Rating: K+
Genre: Friendship
Characters: Rikkai Team
Warning(s): Hints of NiouMarui UST
Summary: Yanagi leaves a puzzle for the team to crack. Or is it?
Game of the Day
One empty glass bottle, a broken windpipe, two blank pieces of paper, a ripped plastic bag, and five conches lay scattered on the floor of the clubroom that morning. Jackal had came across this scene five minutes ago, scratched his head whilst deep in thought, before sighing and backing away.
It was Yanagi's turn that day—for the game they played.
Kirihara sat cross-legged, shaking a conch in each hand at placing them over his ears. There was nary a clue and the data master was nowhere to be found. In other words, Kirihara was stumped. Him and the rest, save Jackal who went to grab a coffee or two, perhaps praying for his sanity and end of the day. Yukimura nudged the bottle with his feet, observing as it rolled, back and forth, back and forth, like a pendulum, hypnotising in its own strange way.
"Trash?" Marui suggested.
"You would wish for it to be so obvious," Niou snorted. "Try racking that brain of yours you brag about so much and think—think back to the previous rounds; have our very own Yanagi Renji ever made things so observable?"
"Even an immortal wouldn't live to see that day."
"Exactly."
"But we have no leads!" Marui protested, pacing across the room. "Unless this is some abstract art piece that he stole from a museum and is aiming to get us all fined—or, heavens, arrested—for theft, I can't see anything but trash!"
Yagyuu cleared his throat. "A letter in a glass bottle. The conches represent the sea."
"The windpipe and plastic bag would be unaccounted for," Sanada pointed out.
"That's what I feared," Yagyuu relented with a sigh. "I've never witnessed Yanagi-kun leaving no sign of a hint or clue; perhaps we've overlooked something important?"
"We've ransacked the clubroom." Yukimura shook his head. "The rules established does not allow for any starting items to be outside of the clubroom. This is it."
"If Yanagi is the clue, him not being here means he's violated the rules, yeah?" Marui asked.
"Do you really think our Master would make such a silly error?" Niou remarks, shooting Marui down. They lunged at each other, growling and honestly, Yukimura shook his head, they ought to do something about that unresolved sexual tension between the two.
Sanada grumbled under his breath about practice being disrupted once again and tugs his cap over his eyes, secretly analysing the items strewn about the floor. Yanagi was going to be the death of them one day, Sanada swore. Jackal chose that exact moment to wander into the clubroom with a tray of coffee in his hands and the team pounced on him immediately, leaving no room for protest as they swiped a cup of coffee each, sipping eagerly with feral gazes.
"No progress?" Jackal asked a question that required no answer, for it was obvious from his teammates' behaviour.
"Maybe we shouldn't be looking at them individually, maybe we have to construct something out of them to figure out the clue," Yukimura suggested with a shrug.
"That…doesn't seem to far-fetched," Yagyuu mused. Yukimura eyed the rest and they all raised their hands because why the hell not? They didn't have any other ideas either way. So found the Rikkai regulars, minus Yanagi, sat on the floor in a lopsided circle surrounding the objects.
Yukimura grimly nodded at each of them and they counted to three, before hands started reaching in and assembling. It took them a few gruelling minutes but they managed to construct a crude looking, and way more fragile, Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Yukimura smiled proudly and said, "Well. That's nice."
"Is he telling us to go to Pisa because I don't think that's going to be possible, buchou," Jackal said, scratching his head.
"Nonsense," Yukimura said, "of course Renji—"
Not a moment too soon, said person walked through the door with a black duffel bag. Yanagi Renji stopped and stared at his teammates and said, "You're early. I never thought you'd be this excited about my clue, I have to update my data."
"What the fuck?" Niou cursed and Marui pinched him for his foul language.
"Senpai, isn't this your clue?" Kirihara asked, gesturing to their construction, which was swaying dangerously.
"No?" Yanagi replied with the tilt of his head. He held the duffel bag up and continued, "I was just about to set it up."
"Then what the heck is this?" Marui exclaimed, jumping up.
Yanagi scrutinised their work and said, "Isn't that the artwork that was stolen from the museum two days ago?"
"Holy fucking balls of fuck."
No one punished Niou for swearing this time.
A/N: Yanagi may or may not be a troll. Also it's been way too long, I'm so sorry! (If there's anyone even still here reading this.)