Doing Nothing

In a room, around a low table sat four people. They sat on the floor, with cushions below them.

Their expressions, trying not to betray anything on their faces. Neither of the four wanted the other three to know what was on their mind.

The room was silent, and the only sound you could hear was the rare clinking of ice from the empty glasses on the table.

One of the four people, the one with a strand of hair standing straight from her head (ahoge), took two cards from his hand of cards and put them on the center of the table, face-side down.

Hachiman: "Two cards of seven."

The other three examined at him, trying to inspect for clues on his face.

The person next to him with silver hair took a single card from his hand and set it upon the two previous cards.

Shun: "One more."

Once again, the other three inspected the face of the silver-haired one but only saw a small, unchanging smile on his face.

Next to him was another spiked black hair guy, who frowned and called out.

Romio: "I call the bluff."

He reached out to the cards in the center and flipped them face-side up.

All four saw the true value of the cards. They were a two of spades, queen of clubs and a seven of clubs.

Romio slapped his forehead and groaned.

Shun laughed and spoke.

Shun: "Ha! My card was a seven. Now you are three cards up."

Romio frowned and spoke at Hachiman.

Romio: "You bluffed on both the cards. There wasn't a single seven in there!"

Hachiman didn't speak anything, he just picked up his glass, and drank from it while looking at Romio.

The fourth person with a spiky ponytail had his hand on the table, supporting his head with his palm. He glanced at his cards and spoke to the irritated boy.

Shikamaru: "You are too quick to jump on bluff calls."

Romio clicked his tongue as he rearranged his cards in his hand.

The room was Shun's room at his home, the four people were the foolish four, and they were playing the game known as the Bluff.

It was a Saturday, and four of them had assembled at Shun's to pass some time.

Bluff was a simple game.

It required a well-shuffled deck of cards distributed to the playing parties.

The objective of the game was to shed cards as fast as possible, and the first player to run out of cards is the winner.

One player would then place a card or more face-side down in the center of the table while declaring the common number of the cards, which meant that a person could only declare a single number card, for example, two cards of three.

You could only declare the cards with the same number, but because the cards were face-side down, it allows everyone to lie about what cards they are putting, and thereby possibly get rid of their cards faster.

A person can call a bluff on another person, then if the cards are of the same value as the declaration, the person calling the bluff picks up the card, if the cards are different from the declaration, then the person who placed the cards picks them up.

If you do lie, and another person places more cards on top of the pile, then you are safe from a bluff call.

Players may choose to not play a card, and pass their turn. If you pass, you may not play again during that round. However, you still can call bluff on other players.

If all players pass, the center pile is removed from play and not examined.

-*-*-*-

Another round of the game started, and Shikamaru put his cards in the center of the table.

Shikamaru: "Three cards of ace."

Next was Hachiman, he looked at his cards, and spoke.

Hachiman: "Pass."

Shun too nodded and said.

Shun: "Pass."

For Romio's turn, he picked up a card from his hand and put up a single card on the pile.

Romio: "One card of Ace."

No one called a bluff on Romio, so it passed on to Shikamaru, who placed another three cards on the pile.

He looked at the other three and smiled.

Shikamaru: "Another three cards of ace."

Shun, Hachiman, and Romio frowned as they looked at the center pile, they were thinking of the risk of calling a bluff and picking up seven cards.

Hachiman closed his eyes and retreated.

Hachiman: "Pass."

Shun grumbled and also did the same.

Shun: "Pass."

Romio wanted to call a bluff, but he had just recently called a wrong bluff and had picked up cards, so he sighed and spoke.

Romio: "Pass."

Shikamaru nodded and put one last card in his hand on the pile.

Shikamaru: "Now, I don't have any more cards."

He looked at his friends and asked.

Shikamaru: "Does anyone want to call a bluff?"

All three of them looked at Shikamaru with gaping mouths.

Shun stared at the cards and thought.

Shun: 'When did he bluff?

The first time or the second time?

Is the last card a bluff as well?

Will he risk it all for one last card?'

Shun grabbed his head in confusion as he tried to think if he should call a bluff or let the pile exit the game.

Hachiman sighed as he glanced at Shikamaru.

Hachiman: "Playing these types of games against you is really tough."

Romio harumphed and boomed.

Romio: "This always happens, if we play something this, Shikamaru always ends up winning, if we play something outdoors, Shun comes out on top of everything we do.

We really need to find a game with balance."

Shikamaru shrugged and looked at Shun.

Shikamaru: "Shun, do you have this week's jump?

I want to read this week's Hunter x Hunter."

Shun nodded and stood up to go to his study table. He picked up this week's shonen jump and handed it to Shikamaru.

Romio also raised his hand and asked.

Romio: "Oh, lend that to me after reading it. I want to read this week's KochiKame."

Hachiman looked at the two, then at the cards, and asked.

Hachiman: "Eh, we aren't completing the game?"

Shun waved his hand for the negative.

Hachiman sighed. He cleaned up the cards from the table and packed them into the card case.

He looked at the bookshelf in Shun's room and turned to Shun.

Hachiman: "Shun, can I pick a book from your collection."

Shun raised his thumb to show his consent, he too pulled a book from his collection and started to read it.

In the end, Shun and his friends spent the rest of the time in Shun's room reading manga and light novels.

They ate Gyudon at lunch and went home.

When they left, Shun wondered.

Shun: "In the end, we ended up spent time in silence doing nothing."