tension, and give the traitor useful knowledge to inform their actions.

  I waited to see who’d open up the discussion. My biggest advantage against the traitor is that I’ve hidden a lot of my abilities. Even Yori and Mei, who know me the best, still haven’t seen everything that I’m capable of. The best way to defeat the traitor is by maintaining this information asymmetry.

  If they think we’re all average, they’ll make bolder movies. Take greater risks. Because of all this, my strategy for this discussion is to stay passive. I’ll speak like normal, but I won’t control or guide the conversation. A few seconds passed before someone finally spoke up.

  “Why do you guys seem so calm...? We were just kidnapped… how are you celebrating?” Choko’s voice shook with each sentence. The question wasn’t asked to anyone in particular. She spoke while staring at the red button.

  “There’s no point worrying about that, Choko!” Nobu tried using his enthusiasm to calm her down. “We’re safe now, so we might as well take advantage of the opportunity and compete for the prize money!” It was a good attempt, but Nobu didn’t understand the sinister undertones of this situation.

  “Don’t you-”

  “Seriously, Choko! Don’t worry about it!” Hibiki cut her off with a smile. She reached for Choko’s hand and held it tightly. “Sure, I’m also shaken up by the kidnapping… who wouldn’t be?” Hibiki looked away for a second. Everyone felt the reality of the situation sinking in. “But what matters is that we’re all safe!” This was enough for Choko’s blank stare to disappear. She met Hibiki’s eyes. “If they were going to hurt us, they would’ve done it already! That means we should just focus on trying to win the prize money, just as Nobu said!”

  Validating her fear, but dispelling it with an appeal to authority.

  If she’d simply told Choko that she was overreacting, Choko would’ve disengaged from the conversation and she would’ve kept worrying. She validated her fear, but used Nobu, the person that everyone trusts, to diffuse it. After all, why would Nobu, the kindest and most trustworthy person in the group, lie to us? The important question remained unanswered.

  How much of this was natural empathy? How much was calculated?

  I couldn’t detect any trace of inner conflict in Hibiki’s face or voice. She took action immediately, and her body language agreed with her voice. Even though it was the perfect move, it seemed like it was a natural instinct rather than anything alarming.

  “Yeah… maybe you’re right.” Choko leaned back into her chair and took a deep breath to compose herself. She wanted to look calm, but I could tell she was still nervous. It was written all over her face.

  “You guys are right. There’s no point worrying about it. But how did we end up here?” Yori’s voice was firm. He wasn’t scared, or if he was, he masked it well. I could tell that he was trying to move the conversation along, and trying to get more people to speak up.

  “Yeah, weren’t we hanging out at the karaoke bar? How did we end up here?” Yaeko looked around, waiting for an answer.

  No one gave it to her. The truth is, we all passed out. That’s all they knew.

  I wasn’t going to tell them about everything I went through. I needed to mask my capabilities. I glanced at Choko. This question should’ve startled her more, but she looked indifferent to it, as if being kidnapped no longer phased her. How much has she processed in such a small amount of time? Or was she faking being scared this entire time?

  After a few seconds of silence, Osamu spoke up. “Ummm… if I had to guess… I’d say that the karaoke bar is owned by the people that kidnapped us. They proba-”

  “Yeah, you’re right!” Yaeko unintentionally interrupted Osamu, but I could see why. He spoke very quietly, as if he was scared to speak. This was reflected in his body language. When he spoke, he looked down at the table, rather than looking at us. I’ve suspected this for a while, but I was never close enough with him to know for sure.

  Seeing his reaction to being interrupted confirmed it. He glanced at Yaeko, then sank back into his chair with a smile. There wasn’t any trace of frustration or anger towards her. It was more a look of dejection mixed with acceptance and relief. Even though he had more to say, he was glad to be done. To be out of the spotlight.

  “Anyways though, what’s the point in talking about all that? You guys are just stressing poor Choko out even more.” Choko looked up after hearing her name and put on a smile to show us she was doing ok. “Why don’t we talk about how our games went? Did we all play ‘Tactical Rock Paper Scissors’?” After everyone confirmed that we all played the same game, Yaeko kept going. “Ok, guess I’ll go first! I managed to win in the first two rounds as the defender each time! My point total is 17000!”

  “Oh wow, that’s so good! Well done!” Everyone was surprised to hear that, with Mei being the first to respond. Getting 70% of the available points was definitely impressive. I’d only managed to get half of them. I wasn't focussed on the point gains though. I instantly recognised that Yaeko brought up this topic so she could brag about it - that’s how she is, but that actually helped out. This announcement pulled Choko out of her trance, as she started leaning forward and listening. I wanted to see how Yaeko would react if I moved the conversation along before she got all the praise she wanted.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “Yeah, for sure! What about you, Mei?” As I’d predicted, Yaeko glanced at me. When she realised I was already looking at her, she instantly looked away - a sign of guilt. She was annoyed that I’d shifted the attention to Mei, and she felt guilty for letting me realise it.

  “I didn’t do too great…” She took a breath and smiled before continuing. “I lost in three rounds, and I’d rather keep my point total to myself if that’s ok… I’m a bit embarrassed by how many points I lost, especially after hearing how well Yaeko did.” There were a few sympathetic murmurs before Mei flipped the question back onto me.

  “How was your game, Akira?” I already knew I wanted to be as vague as possible. I’d have no idea how much keeping my point total secret would help, but I didn’t see a downside in doing so.

  “I won in three rounds, but I’d rather not say how many points I have.” Even though I wanted to withhold as much information as possible, it could be seen as suspicious if I hid everything. I decided to move the conversation forward before anyone tried to convince me to reveal my point total. I wanted to see how Osamu would handle a direct question, so I took the opportunity to find out. “What about you, Osamu?” He scratched his wrist and looked down before answering.

  “Yeah… I won.” Normally, I’d wait a few seconds so he’d speak to fill the silence. However, with this many people present, someone else could start talking about their game so I moved with haste.

  “How was it? What was your strategy?” His face immediately stiffened. I knew he wanted to hide, but I wasn’t going to let him. Once he’d fully processed the question, the his face relaxed as I saw a flicker of energy travel through his face. He smiled as he leaned forward, happy that someone wasn’t asking him a question just to involve him.

  He was happy that someone wanted to hear more.

  “Uh - ok! I won in three rounds. I figured that the attacker had an advantage since three draws would count as a win, so I saved my po- uh, actually never mind. How was your game, Choko?” he looked around and noticed everyone staring at him. This was enough to kill his enthusiasm, but I confirmed something important. That energy - it was real. He enjoys discussing things with us. He stays silent because he doesn’t want to dominate the conversation. Learning to get over this insecurity would be a key step for Osamu’s growth.

  Because everyone was used to Osamu talking like this, no one questioned why he changed topic. No one encouraged him to keep talking, so Choko started telling us about her game.

  “I won in two rounds, but I didn’t earn that many points since the person I was playing against bid the minimum both rounds. I was thinking about throwing the second round and hoping that my opponent would bid a lot of points in the third round, but I decided it wasn’t worth the risk. After all, there’s no guarantee that she would’ve changed her bidding tactics for the third round.” She looked away as she said that last part.

  Was she ashamed? Embarrassed? Right now, that didn’t matter. The detail that caught my attention is that she thought about throwing the second round for more points. Not just that, but her concern wasn’t about winning the third round. Her concern was that her opponent would just bid 2000 points again.

  “Wow! I kinda had the opposite situation than you - my opponent bid 6000 points in the first round while I bid 2000. I won that round, and since the rules didn’t specify any rewards for winning the game overall, I realised that if I bid 2000 points for the next two rounds, I’d walk away with 12000 points even if I lost both rounds.

  “Ha, lucky. Did you end up winning?” Choko was amused by the contrast between their situations. Everyone seemed engaged, and a bit surprised to hear Choko and Yori’s detailed thought processes. We all waited for Yori to answer.

  “I won in the third round, I had to bid 2001 points in the second and third round to avoid that tied bid rule, so I’m on 15,999 points”

  “What tied bid rule?” He was referring to the rule that Keiko’s boss intentionally withheld from us. When I spoke to him, he confirmed it was there to identify any talented players, and I wanted to see if Yori sent a similar message. There were murmurs of agreement when I asked that question, but interestingly, Choko wasn’t among them. Now that she was done speaking, she went back to her trance state.

  “Oh right, I only got told because we were in a pretty unique situation. Basically, if we both bid the same amount of points, we had to redo the bid, but all those points would just disappear.”

  “What? That seems pointless!” Mei had been quiet for a while, but she was also confused by the seemingly ridiculous rule. The group all reacted similarly as I glanced at Choko. I wanted to see if she also understood the reasoning behind it, but between her expressionless face and her laid back demeanor, I couldn’t discern any tells. It’s like she’s not even paying attention.

  “Yeah, I know, right? It didn’t make that much of a difference though, I only had to risk two extra points. Anyways, enough about that. Hibiki, how was your game?”

  “Yeah, my game was alright I guess. I won the first match, but then I fumbled the last two quite badly so I’d rather not say anything else about it if that’s ok!” Even though she said her game didn’t go great, she didn’t let it phase her that much. No one pressed her for any extra info. “Well, Nobu. Saving the best for last! How was your game?”

  “Similar story to yours.” Nobu sighed, before continuing. “I won the first round but then lost the other two. I didn’t lose too many points though, I’m currently at 7500.” He clasped his hands together. “I guess now that we’re done discussing the games, there’s no reason to rush into the next one! How about we just chill for a few minutes before pressing the button?” This was Nobu’s way of keeping the peace. Since he's always looking out for us, he’d be more aware than anyone how Choko’s been feeling this entire time, and he wanted to help her in any way he could. That’s why he proposed just talking before heading into the next game. He knew it’d give Choko more time to calm down.

  While the rest of the group started chatting about random stuff, I summarised everything I’d learnt.

  We’re on a game show with a traitor that wants to ruin our friendships

  An audience that pays to watch this?

  We can challenge each other for points whenever we like.

  Game show knows what they’re doing - big moves like emphasising alliance building / small moves like circular table - need to be on edge.

  Is the next game going to encourage making/breaking alliances?

  Yaeko - 17000 points

  Yori - 16000 points (Rounded from 15,999)

  Nobu - 7500 points.

  Choko - Won in 2 rounds. Can infer 14000 points.

  Osamu - Won in 3 rounds. At least 8000

  Mei - lost in 3 rounds - unknown point total. At least 4000

  Hibiki - lost in 3 rounds - also unknown. At least 4000

  As I finished sorting my thoughts, the group’s chatter naturally fizzled out. Since no one was speaking, I decided to take the initiative. “So. Who wants to press the button?” No one answered. “Yaeko. You have the most points, why don’t you do it?” I wanted to use this as an opportunity to get information out of the traitor, but they were smart. If the rest of the group didn’t say anything, you can easily blend in by doing the same.

  At this point, it didn’t matter who pressed the button. The opportunity had passed, so I was creating a new one. I don’t want to make enemies unnecessarily, and since the person most likely to be my enemy is Yaeko, I was telling her to press the button as a gesture of good will. Whether or not she saw it that way was up to her. She hesitated for a second before speaking.

  “If everyone’s ok with that, then sure, I’d love to.” No one spoke up against it, so she pressed the button.

  It was time for the next game.