*** Sorry for the late update. Can anyone find a loophole here? :o ***

Chapter 26: Loopholes

Since Piko hadn't left his seat even after Len had left to the other car, Mayu thought maybe Piko had something else in mind to say to her. She waited, whistled, and tapped her feet. After what felt like an hour of absolute silence for her (it was five minutes, really) she was the first to break the silence.

"Thanks for telling me your wonderful story!" Mayu gave him a wide smile. "I didn't get the chance to tell you my thanks earlier, right? Since I left as soon as your story ended. It was rude of me, huh?"

"I have a problem trusting you." He said out of the blue. It wasn't supposed to be a reply to her 'thanks', so that surprised her a little bit. "I just can't do it."

'So he'd spent an hour (it wasn't an hour) to pause and think about that? About what he wanted to say to me?'

"Yeah… I feel like a lot of people have that problem. Don't I look innocent enough? At first sight? No?" It wasn't her appearance, it was her behavior and she above anyone else should know that. "What, do you want me to convince you that you can indeed trust me? Oh, what about that trust exercise where you fall down and I try to catch you?"

"No." Mayu looked like that type of person who'd let him fall so she could laugh about it. He doubted he could do it even if they were 'friends'. "I want you to explain to me why you left the second I told you I've finished my story, screaming 'I need to tell him'. You… You said you don't want to be the first person to break the deal but the first thing you do is run up to him and 'tell' him about it? Do you want me to trust you or not?"

"Oh, that…" Mayu shrugged and laughed it off as if it wasn't that big of a deal. "Don't think about it too much, it's just a friendly joke. If I really want to tell him I wouldn't scream right in front of you, right? I mean, If I want to kill someone would I scream out 'I'm going to kill that person!' in front of a police? I guess I'd probably do it for the sake of seeing that police's shocked face."

"A… Joke?" He raised an eyebrow. In that car only Mayu laughed at it, it definitely wasn't something Piko could laugh about. Would she do something that 'thoughtless', even as a joke?

"I definitely got you that time, right?" She did, it looked like Piko could just kill her in the spot earlier. And Mayu thought it was hilarious and worth it. "Wait a minute… I'm starting to think that… Hey, are you sitting here with me 'cause you're afraid whenever that detective and I are together I might say something to him?"

"Don't make me repeat myself." He couldn't trust her. And even after hearing her explanation about the joke, it still wasn't enough. It actually made things even worse, really.

"Are you telling me you still don't believe me? Even though I've explained why I ran off like that?" It was a deja vu kind of feeling for Mayu. That's right… Earlier Len started off the conversation saying he couldn't trust her, and now Piko too had the same thing in mind. So great minds do think alike.

"Also, there's one other thing. I don't want you to twist my words and get around the deal, I want to close all the loopholes in it." He'd realized that Mayu could work out a way to tell 'someone' his story without breaking the deal; he wasn't specific enough. "And to close the loopholes, I'll be adding definitions and rules."

"I don't really mind as long as I get to add some stuff that benefits me as well." She already told a part of the story to 'someone' because of a loophole she found in the deal. Mayu wasn't planning to give the full story to Len, but with all the loopholes covered... She felt challenged. If Piko manages to cover all of them is there a way for her to go around it?

'Challenge accepted.' Mayu nodded to herself. 'I'm going to tell 'someone' no matter what. I'm going to make sure I could find more loopholes than him…'

"Our deal isn't going to change that much, think of it as an extension to what it already is. So first, let me repeat. Basically, our deal is a trade between you and me. Failure to keep part of the deal will result in death by the other party. I offered you a story in exchange for R-"

"Yaaawn I get this part already let's go to the loopholes!" Mayu was pumped up. She didn't want to contribute a lot to that loophole party, but she thought she should at least contribute one or two. "You need to define what you mean by a 'story'. Does it have to be your story in your own words? Can I tell a summary of the story? Can I just mention the characters in the story? Can I tell them in another language that isn't English?"

"Everything I told you from the beginning to the end isn't allowed. You're not allowed to tell anyone the plot, the characters, the summary, where it took place or when this took place." Mayu thought that should be it, but Piko was just getting started. "In a matter of who, you're not allowed to tell a single living person the story except me. And by 'tell' it doesn't have to come from your mouth. You're not allowed to illustrate it, write it, and then show it to anyone but me."

'…Damn that's actually pretty specific.' All the methods she'd previously thought of… No, it was too early to give in to the challenge. 'That's right… Thanks to that condition I have an idea…'

"No… Sorry, I wasn't being too specific about that rule. Even if you write the 'story' down, if someone accidentally reads it even though you've no intention of showing it then it'd still be your fault."

"How is it my fault?! He invaded my privacy by reading something I wrote, shouldn't you kill him instead?" That was the small idea Mayu had in mind. To write the story and let 'someone' read it… It shouldn't be her fault, technically.

"No, it's a story that only you and I should know. If you write it down the risk of it being found out exists. Do you understand? It means you're responsible for it. This doesn't just apply to writing the story down. As I said earlier, illustrating it earlier's no good as well, telling the story aloud to yourself and having someone eavesdroop is the same thing."

"You know, you're actually pretty smart for a 'baker', huh… You should've chosen the life of a detective like-" Mayu didn't notice it before until just then but… She looked back and realized that every time she'd said the word 'detective' Piko would just twitch or glare at her. Or both.

So much for a poker face.

"There's still some more to cover." Some more? Mayu repeated on her head. "Now it's a matter of how long we should keep our deal. So, I thought… If one of us were to die, what do you think will happen to our deal?"

"Huh… Well, since it's our deal no one can stop the other party from breaking it. No one knows about it but us. I guess that means…" That problem was something she could take advantage of. "If one of us were to die our deal'll be off."

"So that's the time limit; until one of us dies the deal will still be standing. Let's move on to another problem. You didn't let me finish it earlier but, not only will I kill you for breaking our deal, but I'll kill the person you told the story to as well. No… Actually, I'll be the judge of that. It's not really a problem but, I just want to clear th-"

"Wait a minute. Don't you think that's a bit unfair? That you'll be the judge of it? What gives you the right? I mean, I know it's your part of the deal..." The more they discussed the more it felt like everything was going in Piko's favor and Mayu didn't like that one bit. Well that should be obvious since he was the one who proposed the ideas himself. He wouldn't say a word (literally) about them if it doesn't benefit him, that should be obvious.

'I've been so obsessed on trying to figure out how to get around our deal that…' Mayu crossed her arms. 'Huh, I should try and figure out to cover some of my loopholes for myself that I could benefit from too.'

"It doesn't matter. Before I kill that person, I'm going to kill you first. It doesn't matter what happens next, right? Yes, I get to choose the order on who to kill." Because she'd be dead. Whatever happens after she dies shouldn't be Mayu's problem. "There's one last difficult problem for me and that's… How can the two of us find out that the other party had broken the deal?"

"Shouldn't we just be honest with each other?" Piko didn't respond to that because that statement was too stupid to be taken serious for. So he kept thinking for a way to get it… "Honestly… I don't think you care about who I tell the story to as long as it isn't the characters who were involved in it. It doesn't affect anyone but them! Am I right?"

"The characters who're involved, friends, relatives, or people who knows said characters as well. What's your point?"

"My point being, if I tell those characters the story it'll give a bigger impact to them and you'll notice something different about their behavior. I'm saying they won't be the same person they were before I told them the story. In other words, you'll be able to see the difference, right? And of course, they're going to ask questions."

"In that scenario, you can ask them to stay quiet and act as if nothing had happened." It was a dead end. After all of the previous loopholes he couldn't figure out how to figure out who'd broken the deal. Other than, well, trust. Though if he really does trust her, he knew he shouldn't have a problem with her breaking the deal.

"Then… Why don't we invite a third party in to our deal? That person can follow me all day and make sure I don't break any of the rules." Mayu regretted the words which came from her mouth that second. She wanted to take it back. To have someone follow her 24/7 until she dies? She should've given it more thought.

'Come on, have pity on me…' In their deal, there was no way Piko could break it. The only way he could break the deal is if she were to find out that the story he told was a lie, so no one needs to watch over him. Piko kept talking as if it's possible for him to break the deal, but the more likely one to break it was her.

"A third party huh…" In his opinion there was nothing wrong with that, but somehow Piko thought it wouldn't be all that effective. The third party can't possibly follow them forever. And ever, and ever until one of them dies.

'…Until one of us dies.' He scratched the back of his head. From time to time he'd tell himself that he's a perfectionist, and that everything had to go as planned or else he'd lose it. He'd used that side of him to cover all the loopholes he can think of, and so far he'd closed some but… He couldn't find a solution to that one major problem.

Piko looked at Mayu, who was thinking just as hard as he was. He finally knew what her thinking face looks like. It wasn't her usual carefree face, she wore a dead serious expression and it didn't fit her 'carefree' attitude from earlier at all.

The truth was, there really was one easy solution. Piko wished from the bottom of his heart that Mayu didn't have the same idea in mind.

"You know what?" Forget about it. We don't have any other choice but to trust each other after all." He heaved a heavy sigh, and Mayu snapped out of her momentary dead serious face. "Just forget it."

"Oh, what's with that suspicious, sudden change of heart?"

"I just have to trust you now. Do you have a problem with that?" Mayu clicked her tongue, frustrated at that.

She didn't like it. He was hiding something from her, and whatever that was, it could be used against her in that problem. It's a big deal after all, how can Piko figure out whether she'd broken the deal or not? There's no way he would just shrug the problem off. The fact that he was closing the discussion… Meant he knew how. And she couldn't come up with anything.

"I'm done from now, do you want to add anything else? You haven't added anything to your part of the deal."

"Uhm… No I'm good for now. I just need to think some things over. It won't take that long, I know I'll figure something out somehow-" She had to think a lot of things over.

"Until then I'll be in the other car if you need me." Piko stood up from his seat and pointed at the door.

"Eh? You don't mean the detective's car?" She saw it again, that brief twitch. "Okay, okay, see you later…"

After Piko left, Mayu left out a sigh of relief. If he had asked 'have you broken the deal using one of those loopholes' everything would be ruined. It's because he wasn't specific enough at first, that she was able to take advantage of the loophole. Technically, since she used the loophole before that discussion, she should be safe. But then it'd be obvious who she'd told the 'story' to.

'And then he'd twitch uncontrollably and explode.' Which would be hilarious, unfortunately, it was too early for that. 'So anyway on to the loophole… How can I make it so that I could tell that detective the story without breaking the deal?'

Piko slid open the door and found Len sitting at the furthest seat of the car. It looked like he knew he had entered the car, however Len's gaze was still fixed on the window, as if ignoring his presence. He closed the door and quickly walked over to his seat.

"You want to kill Mayu, right?" He asked as he sat down next to him. Len's jaw dropped a little in reply to that. No hello or excuse me, out of the blue that came up, really? "I don't want to waste all my time on formalities, so I'll get straight to the point, do you have a problem with that?"

"…Sure, sure, forget about the formalities." It wasn't supposed to have a sarcastic tone in it, but it came out all so naturally. He'd been thinking on how to get rid of her the entire time and that guy suddenly came up to him and asked him that question? Len wasn't really sure how to respond properly. "Yes, I want her dead. So what?"

"I need to kill her soon, two is better than one so if you need any help I'm ready for any plan you have in mind." The person they both wanted to kill was in another car, but he took it so lightly. Len understood that there was no way Mayu could hear their conversation, it just bothered him a little on how upfront Piko was being. "Don't ask why."

"It's so you can end the deal with her, am I wrong?" After Mayu's joke earlier, saying he could threaten him all day, Len figured it was something like that. He wasn't even sure what the deal was and how it works, but the easy way out of the deal would be just that.

"You're right. I'm guessing since she'd managed to stay alive this far normal methods wouldn't work." Len wasn't sure what he meant by 'normal', but he took it as something similar to a frontal attack.

"I'm not even sure a trap would work on her. She may not look like it but her reflexes are pretty good." And he spoke from experience. "I know this sounds a bit sudden, but I really don't trust you."

"I don't trust you at all either. There's still a chance you two are working together against me, but you don't hear me complaining." Piko replied without a second thought. "Two heads is better than one."

"Huh. We don't even know where we're going." He wanted to say that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' though in truth it could actually work both ways on Piko and Mayu. "It's not like we can kill her right now."

"You've known her for a while, what's keeping you from killing her?" In Len's ear he took it as an insult. Why haven't you killed her yet? He didn't like the sound of it. Of course, he wanted to kill her since day one, so then… Really, what's keeping him from doing it? "I'm going to kill her by today, what about you?"

"If you want to be reckless, leave me out of it."

"Are you afraid?" The only time Piko could smile was if he could mock Len apparently. He was seconds away from laughing at him. "You do want to kill her, right?"

"Do you think it's going to be that easy? How are you going to do it? Where are you going to dump the murder weapon?" It clearly wasn't worth it to go to prison again. Especially if they had to go together. "Listen, we can't think of a way to kill her unless we know where we're going. I can't think of a way to kill her in this train, if you have any ideas then by all means, please do share."

"There's ought to be a tool box in the engineer's room, that could work as the murder weapon. Or... Drown her in the water tank. Burn her along with the coals. Throw her off the trai-"

"You don't know how a train works, do you?" Len cut him off. "If you're really that desperate, you shouldn't have made the deal in the first place."

"It's been done, I can't undo it."

"Was it really that worth it? Now you need to kill someone because you're chained to this deal." Either way he'd probably kill her with or without the deal; though he wouldn't be as desperate as he was then. He'd give pity to him if Len wanted to, but he chose not to.

"That's none of your business."

"You offered a story to her, right? What did you get in return?"

"Shut up."

'… Does she seriously want me to befriend this guy?' Mayu had told her that he should befriend him. Somehow. It's true that he had information that he needed, still… He was just too difficult to work with. And more importantly Len wasn't a people's person. That guy wasn't a people's person. 'I should just ignore him for now.'

"In return…" Piko mumbled. "…Never mind."

"I won't ask you what the deal is, relax."

"Whatever."

As much as Len wanted to punch him on the face, he couldn't do it at the moment. It's because somehow they were allies (and also that'd just be rude). It wasn't something they agreed upon, but he can't say no to a helping hand. Even though Mayu said earlier that it was going to be a long ride, his gut was telling him they were going to reach their destination soon somehow.

Time would fly a little faster in the train if you're planning a murder with the passenger sitting next to you.

***Beta note*** : Mayu to a random person : Nee, shitteru? Piko wa nee~ Shitteru wa yo~ anoko no kako no koto! Eee? Maji datte baa~

Piko : What the hell are you saying?

Mayu : Just felt like saying it~

A while later when Piko has gone away…

..

.

Random person : Anoko tte dare? Piko wa saki no otoko desho?

Mayu : Hehehe~ shiritai? Sore wa nee...