I step up to him, lift my sword, and swat a nayfly out of the air before it can reach us. To the sound of the bug’s body hitting stone ground, I glare at the man who is depicting a staggering lack of brain cells at the moment. “Shoulders.”
His throat bobs as he tilts his head down to face me. “Yes?”
“I did not have a sword in my other life. I was a poor defenseless girl with but a single HP to my name. One attack, and I’d be toast. No clue how many bonks would keep a cockroach down for real, I’d just keep whacking. And I’d lose morale around seven hundred, while tears plummeted down my face.”
“HP,” he murmurs, and I’m pretending his voice isn’t sultry in every feasible way. “Health Points. How many Health Points did I have in your game?”
My eyes roll. “That information’s unknown. In my game, all the townies exist on schedules that keep them perfectly safe.”
“You never felt the urge to walk up to anyone and whack them with your sword?”
I let loose a dry laugh. “Fortunatelyfor Austin, the game doesn’t let you attack the townspeople.”
“There’s a…commitment to your hatred that I appreciate. Your attitude toward Austin has me wondering how you treat people you do like.”
My heart learns gymnastics, so I shoot my attention toward a mimic, who might drop that topaz we need to start getting the stupid elevator back up and running. “Oh, you know.” I pull my pick from my bag, catch, and kill the mimic in a quick motion. More quartz. Blast. “I like most everyone.”
“Not Austin.”
“My liking everyone trait required a notable exception. For character depth.”
Samson hums as he breaks apart a boulder, lifts the chunks as though they weigh nothing, and drops them into my backpack.
“Don’t sound so skeptical just because you have the opposite problem,” I say.
He flips my bag flap closed. “Opposite problem?”
I tilt my head back, looking up at him. “Your notable exception is the person youlike.”
His fingers fall, the brush of their presence somehow traveling through my backpack to me. When the sensation disappears, he tilts his head over me and murmurs, “I don’t dislike you.” He steps back. “Or Austin. Or Ines.” He lifts his pick and obliterates another rock, hefting a massive chunk to depositinto my bag. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I only dislike Lazul, so we’re the same.”
Thankfully, hearing Austin’s name so shortly after what wasalmost, but not quite, a confession rebooted my ability to speak before inability would have become problematic. “I guess I’m still thinking of how you’re presented in the game. Game you didn’t really seem to interact with anyone.”
His gaze catches mine a moment before it drifts. “Does liking someone mean you willingly interact with them on a regular basis?”
I blink. “Um. Usually. I think?”
“Oh.” He rubs his neck. “Then I guess I only like you.”
My hand hits my mouth so hard it rattles my brain, and I’m just glad I already put up my pickaxe.
Concern creases Samson’s brow. “What…just happened?”
I swallow tremors. “S-sorry. That…it just… What you said…feels monumental, doesn’t it?”
He winces, scans the darkness around us, then steps heart-destroyingly close. Voice low, he murmurs, “Lemonade…how much of an—” He swears. “—was game me depicted as?”
My head shakes, violently. “No. You weren’t…that word at all! You’re depicted as a loner, a recluse. You don’t leave your farm unless you have to visit Kaolin’s to presumably drop off your farm goods, and even then you’re programmed not to linger. You walk in, stop for a mere second, then leave.”
He eyes me, stoic. “Does your game provide any particular reason for my antisocial behavior?”
Tension turns my muscles rigid as my gaze skids from Samson’s eyes to the foot of space between us. “It…does. Yes. I’m… I’m so sorry,” I whisper.
A humorless laugh escapes him as he turns from me. “Great. How much do you know about me, Citrus? How much do you know about all of us?”
“I…know a lot more than seems comfortable when none of you know anything about me, but…” I force a breath into my lungs and hesitate before reaching out to him, grazing my fingertips against his back. “Please believe me when I tell you I know so much less than I thought I did. I’m still trying to navigate the discrepancies. But I am so sorry for…everything, for knowing anything you never decided to share with me, for the assumptions I’m trying not to make, all of it.”
Breath leaves him as he takes my hand, squeezes once, and returns it to my side. “I’m not going to blame you for things you couldn’t know to control. You were just playing a game. I wouldn’t expect to suddenly wake up in any of the games we have around here, so I don’t think I’d be making much of an effort to be considerate of the game pieces’ privacy.”
