Story:

“Wait,” Irina said as the cards turned. “Don’t look at your own.

”Eight hands stopped at various stages of disobedience.

Butterfly had already lifted one corner.

Peach put a finger on it. “No.”

“I was checking which way up it was.”

“It’s a card. It will survive being upside down.”

Following Irina’s example, they raised the cards to their foreheads, faces outward. Mai held hers with both hands. Shiki leaned back against the sofa with one elbow propped on the cushion, looking entirely untroubled by the fact that everyone else could see her number.

Violet surveyed the circle. “How interesting.”

Peach immediately disliked that. “What is?”

“Nothing.”

“That is never true when you say it like that.”

Unable to see her own card, Peach watched the others instead. Reika’s eyes moved around the circle with quiet amusement. Butterfly kept glancing from Violet to Shiki, then hastily rearranging her expression.

Ai leaned toward Mai. “Yours is—”

“Don’t tell her,” five voices said together.

Ai sat upright. “Oh.”

Violet reached for the folded slips. “Round one.”

She selected a paper, unfolded it one-handed, and read aloud.

“The Pretz biscuit-stick game.”

Irina’s hand rose at once. “Mine.”

Reika looked toward her.

“What exactly does that involve?”

Irina’s confidence lasted until she noticed all seven faces waiting for an explanation.

“Well…” She adjusted her card against her forehead.

“There was this game at the club. You hold one end of a biscuit stick in your mouth, and the other person takes the other end. Then you both keep taking little bites.”

Peach stared at the folded paper. Of course.

Of all the possibilities available to her, Irina had imported an activity from the host club.