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“So what do you wanna do today?” Oma asked, arms casually behind his head as he strolled toward the gazebo. It would be a beautiful day if it were an actual day, if there were birds to sing or weather that was anything other than bland, false sunshine.
“Um…” Saihara trailed after him, rubbing uncomfortably at his own arm. “Actually, I wanted to ask if we could play rock paper scissors again.” Oma groaned loudly, extending his hands toward the sky.
“For real? One hundred consecutive times wasn’t enough for you!?” Hopping up the steps, he entered the gazebo and twirled around on one foot. “You’re willing to risk your life all over again to repeat the same boring cycle, and for what?” Saihara, entering the gazebo, passively shrugged at him.
“Something to do?” he offered, sitting down on the bench at the table. Despite the fake sky above, the air still felt warm and unpleasantly humid.
“Or to figure out how I’m doing it, right?" Oma smirked, eyes narrowing into sparkling slits.
“Hmm,” Saihara mused, carefully noncommittal. “Well, I am curious.”
“So you’ve got an idea? C’mon, just tell me and I’ll let you know if you’re on the right track. I promise, I promise!” Saihara shook his head, smiling faintly.
“Does that even mean anything, coming from you?”
“Ah, no, it was a lie. Looks like you’re on to me. Guess I can humor you for a little while.” Oma clapped his hands sharply, then wiggled the fingers of one hand as though limbering up the joints. “So! Are we gonna do this or what, Saihara-chan?” He skipped around the table and sat at the bench on the far side, placing his hands on the stone surface and bending his fingers carefully one by one.
“Ah, right.” His brow furrowed in concentration as he prepared. It felt silly to bend his own fingers around as though warming up for something strenuous, but Oma had done it so earnestly that Saihara would have felt more uncomfortable without doing the same. “Yes," he eventually acknowledged. "I’m ready. Nnn, so-!”
He threw out scissors. At the same instant Oma’s hand extended, two fingers pointing back at him. A moment of silence elapsed under the gazebo.
“Wow, how unexpected! Again-” Oma cried out before extending a simultaneous fist with him. “Ah, rock.”
They fell back into the same pattern at once: Oma shouting “Again,” Saihara throwing an identical gesture like clockwork. Saihara stared at Oma’s small, white hands with more intensity than he could recall staring at most things in recent memory, including some evidence for murder. How was he doing it? How could he be doing it?
He moved at exactly the same time - paper, rock, again Saihara-chan! Saihara was certain. Not one hundred percent certain, he reflected as Oma laughed at his serious face. Ninety-five percent certain...
“Oma-kun,” he said suddenly, withdrawing his hand. “Okay, that’s enough.”
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough!” he snapped, eyes narrowing wickedly. Astonished, Saihara put up both hands in shock.
“Ah-”
“Nishishi, juuust kidding! So, do you have me pinned down? Let’s see. But if you’re wrooong, then I’ll take one of your pinky fingers.”
“W-what? Really?”
“Of course not,” he sighed, examining his nails. “Obviously I’ll only do that if you’re right, because it means you’ve uncovered one of my most precious secrets, Saihara-chan. Being wrong isn’t dangerous, it’s just boring, which means I’d rather kill you outright.”
“Ah…not that either option sounds good for me, but I’ll do my best.” He hesitated for a moment before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small box. “In that case, Oma-kun, could we try an experiment?”
“Saihara-chan wants to experiment with me!?” Oma shouted, hands balling into excited fists.
“Um-!” Saihara looked sharply around. At a distance the red Exisal appeared to endlessly hammer away at a small rock, but no one else was apparent in the area. Color suffused his face despite their solitude. “That’s not-”
“Normally that kind of forwardness toward me would be punishable by death,” he whispered soberly, “but I’m always extremely fair when it comes to taking someone’s pinky finger, so I suppose I’ll play along just this once.” Saihara nodded, reluctantly looking back at him, and opened the box to extract twelve cards. He separated six of them out and slid them across the table.
Oma turned them over. Watching closely, Saihara saw him sharply focus, faint surprise flashing across his face.
“I see,” he said softly, lips curving up at the edges.
“There are four of each card. Rock, paper, and scissors. We’ll choose one each and see how it goes when we do it like this,” Saihara explained, watching closely as Oma returned to his usual carefree smile.
“Sure, let’s see. Remember, though,” he sang. “If you value your pinky, you’d better be sure. Or not.” He slid a card across the table; Saihara stared at his pale hand, the delicate splay of his fingers, as though it would tell him something.
“I’m doing my best,” he repeated, offering his own card. “Okay, now-!”
It was ridiculous, he thought, that flipping over his own card sent his heart rocketing into his throat. As though Oma would genuinely sever his finger. More than that, as though the possibility of solving one of Oma’s tricks was such a climactic moment that it made sense to react with palpitations, audibly breathing as he revealed his rock card.
Oma, across the table, smiled at him. A scissors card lay before him on the table.
“Saihara-chan,” he said conversationally. “Did you know that most people throw out scissors first?”
“N-no.” He fought back a wavering grin - he had won, he had finally won against Oma at something - and slid out another card. Oma nodded and offered another of his own, his expression all at once studious.
“That’s the most common first move,” he continued, flipping to reveal scissors a second time. Saihara revealed his own paper card and, strangely relieved, at last allowed himself to grin. “Most people who win a round will stay with the same thing for a second round, while someone who loses will move on to the ‘next’ option. Statistically, that’s how this game works.”
“You know so much about it…”
“Don’t worry about that,” Oma said dismissively, waving a casual hand. “Best two out of three? Do you think you understand me yet, Saihara-chan? One last round to save your pinkies!”
“Both of them!? Wait, understand you…?” He stared at his remaining cards. Oma had used scissors twice, but he could reuse cards that he had previously used, so even the amount of times was useless as a hint. Counting the cards was useless, and even if it were possible, Saihara suspected that somehow Oma would be much better at it.
“My trick. Did you figure me out?” He smiled, tilted his head to the side inquisitively as he slid a card across the table.
“Well…” Since Saihara had lost the previous round, Oma would expect him to move on to the next option. Oma himself would be expected to remain on scissors, but he had already done that twice - first losing, then winning.
Saihara shook his head. Oma would never tell him statistics only to follow along with them afterward. It would be the same as announcing how to defeat him. He could assume Oma would never use scissors a third time - but then, of course he would, expecting Saihara to have concluded it was impossible.
A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. Far away, the Exisal’s weapons clattered off the small rock. He heard, from a greater distance, the sound of Tenko shouting excitedly about something.
“Saihara-chan...I’m getting bored,” Oma complained. “And thirsty.”
“Ah, excuse me. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, Saihara-chan, since you’re taking this long anyway…what’s your conclusion? Explain it to me!”
“Eh?” Oma leaned over the table toward him, offering a crooked, conspiratorial grin. The feathery tendrils of his hair dipped forward over the cards. “Oh...you know how this game works, but more than that, you’re fast.”
“Mm-hmmm?”
“Um...it took me a while to remember this after we played, but I read an article a while ago about a robot that plays this game.”
“Whaaat? Are you saying I’m a nonhuman monstrosity like Kee-boy!?” Oma shrieked. Saihara cast about himself in blind horror for a moment before releasing a deep sigh. “Don’t worry, he can’t hear us. Maybe.”
“The trick isn’t that it knows what people will do, it’s that it verifies what the hand is doing and reacts within a fraction of a second.” Oma’s small fingers drummed on the surface of the table. “So I think...you’re not using statistics to do this. You’re just so quick that it’s hard to tell. This is more like sleight-of-hand.”
“I see,” Oma said quietly. “So that’s what you think. Well, c’mon, let’s see it - I already made my choice. Let’s see it, let’s see it.” Saihara offered a card, sliding it on the table with trembling fingers.
“Don’t take my pinky, though.”
“Hmm. That all depends on the outcome of this game.” He leaned further over the table, a smile at the corners of his mouth again. “What do you think, Saihara-chan? Let’s say...if I win, I get the tip of your left pinky, and then I’ll tell everyone that you quit the yakuza.”
“I’m absolutely never agreeing to that.”
“Boring! Fine, but...in exchange, youuuu first! Let’s see that card!” Saihara flipped his card to reveal scissors. “And if you win, I’ll let you buy me a soda.”
“Okay,” Saihara agreed at once. Oma laughed, kicking his feet under the table.
“Then what do you get, you idiot!?” His flailing leg caught Saihara’s ankle.
“Ow!” he gasped as Oma flipped his own card. Saihara froze, heart leaping into his throat again as he forgot the pain immediately, staring down at the table as though it had become a matter of life and death.
Scissors.
“A tie!” Oma shouted. “Looks like we didn’t prepare for this contingency. What now, Saihara-chan!?”
“Well…” Slowly, face lightening with obvious relief, Saihara smiled. “That's okay. Was I right about how you’re doing it?”
“Of course not! You were ridiculously, irredeemably, hideously wrong, as usual! How fast would I have to be to accurately do that one hundred consecutive times without you noticing it even once, Saihara-chan? Do you think I’m superhuman, or do you think you’re really that oblivious?” Oma's eyes welled with sudden tears.
“Er-”
“Do you think I’m an inhuman, metallic monstrosity with no heart or soul, useful only for performing stupid mechanical actions!?” he wailed, tears rolling freely down his cheeks.
“What, no!” Saihara protested, then blanched visibly as Oma directed a wicked grin to his right. Saihara followed his gaze and flushed pink as he met Keebo’s stricken eyes. “Oh my God, Keebo! I didn't know you'd just - no, I mean, I wasn’t agreeing with him!” he yelped, sliding off the bench and rushing toward the robot in horror. “I, uhm, agh, I don’t know what to say, I just...” He trailed off haplessly as he followed the fuming Keebo down the path, leaving Oma alone with the cards.
Oma, suddenly alone, blinked away the last few tears and picked up the abandoned cards. He shuffled them into a single pile and looked over his shoulder, watching Saihara and Keebo slow down in conversation as they meandered off toward Miu’s laboratory.
Calmly, Oma shook three cards out of his long sleeve - paper, rock, and another rock - and slid them into the box with the rest.
“Though, of course,” he told the box, “that was a lie.”