Heart of a survivor × Chishiya Shuntaro

Chapter Forty

About an hour had passed since Takara and Chishiya had joined forces with the two young boys, and despite the tense circumstances they met under, Daido had become quite the chatterbox. Daido had spent almost the whole time talking Takara's ear off, which she had reluctantly obliged to.

She found out that the two boys were in their final year of school and deciding on what to do after they leave, to go to university or start working. Daido told Takara how he met Seto on the first day of secondary school, bonding through their multiple shared classes together. Watching Daido as he spoke with fondness of his memories, Takara couldn't help but smile at him. She missed being a teenager with hope for the future.

After Daido had reeled off what felt like his entire life story, he finally asked Takara a question about herself.

“So, what did you do in the real world?” He said, curiously.

Chishiya's ears pricked at the question, also wanting to know the answer. Despite knowing Takara for a couple of weeks now, he barely knew her besides who she was in the borderlands.

The question took Takara off guard, not expecting the conversation to turn to her.

“I-, uh, I was just a waitress at a restaurant. Trying to make ends meet.” She awkwardly replied.

“Oh come on, there's got to be more than that!” Daido exclaimed.

Chishiya stayed quiet, waiting for Takara to reveal more. Takara sighed, knowing Daido wouldn't let her get away with not elaborating.

“Well I graduated from Kyoto university last summer and moved to Shibuya for a job. Turns out it's pretty hard to get a job in the art industry. So I've been working at the same restaurant since moving here, waiting on a miracle” She laughed, trying to brush off the awkwardness she felt.

“Kyoto university?! Isn't that super hard to get into?” Daido asked.

“Kind of, yeah” she smiled as Daido looked at her in awe.

“Then it's settled, when we get out of here you have to paint me and Seto, like how they used to for old monarchs” Daido said excitedly.

“Find me some paints and it's settled,” Takara said with a chuckle.

Daido quickly brought the conversation back to talking about himself again, making Takara happy the attention was off of her.

Chishiya should've guessed from how emotionally driven she was that she was an artistic person. Her need for validation and to succeed definitely stemmed from her unluckiness with her career. She wanted to prove herself worthy, in all aspects of her life. And Chishiya knew that if he played his cards right, he'd get her to do what he wants, in an attempt to prove herself worthy of his love.

Almost another hour had passed, and they were increasingly becoming worried that they had started to walk around in circles. Every path they took looked the same. Not to mention the few dead ends they'd stumbled upon. The more time went on, the less talkative Daido became, anxiety seeping into not just him, but the whole group.

“Didn't we just pass this pillar a few turns back?” Daido said from the back of the group.

Him and Seto walked side by side a few steps behind Takara and Chishiya, thinking it was best to leave navigating to them.

“This one has a chunk of it missing, the other didn't,” Chishiya nonchalantly replied back, finding it slightly insulting that the boy was questioning him.

Takara glanced over at Chishiya, a look of concentration evident on his face. His determination to solve these games was something she always admired, a lot of people would be losing their cool at this point. But not him.