My Scumbag System-Chapter 416: Truth or Dare

Akari’s idea of "we should all gather in your room" somehow became a reality despite my brain’s desperate attempts to plan an escape. Now my bedroom felt like a sardine can stuffed with beautiful women instead of fish—arguably better, but way more dangerous.

"So that’s everyone," Skylar announced, closing the door behind her with a soft click.

I sat on the edge of my bed, wearing nothing but grey basketball shorts and a white t-shirt. The AC in this place barely functioned on good days, and tonight wasn’t a good day. Already I could feel sweat forming at the back of my neck.

The women had clearly coordinated their psychological warfare. Each had shown up in something designed to make rational thought impossible.

Natalia wore a purple silk camisole that clung to her curves and matching shorts that made her legs look endless. Her hair was down, the white streaks catching the lamplight. The Cryo-Lich Ring glinted on her finger like a warning.

Skylar had gone with an oversized black t-shirt that fell off one shoulder, exposing a black bra strap. The shirt barely covered her ass, creating a constantly shifting question of whether she was wearing anything underneath. Her indigo hair was pulled back in a messy bun, leaving her face unframed.

Emi looked like she’d raided a cheerleader’s closet—tiny blue cotton shorts and a white tank top with some bubbly text I couldn’t focus enough to read. Her antennae hair things bounced with every movement, blue and perfect and so authentically Emi it hurt.

Celeste wore a pale blue nightdress that somehow managed to be both conservative and devastatingly sexy. The silky material caught the light, making her silver-white hair look like it was glowing. She sat with perfect posture, princess training evident even during a slumber party.

And Akari—Akari had decided subtlety was for cowards. Her black lace nightie thing left nothing to imagination, barely containing breasts that defied physics and logic. Her jet-black hair was loose around her shoulders, and she’d brought a bottle that definitely wasn’t hers.

"Look what I found in Carmen’s room," she sang, holding up a bottle of something amber.

"You stole our TA’s alcohol?" Celeste asked, her voice the verbal equivalent of raising an eyebrow.

"Borrowed." Akari grinned. "She won’t miss it. She has like twelve bottles hidden behind her romance novels."

Skylar pulled shot glasses from somewhere. "You came prepared."

"Obviously." Akari placed them on the floor in the center of the room where they’d created a rough circle with pillows. "Okay, rules are simple. Truth or dare. Choose truth, take a drink. Choose dare and chicken out, two drinks."

"What if we just want to drink?" Skylar asked.

"Then pick truth and lie badly," Akari replied. "Everyone gets one skip. Use it wisely."

I scanned the room, mentally calculating exit routes, probability of survival, and whether I could claim sudden projectile vomiting as a believable excuse.

Natalia caught my eye and something in her expression told me she knew exactly what I was thinking. Her lips quirked up slightly at the corners.

Impossible Mode suddenly felt a lot more impossible.

"I’ll go first," Akari announced, pouring amber liquid into the shot glasses. "Skylar, truth or dare?"

Skylar considered for half a second. "Truth."

"Boring." Akari pushed a shot glass toward her. "What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s happened during sex?"

"Bold of you to assume I’ve had embarrassing sex," Skylar replied, taking the shot with barely a flinch. "But fine. I once dated a guy who moaned his own name when he came."

The room erupted in laughter.

"’His own name?" Emi squeaked, her face already a deep, mortified pink as if she’d personally witnessed the crime. "Like, out loud? He actually said it out loud?"

"Loud and proud," Skylar confirmed, her tone as dry and flat as a runway. "’Oh, Marcus! Yes, Marcus!’" She delivered the impression with a kind of contemptuous precision, pitching her voice up just enough to be truly damning, her violet eyes rolling toward the ceiling in a long-suffering arc. "I was out of his apartment before he’d finished. Left my jacket behind. I don’t miss it."

The laughter that followed had an edge of horrified delight to it. Even I felt the ghost of a smirk pull at my mouth. That was genuinely, objectively terrible.

"Your turn," Akari prompted, still grinning, pointing a manicured finger at Skylar like a scepter.

Skylar let the amusement die on her face and those pale violet eyes swept the circle. They made one full rotation before settling, with a kind of deliberate weight, on Natalia.

"Truth or dare?"

Natalia met the question without blinking. "Dare," she said, the word dropping out of her like it was the only possible answer, like the alternative didn’t exist in her vocabulary.

Skylar’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes sharpened slightly, the way it does when someone produces exactly the response you were counting on. She tilted her head by a fraction of a degree.

"I dare you to let Satori draw something on your stomach with his finger."

She paused a beat, letting it land. "And you’re not allowed to look at what it is."

That was significantly more intimate than I had anticipated from round one of a game that was supposed to warm up gradually. Someone had decided to skip the warm-up entirely.

The room went a degree quieter. I could feel the attention shift, recalibrate, settle on the two of us like a physical weight. A few pairs of eyes moved between Natalia’s face and mine with the particular alertness of people who sensed the temperature had just changed.

Natalia held Skylar’s gaze for a moment—not the hesitant pause of someone considering backing down, but the brief, still pause of someone deciding that backing down isn’t remotely on the table. Then she reached down and lifted the hem of her camisole a few inches, exposing a clean strip of warm skin just below her ribs. She kept her chin up and her eyes deliberately averted, looking at a fixed point somewhere past Akari’s shoulder.

"Fine," she said, and the single syllable managed to sound both entirely unbothered and like a gauntlet thrown down simultaneously.

She moved in front of me and waited.

I kept my face neutral even as my heart rate doubled. The others watched with varying degrees of interest as I lightly traced my finger across the warm skin of Natalia’s stomach. I drew a small crown—seemed appropriate.

When I finished, Natalia lowered her top and resumed her spot in the circle. "Celeste, truth or dare?"

Celeste blinked, clearly caught off guard. "Truth."

Natalia pushed a shot glass toward her. "Have you ever thought about kissing someone in this room?"

The question hung heavy in the air. Celeste took the shot with graceful precision, barely wincing at what I knew was cheap whiskey.

"Yes," she finally said, her voice quiet but firm.

No one asked who. No one needed to. The Black Gate had aired our laundry pretty effectively.

Celeste cleared her throat. "Emi, truth or dare?"

"Umm... truth!" Emi looked nervous and excited simultaneously.

"What’s your biggest fantasy?" Celeste asked, her voice surprisingly direct.

Emi’s face went scarlet. She grabbed the shot glass and downed it quickly, coughing slightly. "I... um... I’ve always wanted to... you know, do it outside. Like, under the stars or something."

"Vanilla," Akari commented with a smirk.

"It’s romantic!" Emi protested.

"Your turn," Celeste reminded her gently.

Emi looked around, clearly searching for the safest person to ask. "Satori! Truth or dare?"

And here we go. My first challenge in Impossible Mode. Truth meant revealing something potentially dangerous. Dare meant doing something potentially dangerous.

"Truth," I decided. Best to start slow and see what waters we were treading into.

Emi looked relieved, then thoughtful. "Who was your first crush?"