My Childhood Friend And The Zap

According to my childhood friend, “there’s a limit to how far a penalty game should go,” apparently.

A while back, we were fooling around with a card game at a sleepover. A cup of blistering-hot spicy yakisoba happened to be sitting within arm’s reach, so we made it the penalty, one bite every time you lost, and played it that way. …Well, the results were nothing short of gruesome. Ever since, that cup yakisoba with King Enma on the lid has been a forbidden card between us.

That was the day my childhood friend flew into one of her rare rages, going so far as to declare it ‘a blasphemy against the very act of eating.’ And that same childhood friend, one Sakura Ayuri, was right about now…

“The present swap’s all wrapped up, so let’s move on to the next bit of fun~! Yeah~!”
“Yeah~!”

With the present swap wrapped up, Ayu moved to kick off the next event. Playing on her home turf this time, she’d apparently prepped all kinds of things.

“Up next is a game!”
“Alright, bring it.”

Games are my department, obviously. The skills I’d been grinding online for this very day were about to pay off…

“Uh, we’re not doing video games, though?”
“Huh?”

What is this idiot even on about? The whole point of everyone getting together is party games, surely.

“But I brought my Switch.”
“If we were gonna use it, I’d have told you to bring it from the start, y’know…”
“We could use the one at your place too and make it four-player, though?”
“Yuuma-kun took that one out to play with his friends.”
“What’s that little brat up to…!”
“Would you quit calling someone’s little brother a brat?!”

Oh, come on. Here I am hauling my console over every single time as my own quiet little pleasure, and… honestly, at this rate we might as well have just done it at Hina’s.

“It can’t be helped. Letting us use the house for today’s Christmas party came with that exact condition.”
“You’ve got a part-time job, so go buy your own already.”
“A game console on a student’s part-time pay is a pretty high bar, y’know… and besides, I don’t really play all that much except when it’s with you, Gin-chan…”
“Alright, alright, forget the console for now… you’ve got other stuff prepped, right?”
“Th-that’s right, Gin-chan!”
“Hmmm…”

It’s bound to be some safe pick like cards or a board game. Not that those aren’t fun in their own right, but at that kind of game Ayu, who’s already hopeless at video games, somehow winds up even worse…

“Twister, maybe…?”
“Nope? Why is that the very first thing you reach for?”
“Eh… it’s not…?”
“Why do you look so crushed… Sumire-chan, did you want to play it that badly?”
“I wanted to watch everyone else play it.”
“What is even with this girl…”

I mean, “Twister” is a name everyone knows, but there’s hardly ever a real occasion to actually play it… and since Ayu steers clear of any hands-on contact with kids her own age, I’ve got no experience with it either.

“I gave it some thought, and a competitive game’s no good, since Gin-chan just steamrolls everyone.”
“I can hold back a little, y’know.”
“Even if you can, whether you’d genuinely enjoy yourself is another matter… and on top of that, cards and the like are out, since Hina-chan and Sumire-chan are strong at those, so, kind of a no.”
“I really don’t think that’s true, though…”
“Or is it just that you’re a total scrub, Ayu?”
“Silence, you.”

Ayu just wears way too much on her face, that’s her problem. Besides, phrasing it that way makes it sound like Ayu and I sit on the same rung of the card-strength hierarchy, so could she please knock it off.

“And so~! What I’ve prepared for today is THIS! The Amazing Roulette, the so-called electro-shock roulette, ya hear!”
“Clap-clap~”
“Uh, what is this?”

Ayu plonked the thing down on the table with a thud. Black and round, its surface was studded with six little bumps, each drilled with a hole just big enough for a single finger.

“First, you stick one finger into whichever hole you like, ya hear!”
“Right.”
“You press the switch, ya hear!”
“Mm-hm.”
“The red lamp in front of each hole lights up one after another, roulette-style, and whichever hole the lamp stops on gets a jolt of current run through it. That’s the toy, ya hear!”
“That’s just a luck game.”

This one, unable to win at competitive games or at cards, had gone and rigged up a luck-based game instead… huh, but hold on, wouldn’t a luck game be just as hopeless for Ayu, with her nonexistent luck?

“And get this, this time I’ve even prepped a penalty game!”
“You prepped one for a luck game?”
“It’s this! Oyatsu Ca*pas, cream stew flavor! Whoever the roulette lands on has gotta eat one, ya hear!”
“What is that…”
“You prepped a whole box of penalty snacks?”
“Bought it on a whim and it turned out to not really suit my taste, ya hear!”
“So basically you’re just clearing out your stock.”

Let’s see, guess I’ll try one… hmm, it’s not gross… no, it IS gr… but not to the point of… hmm, yeah, this one’s not for me, ya hear.

“What a distinctly meh flavor…”
“It’s kinda tas… hmmm…”
“Feels like the sort of thing some folks would really love~”
“I’m getting absolutely wrecked here, ya hear. Shoulda gone with the pizza flavor after all, ya hear.”
“Between this and that weird toy, you really do buy nothing but strange stuff, Ayu.”
“Oh, pipe down, ya hear!”

Well, it’s a luck game in the end, so next to the usual super-spicy stuff it seems like something we can enjoy a bit more casually. Might be just about right, actually.

“Well then, let’s hurry up and start. One finger each, that it?”
“You got it, ya hear!”
“Here goes, then.”

It’s random anyway, so no point agonizing over it. When I slipped my index finger into one of the six holes, Hina and Sumire-san followed suit, sticking theirs in right after me.

“Now that everyone’s in, here we go! Switch on!”

Ayu pressed the switch in the center, then slipped a finger into one of the bumps herself. Eerie, ominous music started up, the lamps lighting one after another, ratcheting up the tension whether we liked it or not, and then…

“Owww!”
“Ow?!”
“Whoa.”
“Huh?! That much?!”

The instant the lamp stopped on Hina’s and Sumire-san’s spots, the two of them jerked back. Seems it really does hurt… or rather, why is the one who set this whole thing up the one looking so shocked?

“It hurts that much…?”
“It hurts…”
“Yeah, it hurts~…”
“You mean you didn’t test-play this?”
“It showed up in a video I like, so… I just figured they were hamming it up for effect…”
“You idiot.”

The two of them ate their Ca*pas in silence after the jolt… and judging by the lack of any real reaction, by that point the shock of the current probably outweighed any question of taste.

Come to think of it, Ayu herself, rattled by a bigger reaction than she’d bargained for, had slipped right out of the swaggering-showman patter she’d been putting on, the one with a ‘ya hear’ tacked onto every sentence.

“…So then… shall we… keep going…?”
“Sure~”
“Huh?! We’re continuing?!”
“We’ve only just started, y’know~?”
“We can’t have you two not tasting this jolt as well…”
“Y-yikes…”
“How many times are we doing this?”
“…B-best of three, ya hear!”
“Okay~”

Best of three, huh… in which case the no-damage duo, Ayu and I, have the advantage… except Ayu’s luck is nonexistent, so this is basically already my win.

“Here.”
“Here.”
“Heere~”
“There, everyone but Ayu’s in.”
“…S-switch! On!”

Ayu flipped the switch again and stuck her finger in. The same BGM as before piped out of the toy, but after watching those two get flung back by the pain, the tension climbed even higher. And then…

“Gah?!… nnngh~!”
“Oooh, this time it’s just you, Gin-chan~”

Of the six lamps, only the one at my finger lit up. The current hit an instant later, and the pain shooting up from my fingertip sent me reeling backward, exactly like those two before me.

“This… this HURTS—!”
“I-it’s that bad…?!”
“It hurts, obviously! Go on, try shoving your finger into all the holes at once and see how you like it!”
“I’ll pass on that…”
“Here you go, Ginko-san. Penalty game.”
“…Honestly, isn’t sticking your finger into this thing the real penalty game?”

— Munch, munch.

“Fair point.”

My fingertip still stings. Set against this pain, a mediocre little snack like this stops mattering at all.

“Wh-what do we do…? Should we call it here?”
“Huh? You’re joking.”
“Ayu-chan still hasn’t gotten her zap yet~”
“That’s right, Ayuri-san.”
“Eep.”

I see. Now that it’s come to this, I get how those two were acting earlier. Even at the risk of eating a jolt themselves, they want the one who’s taken zero damage to eat it at least once. …Or at least, they want it for one specific someone: the very owner of this contraption, who hadn’t so much as test-played it before hauling it out, yet had somehow been blessed with freak good luck today.

“…Look, everyone’s already got their fingers in, y’know?”
“Hurry up, Ayu-chan~”
“You might find it’s surprisingly addictive…?”
“S-so this is a Shadow Game…!”
“No, it’s not dramatic enough to warrant that.”
“…Th-then… the switch…”

Worn down by the rest of us egging her on, Ayu reached her index finger toward the switch in the middle of the toy. We watched it unfold with our hearts pounding.

“On!”

Third time’s the charm. That same fear-stoking BGM I’d honestly hoped never to hear again came flowing out once more, something dreadful bearing down on us.

“…”

Holding our breath, we watched the lamps come on, above all the one at the hole Ayu had her finger in. And the result…

“Owwww!!”
“Ow?!”
“Gy’iiih…hhh~!”
“Huh?! Wh-huh?!”

The lamps at the holes with my, Hina’s, and Sumire-san’s fingers all lit up… which is to say, once again the only ‘winning’ holes were the empty ones and the one Ayu had her finger in.

“I’m so sorry somehow! I’m truly, truly sorry!!”

Ayu apologized up and down to the three of us writhing in agony. Something’s off. This is absolutely, positively off. There’s just no way I can accept this.

“Wh-why would Ayu-chan, of all people, who’s so terrible at this kind of luck…”
“Why… why on earth…”
“…Ayu. Show me the instruction manual.”
“Eh? U-uh, sure.”

This one said she hadn’t test-played it, so maybe, just maybe, she’s been doing it wrong. In that case, I’ll comb through this manual until it all adds up!

◆◆◆

“Verdict! …Guilty!”
“Guilty.”
“Guilty.”
“I plead not guilty.”
“Overruled. And with that, Ayu, you’re guilty.”
“It wasn’t on purpose! It wasn’t on purpose!”

Reading the manual, we learned that the instant you press the switch, only the holes with fingers already in them become targets for the draw. In other words, since Ayu had been sticking her finger in only after flipping the switch, the current had never had the slightest chance of reaching her in the first place.

“And soooo. Time to carry out your sentence~”
“Wh-what kind…?!”
“By ruling of our deliberation, your sentence is: stick your fingers into as many holes as you can, then flip the switch.”
“N-nooooo!!”
“No ‘nooo’s allowed, no ‘nooo’s allowed.”

The three of us worked together to force Ayu’s fingers into the roulette as she kicked up a fuss. She seemed to know she was in the wrong, though, and didn’t put up much real resistance.

“Mmm~, angle-wise, getting fingers into all six is a no-go~”
“Four out of six, then… Here’s hoping it lands on an unused hole, Ayuri-san.”
“The unused holes are excluded from the draw, though, aren’t they?! That makes it a guaranteed death, doesn’t it?!”
“Best you can do is pray it’s over with as few of them as possible. Switch on.”
“S-scary…”

The by-now-familiar BGM rang out from the toy. Even this tune I’d sworn I never wanted to hear again starts to sound pretty good once the circumstances change. And then…

“It hu’RTSSS—!!”
“Oh, it’s all of ’em.”
“That’s our Ayu-chan~”

Sure enough, or however you’d put it, the lamps at all four of her inserted fingers lit up, and the current went to town on Ayu’s fingertips. The impact must’ve been considerable too; Ayu jolted back harder than at any point all day.

“My fingers are tingling!!”
“Your mouth gone dry?”
“Eyes burning behind them?”
“It’s not like the heroine actually DIED or anything, though!!”

The only thing that died here was Ayu’s finger, after all. Well, give it a bit and it’ll come back to life. Honestly, though, the source material is ridiculously old, and yet Sumire-san managed to play right along with it.

“This is getting sealed away…! Sealed, I say!”
“…Ayu.”
“What?! I’m not doing it again!!”

There’s something I need to tell Ayu. Still writhing on all fours, she caught my whisper right against her ear.

“Me, Hina, and Sumire-san each got two. And you, with that just now, hit four, so you lose, Ayu. That snack? You’re eating it yourself.”
“I honestly could not care less about any of that anymore!!”