Yet another chapter to A Random Christmas Story. Sorry that I didn't post anything earlier on although now's the holidays. I've just come home from a First Aid Course that my whole level went to, and it consisted of CPR, gory pictures of wounds, a mannequin and practical tests. Okay, let's not talk about that anymore. Ahem. Anyway, back to the story. Thanks for reviewing, all ye' good people, and please continue to review if you can!

By the way, don't ask me why the title of this chapter is so weird and all, it's the name of the real game, and no, I didn't invent any of the games. You can go check it out on Wikipedia (party games) if you're dubious.(: And yes, for Little Miss Illusional and everyone, I shall be nice and confirm your hopes that there will be a game of Truth and Dare somewhere down the road. Hmm, but that's all I can say. For the rest of the games, you'll just have to be patient and wait!

Stool of Repentance

"...Stool of Repentance," Theresa finished brightly.

Everyone, as usual, save for Atlanta, gave her yet a nothing blank look.

"Look, guys," she said, rather exasperated, "have you ever played any games in your childhood at all?"

The guys gave her sheepish grins and shook their heads.

"Gosh!" Theresa flung her hands up in the air, giving them a look. "What have you people been doing, then?"

"Messing around with the computer," Odie replied immediately, pulling out his laptop from under the couch just to show her; he had placed it there for safety purposes.

"Seeing if I look okay," Neil answered lazily at the same time, flashing her one of his trademark smiles.

Jay was tempted to reply with, "Studying," but he decided to keep his mouth shut. That was somewhat Atlanta's line; she had always been paranoid about doing badly for her tests. Anyway, something told him that it wouldn't serve to wipe that peeved look off Theresa's face.

He noticed that Archie remained silent and even looked a little detached and empty. But he dismissed it right away; Archie the grump. Normal behaviour for him. (A/N: Remind me to develop on this in later chapters, I might just forget.)

Theresa crossed her arms. "Well, then tonight's the night you learn some new things that you should have a long time ago. Now, Stool of Repentance goes like this: The chosen "victim" will leave the room and the rest will write something about him on a piece of paper and give it to someone to read aloud when the "victim" returns. For example, one might say he is handsome, another that he is clever, stupid or vain. Then the "victim" is then called back to sit on the stool, and one of the players will read out everything that has been described about him, like "One of us said you are cute, can you guess who?" If the victim guesses correctly, he gets to return to the circle, and the person who made the accusation takes the stool as the new "victim". If, however, the "victim" is unable to guess correctly, he must leave the room again and fresh charges are made against him."

She took a deep breath. "That was a long explanation, whew. Anyway, all of you got it?"

The team nodded.

"Okay," she said, seating herself down after setting a stool in the middle, "who do you think should go first?"

Everyone unanimously voted Neil.

"Why me again?" Neil wailed in annoyance, then, at a scary look from Atlanta, got up reluctantly and grudgingly left the room.

Theresa handed out the slips of paper, and then there was a moment of silence except for the scratching of pencils as everyone bowed their heads to write. Then, all of them passed their pieces of paper to Odie to read - well, for no apparent reason.

"Neil, you can come in!" Atlanta called, trying to hide her smile. Ahem... She had a feeling that this was going to be fun.

Neil settled himself, his eyebrow raised a little. He had a feeling that something was going to turn bad any minute now, judging from the looks on their faces. He might be a supermodel, but that didn't mean he didn't have a brain. That only meant that his brain was too full of himself and has nearly no space to think about anything else, that's all.

Odie took one look at the pieces of papers and burst out laughing. Holding one up, he started. "Someone said you're narcisstic, who do you think is that?"

Neil gave a cry. "What, narcisstic?" He looked around meanly, and his eyes came to rest on a laughing Archie. "You! You wrote that, didn't you?"

Archie gave him a mock serious look. "Me? Obviously not. I'm not that mean. Try again."

Neil pouted, then glanced at Odie irritably, who was choking back his laughter. "What's so funny," he snapped, a little insulted - wait, very insulted. "What's next?"

Odie started another round of laughter. "One of us said you're annoying, can you guess who?"

"Annoying?!" Neil was severely and thoroughly miffed. "Herry, was that you?"

Herry gave him a wide grin. "Nope, Neil, not me."

Neil narrowed his eyes and scanned the bunch of smiling faces, then pouted. "Never mind, continue," he dismissed, still eying them with mistrust.

Odie read, "Somebody called you egoistical - argh, why don't I read everything already?" Without waiting for Neil's response, which was currently an indignant expression, he continued, "This is what everyone said: Narcisstic, annoying, egoistical, arrogant, self-righteous and oh - ugly."

"Arrogant?! Self-righteous?! Oh my gosh! Ugly?! UGLY?! Did you say ugly?!" Neil shrieked, hands about to tear off his blond hair and almost falling off the stool. "UGLY?!"

"Uhmm..." Odie checked for the benefit of a poor, shrieking-at-the-top-of-his-lungs Neil. He sighed and shook his head sympathetically admist all the chuckling. "Yup. It says here. Ugly."

"Which one of you said that?" Neil suddenly turned quiet, turning around almost silently. Suddenly, not a whisper was heard. After all, an angry Neil was... an angry Neil. And an angry Neil could pierce one's eardrums, which equated to... Wait, it equated to not hearing any more of his boasting. Oh well.

"Don't dare to admit it, do you?" Neil stuck out his bottom lip, a look of darkness passing over his eyes. The whole thing looked comical, but no one was about to laugh.

Atlanta finally broke the silence, and, dragging Neil off the stool, she reached over and gave Jay a little push. "Jay, you go," she said. "This guy's too traumatised to do anything else."

"Traumatised?" Neil burst out, waving his arms madly. "You'd think!"

Everyone ignored him.

Jay bit his lip, but not wanting to be a party pooper, he left the room shortly.

Again, everyone got to work at their new slips of paper. Meanwhile, Jay awaited with a sense of nervousness. What were they going to put? Obsessive? Paranoid? Gah. He didn't exactly want to know how did they really feel about their leader. Ignorance is bliss, anyway.

Chewing at his bottom lip a little anxiously, he heard Theresa call, "Jay, you can come in now!"

Jay entered, plopped him down onto the stool, and stared at them awkwardly. Again, Odie was doing the reading.

Pushing his glasses up his nose, Odie began. "One of us thinks you're... Paranoid. Who do you think it is?"

Jay sighed. He knew it. He would have gotten comments like this anyway. Feeling a little hurt, he frowned and crossed his arms. "Um... Atlanta?"

Atlanta shook her head. "Of course not."

Jay sighed again, shoulders drooping a little. "Okay, next one, Odie?"

"This one... This one says..." Odie squinted at the paper, which had supposedly tiny handwriting. Then he blushed slightly, grinning at the same time. "This one says you're cute. So, who do you think this -"

"Cute? Did you just say cute?" Jay said disbelievingly, his face already reddening. Ahem. He might have a clue to who exactly wrote that... But...

Odie squinted again, then affirmed it. "Yep, it says here. Cute."

Jay's face was a beetroot red by now. Great, did he have to be tortured, and on Christmas night too? Both of the games had something to do with Theresa, and now here she was, popping up again in his life. Not that he didn't want her to. But he was being shamed. And in front of his friends, too! They wouldn't be so blind as to not notice that his face was flaming red, would they? Nope, they wouldn't.

His eyes auto-pilot drifted to Theresa, who was blinking at him innocently. If it was possible, Jay blushed harder and looked away instantly. Okay, bad idea to look at her.

Now, what should he do?

If he said it was Theresa, what if she said it wasn't? What if it had been Archie trying to pull his leg and gain the upper hand? Then everyone would well and truly know and be confirmed that Jay liked Theresa, and no, he did not want that happening.

But if he said no, wasn't he going to be skipping out on the greatest opportunity of all to get off the stool and scurry back to the circle? If he didn't, Theresa might get the wrong idea.

In both cases, it was a lose-lose situation. For the third time that night, Jay felt trapped. Very trapped.

Noticing Archie sniggering, he glared at the purple-haired warrior. Fine. He wasn't going to take the chance. For tonight, it was war. War against Archie.

Pinching the bridge of his nose in embarrassment, he said, "I think I'll skip that."

"Can you actually skip?" Atlanta wondered aloud, directing her question to Theresa.

Theresa, in return, shrugged. Just like Jay to escape the situation and take the easiest way out. Oh well. She knew him - too well. So well till she didn't exactly feel disappointed. Too much disappointment will - and had - lead to emptiness, and her emotions were now just so mellow...

"Okay, you can skip." Atlanta gave him the go-ahead to skip.

Jay gave them a weak grin, particularly Theresa to try and make it up to her in a sort-of I-don't-want-you-to-know-yet-but-yet-I'm-giving-you-this-look-to-tell-you-and-you-know-what-I'm-really-sorry look, but it didn't exactly work, possibly because it was too long and hid too many things for anyone to interpret that much.

Odie cleared his throat and read aloud, "Dedicated. Hmm, who do you think said that?"

Jay smiled. Finally, an alright comment that didn't put him in a spot. He thought for a while, knowing it might be Odie or Herry, who were most of the time too nice to say anything against another person - well, except in Neil's case, as seen just now. "I think... Odie, did you write that?"

Odie blinked, then grinned. "Yeah, cool."

They exchanged places, and soon Odie left the room.

The game continued for a while, and then they had to stop due to time constraints. By then, Herry and Neil again had joined the stool. Neil was just sitting on the stool with a suspicious look on his face when Atlanta stopped the game. Of course, the reason why she had ended it was partly also because she was not about to let the scenario repeat again. You know, the earlier scenario.

Herry yawned, then rubbed his stomach. "What's next? I'm hungry."

Ignoring the last part of what Herry said, Atlanta spoke up. "Okay, guess, what do you think the next game will be?"

--

Truth or Dare, Truth or Dare! (: I know, I'm just tempting you. Well, hopefully you've gotten tempted. Ahaha. Anyway, I'll try to update tomorrow; right now, I have a piece of crushed Chinese homework staring at me. Ahem, I kinda crumpled it in my bag and when I was doing it in the bus. Whoops. My bad: There's no AxA in the above, because my brain cells were completely and utterly dead. But don't worry, there'll be more AxA to come soon. And after the games, we'll have more surprises - I mean you're not forgetting the party (with the food) itself, are you? Anyway, review, review, review!(: