The soft glow of the silk-shaded lamp cast long, inviting shadows across the Persian rug. Were it not for Dante's dagger gleaming discreetly on the side table, any outside observer would have taken them for a group of friends vacationing in a luxury hotel. The ambient jazz—an almost ethereal piano melody—created a cocoon of sound that shielded them from the brutal reality of the arenas.
Foxy lay stretched out on the rug, propped up on his elbows, using a silver fruit bowl as his private arsenal. He tossed a grape into the air, catching it with the same precision he used to dodge blades.
"So, Red," Foxy began, turning his sharp eyes toward Harry. "You're not just anyone, either. You've been cooking up every plan since we got to this place—calculating routes and probabilities while the rest of us just wonder who's getting stabbed next. It takes a certain kind of person to keep their head together like that."
Harry, who had been absorbed in a hardcover book on Renaissance architecture he'd found on the shelf, looked up and adjusted his glasses. He let out a short laugh, a sound that felt strangely normal in this setting.
"Well, I'm not an assassin or a guy trained since childhood like you and Alex," Harry replied, closing the book but keeping a finger between the pages. "I come from a good family, you know? Like Matheo said with that superior tone of his, I have 'blue blood.'"
He shook his head, remembering the scene.
"But it's not that simple. I read a lot, always seeking new knowledge. My mind never stops. Studying was the only thing I could truly control."
Alex, who had been in a state of contemplative silence with his head in Yuki's lap, opened one eye to join the conversation. The proximity to Yuki and the gentle movement of her fingers through his hair seemed to have disarmed the stoic leader, replacing his guard with a relaxed laziness.
"So you're like a super-genius who hits the books?" Foxy asked, arching an eyebrow, genuinely curious.
"Something like that," Harry admitted with a shrug. "My life was pretty normal until I got here. I didn't have many friends, you know? I was never the guy who went to parties or played football. So, I found a distraction for the void in books. Books didn't judge me for not knowing how to socialize."
Foxy let out a long whistle, grabbing a slice of apple and chewing noisily.
"Man, there isn't a single person in this little group who wasn't an outcast... I'm starting to think we're the 'Loners' Club' of this place. It's like fate used a sieve to catch only the weirdest people."
"Wrong. I was actually pretty popular," Dante intervened, stretching his legs out on the leather sofa. He had one arm resting on the backrest, near where Elisa was sitting. "Since I was one of the best on the swim team, I ended up being popular by association. People wanted to be near the 'athlete,' even if I didn't talk much."
Dante looked at the ceiling, a look of nostalgia crossing his face.
"But since I'd just moved to the city, I hadn't met anyone besides Alex and Harry on the day it all happened. My popularity didn't mean a thing when the lights went out."
Foxy let out a genuine laugh, flicking a grape seed into the crystal ashtray.
"I don't know if you're extremely lucky or the unluckiest kid in this group. Moving cities just to end up in a place like this because of a random lottery? Now that's what I call terrible geographical timing."
Dante laughed along, feeling the tension of past battles finally leave his shoulders. He looked at Foxy—a young man who acted like a cynical veteran, yet still possessed flashes of a stolen youth.
"What about you, Foxy? How the hell did you end up here? Being who you are, with those shadow skills... it's hard to imagine you entering a citizenship lottery."
Foxy stopped eating for a second. His gaze went vacant, drifting across the luxurious room until it lost itself on a spot on the wall.
"Well, I won a ticket, actually. There was an infiltration and agility competition in the underworld of my old zone. I was the first to reach the top of the building without being spotted by cameras. The prize was a 'ticket to a better life.'" He mocked the situation with a bitter smile. "The prize wasn't a prize in the end. It was an export contract for fresh meat for Smith."
Silence fell over the group for a moment, heavy with the weight of the paths that had brought them there. It was Harry who changed the subject, his intellectual curiosity always seeking to fill technical gaps.
"And you, Alex? How on earth did you recognize John's fighting style in the arena? That was so specific. You described the fundamentals like you were reading a manual."
Alex sighed, feeling the warmth of Yuki's hands against his temple. He seemed reluctant to speak of himself, but the atmosphere of confidence was contagious.
"Well, I'd heard of that fighting style before," Alex began, his voice hoarse and low. "My uncle was Special Forces. He said that back in the army, there was an elite group that trained in a technique different from the norm, focused on presence omission and flow reflexes. John's technique looked a lot like the stories he told about the 'ghosts' of the battalion."
"Hold on—" Foxy sat bolt upright, his eyes shining. "Do you two have the same fighting style then? After all, we still haven't seen you in a real one-on-one. Are you the disciple of this exiled uncle?"
Alex let out a dry laugh, shaking his head slightly.
"No. My style is different from his. What John does is focused on becoming a reflection of the enemy. What I learned..." He paused, looking at his own hands, calloused and steady. "...is something else."
He revealed nothing more, and the group respected the mystery. Alex had always been the pillar of secrets that kept them alive; questioning him too much felt like a breach of protocol.
Dante, seeking to bring Elisa into the conversation, turned to the young soldier. She remained in an observant silence, a posture she rarely abandoned, but her eyes were less guarded.
"And you, Elisa? What's your story?" Dante asked in a gentle tone that made Elisa look up from her plate of snacks. "You seem like the most balanced person here."
"My story?" She gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile. "Well, I attended a military academy due to family tradition. My parents thought discipline would be best for my future. I didn't have many adventures or dramas until I got to this place. I wasn't popular, but I wasn't isolated either... I was just 'normal.' A rule-follower, average grades, a functional gear in the system."
Dante thought to himself that this very normalcy was exactly what made her so stable during crises. She was the safe harbor when panic began to rise.
"I see," Dante murmured. "That explains why you're the only one who doesn't freak out when things get ugly."
"I think you're the only one in the group who's truly popular, Yuki," Alex teased, catching the soft scent lingering on her. "The kind of popular people actually like—not out of fear or because of swimming."
Yuki let out a crystalline laugh, her cheeks flushing slightly under the warm light of the lamp.
"I suppose so," she said, continuing to stroke his hair. "But honestly? I'd trade all the popularity in school for five minutes off this island with all of you. No fights, no lotteries, just coffee somewhere where Smith doesn't exist."
"Amen to that," Harry raised his glass of grape juice in an improvised toast.
The mood grew even lighter when Foxy decided to challenge Dante to an "olive-tossing" competition. What started as a silly game soon involved Harry trying to calculate the launch parabola to help Dante win, while Foxy used his reflexes to "defend" the shots.
"Harry, there's no point in using physics! Dante has zero motor coordination out of the water!" Foxy taunted, dodging an olive.
"It's a matter of launch angle and air resistance, Foxy! If Dante follows the vector I calculated, it's impossible for him to miss!" Harry shot back, laughing as he drew imaginary lines in the air.
Alex watched it all with a half-smile. For the first time in a long while, he didn't feel the need to be the vigilant leader. He allowed himself to close his eyes for a few minutes, letting the sound of his friends' laughter—the Outcasts' Club—be his only reality.
Elisa and Dante continued their conversation in low voices, a subtle flirtation lost in the middle of the others' chaos. There was a silent promise in the way they looked at each other, a hope that this rest would not be their last.
In that luxurious room, amidst the horror that surrounded them, they discovered that Smith's true prize wasn't the fruit or the silk beds—it was the realization that, despite having been loners on the outside, they had found a strange and indestructible family on the inside.