And Leonhart wasn’t going to ask about it. They weren’t close, and it really wasn’t his business. For now, it was only something to note and move on from. If Noah wanted to talk about anything, he’d listen, but until then… he was just glad for the company. Although his classmates liked him well-enough, he hadn’t quite gotten into the swing of hanging out with any of them yet. This was nice.
“Oh, okay.” He thought for sure Mr. Kaiba would have wanted him studying more, yet this wasn’t an unreasonable thing either, was it? If nothing else, Leonhart hoped it meant that Noah had enough free time to – “play” sounded like a childish way to put it. Free time to have fun? Relax. He added playfully, “I’ll work hard for both of us, then.”
A nod, giving the pile a cursory glance. “You mentioned last time wanting to teach me? We could start with that.”
“Oh-alright!” Noah smiles, soft but genuine--the first one in a while. It was a happy association--rainy days when one couldn’t go outside were spent playing card games with his tutor or a nursery maid.
“So, it’s not very complicated,” Noah says as he grabs the regular deck and pulls it out of its sleeve, “in fact, if you like games like Duel Monsters, you might find it a little boring--but I’ve always found it an easy way to pass time without having to think about anything too hard.”
He removes the jokers and puts them aside. “We don’t need those for this game,” he explained, and began to shuffle. “So we break the deck evenly between us and take turns lying cards in a pile. What card you lay dictates how many cards the other players has to lay down next.”
He cuts the deck and starts dealing cards to both of them, one at a time. “If I lay a Jack, you lay one card. A Queen is two, a King is three, and an Ace is four. If you lay down the cards and don’t get another Face card, I get to pick up the deck. If you do, I have to start laying cards, and it goes back and forth till one of us picks up the stack. If we both lay number cards we just keep going until one of us gets a face.”
Done, he leans back, still smiling. “Whoever collects the entire deck in their hand wins! Did you catch all of that? And since I dealt, you get to lay the first card.”