A Lost Memory

“You are free to pick the game that we play,” Angora stated, her voice soft like silk, “but you must win. If you do not, I’ll expect to see you here first thing tomorrow morning to start the full 24-hour shift for our esteemed Mochi Moon party. It’s our biggest event of the year.”

Misa nodded, letting it all sink in. She realized right off the bat that the choice of game was probably the most important one that she would make in this transaction. If she chose the wrong one, it’d make it all that much less likely that she’d be successful in her endeavor. She already didn’t have good odds. Angora wasn’t known for losing, particularly in her own establishment.

What game should she go with? She had no idea. Unfortunately for her, she had never spent much time investigating casino games. She only knew how to play a few, none of which seemed suitable.

She closed her eyes and racked her brain for ideas, aggressively rubbing her chin with her thumb and forefinger all the while without really realizing that she was doing so. Poker was too obvious. Surely, Angora would expect that and be prepared. Blackjack would be the same. Roulette seemed too risky.

She opened her eyes with a start and blushed nervously, finally dropping her hand. She willed both it and her tail to hold still from here on out. It wouldn’t do to give Angora too much of a lead with her tells. Although, maybe she could use them to lead Angora down the wrong path? There was a promising thought.

Angora was waiting patiently for her response, seated at her usual table. She had a drink in her hand that she took the smallest of sips from every so often. It would be a while yet before she finished it. “What’ll it be, darling?” she asked.

At last, the answer floated into Misa’s mind. She smiled. It had been quite a long time since she had last played this particular game. The only memory she had of playing it, actually, was something incredibly hazy from her time as a child with a bunch of other little Succubuns while they were all under the care of the demon Murmur. She was shocked that she remembered anything at all from that point in her life. She wondered if Murmur had been deliberately preparing them for moments like this.

“Let’s play Go Fish!” she grinned.

Angora blinked and set her drink down on the table. “If that’s what you wish.” She snapped her fingers and Hops appeared from somewhere behind Misa, bringing a single, brand new deck of cards. She opened the box wordlessly and flipped through its contents to remove the jokers before shuffling. When she was done, she set the deck down on the table, nodded to Angora, and returned to her work.

“Go ahead and cut the deck or reshuffle it, if you’d like,” Angora murmured.

Misa carefully divided the set of face-down cards into five piles before placing them back together randomly. “This should suffice,” she replied, taking a spot across the table from Angora. She was a little disappointed that Angora hadn’t asked Hops to bring her a drink.

“Then let us begin.” Angora quickly dealt them both seven cards each. She picked up her hand and examined it carefully before moving a couple of cards around.

Misa picked up her hand. Ah, she had gotten lucky and had a couple of pairs already. At least she wasn’t starting with a completely unmatched set of cards. That was good.

“Do you have a seven?” she asked. She might as well start out by trying to collect all the cards of her favorite number.

“Go fish,” Angora replied promptly. “Do you have a King?”

“Go fish,” Misa smiled.

They went back and forth like this for some time while the fishing pond in front of them slowly shrunk down and Angora looked ever more bored. Go fish wasn’t a particularly difficult game. Misa had chosen it specifically for that reason. She figured that if she was going to have the best chance of success, she’d need to count cards and pay very close attention to the cards that Angora asked for so that she could plan out stealing them from her if she got the chance to do so.

All of that plotting probably hadn’t changed the outcome all that much, however. It was still a game of luck. By the time the last cards were played, Misa had just managed to eek out seven books of four-of-a-kind matches to Angora’s six. Success, even if it was just barely!

Angora sighed and passed her the prize, a bag of extra lovely matcha powder. “Please do leave before you decide to entertain me more.” She waved her hand dismissively and called to Hops for another drink, something stronger. Misa was more than happy to oblige.