“Let’s talk honestly.” River folded his hands before his body in thought. “This is not the same type of game as usual. I don’t know why, but this time, another type was chosen. Either that, or it’s a different difficulty.”
“It’s not as puzzle-like as before. Everything feels very obvious, the space is small, and there doesn’t seem to be a deeper story going on, right?”
“Yes. The fact that the main Actors are two tiny kids is also affecting us. It’s not like there’s a lot we can do – we can’t expect them to climb out of the window upstairs, for example. Without the ability to converse with them, children are much harder to affect as adults because you can’t plant ideas in their heads through subtle hints.”
“Could we do something like… I dunno, set the house on fire? I mean, that would get them outside.”
River shook his head at that. “That’s an option but I believe it would fail. I think that there are main points to achieve – not just, stop the murderer from leaving, but stop her and have her family find out she did it. Not just, stop the girl from being bullied, but save her and ensure no one else gets caught up in it.”
“So in this case… Not just have them leave, but also have them find support?”
“That’s my guess anyway. Even if the house burns down, there’s no certainty that they’ll get help from anyone. But, well, these are all just my guesses. It’s not like we have a rulebook to go by.”
“You also just wouldn’t like burning the house down.”
“I would not like burning the house down.”
“Fine with me.”
“The neighbor is our only and best bet I’d say. The mother doesn’t seem to be in control of her actions. What I mean is, she doesn’t seem to be consciously ignoring the children? I think if they go outside while she’s talking to her neighbor, he should notice something. A normal adult would react to that.”
“And how do you plan on having that happen?”
“We have to find out how to attract the children to go somewhere, I guess.”
“Without the others messing it up.”
“Indeed.”
That sounded so easy. It could have been so easy.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Pa kjr reqqbrfv ab yf j delfa ygfjxojra alwf, yea la kjr j rtglfx atja wjvf Elnfg jcv Crqfc jyjcvbc jcs oegatfg atbeutar bo qijcclcu. Ktf rtglfx kjrc’a bcf bo qjlc bg jcufg, yea la kjr ibev fcbeut ab rajgaif atfw.
Papyrus’ group must have still been upstairs, otherwise the younger people couldn’t have gone wild like they did.
The kids were placed in a way that they wouldn’t interfere with their mother’s breakfast, but due to one intervention or another, one of the children’s glasses had tipped over. The insides had spilled all over to reach the mother, who had jumped up and away from the table.
The kids were completely frozen up, their shoulders raised and heads lowered. As their father stood up as well, their bodies visibly tilted to the side, ready to run upstairs, but they weren’t daring to move yet.
The mother was freaking out. She was shouting something incomprehensible as her husband attempted to calm her down. A few quick words from him had the twins skittering upstairs to hide while the adult woman started to cry.
Her shaking sobs and short murmurs sounded like apologies. She reached out a hand to touch the fallen-over chair, but her husband gently maneuvered her to sit on the sofa and took care of it for her.
On a positive note, they now had confirmed that the “mentally unstable” report they found was reasonable and that she’d absolutely be suspicious in front of an outsider.
But that was the positive note, and the much more pressing issue was the giggling couple of girls.
Even Bronze – playful Bronze, who didn’t strike River as the type of guy to think a lot about his behavior – was a bit surprised.
“Isn’t it gonna be a problem if the kids hide upstairs?”
“It’ll be fiiiine. Don’t be so boring.” Vault humpfed in annoyance.
“I’m all for playing around, but I’m not too into dying here.” Bronze muttered his complaint under his breath.
There were visibly two factions now – the girlfriends Vault and Ivory who had neither a sense of danger nor any interest in working together with others, and the group of Bronze, Silver and Ocean that, while interested in joking around, didn’t want to risk their lives.
Only a win guaranteed survival, so any playing wasn’t above actually finding a solution to this game.
“Do you think tying them up and throwing them into the safe-room would count as a sign of aggression towards Papyrus?”
Aspen’s voice tickled River’s ear warmly.
“Might not be the worst thing to consider”, River returned dryly. He could, at least, casually keep an eye out for anything rope-like. Just in case these two continued like that and Papyrus might be open to the thought of getting something out of the way using a minimum of violence.
As the most willing to engage in a catfight out of the three, Ocean ended up confronting the couple.
River wasn’t interested in their bickering, instead getting an overview of which Actor was doing what.
The children, used to their mother’s outbursts, had curled up in a corner of their room, quiet and unmoving, hidden out of sight.
The parents ended up going to buy groceries either way, but only after the father had cleaned the breakfast table on his own. Even when they returned, the children stayed upstairs quietly, leaving father and mother to put away the groceries and get their coffee.
At this point, the mother had relaxed again. She was talking normally once more, and upon hearing her voice, the children dared to move out of their corner and quietly start playing inside their room.
The routine returned to the day, and maybe that was especially sad – that nothing could break open this cycle of a mundane life covering up the issues below.
Not even a couple of brainless girls.
Papyrus hadn’t missed what had happened in the morning, and when one of the two decided to set the lunch currently cooking on the stove on fire, the man snapped.
It was a very uncomfortable sight to see a grown, adult woman get lifted up by the collar as if she weighed nothing.
No words were spoken, the silence an uncomfortable stifling one, but River thought the moment was perfect to broach the topic. “Shall we tie them up and put them into the safe-room until the game ends?”
“What?! You asshole-”
Vault didn’t get a single word further, her sentence broken off when she yelped in surprise at an iron grip clasping around her wrists.
Papyrus simply started pulling the women where he wanted to go, and even their joint efforts, shouts and punches did nothing. “Get rope”, he simply threw the command at his two followers.
“There’s cable ties in that drawer over there”, Aspen helpfully supplied.
With four people – Aspen joyfully pitched in to help – it wasn’t a lot of work to get two young women into a corner of the safe-room, wrists and ankles tied together. The cable ties were placed loosely enough to not cut into their skin, or wouldn’t have, if the people in question stopped thrashing around.
River dumbly noted he didn’t even know what half of the curses they had shouted meant.
“Sweet, sweet silence”, Aspen hummed, stretching his limbs happily once the door to the safe-room was closed behind him.
Downstairs, Bronze had managed to keep the kitchen from blowing up by alerting the Actors before things could get worse.
It didn’t help the overall mood, though.
At this point, the father – having spent the whole day placating his wife, trying to treat his children somewhat acceptably and managing the household – was really close to snapping.
He buried his head inside his hands, sighing deeply as he sat down on the sofa. His wife went behind him, gently rubbing his shoulders.
Lunch was frozen pizza.
With a second large incident, the cycle ended up actually chipping. The children did take their nap, but the parents spent a long time getting their kitchen back into a normal state.
The mother did not leave the house this time.
The father never went upstairs, instead belatedly watching tv with his wife, and the children never went downstairs, huddling up in their room.
The thudding pain in River’s head returned full force.
Author’s Note
Fun Fact relating to the last author’s note – River’s Love Language is indulgence. Aspen could climb up his back and sit on his shoulders and he wouldn’t get mad. He’d complain if it gets in the way, but never get mad. It’s why he’s so incredibly relaxed about going along with all the sudden cuddles Aspen started demanding.
I often wonder if I can portray the development of their relationship right in its pacing. The story just isn’t that long, but they’ve known each other for weeks at this point
I think so, you can start. The approach phase, and even flirting has already begun. So if one of the two becomes proactive, it wouldn’t be shocking. ^^ (ps: more sugar, more sugar ~♡)
Thank you for this chapter, see you next week!
The fact that everyone went along with tying the girls up is just so funny to me
Thanks for the chapter! ^^