[Week 4, Wednesday]

[zerotohiro]

[With nothing left to do but wait until they could leave the room, Hiro found himself backed against a corner with fresh burns stinging his skin and eyes narrowed as he watches everyone else. It's not hard to see Fie approach her own door, and though he can't entirely see what happens he hears the onslaught of attacks more than sees it with his eyes.

Everyone's rooms are designed to torment them, he realizes, but it's a lot less fair when they're under attack.

Shifting slightly, he gets to his feet and heads for her door to wait, watching in the doorway when he knows he shouldn't. He doesn't know who she's fighting, but if he has to guess based on everything else he's bound to be someone important. And all of those bodies...

His limbs throb and the smell of smoke still wafts off of him and makes his eyes sting, but the moment Fie defeats her opponent and the room lets her go, he stops her.]

Fie. [It's not "are you okay", but it's close.]

Comments

[zerotohiro]

It's a game. You have a grid of nine squares, and each player takes a turn marking a square with an x or a o until one of them gets three in a row. It's sort of like a strategy game, but it's still fun and an okay solution when you're bored.

[sylfied]

... Well, it sounds less complicated than chess.

[ why does Machias even like that game ]

[zerotohiro]

That's because it is. Chess isn't a bad game but it's not really my speed. It takes forever. [But he knows how to play that, too. Give him a moment before he looks at the sleeve of his hoodie, pausing before shaking it and letting some ash from the fire crumble to the floor. He'll go ahead and draw a grid in said-ash to show Fie what he means.]

See? Like that.

[sylfied]

Oh--

[ a blink, as she studies the grid. ]

I get it... you have to think one step ahead.

[zerotohiro]

Yeah! [He's busy shaking out a little more ash. I knew I had him run into the fire for a reason.] Like I said, strategy game. [And he'll draw a tiny x in the top left-hand corner.]

[sylfied]

...

[ after taking a minute to remember what he said, she'll place her finger in the ash and put a circle in the middle of the bottom row. ]

[zerotohiro]

[And there's an x at the top again to the right of his first square.]

Sometimes it doesn't always work either.

[sylfied]

[ a circle in the remaining space in his top row, then. ]

It's a short game, at least.

[zerotohiro]

[An x in the left column of the middle row.]

It can be. I think you could probably make the grid as you want but we're not gonna have enough ash for that.

[sylfied]

[ And a circle in the very bottom left. ]

I might actually be worried if you did.

[zerotohiro]

[And an x in the bottom right.]

Yeah...I know what you mean but at the same time. [A shrug.]