Wholesome Friends

While Tsubaki typically came to Dan’s house to visit Dan rather than Shibani, it often ended up being the case that Dan would start working on mochi or some other sweets and leave Tsubaki and Shibani to their own devices.  Tsubaki didn’t complain though. While her relationship with most others was of the business variety, Tsubaki’s relationship with Shibani was a far more casual friendship. They would usually just nap or play games together, like they were doing now.

“Uno!” Shibani called out triumphantly as he placed down a card, leaving him with one left.

“I think not.” Tsubaki grinned as she played the trump card she was saving: a wild draw four card.

“What? No fair!” Shibani groaned as he reached for the deck, reluctantly taking the top four cards and placing them in his hand. “How do you always have those? Are you cheating or something?”

“No point in cheating in a game like this where we aren’t betting anything.” Tsubaki chuckled. “I would say that I’m just lucky… or that you are unlucky.”

“Well, what color are you changing it to?” Shibani asked as he eyed his hand. Depending on the color she chose, he might be able to turn this around sooner rather than later.

“Oh, right,” Tsubaki returned her focus to the game. “Um, red.”

“Aha, take this!” Shibani placed down a draw two card, smiling smugly. “Who’s the unlucky one now?’  

“Oh, you’re asking for it now.” Tsubaki’s eyes gleamed as Shibani taunted her. She had somewhat of a competitive side, and any kind of goading in a game was sure to draw it out of her, even if there were no stakes. Tsubaki reached over to the deck to draw two cards. One of those cards caused her to grin. “Thanks for that. Now I can do this.” She placed a red skip card into the pile, causing Shibani to groan. Now that it was her again, Tsubaki used yet another skip, but this time changing the color to green.

“Stop!” Shibani complained.

“Alright, alright,” Tsubaki laughed. “But only because I don’t have any more skips. This time she played a normal green seven. Shibani responded by placing a blue seven. Not having a blue card, Tsubaki drew from the deck. Grimacing that the card she drew was red, she drew another one. Still no blue. “Ugh.” She complained as she drew a third card. Finally, this one was blue. She tossed it into the pile, though she had about twice the cards in her hand as Shibani did in his.

Thankfully, Shibani changed the color again by placing a card of the same number in the pile. They went back and forth for a couple turns until once more, Shibani said, “Uno!”

Unfortunately for Tsubaki, this time she didn’t have any cards that would force Shibani to draw. Hoping that Shibani’s last card wasn’t yellow, she placed down a yellow card.

Shibani grinned and stared Tsubaki dead in the eye as he placed down a wild card, thus winning the game.

“Rematch.” Tsubaki demanded.