How They Survived the First Round.
Disclaimer: I do not own Liar Game. Yes. Shocking.
Summary: Not all conversations can be about strategy—at least not strategies relating to the present game—no matter how much Akiyama might wish otherwise.
Notes: Contains a misanthropic Akiyama, a Fukunaga referred to by feminine pronouns, and a Four-eyes/Glasses person referred to by his real name. Plus Nao, Akagi, and what are probably some really dumb strategies. Also: Gen. The world might have just imploded.
Not all the conversations can be about strategy, no matter how much Akiyama might wish otherwise.
Nor can all meetings adjourn once the strategy talk is over, even when it's midnight and he appears to be the only tired one. Well, Nao too, who is curled up, knees-to-chest on the floor and hiding her yawn behind a sleepy smile.
Nor, apparently, can this impromptu late-night meeting move to some other place than this over air-conditioned room provided to him courtesy of the Liar Game corporation. At least, he guesses, those surrounding him aren't being obviously loud. At least not loud enough to bring in eavesdroppers.
Briefly, Akiyama considers very politely telling them to take the meeting somewhere else, except that the psychology student inside him—the one who still hasn't quite died—see the value of listening intently to the conversations of others, especially when he himself, has no obligation to say anything.
"So," Akagi, who sits in the other chair, asks the hundred-million yen question: "What happened when you got the box?"
Akiyama leans back in his chair. Of course, when the only thing all five of those gathered in this room (himself, Nao, Fukunaga, Akagi, and Makizono—otherwise known as the guy with the glasses) have in common is that they're caught up in some sick person's idea of a fun 'game' and they're working together towards a common short-term purpose, the conversation will naturally turn to the essential: How did you end up here in the first place?
Everyone stares at each other.
Makizono, who leans back against the wall and who, with occasional furtive glances at Fukunaga, reminds Akiyama somewhat of a cornered wild animal, is the first to speak up. "The first invitation is too vague. It sounded interesting, like a once-in-a-lifetime type of chance. If they had told me it would be high-stakes. I think I would have just stayed out of the game.
"Actually," Fukunaga grins, "The more interesting questions are, 'Why'd you steal the money, and how much did you make?'" She's laying on the bed, her head propped up by her hands and a predatory grin on her face.
"I was going to go to Italy with the money," Akagi says, "My family isn't exactly rich, so I never thought I'd be able to go anywhere outside Japan without putting them horribly in debt. So when I saw the money, I thought, I'd see if I could keep even just five or ten million, I could take a year or so to travel around Italy and work in some kitchens there."
"What about you, Fukunaga-san? It was your friend, Hitomi-san, who was the original recipient of the invitation, right?"
Fukunaga nods her head at Nao. "She had the invitation, but I opened the box. All that money...and all I had to do was steal it from some poor fool."
"Wasn't Hitomi-san mad?"
"Why would she be?" Fukunaga inspects her nails. "When I told her what it was, we agreed that if I did the work, I'd pay her 25% of the profit. It wasn't like I was going to lose or anything. I had the perfect plan."
"And what was that?" Makizono speaks up from his corner.
That predatory smile compresses into a smug expression. "Oh, the man found out soon enough that I was the roommate of his opponent, so we made a deal. In return for handing him Hitomi's money, he would pass me some of his own money as payment for my cooperation."
"We set up a contract. In return for passing him Hitomi's 100 million an hour before the collection deadline, he would pay me 40 million from his stack before then."
"That's dumb of him." Akagi says, "Why didn't he make you pay first?"
"I told him," Fukunaga said, "that by waiting until the last moment, we could lull Hitomi into a sense of false security. Plus, she would have no time to get the money back, if I took it shortly enough before the retrieval time."
"Why would you stay with Hitomi though?" Akagi asks, "You make more money if you betrayed her."
Fukunaga shrugs. "Hitomi's been my roommate for years, and she's got enough blackmail on me to make my life miserable."
Nao nods sagely. "I see. Hitomi-san is a good friend of yours, isn't she?"
"Idiot Nao, always thinking these things come down to friendship." Fukunaga rolls her eyes. "The way the deal was set up, my chances were much better staying with Hitomi than changing sides."
"Really?"
"Indeed. Her opponent was literally handing me money hand over fist. Hitomi locked the money away and hid the key. With one small move on her part, we were able to return the money before he could even ask for it back."
"Oh?" Nao looks curious, and Akiyama supposes it's a blessing that she's dropped the power of friendship thing. Though the slight smile on her face indicates that she still doesn't believe in a greedy Fukunaga with enough brains to choose the less risky path.
"The postcards. Our opponent was a salaryman, and while he didn't work quite as many hours as many of his kind do, and didn't go out drinking as often (at least not while the Liar Game was going on), it meant that for several hours a day, his mail remained unchecked. And Hitomi worked at night, so she was able to intercept any messages from the corporation.
"So what she did," Fukunaga continues, "is take the postcard with the final ending date and time, and instead of having it at 6 p.m. as it original was, she went to a copy shop and had them make a invitation with an ending time of 8 p.m. From there, I simply arranged to meet our opponent at seven. Of course, by then, the money would have been collected."
"I see. Fukunaga-san was really smart to think of that plan."
"Ah, Kanzaki-san," Makizono speaks up, "My opponent tried something similar to what Hitomi-san and Fukunaga-san tried. It didn't work so well for him."
Akagi turns around, "So, how would you beat Fukunaga and Hitomi's plan?"
Makizono shrugs. "I suppose I would have refused the deal with Fukunaga-san. I didn't care about becoming rich, I just didn't want to be in debt. Anyway, the opponent was my older sister's secret boyfriend at the time."
"Oh..." Akagi seems to nod his head, and Akiyama can already see that Glasses's story is heading into the exact reason why Akiyama avoids getting too personally involved with anyone while the Liar Game is going on.
"So, while I had my money locked away tightly, or so I thought. Actually, my sister had duplicated the key to the lock, and had started smuggling the money from myself to him. She did it a bit at a time, and used bundles of fake money to make it look like I still had all the bills."
"Ugh. You're hopeless," Fukunaga sniffs. "So what saved you?"
"Ah...that..." Makizono shifts and looks like he'd rather turn and face the corner, than anyone else in the room. "As it turned out, about ten days before the money would have been collected, my sister ended up having an argument with this secret boyfriend of hers. Apparently, after the game ended, he planned on taking the money and breaking up with her."
"Oh..." Nao says, "so your sister gave you the money back?"
"I wish, the truth is, she didn't give me anything. The first I heard of it," Makizono says, "is when I was doing homework a week before the game was to end. "Sumire stormed into my room, took the spare key to the lock I had on my drawer, and opened it up. She removed the outer stacks of bills, and slammed one of the blank stacks on the drawer, and then, she said..."
'Kazuya!'--Makizono's voice goes to a slightly higher-pitched register when he imitates his sister, 'how much of an idiot do you have to be to not notice that I've been sneaking money out of the house for three weeks now.'
"Apparently, she had broken up with her boyfriend, and she had both shares of money, both mine and her ex's hidden somewhere. She refused to tell me where any of it was until I signed a contract giving her the bulk of the profits after we returned the money. I wanted to drop out at the end of the game, to the point where I would have given up all of my winnings to do so, but my sister refused to part with her own share"
"How's everything now? Between you and your sister."
"We stopped talking to each other," Makizono confesses, "even though we got along pretty well before. I ended up moving out the following month, since I couldn't stand to be in the same room as her. Plus, my sister used some of the money to provide them with a new car, and a trip to Hawaii, so when I tried to tell them, they believed her explanation about the money instead. To tell the truth, more than any debt I have right now, the thing I hate most about this is the fact that I've had to cut ties with my family."
"I'm sorry...Makizono-san," Nao says, "maybe one day you and your sister can make up."
For once, Akiyama speaks up, "I told you, didn't I? Money changes people."
To Makizono he says: "It's not just money that the participants stand to lose in this game. I promise, we'll end this someday." He looks around the room at the reactions. Nao, of course, nods with that expression of understated determination on that face. Makizono nods, as well, though his determined look is more a facade than a genuine feeling. Akagi grins. Fukunaga looks down at her nails troubled, but then that's less a disagreement with his goals and more a disagreement with his assumed method.
"Uh...what about you, Akagi-san?" Nao fakes a smile, "how did you win the first round?"
"My strategy wasn't so much 'Liar Game' as it was 'Burglar Game,'" Akagi admits, "Well, there was a little bit of lying thrown in. My opponent, Yukimura, tried to tell me that in reality, the corporation was the real enemy. Which is true, I suppose. But her solution was to put the money into a safe deposit box and keep it there until the end of the competition. Her safe deposit box. I told her that as long as we both kept our money safe and locked up separately, we shouldn't have any trouble protecting it.
"Anyway, her attempt at tricking me gave me an idea. Once I found out where and how she was hiding the money, I would sneak into her house a few times and steal small amounts of money. When Yukimura called me about it, I expressed concern and asked if perhaps the Liar Game Corporation had come in when she wasn't at home and stolen her money.
"We had an agreement at that point to not steal each other's money. So if she had admitted that her original talk about the Liar Game Corporation being the real enemy was a complete lie to get my money, then our agreement would have been off. To tell the truth, I only stole about 5 million from her. Enough to help take care of my parents and to still spend some time studying Italian cuisine in Italy. I didn't drop out after the first round, because I assumed that the drop-out fee was nonsense, and I could just ignore the invitation."
"Ahh..." Nao says, "but they lured you out to the mansion anyway?"
Akagi nods. "An employee came by my house the next day and explained that they were serious about enforcing the drop out rules, and that they would collect by any means necessary. I was just scared enough to go out to the mansion anyway to tell them off."
This, Akiyama thinks after listening to the stories, is quite a group he—or, more accurately, Nao—has gathered. Here more than anywhere else, though, is not a place to be picky about the allies one keeps.
"What about you, Kanzaki-san?" Akagi asks, "You never said anything about how you won the first round."
"Well, no..." Nao hesitates and looks at him. Though their bond is only rarely a complete secret, Akiyama sees no reason to draw attention to the depth of his and Nao's partnership. He shrugs. "It's not that interesting really..."
Fukunaga rolls her eyes and yawns. "Nao doesn't need to explain how she won. It was Akiyama. They've been working together since the beginning."
"Is that true, Kanzaki-san?" Makizono asks, "Were you and Akiyama partnered up from the beginning? But weren't you both participants..."
"Akiyama wasn't a participant originally. I came to him asking for help, and we agreed to split the profit evenly." Nao distills their story into a tale, that while, technically true, disguises the essence of what happened. For that he's both grateful for her discretion and concerned about her ever increasing ability to disguise her thoughts. "He happened to join later." Nao yawns.
Akiyama looks at the clock on the side of the bed. Almost two in the morning. Did they seriously spend an hour and a half talking about how they stole money from random strangers? He sighs. "It's time to get some sleep," Akiyama says, "or else we're not going to be able to function tomorrow."
Everyone agrees, and fortunately, Akiyama thinks as they slowly filter out of his room and disperse, none of them seem to protest. Nao always seems to trail behind the others, and Akiyama figures now is the time to warn her.
"You've heard tonight Nao. They might be helping us, but that doesn't necessarily make them good people. And none of them has told your their whole story. Be careful."
"I understand," Nao says from the doorway, "but I don't believe any of them is truly bad either. They're all just people. Good night, Akiyama-san."
"You..." he's at that same vexing loss of words he gets to when it's just them, and he has nothing to teach her. "Sleep well."
Nao just nods seriously. "You too, Akiyama-san." Then, she leaves.
And finally, Akiyama has some time alone to think.
About something other than strategy.