SangoLancer200 - Hi! waves
Houshi Lover - Yeah, go on and snuggle him. He needs it. Please don't die...I...I..need you...
A. Nonny Mouse - Elipses are our friends! I'll be careful. And I also am creatively gruesome. :)
Vilja - You put so much in the review that I may have to e-mail you to cover it all. In short, thank you for all your observations. I'm glad you like their little world and especially their relationship. I won't say a word about the "obvious ending." You'll just have to wait. And when you're broke, you lose, and a satellite is a qualifying game before the main event, like a time trial in another sport or something. It determines if you'll play in the big game. :)
7- Shutout
"I ain't superstitious/ but a black cat just crossed my trail." - Muddy Waters
The Dead Man's Hand is aces and eights, named on August 2, 1876 when "Wild Bill" Hickok was shot in the back and died without relinquishing his hold on his cards.
There's no McHoushi's Hand, though.
No no, that would be too deliciously ironic, seeing as my grandfather barely had a hand by the time Naraku was done raking in the chips and fulfilling his end of the bargain.
A deadly curse, a hole in his right palm that inhaled anything it got near, a void that would ultimately consume the bearer, to be passed down from son to son until one of them returned to Vegas and was willing to put something as important as his life on the line at the final table.
My grandfather died before I was born, having tried for the rest of his life to get that far again. He never once placed in the final six.
My father, certainly not as good a player as his own, tried but usually got kicked out during the first few rounds. He lost my mother when I was two, his young son playing with the beads that daddy always wore as mommy walked out the door.
So the game came to me at four, my father died at seven, and days shy of my eighth birthday, the beads and fate passed on to me.
Women, cards, a curse. The men in my family are all the same, it seems, and we all like to live big on borrowed time. I did, certainly. I loved poker, sex was better, but if I could get them both that was the best. I was young and I was free and I had time. When the moment was right, I would waltz in and take home my title in a full hand.
It was only after I met Sango that the realization hit hard and heavy that the pain that sometimes woke me in the night was not imagined. I had much less time than I needed, or expected, or wanted. Each year that went by meant another lost chance to save my life.
It didn't matter until there was her, and there was someone to live for, someone to marry, someone to have a family with.
But how could I even propose a marriage and a family if I didn't know how much longer I had?
She would never forgive me if I died on her. And that in itself is a fate worse than death.
Arrival on Friday, game on Saturday, the big one starts on Monday, and it is Sunday and I am so very, very tired. My alarm has gone off no less than twenty-three times, and I cannot get out of bed.
I raise my head and notice that it's past noon, I've pulled all the sheets into a knot on my side, and I've clearly been getting very friendly with one of the pillows.
My plastic bag of chips is sitting on my night table, reminding me that all that clay is worth ten thousand dollars, more than I've ever made in a day.
Sango and I are not poor, but I'm still a graduate student, and being a TA doesn't pay well. Sango is a photo-journalist and does work for Harper's, but her pregnancy has slowed her down. Add to that the mortgage of our house, which we'll never own at this rate, and the lovely crib neither of us could bear to pass up...and ten thousand dollars means a whole lot to both of us.
Getting further in the tournament means even more. If I make it to the end, payment could be in the hundred-thousands if not millions, and oh, right, I might live.
I should buy Sango a present.
Women like presents.
I should buy her a wonderful present, and maybe when I get home I can convince her that it really is better for me to sleep inside than on a rack of spikes out back.
I need to get up in order to buy her a wonderful present. I need to get up and shower in order to buy her a wonderful present.
I need to call her.
Please, please let her answer the phone this time.
And when she doesn't, I chuck mine across the room.
DAMMIT! Forget about presents! What does she think she's doing to me?! She knows I can't stand silence! She's knows I hate it when we don't talk! She knows she knows she knows everything about me and every weakness and she's playing all of them, she's just twisting the knife deeper and deeper!
She WANTS me to die!
Well fine! Maybe I will just DIE and see if she cares!
I shower in disgust, throw my clothes around until I find something I feel like wearing, and right before I open the door, I hear giggling.
What the hell?
Opening it, I look left, no one.
I look right...no way.
One of the dealers from downstairs has what appears to be a college student pinned up against the wall. Her bowtie is undone, his hand is definitely up her skirt and on her butt, and you can tell she's just itching for him to undo those garters.
I know for a fact that this hotel has lots of back hallways, dark basements, cobwebbed stairways, so I can't fathom why they're outside my room, but what really blows me away is who this college student is.
"Ah! Miroku!" Sango's little brother Kohaku pushes his hair from his eyes and tries to pull his shirt down over the dealer's hands.
"Kohaku..." I say slowly, beaned by yet another curve ball that my life has hurled at me.
"Yeah, um, so I got an internship with Card Player, you know? They sent me here to cover, and I...oh, er, this is my girlfriend, Kagura. Kagura, my brother-in-law Miroku.."
"Hi Miroku." Her voice is a sultry purr the color of blood, and she's got eyes to match. She's a demon, I realize, and I can't help but wonder what Sango -who, with the exception of some of our friends, really has a thing against demons, but that's a different story- is going to think when she finds out. I won't be the one to tell her.
"Did you two...meet at school?" I ask lamely.
"Yeah. Sorta." Kohaku blanches and moves Kagura's hands from under his clothes. "Is Sis doing okay? She didn't tell me you two were coming."
Ouch, thanks Kohaku, right in the stomach.
"The two of us didn't come. It's just me."
He looks absolutely baffled.
"What do you mean, you came alone? I just talked to her and-"
"Baby, my break is almost over," his demon lover interrupts. "You can talk family later."
And she starts dragging him down the hall by the collar.
"I'll come see you later, okay?" He shouts back at me. "We'll have dinner? Oka-"
She shoves him into a stairwell, and before the door closes I can see her pounce on him.
Maybe I should just go back to bed.
