“Sorry, you weren’t replying to my messages so I didn’t know whether or not you were cool with me coming by myself?” Choko’s smile faded slowly as she asked if I was fine with her showing up without Hibiki.

  “No of course not, that’s fine. Come in!” I pulled out my phone, reading Choko’s messages as I gestured for her to sit on my chair. She had explained that Hibiki told her she was feeling pretty tired and wanted to chill by herself, and she’d asked if she could come by herself and at what time.

  Earlier, I decided I was done playing defence.

  This is the perfect time to attack my biggest threat.

  “I know this is random, but I know you lied to me when we were in the canteen.”

  Choko quietly watched, trying to figure out if I was bluffing.

  “That makes two of us.”

  Her warm smile put me on edge.

  “You wanna explain first, or should I?” Her innocent laugh couldn’t make a stronger contrast with her chilling words.

  “You lied about your reason for arguing that Yaeko should lose points in the third round of ‘Democracy’.”

  I figured there wasn’t any point denying it. She’d already made it clear that she suspected me, so I decided to stay on the offensive. I needed to gather as much information about the enigma in front of me as I could.

  “You told me it was to make it so Yaeko only got mad at you, instead of both you and Yori.” Choko’s innocent smile morphed into a grin, almost as if she was impressed that I'd noticed she was lying.

  “Here I was, thinking I’d crafted the perfect lie.” She laughed before continuing. “What gave it away?” I got the impression that she wouldn’t answer unless I played along.

  “You hesitated for a second. You had a reason that you didn’t want to say, so you had to think of another one.” I watched her, trying to get a solid read on her. “You nervously broke eye contact after answering, so that confirmed it.” Suddenly, Choko’s demeanor switched from casual to serious.

  “I did it because I knew Yori would be the key mediator throughout the game.”

  She took a deep breath as she watched me with a straight face.

  “I did it to prevent an opening for the traitor.”

  We sat in silence as I stared at her for a few seconds.

  “I want your help, Akira. If I’m right about our skillsets, we’re the perfect compliments for each other.”

  I watched as she slowly leaned towards me.

  “We can beat them.”

  I needed a second to think.

  There isn’t any point denying I knew about the traitor.

  She already knows that I know.

  “What do you think our skillsets are?” I sat on my bed, leaning backwards against the wall. I figured I didn’t need to analyse if this was a genuine request or a plan to betray me right now since I can analyse all of that later.

  For now, I should focus on maximising the amount of information I get.

  “I have something that you don’t, and you already know it.” I felt my lips curl into a smile at the audacity of her plan.

  “I have an ability to read people’s emotions. It’s almost a gut feeling, I struggle to articulate it, but I can tell when people are lying.” I decided to cut her off and retake control of the conversation.

  “In other words, you have a high EQ.” I paused as she smiled. “What makes you think I have a high IQ?” Her words made no sense, but that’s why I wanted to hear more.

  How can you have a talent that you fail to articulate?

  “Well, you figured out we were getting kidnapped.” She paused, possibly expecting a reaction out of me. When she didn’t get one, she continued.

  “I’ve thought about it since then. Even though I know we got kidnapped, I can’t think of any signs other than the fact that they ran out of bottled water.” She looked away for a brief second before she continued.

  “But there was something that tipped you off beforehand. That’s why you asked for bottled water in the first place. There were probably several signs given how annoyed you were with that waitress, but I can’t think of even a single one.” She waited, letting me continue leading the conversation.

  “You wouldn’t risk telling the traitor that you know there’s a traitor. The element of surprise would be your biggest advantage against them.”

  She quickly nodded her head in agreement.

  “So how are you confident that I’m not the traitor?”

  “I doubt you’ll just believe me if I say it’s a gut instinct.” She quietly laughed at her joke while I kept a straight face.

  “Do you know what it feels like to have an irrational confidence in something?” I had an idea, but I shook my head to let her continue.

  “It’s when you know that you might be wrong, but you still believe in something with 100% confidence.” She let the silence hang before she made her point.

  “When Hibiki was accusing you of knowing about the kidnapping, I was watching you use your IQ to lie and get out of all of her questions with your calculated arguments.”

  Her smile morphed, and she took a deep breath as she held eye contact.

  “You couldn’t hide your pain.”

  I reflexively tilted my head.

  “You couldn’t tell if Hibiki was genuinely terrified that you were part of the kidnapping, or if she was just the traitor trying to make me suspicious of you.”

  Is her EQ really that powerful?

  “You hid it well, but I’m really good at picking up those minute uncertainties. That’s why I can’t really explain it, I just know it.”

  I had another question I needed to ask before I could even think of trusting her.

  “If you’re so good at reading people’s emotions, why do you need my help to find the traitor?”

  She replied almost instantly.

  “It’s the same reason you haven’t already figured it out. Whoever it is, they're a great actor. I haven’t gotten anywhere.” I instantly picked apart the inconsistency.

  “If you know they’re a great actor, then why did you assume I wasn’t acting out my pain?”

  “Well, I already told you. It’s irrational confidence.” I simply scoffed at the obvious cop out.

  “Fine, if you want details,” she thought for a second before continuing.

  “Your main strength isn’t your IQ. It’s your understanding of human psychology.” I silently watched her until she continued.

  “When Nobu was about to hurt Yaeko and Osamu in ‘Democracy,’ you said the exact thing needed to diffuse the situation.

  I could tell that you weren’t scared.”

  She looked away as if she was remembering the moment. She couldn’t open her mouth back then, and I assumed it was because the fear paralysed her.

  “You weren’t scared at all because you knew for a fact it would be enough to make Nobu back down.”

  She continued looking away from me as she spoke.

  “At the same time, you didn’t have a feeling of happiness or sadness. The traitor would have felt something in that moment, a sense of victory or perhaps malice, but you just felt apathy.”

  She looked back at me before concluding her point.

  “To you, a simple manipulation like that is child’s play, isn’t it?”

  We sat in silence for a few seconds before I decided what I wanted to say.

  “This isn’t enough for me to decide that you aren’t the traitor. I’ll back out of this partnership the second I find another reason to doubt you.” She instantly spoke back.

  “As I expected. Your logic won’t let you trust anyone, will it?” I contemplated telling her about why Mei should be innocent.

  If she was the traitor, could she use that against me in any way?

  “We should make sure we have the same goals before we team up. Obviously we want to find the traitor, but I refuse to hurt anyone unless they’re getting in our way of identifying the traitor.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “You’re close with Hibiki, do you think she could be the traitor?” She immediately shook her head.

  “It’s obviously possible, but I severely doubt it. She isn’t acting in any unexpected ways and I haven’t noticed anything suspicious.” I cautiously looked at her before asking another question.

  “If your strength is your emotional intelligence, and no one has acted suspicious yet, then how do you know a traitor exists?” Choko scoffed at the question and quickly answered.

  “My strength is my EQ, but I have a decent level of logic.” She softly chuckled before continuing. “I might not be as good as you, but it’s good enough to figure out there was a traitor.”

  She’d walked right into my trap.

  I’d figured out that a traitor entered us into these games when I realised that we were given a different coupon than Ren’s group.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  I realised that our kidnappings were targeted, and that someone in the group must have told our kidnappers how many people were in our group so they could custom make the coupons for us.

  Choko shouldn’t have any way to know about that.

  “Well, why don’t you explain it anyways?”

  I didn’t want to tell her I knew she was lying. If she was the traitor, it’d be better for me to fake an alliance with her so I could understand her better and figure out how to expose her to the group.

  That being said, I knew that she’d think I would ask this question regardless of whether I suspected her or not, so I asked it to avoid tipping her off.

  “We weren’t the only group that got kidnapped.” I nodded my head as I let her continue.

  “The person I played against in my first game went to the same karaoke bar as us, but her group had a different coupon. Her coupon was for a different number of people and a different time. Specifically, it was for twelve people on Thursday night.” She confidently looked me in the eyes as she continued explaining.

  “If they had custom made coupons for how many people were in our groups and for when we’d be free, it means that we must have had a traitor that fed them some info on us.” She smiled as she reached the exact same conclusion I did.

  It was a plausible explanation that would remove my main reason to suspect her, but I knew it could easily be faked, so I decided to probe deeper.

  “How did you and your opponent start talking about something so trivial when you’d just been kidnapped?” She leaned back in her chair before answering.

  “She was incredibly nervous during the game, so I tried telling her to think about her friends and how she’d be able to see them soon to calm her down.” I analysed every part of her body and voice that I could.

  There wasn’t any hesitation.

  Her voice sounded natural.

  “She mentioned how they all sang their favourite song at karaoke, and I told her that we were kidnapped in the same way. That eventually led to us discussing our coupons.” I couldn’t find any signs of guilt, but I kept my guard up and moved on to asking another question.

  “You initially played it off by saying your logic wasn’t as good as mine, but that it was still decent.”

  I watched as her right eyelid subtly fluttered.

  “You were implying that you’d figured out a traitor existed the same way I did.”

  This is the only inconsistency left.

  “However, you then explained that the way you figured it out was based on some information that you found out by luck.”

  I looked her in the eyes as I delivered my final, unassailable accusation.

  “You shouldn’t have thought that I made the same deductions.”

  For the first time, I noticed a sense of nervousness from Choko.

  No witty remark.

  No instant reply.

  She swallowed and looked away.

  “You’re right.”

  She smiled to herself out of pity.

  “To be honest, I still have no idea how you figured out a traitor exists, I just assumed that you did since you were also smart enough to realise we were being kidnapped without any clues.” She paused and looked me in the eyes before confessing.

  “I said that in an attempt to manipulate you by creating a sense of unity in our shared deductions and problem solving.” She paused again and looked away.

  Normally, I’d say there’s no way that this shame was being faked.

  However, Choko has shown me her capabilities.

  I can’t put it past her.

  “I was trying to manipulate you in the hopes of making it easier for you to trust me so we could work together to expose the traitor more efficiently.” I silently thought to myself.

  I couldn’t tell if this was a genuine confession, or if she’d planned all of this just to make me trust her.

  I decided to push ahead and look for more inconsistencies. If I managed to discover more, it’d make this decision easier.

  “You admitted that you lied about why you pushed for Yaeko to win the third round’s vote back in the canteen.” She gently nodded in response. “Why did you bother lying? Why hide your true answer?”

  I watched as she showed a renewed sense of confidence. She already had an answer, whether it was a genuine one, or if it was just a prepared fabrication.

  “I lied because I didn’t want to show how perceptive I am in case you or Hibiki were the traitor.” I immediately pounced on the new inconsistency.

  “Didn’t you say that you realised I wasn’t the traitor due to my apathy when I manipulated Nobu? In that case, why would you have to hide your perceptiveness from me in the canteen?”

  I stood up and walked towards Choko in an attempt to intimidate her, but she didn’t seem affected.

  “I wasn’t 100% sure from that alone. It was only when I saw your pain when you had to deal with Hibiki’s accusation that I became confident in your innocence.” She stood up as well, refusing to let me take control of the conversation, and refusing to let me take control of our potential alliance.

  We stood facing each other, separated by a step or two.

  We stared at each other for a second before she continued explaining.

  “That’s actually why I called you out on all those inconsistencies I saw.

  I wanted to confirm how smart you were and the way you thought.

  I needed to figure those out before I decided to ally myself with you, or if I should have tried to find the traitor myself.”

  I quickly thought to myself as we continued staring into each other’s eyes.

  If Choko isn’t the traitor, there’s no downside to working with her. She was clearly competent enough not to leak anything to the traitor.

  Even if she was the traitor, what was the potential downside? I could choose to hide any information I had, and I could just ignore any information she gave me if I thought she was lying.

  Sure, she could be trying to manipulate me and my deductions, but I had faith in my abilities to see through that possibility.

  That meant there was no downside to being her ally either way. Even if she was the traitor, I’d still benefit from allying with her since I’d get more opportunities to press her for inconsistencies.

  “Why are you staring into my eyes so intently? Don’t tell me you like me.” Choko smiled as she teased.

  I took a step back before replying.

  “Weren’t you the one who stood up and got so close to me?” I smiled back.

  “Yeah. I had to show you that I wasn’t going to back down just because you stood up over me.” She sat back into her chair as I walked back to my bed.

  “Do you think that body language matters that much?” I coyly asked as I sat back down.

  “Of course it does. We both benefit from this arrangement, and we’re working towards a common goal as equals.

  I’m not another pawn for you to manipulate.”

  Her voice grew cold, but I calmly responded.

  “Don’t put me in a position where I have to manipulate you, and we’ll be fine.” We continued staring at each other as we fought for our positions in this alliance.

  I thought about how odd and funny this would look from an outsider’s perspective, but it made perfect sense to both of us.

  We are both aware of the other’s capabilities.

  The unwritten dynamics that others might ignore are painfully clear to us.

  That’s why neither of us are backing down.

  A few seconds passed as Choko thought about my words. I decided to stand up and walk towards her, offering a handshake as I extended my arm.

  “Let’s figure out who the traitor is. Let’s expose them before they tear our friendships apart.” I realised that I never questioned her on whether she figured out the traitors motivations, but the concentration in her eyes made it clear that she’d already thought it through and came to the same conclusions I had.

  “As equals.” She stood up before reaching to shake my hand.

  “As equals.” I repeated as we shook hands and formed our alliance.

  Things had gotten easier for me, but this didn’t change the fact that the traitor was good at hiding.

  We still had a long way to go.

  Although I struggled to read Choko’s innocent and carefree expressions, this was different.

  For once, she wasn’t hiding behind an innocent mask.

  I could see a serious face, and I knew she was thinking the exact same thing I was.

  We have to move quickly.