“By the way, how much did it cost you guys to make the booking without the coupon?” He gave me a confused look so I kept going. “My friend got a coupon in his mail. 80% off if you have less than ten people. That’s the only reason we agreed to go, but the group you were with had at least twelve or thirteen.” I turned to face him as he tilted his head.

  “That’s strange, we had two coupon options. 50% off if we had less than fifteen people, and 80% off if we had twenty-five people or more.” He briefly paused before continuing. “I thought they assumed we’d never have a group big enough, but the guys invited a group of girls so there’s 27 people without me.” That’s strange. From a business standpoint, that makes no sense. Even ignoring that, why was their second coupon different from ours? Why did we only get one option?

  “It’s weird they’d give you two huge discounts. They’d lose a lot of money if you used them both.” I looked straight ahead as we walked, trying to figure out the point of the discounts. I’d understand if there was just one of them. You’d show the customers how much fun they had, and they’d be willing to come back again and pay full price. Why two coupons?

  “Actually, they’re only applicable today at 7:45 so we could only use one of them.” That made more sense, but it’s still strange. Why give two different coupons, and why are they both different to our coupon? “Did your coupon have any time restriction?” I nodded my head as I replied.

  “Yeah, we could only use it if we made our booking at eight.” I’d already lied and said our booking was for eight, so I had to keep my story consistent. In reality, our coupon was only applicable for 7:30.

  “I see. Maybe they weren’t earning enough money and got desperate.” I quietly agreed.

  “Was it worth inviting a random group of girls just to make up numbers?” I asked, making conversation as we reached the store.

  “It’s not a random group - there’s a lot of history. A lot of crushes and relationships… you know…” He looked down as he spoke. There was something bothering him, but he’d been through enough so I didn’t press him on it.

  “Right… seems like you dodged a bullet not having to go and deal with all that.” I wanted to distract him from whatever he was thinking about by reframing this in a positive light.

  “Haha, yeah, you’re right about that.” His face lit up a bit as he smiled, but his voice sounded like he was hiding more.

  We reached the ice cream store and talked for a while, but nothing eventful happened apart from Ren giving me a few karaoke tips. I was surprised that I hadn’t gotten any texts or calls from the group, but I guess they were busy having fun. We left the store at 7:50 and said goodbye to each other before splitting up.

  I sped up and ended up getting there at 7:55. I looked around before checking in with the reception, and they let me know my room number and pointed to the left. Before I started walking, they told me that the drinks bar could be found past the door to my right.

  I politely declined, and started making my way to our room. I thought about how my room was the opposite direction to the drinks bar, and something felt off - the building had such a weird layout. I assumed that the majority of the rooms were on the right side of the building closer to the drinks bar, while the few remaining rooms were all on the left. I figured these rooms must be for larger groups that make more noise. Even so, this still felt weird since a group of eight is relatively small for a karaoke outing. I decided to ignore this for now and to keep looking since I was already half an hour late.

  As I searched for my room, I saw one of the guys from earlier sitting in a corridor. He noticed me and immediately looked away. I decided to ignore him and I kept looking, but I couldn’t let go of this uneasy feeling. Ren told me that their group shared a booking with another group of girls, so that makes sense - they’d make a lot of noise so they were kept far away so they’d disturb fewer customers. That would be about twenty to twenty-five people. How could my group of eight be big enough to also be considered a noisy group?

  Something felt wrong, so I turned around and walked back towards him.

  “Why are you sitting here by yourself?” He turned to face me. I’d suspected that because Ren wasn’t here anymore, the group had chosen a new target.

  “It’s nothing. I’m feeling tired so the loud noises were giving me a headache.” He broke eye contact when answering. I couldn’t tell if he was lying yet, so I pressed him.

  “By the way, tell Hanzo that if he messes with Ren again, Ren has my number. He’ll have to deal with me.” There weren’t any signs of hope. He didn’t smile. His eyes looked dead. He wasn’t being bullied. He was genuinely fighting off a headache, so I let it go when he didn’t answer.

  I was getting a bit frustrated with this overly complicated layout and tried texting Mei to ask her for directions, but I didn’t have any service. I ended up finding the room anyway in a couple of minutes, noticing the excessive number of cameras on my way. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t get these questions out of my head.

  Why was the layout so complicated? Why didn’t I have service? Why did these empty corridors need cameras? I’d get it if the cameras only looked at the doors to each karaoke room, but this seemed overboard. I felt on edge so I wanted to keep looking around, but I could hear the muffled cheering and celebrations through the walls. I decided to enter the room. If I still felt on edge, I could always use a headache as an excuse to leave early.

  I opened the door as the others were celebrating, smiling as they saw me. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I watched for a few seconds. I quickly scanned the room and I couldn’t see any drinks. In fact, the room itself was quite small. It wasn’t cramped by any means, but if this room was designated for large groups, then why wasn’t it much bigger? I started thinking but got distracted by Mei’s voice.

  “Look who decided to show up!” She walked up to me and held my hand, leading me towards the microphone.

  “Wait a sec-” I tried talking my way out of it, but Yori wasn’t having it.

  “As your punishment, you have to sing a song that we all chose.” He looked at me and started laughing. “Since it’s your punishment, you have to sing it solo.” Everyone else started laughing too. Did they plan this?

  “Hold up, this is a bit overboard. I’m not that late-” I got cut off again.

  “Slow down smooth talker, you’re not getting out of this one!” Mei put the microphone in my hands and started selecting a song.

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  I regret helping Ren.

  This wasn’t worth it.

  I smiled to myself as I thought of a way to get out of this. Yaeko started laughing, which gave me a desperate idea.

  “Yaeko, you keep bragging about how good you are at singing… I’ll sing if you’re singing with me.” Her smile vanished, but she never had a chance to fight back.

  “That sounds like an amazing idea!” Mei urged Yaeko to join in.

  “No, this is his punishment, right?” Yaeko nervously looked at everyone else to see if they agreed, but Choko and Hibiki both laughed when they saw her getting flustered.

  “Come on, you should do it. It’ll be fun.” Osamu smiled as he quietly urged her to sing with me. She tried to resist, but after some cheering from everyone, she gave in. Naturally, I knew this would happen when I suggested that she should sing with me. I was hoping this might be enough to change something in our relationship, and I smiled at her as she joined me at the front of the room. Now that she’d accepted her fate, she seemed more at ease.

  “So, what song are we singing?” Her face stiffened as she turned to face the group.

  “I’m not singing that song with him.” What song did they choose? Everyone started laughing.

  “Come on, it’ll be fun!” Hibiki couldn’t keep a straight face as she urged Yaeko to sing it.

  “Absolutely not.” Yaeko sternly doubled down.

  “I don’t really care what you guys sing, Akira’s gonna suck anyways.” I turned to see Yori and Mei laughing. Nobu started grinning as well.

  “Thanks for the confidence boost, Yori.” I dryly shot back.

  “Of course! Also, what drink do you want? We were waiting for you before ordering.” That explained why I didn’t see any drinks.

  “I’ll just have a bottled water, please.” He gave me a confused look.

  “Bottled? Why bottled?” The others looked at me, waiting for a response.

  “I don’t want to order another one if I accidentally spill it.” I casually answered as I pretended to be focused on the microphone and choosing a song.

  “Fair enough. All right, Yaeko, choose whatever song you want.” Yaeko sighed out of relief as Yori picked up the phone to place our orders.

  “Let’s get started.” I handed Yaeko the second microphone and smiled. “Thank you for helping me. I’d literally die if I had to do this myself.” Her face was blank for a second. She wasn’t sure how to react. Once the shock wore off, she smiled a bit. “I appreciate it a lot.” I said those words to see if they'd make her smile, but she didn't show any reaction.

  “Whatever. Let’s just get this over and done with.” She took the microphone out of my hand and immediately turned away. I hoped my gratitude would put her at ease, but instead, that little smile was because she liked the idea that she was saving me from embarrassment.

  Yaeko selected the song and turned back to the group.

  “This is still his punishment.” She started laughing. I already got shot down when I tried to be nice, so I decided to watch for now.

  “What do you mean?” Choko laughed as she asked the question. I hadn’t seen her speak much since I got here, but it was nice to see her chime in.

  “I chose a song with a lot of high pitched notes. That won’t be a problem for me…” The group laughed as they figured out what Yaeko was saying.

  “At least it’s a song I know…” I made a self-deprecating laugh as I tried to make my struggle more entertaining for them. Everyone else smiled, and I was just glad they were all having fun.

  The music started and everyone went silent. I cleared my head and focused on the beat. The rhythm. The melody. Before I knew it, the lyrics started. Yaeko was great, as expected. I couldn’t say the same for myself. I kept good timing, but I struggled to hit the right notes. It didn’t matter though. Everyone was cheering along, clapping on every other beat. I thought about the tips Ren gave me as we got closer to the chorus. I didn’t have time to do any vocal warm ups, but apparently it’s easier to hit higher notes if you’re singing quietly. Guess it’s time to try it out.

  We reached the chorus, but I couldn’t tell if I was doing it correctly since Yaeko’s louder voice overpowered mine. A few bars in and everything was going well. Then, Yaeko stopped. My voice resonated throughout the room. At first, everything was normal, but then, their smiles disappeared. It started with Mei and Yori, then it reached the others. A few seconds passed, but I didn’t let it faze me. I kept singing while the others watched. Suddenly, Mei started cheering even more enthusiastically. One by one, the others joined in. I smiled as I thought about the fact that Ren ended up saving me as well.

  Another few bars passed before Yaeko joined back in and I immediately noticed her voice was louder than before. She’d tried to embarrass me, but I guess she was surprised. Now she wanted to regain the spotlight with her own talents. That’s fine with me. I didn’t want it, anyway. I started singing quieter and quieter, fading into the background. A few minutes passed and the song came to an end, and I smiled as everyone started clapping.

  “Akira!!!! We didn’t know you could sing!!” Mei praised me while the others agreed, but I was focussed on something else. I glanced at Yaeko, and she had a blank face as she heard Mei compliment me.

  “I couldn’t. A friend gave me a few tips.” I wanted to deny the compliment since the truth is that I didn’t sing well. I just sang better than everyone expected.

  “Is that why you were late?” Yori asked. I was surprised they didn’t bring that up sooner.

  “It is, actually. We had some ice cream while they gave me some advice.” It was a half truth. That’s why I was half an hour late. Even if I’d left Ren before we had ice cream, I’d still be ten minutes late. There’s no way I was explaining all of that. It’s one thing if they find out how I think, but It’d be another thing if they found out how easily I dealt with Hanzo.

  “They? Have you been hanging out with a girl?” Nobu, Osamu and Mei smiled as Yori asked the question, while the others tried to hide their laughs.

  “No, it was actually a guy.” As I answered, I heard a knock on the door.

  “Those must be our drinks!” Choko excitedly got up from the couch to answer the door.

  “Well, well. Looks like Akira gets saved.” I ignored the laughter. It’s not like I’d lie even if it was a girl. I understand why people do that, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, even if she was my crush. These guys wouldn’t know her, so it wouldn’t matter if they found out about her.

  Choko opened the door, letting in an employee. She was holding a tray with eight glasses and I immediately noticed that there wasn’t a bottle. Yori noticed it as well and made eye contact with me.

  “Sorry, we ordered a bottled water?” Yori politely asked.

  “Yes, you’re right. Unfortunately, we’ve had an issue with one of our suppliers so we ran out. Please accept this tap water, free of charge.” In an instant, I was on edge again. Things weren’t adding up before, and they still aren’t.

  “You had a supplying issue for bottled water, but all these other drinks were fine?” I was being a bit aggressive, and I got quite a few looks, but I didn’t care. Something wasn’t right. We might be in danger.

  “Yes, I know it’s a bit weird.” She chuckled, trying to diffuse the situation. “We keep extra stock of our other products since most customers get annoyed if their favorite drink is out of order, but few customers care if they have to drink tap water instead of bottled water.” That answer made too much sense. Why would a regular employee know about their stocking protocols? “If you’d like, we could give you another drink, free of charge.” She kindly smiled. She was trying to lower my guard. Everyone was focused on me.

  The drinks are spiked.

  What was the biggest "Wait, something's very wrong here" moment for you?