"Three threes."
He questioned if caution was the right strategy. The standard approach was painfully predictable and lacked any element of surprise. Yet, he wondered if that very predictability could be turned to his advantage.
From the silence on the other end of the table, he inferred the Boss was thrown. He could practically hear the gears turning as the man tried to parse whether the bid was a bluff. Felix expected him to stew on it for a while, but the Boss broke the silence much sooner than anticipated.
"Liar."
Felix looked like he'd just taken a hard punch to the gut, trying to process what he'd just heard. He looked over at Cleo, but she was just spacing out, totally unfazed by the whole thing. She gave him a half-second look before locking her eyes right back onto the Boss.
Felix's face fell as he slapped his cup upside down on the table. He took a look at his own dice, then peeked over at the Boss's. Grand total? A measly pair of threes.
What was honestly ridiculous was the Boss's roll. Every single one of his dice had landed on a stupidly high number.
He scratched his head, burying his fingers deep into his hair while staring blankly ahead. Was it just a stroke of stupid luck, or was there something else at play here?
Maybe the Boss just got lucky. There was nothing weird about that on its own, but things started getting seriously confusing the moment he tried to figure out how he read his bluff so fast. Like, did he have some kind of skill or what?
For starters, he thought his posture and expression were totally fine. Sure, he looked a little confused, but come on, that's just standard beginner vibes.
Felix had always relied on that foundation—it was his secret weapon for pulling quick answers out of thin air during challenges and events. But right now, he was anxiously twisting and pulling at strands of his hair.
What should he do? The opportunity right in front of him was insane.
A fake cough cut right through his thoughts. He looked up and there was the Boss, sporting that exact same annoying smirk.
"You are dwelling on this far too much. After all, one single defeat is hardly a cause to doubt yourself."
A nervous laugh came as Felix's pulse began to race. An invisible weight seemed to settle on his chest, but a subtle smile managed to break through.
"Maybe you're right. It's a pretty bad flaw I have. I guess I should wing it, right?"
"Regarding your reason for asking, I don't think you're looking for an answer. For the next round, the loser goes first."
The clatter of the first die brought an abrupt shift in mood, signaling the start of the second game. As it settled, Felix fell silent.
Once both demons rolled and checked their dice, they looked up at the exact same moment.
The Boss's face remained completely unreadable, revealing no hint in his hand, whether subtle or obvious. Felix searched for a crack in the armor, but found absolutely nothing to give him an edge.
Felix on the other hand was losing his grip. His hands wouldn't stop shaking, so he kept them moving—tapping the table, adjusting his collar, doing anything to hide the tremor.
Hoping to catch everyone off guard, he threw out a reckless bid to kick off the second round. The Boss called him out almost immediately. As another die was dragged across the felt, it left him one step closer to losing.
From there, the game just turned into a mind-numbing loop. Felix tried playing it safe. He tried throwing out bold, straight-faced bluffs. He even tried tossing logic completely out the window just to see if he could catch some kind of lucky break. But nope. Absolutely none of it worked.
Every time he took a sneak peek under his cup, the Boss shut him down with the kind of crazy precision that makes you wonder if the universe is personally rigging the game against you.
Four dice dropped to three. Three to two. Before he knew it, he was down to his very last one.
Felix was completely lost, while the Boss just stood there with that fake smile, totally chill. The only thing that actually changed as the game dragged on was how ridiculously smug the guy sounded.
"Are you prepared to lose?"
Unpleasant thoughts swarmed his mind, and he shook his head violently to dispel them. It worked, if only for a brief moment.
Exhaling a ragged breath, Felix stared ahead, his eyes doing their best to hide what was on his mind.
'Why can't I understand you?'
As the panic kept creeping in, a raw, desperate realization finally clicked—right back to where he'd made his very first mistake.
In the opening round, he had played it safe with his bid. Obviously, it blew up in his face, but the why was what mattered. It hit him then, remembering his earlier words about his flaw, and how people often looked at weaknesses the wrong way.
They panicked, they over-corrected, and they tried to bury it behind a wall. But they had it completely backwards. In the right hands, a glaring weakness was the great wildcard. No one ever expected you to weaponize your own vulnerability to take the win.
Felix didn't have a plan, and that reality was absolutely terrifying. Still, he couldn't just ignore a glaring error begging to be used.
With every match, he'd been piecing together a profile of the Boss, uncovering some seriously striking similarities between the two of them.
Meanwhile, the Boss almost certainly had no clue just how much Felix was keeping hidden up his sleeve.
"Five fours."
Across the table, the Boss's mouth split open way too wide. It twisted up into a complete nightmare, the messed-up shape you'd only see in a really bad dream.
"Liar."
Felix's panic vanished in a second, replaced by a wide, stupidly proud grin. He stretched it as far as it'd go, trying to mirror the demon right in front of him.
"Exacto!"
He flipped his cup away. It clattered against the table, revealing a lone four. Simultaneously, Cleo stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she lifted the Boss's cup. The Boss sat stunned; resting on the table were four fours.
"Why so quiet now? You had plenty of shit to say before."
Seeing the Boss's smugness crumble brought a new sensation to Felix—a thrilling sense of dominance.
He was back up to two dice. Even if he was still one foot from his grave, his pride flared up with a triumph.
'I can still win!'
When Felix swept his two dice back into his cup for the next round, the rush of relief and victory completely flooded his system. He peeked under his cup for the next roll, his heart racing with a newfound confidence.
Without even glimpsing at his own dice, the Boss's closed glare was fixed entirely on Felix's.
"Four threes," the Boss murmured, his voice entirely devoid of its previous amusement.
* * *
On the very next turn, with a crushing precision that left no room for error, the Boss called his hand perfectly, stripping Felix's remaining two dice away in a brutal sweep.
The match was over. Felix had lost.
The Boss let out a quiet chuckle. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a patronizing hiss.
"Don't mistake a momentary lapse for a victory. It was just a small oversight on my part—and clearly, even that wasn't enough to save you."
Felix kept his gaze locked on the floor, his lips moving in a quiet, bitter cadence. "I lost," he muttered, the words catching in his throat.
"That's. . that's on me."
For a brief second, the defeat seemed to swallow him whole. Then, like a switch being flipped, he jerked his chin upward. A flashing grin split his face.
"Good game!"