Battle Royale

Then he lightly brushed away the nape of Yutaka's neck. He crushed the imaginary bug with the sole of his sneakers and (pretending) he picked it up and (pretending once again) tossed it out.

"I got it," he said. He was now facing Yutaka and added, "Looked like a little centipede."

"Oh man," Yutaka rubbed the nape of his neck and looked over where Shinji had (apparently) tossed it, grimacing.

Shinji broke into a slight grin and said, "Come on, let's look at the map."

Yutaka looked over, then knit his brows when he saw that it was turned over.

Shinji waved his index finger to get his attention and scribbled on the back of the map. His writing wasn't very neat. Several scrawled letters appeared at the edge of the paper.

They can hear us.

Yutaka's face twitched and asked, "Really? How can you tell?" Shinji quickly put his hand over Yutaka's mouth. Yutaka understood and nodded.

Shinji released his hand and said, "I just know. I know a lot about insects. That one wasn't poisonous." Then just to be sure, he scribbled again, Pretend to check map. Don't say anything to make them suspicious.

"Well, now that the computer's failed, there's nothing we can do," Shinji said, providing some fake commentary. Then he wrote: They heard my explanation and cut the Mac connection. I screwed up. They know some of us are going to resist so they're monitoring our conversation. Should have known.

Yutaka took out his pencil from his pocket and wrote under Shinji's scrawled letters. His writing was much neater than Shinji's.

How can they use a monitoring devise on such a big island? He had copied Shinji's spelling for monitoring, but "device" was spelled incorrectly. Whatever. This wasn't composition class.

"So I think we should look for others. We can't do much on our own. So..." Shinji said as he lightly tapped on his collar with his finger. Yutaka's eyes widened as he nodded.

Shinji then scribbled again: I checked your collar. It doesn't seem to have a camera. Only listening device. I don't think they're any cameras in the area. Maybe satallites, but the woods are covering us. They can't see what we're doing now. Spelling wasn't Shinji's strongest suit either.

Yutaka's eyes widened again, and he glanced upward. The branches were swaying, cutting them off completely from the blue sky.

Yutaka's face then stiffened suddenly as if he'd realized something. He gripped his pencil and wrote on the back of the map: Mac stopped working because you told me about it. If not for me, you would have succeeded!

Shinji poked Yutaka's shoulder with the index finger of his left hand and smiled at him. Then he scribbled: Don't sweat it. Should have been more careful. Collars could have gone off the moment they heard, but they're "mercifully" letting us live.

Yutaka touched the nape of his neck, eyes wide. He stared at Shinji and then tightened his lips and nodded. Shinji nodded back at him.

"I wonder where they're hiding out—"

I'm writing my plan here. Fake our conversation. Just go with the flow.

Yutaka nodded and then quickly responded, "Hmm, but I'm not sure we can trust anyone."

Good going. Shinji grinned. Yutaka grinned back.

"That's true. I think we can trust Shuya. I want to hook up with Shuya."

If comp worked we could have saved others but now we can only worry about saving ourselves. All right with that?

Yutaka considered it and then wrote, Not looking for Shuya?

Right. Can't afford to worry about others anymore. Yutaka bit his lip, but finally nodded. Shinji nodded back. If this works out, game will get held up. Might give others chance to escape. Yutaka gave two small nods.

"You think everyone's hiding in the mountain like us? Maybe some of them are hiding in houses?" "Maybe..."

Shinji was deliberating over what to write next when Yutaka wrote, What's the plan?