“Let us begin.” The deck had been cut and shuffled by both parties. Granny placed it at the centre of the table. “Now, since this is your first time playing, shall I go over the rules of the game for your benefit, Mr. Sugiyama?”

  “Don’t you dare patronise me like that.” The businessman’s knuckles whitened around his glass. “I’ve played this game as long as anyone. You’re spitting on the grave of my old man, and all the effort he took to teach me. For a Queen, you need to learn some manners.”

  He drew his dealership card and slapped it onto the table: July’s bush clover—a “dreg” card, entirely unremarkable.

  Granny raised an eyebrow, and her thin lips curled into a smirk. “You’ll have to forgive me. Only, the first match we had, your lack of skill was so glaring, I thought perhaps you were trying this out for the first time—on a whim. I felt rather sorry for you.”

  Granny didn’t even blink as she revealed her own card: January’s Crane of the Pines. “Since you know the rules of Koi-Koi oh-so-well, I’m sure I won’t need to explain. January trumps March,” she said, taking the rest of the deck and claiming dealership.

  Sugiyama’s teeth ground audibly, but he held his tongue.

  Granny dealt eight cards face down to each of them, eight face up to the table, then the rest in a neat stack. “We’ll play through the full year without interruption,” she announced, her tone almost musical. “Starting with January.”

  Before Sugiyama could even reach for his cards, Granny laid her entire hand flat and spread it out wide. Four pairs with matching suits, their intricately painted patterns catching the chandeliers’ gleam in a triumphant display.

  “Sticky Hand,” she declared, folding both hands into her lap. “The first round is mine. Six points.”

  Sugiyama’s gasp hitched into a growl. He counted the pairs with shaking fingers. “Wisteria… Iris… Paulownia, Peony—what the hell?” He snarled. “The House always wins, huh? What kind of sick rigged game is this?”

  “You shuffled and cut the deck as I did,” Granny remarked. “Those are the rules.” She gathered the cards and started the shuffling again. “Dealership remains with me.”

  The teenager had long since been sidelined, and watched in rapt fascination. Juusei’s fingers were twitching by her sides, and she tugged on Kinuka’s sleeve. “Wait, hey, why are they starting again?”

  “Drawing four pairs on your first hand is an automatic win,” Kinuka explained, covering her mouth with one hand.

  “That’s so rare,” Juusei muttered, eyes wide.

  “And incredibly lucky,” Rin remarked. He put his arm out across them like a barrier. “Stay back, you three. I think we’re about to witness a murder.”

  The second round came and went in tense silence. Neither party scored any hand, and Februrary ended with Granny scoring a single point through privilege as the dealer. Time always passed far too quickly, and soon they were in March. Granny sat with a slight jaunt and balanced her cards on one hand, deftly weaving the rigid edges around agéd fingers. She didn’t look at her cards, but at Sugiyama, whose brow had furrowed several deep ridges. He hulked over the other end of the table, guarding his cards for dear life with both hands.

  For a tense few minutes, the only sound over the entire hall was the intermittent clacking of cards on the tabletop as each made successive pairs. Sugiyama’s library grew, his moves more aggressive as he clawed his way forward. Every muscle in his face twitched, and he acted with a brutal fervour. When he finally matched his plum blossom poetry slip with another from February, he slammed the cards down with enough force to make Granny’s glass tremble.

  “Red Poetry Slips!” He barked. The glint in his eye spread a wild, manic grin across his chops, as he shuffled forward the three matching cards. “Five points! Dealership goes to me now!”

  Granny examined her nails. “And?”

  “That means I win the round, you daft hag!”

  Granny lowered her hand, and her shoulders sunk a fraction. “Oh, dear,” she sighed. “You aren’t going to call? You’ve already taken the boar, the deer and butterfly are on the field, and you’re ending the round? What a shame. You know, if you called you could secure yourself another five points, which would put you well above the seven-point multiplier and double your score to twenty off just one round.”

  “I know how the game works.” Sugiyama leaned forward and gripped at the table. “There’s no chance I’m letting you pull a fast one on me. I’m taking my points.”

  Granny sighed again, gathering her cards back into the deck with painful deliberation. “You don’t look like you’re having much fun,” she swilled her glass with one hand. “And at this rate, neither am I.”

  She held the crafted crystal tumbler up to the light and watched the golden sparkles twinkle through. Her lip curled at its lack of contents. “Rinkaku, be a dear and fetch your grandmother some more whisky. If I fall asleep, I’d like to blame the drink and my old age—not my opponent.”

  Rin took the glass without a word, looked at it, then wondered why he was being so obedient. The effortless display of skill had shocked him into stupor, an amateur swordsman dazzled by the work of its master. “Hey, wait, why do I have to do it? Don’t they have waiters in this place?”

  “I don’t pay you to complain.”

  “You don’t pay me at all! I—” He sunk in defeat. “Fine.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Kinuka offered, seized his elbow with one firm hand and led him down the stairs.

  Rin’s trainers squeaked on the polished wooden stairs. Surrounded by everyone in their suits, he felt so hilariously underdressed, he might as well be naked. Good thing no-one paid attention to him. Everyone was too engrossed in watching the game up at the top. They had even begun to display it on the televisions on either wall, next to where the folding screens ended. During their descent, Kinuka’s arm had snaked around his, and her other hand rested on his forearm. Once they were out of direct earshot, the boy murmured, “You can let go of me now.”

  She looked ahead, contented, absent-minded.

  “For god’s sake, let me go!” Rin ripped his arm away, and nearly dropped the glass over the railing.

  Kinuka blinked, smile fading as her pupils came back into focus. “What do you…” She looked down at her own hand, as though having just remembered it existed. “Oh, sorry...”

  “Just cut that shit out,” he snapped. “It’s creepy. You’re both getting way too handsy. Stop it.” A shiver rippled down Rin’s spine, and he gripped the glass tighter. “Both you and Juusei.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re so overreacting.” Kinuka shook her head. “Juusei’s affectionate to everyone. She hugs the rest of us all the time. You’re the only one who makes a fuss. Lighten up, Rin,” she giggled, as though slightly dazed. Rin wondered whether it was all the alcohol in the air. “She’s just a kid, give her a break!”

  “She’s fifteen.”

  “Still!”

  Rin tutted and bit his lip. “If you’re not going to listen to me, then I won’t waste my breath.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “As it sounds, idiot.” He quickened his pace down the stairs.

  “What?!” Kinuka stopped, affronted. “You mean I can’t hold your hand when we’re out together?”

  “Why do you—” He cringed. “No, don’t put it like that. We’re not—”

  “That’s so unfair, Rin.” She tapped her foot a little too hard. “You’re trying to tell me I’m doing too much, when you’re wearing a lipstick mark from that other girl like it’s some kind of trophy?!”

  Rin seized up, face beet red. His fingers instinctively traced the black mark Aiko had permanently embedded into his cheek. The skin underneath felt hot and sticky. A bead of sweat trickled down his face next to one ear. He pinched it between his fingers, then recoiled and wiped both pads on his jumper. His sweat felt like syrup. Suddenly, he didn’t want to be here anymore. The edges of his vision began to vignette. His legs were hollow, bones of a corpse. They told him to run, just like they had that day. But he couldn’t—for Granny’s sake, for everyone else’s, he had to be there. One deep breath, in and out. Clarity and detail returned to his sight.

  “I’ve explained it enough times.” He lowered his head and turned away, eyes falling into shadow. “If you’re not going to listen to me, then I won’t waste my breath.” He crossed the second tier landing and started down the other set of stairs..

  “Rin, I—” Kinuka’s face started to burn. She hurried down the stairs after him, arm outstretched, “Wait, did I say something?! Rin, I’m so sorry—”

  “Shut up. I don’t care. I’ll get the drink myself. Thanks for all your help.”

  He left her standing there on the second tier without a glance back. He ran one hand through his hair and took further breaths, but the tense heat in this gambling house—filled with so much exhaled breath—made him question whether he was getting any oxygen at all.

  “Can I help you, sir?” Their waiter from before, the thin man with a short black fringe, receding chin and a small pointed nose, jumpscared Rin in the politest way possible, a slight tap on his shoulder. Rin hoped no-one else had heard the shrill little yelp he made.

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  “Uh, yeah. My gran—sorry, the Queen wants another refill. Yamazaki, I think. Top table. And more drinks for the rest of us. Soda.” He paused. “Please.”

  “It is our policy not to disturb on-going games. I will endeavour to serve you once the match is over.”

  “Got it.”

  The waiter bowed and hurried off without delay, skirting back towards the bar with such speed and fluency you’d think he was wearing rollerskates.

  Rin didn’t quite know what to do with himself in the meanwhile. The waiter had left him standing right in the middle of the ground floor, in the gangway space between a couple of the tables.

  Was he supposed to wait at the bar? He’d feel so awkward—even as a welcomed guest—being the only clear minor standing before rows and rows of expensive drink. He considered heading back up to the top table and watching more of the game. From the reactions of everyone around him, it was proving to be a spectacle. He wasn’t that bothered about the hanafuda, nor was he worried about his grandmother’s reputation. The only reason he had been enthusiastic about coming here to begin with had nothing to do with the place itself. Five minutes more being cooped up in the house would have literally caused him to start peeling off his skin like an orange.

  He spared the third floor a brief glance, and saw his grandmother command the sway and flow of the game—her game—with a deliberate, composed grace. He didn’t want to go back up there. Not right now. The other three watched Granny’s every move, rapt and alert. Kinuka wasn’t looking at him anymore. The creeping sensation lingered on his arm, however. Her hand had felt cold, like snakeskin. From the look on her face, she hadn’t even been the slightest bit aware.

  Where to go, what to do—the decision completely paralysed Rin, and the boy ended up spending a good five-to-ten minutes gazing up at the shoji screens positioned along the walls, and admiring the columns that segregated the alcoves.

  “You’ve become quite polite in quite a short time.”

  A high-pitched chuckle made Rin jump for the second time. Curse his nerves for being so all over the place. Sat calmly at a table to his right, a hunched old man with a tweed cap and mirrored glasses was beckoning him over. He laid both hands and his chin on the top of his walking stick, which wobbled slightly. “To see you here again so soon, and your leg seems to be quite alright. What a chance encounter indeed. One might almost call it Fate.”

  Rin blanked him, then turned his head to see whether he’d been talking to someone else.

  “Where are you looking, dear boy?”

  Rin snapped back around. Something about the hook on the man’s nose felt familiar. The lifetime’s worth of events over the past two weeks were yet to smooth themselves into a coherent timeline in the boy’s head, but as he found himself stroking a finger along the bridge of his own nose, a fleeting image from that first, horrible day came racing back to mind.

  “You’re that geezer, with the wallet…”

  The old man chuckled and gave no answer, and the corners of that irritating mouth curled upwards into a sickening smirk. Rin’s stomach twisted: not out of irritation, like the last time, but out of fear. A chill of foreboding trickled down his legs like rain, and soaked his shoes. Rin felt his blood start to curdle.

  The man raised a hand, shaking with age, to lower his sunglasses. The two pools of gleaming white void that stared out at him ceased to make any sense at all. “How is your fate turning out so far, Rinkaku Harigane?”

  Nope. Nope. Nothing about that. Not in the slightest. Not one bit. Not today.

  Rin’s legs took over, immediately marching back across the floor and up the stairs. Everything had begun to compound in his head, and conclusions he didn’t like were starting to explode catastrophic warnings in every conceivable place. Everything had ceased to make sense all at once, his mind had bluescreened, and so he acted without thought. He had to get back, back to everyone else. He doubted he’d be able to concentrate on the game with all of this running amok inside his head. His psychic energy was starting to fizzle in sensitive little pops and crackles along his neck, making his skin and muscles twitch. He stilled it. The training that day immediately came in handy. He refocused the dynamic points and willed the electricity to course through him, not around him. His breathing became softer, and lighter, as he came to rest on the second floor landing, and looked over his shoulder.

  The old man was gone. The chair was tucked in, and the others gathered around the hexagon seemed to have not even noticed an absence. Before he could even wonder about that, he heard the clack of a card on the table.

  “Blue tanzaku—five points!”

  A wave of cheer and uproar swept through Granny’s captive audience from the lower floors. Rin sprinted back up the stairs. Kinuka, Juusei and Ruri had their gazes intensely focused on the table. Sugiyama clutched at his forehead, jaw set, teeth grinding. It all came down to whether Granny would keep this hand, or call. The old woman had an electric look in her eye, and called that fateful word.

  “Koi!”

  Seizing another card from the draw pile, she slapped the Sake Cup onto a September chrysanthemum. She then played March’s Curtain from her hand onto an existing cherry blossom, and took both pairs for herself.

  “Cherry Blossom Viewing—five points!” Granny cried. “Koi!”

  She removed another card from the pile and and grinned. The August Full Moon came down like a hammer. It found its home with Suzuki Grass already on the field, and Granny withdrew both cards. “Moon Viewing—five points! Ten Dregs—one point!” She surveyed her hand, down to only one card, and placed it on the field. The measly May Iris dreg stood off to one side of the decimated field, an unpaired insult to the devastated challenger. “Round over.”

  A stadium’s worth of excited chatter filled the gambling hall, everyone turning to their friends and replaying the events in their own heads and through their words. Rin used this as cover to dash back over to the gang’s side. “What did I miss?”

  “So much!” Juusei was jittering with glee. “That round was November—only got one left! She scored sixteen that last round, and if you score over seven that doubles your score—so, thirty two points! Granny now has a five point lead!”

  Sugiyama’s associates had taken several steps back at this point, covering their eyes with their hands and peeking through the gaps in their fingers with horror. They refused to come anywhere near the table, as though to stray within two feet of their boss would make them explode.

  The man himself supported his forehead with his knuckles, elbow staunch on the table. His face wore the expression of a granite boulder, weathered after a century of rain. In one large hand, he gripped his glass so hard it was a miracle it hadn’t shattered. He drained the remaining quart of his lethal spirit and was about to slam it back down, before he thought about it for a second, and gently lowered it to the table. The glass knocked against the wood. Sugiyama pooled his cards into the middle, and steepled his fingers.

  “Tell me something, your highness.” The man’s voice took on a softer tone, more dangerous. “How did you do it?”

  Granny raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know quite what you mean.”

  “You hadn’t scored a single hand for that entire round, yet the confidence in your eyes didn’t falter a single time. You let me play all those rounds. You let me win. I took the point lead in May, and everyone was jeering, but you didn’t bat an eye. No matter how many points I scored, I could feel you looking at me, judging me.” Sugiyama stared at her, brow furrowed and set. “You could’ve intervened at any moment, capitalised and swept the field, but you held your hand. In September, you played nothing but lone dregs. You didn’t score a single thing. Only in October did you decide to start actually playing. How did you do it?”

  “There is no how, dear boy. I simply did it.” Granny gathered the deck, shuffled and cut it for the twelfth and final time. All were silent when she spoke, and her voice carried across the hall like a preacher who never intended to preach. “When you came here—to this Fickle Flower Field—what thoughts were on your mind? Were you worried about your company? Your family? Your other family? Were you thinking about me, about how you embarrassed yourself all those years ago? Were you hesitant to return here, knowing what a unique position you are in, or was your heart filled with vengeance?”

  Sugiyama chewed on his words. “You’re right. I didn’t come here to challenge you. I came here to win.”

  “And you intend to win with only single hands per round? I have not heard you call this entire game. In August, you even scored Three Brights, but didn’t think to go for the Rain Man? How can you expect to triumph in a gambling hall when you refuse to gamble, Mr Sugiyama?”

  The man’s face contorted as he fought to keep his voice level. “Because I know what will happen when I call. No matter what I play, you will emerge with something immediately afterwards—you ruined my perfect setup in the final round last time with that Tanzaku Combination, and left me with nothing. I was going to build up my point lead in an indisputable way. Do you know what I’ve staked on this match, your highness?”

  “This is no low-stakes casino. You are required to play with what you will sorely miss.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ve bet my entire share in my company on the outcome of this match, and my honour as Patriarch of the Sugiyama Family. Don’t you dare talk to me about not gambling, not when I’ve staked my entire livelihood on the outcome of a personal grudge!”

  “Why the hell would you do that?” Rin snorted. “Are you stupid?”

  Sugiyama saw red, and beamed his glass at the boy’s head. The crowd gasped. Rin didn’t have time to wince, before Ruri stepped out in front and locked themselves in place. The glass shattered harmlessly on the giant’s immovable chest, scattering a carpet of glittering shards on the floor. Ruri unlocked themselves and gave Rin a thumbs-up, one gratefully returned.

  “That’s not how we do things here,” said Juusei, imitating Granny’s tone. She leant forward and waggling a taunting finger.

  “And so, I was even more mistaken. I must be getting naive and optimistic in my old age—or perhaps it’s my grandchildren who are rubbing off on me.” Granny shook her head, sadly. “Here I was thinking you could not conceivably get any more pathetic. Do you know why you are sitting where you are right now, Mr. Sugiyama? You are here because I let you. I gave you a second chance.”

  The man’s fist clenched on the table top. “What the hell?”

  “Did no-one tell you? Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you knew all the rules.” Granny sat back in her chair and steepled her fingers. “It is a rule in this Fickle Flower Field that whoever challenges the Queen faces a severe risk. Any challenger who loses by thirty points or more is forever exiled from this Hall. Do you recall the score of our last match?”

  “Fifteen to forty-four.” The dots joined themselves up in the man’s head. “Wait, don’t tell me you—”

  “I did. I won by a twenty-nine point lead on purpose.” Granny touched a finger to her cheek. “I felt sorry for you, Soji Sugiyama. You approached me with such inexperience, such gusto, and I humoured out of kindness. Did you think it was a real match? Oh, you poor thing. How long have you laboured under that delusion, I wonder?”

  Everyone on the third floor exchanged a pained look.

  But Granny wasn’t done.

  “Do you know how many challengers I’ve had to my throne? Thirty three. Of those, do you know how many I have personally exiled from my kingdom? Thirty two. You are the only one who I have allowed to return to challenge me—because, the last time, you were not ready. When I receive a challenge, I exile my opponents as a mark of respect. In the courts of yore, any attempted usurpation of the Emperor was a death sentence, after all. I play against them with my full strength. Any less would be dishonouring. With your cowardly performance today, you have not proven my initial assessment wrong. Even now, even after having come so far, you are still unworthy of leaving this place.”

  “I tolerated it when I was still green,” Sugiyama made out through gritted teeth— “but I’m starting to get real tired of your—”

  “Do not think of winning, when you are unable to even conceive playing in the first place!” Granny rose her voice for the first time, and a hundred eyes widened. “Life is a gamble, Mr. Sugiyama. We gamble about everything all the while, without even realising it. You ask me how I do it. How I win so effortlessly. I gamble. With every card I draw, I incur greater and greater risk. And so, when you willingly stake your pride, and then willingly refuse to engage with the game, to suffocate yourself in such a defeatist mindset, you lose before the first card has even been drawn. Challengers cannot forfeit the match, but the Queen can end it at any point she chooses. I am now in the lead. Why should I entertain you with one final round, when you have yet to show me the simple the courtesy of playing the game?”

  Sugiyama slammed his hand onto the table. “Hurry up and deal, and I’ll show you.”