pairing: BaekChenLay
length: 5393 words
A/N: Yes, I'm back with some more Among Us! Once again, this is a disclaimer stating that these are NOT "big brain" strats. My brain is too small and smooth to do that. :') Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
Part One: Among Us
Part Three: Among Us - Town of Us

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“Does everyone have the new mods downloaded?” Baekhyun asked once the entire group was in the voice channel of their Discord gaming server.

“Yeah, but I still have no idea what any of these special roles are,” Jongin said as they all joined the private lobby that Yixing made.

“We’re playing on Polus, right?” Kyungsoo double-checked as his white avatar, known as Egg, chased Chanyeol’s orange avatar, known as Cereal, around the room.

“Uh-huh,” Yixing, or the red character called Potato, confirmed. “Unless you guys wanna play on Mira HQ instead?”

“Nope!” Minseok hastily answered. His green avatar, known as Donut, wiggled vigorously in the middle of the room as he continued, “Being Impostor there ! The map is way too small and everyone groups up all of the time.”

“Maybe you just as Impostor,” Sehun, or Cheese, teased as his yellow avatar tauntingly circled around Minseok’s.

Jongdae, or the blue character known as Bread, and Jongin, or the brown character known as Sausage, snickered as they joined Sehun in dancing around Minseok’s avatar.

“The new mods could probably spice up gameplay on Mira though,” Yixing thoughtfully pointed out. “Should we change maps and try?”

“Nah, we’re already on Polus. If anything, we can switch maps later after we’ve gotten used to the mods,” Kyungsoo suggested.

“Wait, before we get started, can you explain the new roles to us, Baekhyun?” Junmyeon, or the purple avatar called Muffin, asked.

“Yup! Okay, so first, we have the Jester,” Baekhyun began as he stopped moving his black character, known as Bacon, near the top of the lobby room. “The Jester is a neutral role—meaning he doesn’t win with Crewmates or Impostors, since he has his own win conditions—and his goal is to get voted out. He doesn’t have any tasks to complete and basically tries to make himself seem like an Impostor.

“Next, we have the Sheriff. The Sheriff is on the Crewmates’ side and he has the power to kill the Impostors. But if he shoots incorrectly, he also dies with the Crewmate that he accidentally killed.

“Then we have the Detective. The Detective is on the Crewmates’ side and he can inspect dead bodies for clues to pinpoint who the Impostors are.

“We also have the Snitch. The Snitch is on the Crewmates’ side and he finds out who the Impostors are once he finishes all of his tasks. But when he only has one task left, the Impostors find out who the Snitch is, which makes him an easier target to kill.

“There’s also the Guardian. The Guardian is on the Crewmates’ side and he can protect one person per round. If the Impostors try to kill that player, a gong will sound across the map so that everyone knows an Impostor failed to murder someone.

“As for the Impostors’ side, we have the Morphling. The Morphling is a type of Impostor and he can sample DNA from any player. Once his Morph countdown is up, he can transform into that player for a brief period of time and kill others, which will confuse the Crewmates. But he can’t vent, so it’s more difficult to run away or get around the map.

“There’s also one last mod that isn’t a new role,” Baekhyun continued. “We now have a different type of Comms Sabotage called Colorblind Communications. So when you sabotage Comms, in addition to the usual abilities being disabled, everyone turns gray and loses their name so that it’s a bunch of anonymous gray beans running around the map. Since Comms Sabotage is the one that always gets ignored—”

“Literally the most useless Sabotage in the game,” Sehun quipped, causing everyone else to laugh in agreement.

“—this mod makes it more interesting to use and gives more options to the Impostors to get away with kills,” Baekhyun smoothly finished. “Any questions?”

“Nah, let’s just start playing!” Chanyeol answered.

“We can figure it out as we go,” Jongdae piped up.

“Okay, I’m starting!” Yixing said as a countdown began on Baekhyun’s screen.

“And don’t forget to mute your mics,” Kyungsoo reminded them all just before their roles were revealed.

The top of Baekhyun’s screen read Snitch in orange and right underneath was the phrase, “There are 2 Impostors among us.” Baekhyun grinned widely and as soon as they all landed in the Dropship, he glanced to the left for his long list of tasks. As long as he took a safe path around the map and stayed near people, there was a lower chance of him getting killed.

With an optimized route in mind, Bacon first ran to the top right corner of the Dropship to complete his first common task, which was to insert keys. His key fit the second slot from the top in the left column, meaning he had been the second player to join the lobby after Yixing had set it up earlier. He then moved to the top left corner of the room to chart the spaceship’s course.

By the time he finished, around half of the group had already left the Dropship, so Bacon quickly made his way to what they dubbed “No Man’s Land” due to how isolated it was. Crewmates had died in the barren spot underneath the fence surrounding the Electrical room many times, but Bacon had no intention of being one of them this round.

Luckily, the Impostors’ Kill Cooldown likely wasn’t up yet, since it was still early in the game. So Bacon decided that it was safe enough for him to stay in a risky spot for a bit to finish the first stage of fixing the weather node. Once he successfully navigated through the maze, he scurried down to the bottom left to enter the O2 room, where Egg looked like he was emptying the garbage.

However, just as Bacon was about to start filling his two canisters, the lights dimmed and his vision drastically decreased. He briefly wondered if he should go to the Electrical room to fix the lights, since it was nearby, but ultimately decided that it was safer to quickly finish his tasks and leave before any Impostors could find and kill him.

Although it was still dark when he headed north to monitor the tree in the O2 room, the lights were eventually fixed by the time Bacon adjusted all four levels and headed out. Egg had already disappeared by this point, most likely having gone to either fix the lights in the Electrical room or complete another task elsewhere.

On his way to the Admin room to briefly check everyone’s current locations, red splashed across his screen with an image of the fallen yellow character and the words, “Dead body reported,” directly underneath.

Everyone was transported to the Office to begin the Emergency Meeting. The Megaphone, indicating who had reported the body, was next to Cereal’s name and icon. But what was most surprising was the vast number of people who had been killed in the first round. On the screen, Potato and Sausage were grayed out alongside Cheese.

“I did it!” Chanyeol shrieked as soon as the remaining six were no longer muted. “I killed an Impostor!”

“Who?” Jongdae asked, excitement also tingeing his tone.

“It was Cheese! I saw him running away, probably from one of the dead bodies, but he looked like me so he must’ve been the Morphling! And since I’m the Sheriff, I chased him down and killed him!” Chanyeol gleefully answered.

“Wait, how do we know you’re not an Impostor trying to pass this off as a Sheriff kill?” Kyungsoo asked suspiciously.

“Good point,” Junmyeon agreed.

“Why? Are either of you the other Impostor?” Chanyeol accused back. “Scared that I’ll come after you next?”

“To be fair,” Jongdae quickly interjected, “it’s a possible scenario that we shouldn’t rule out. But I’m inclined to believe that Cereal is the Sheriff, since there’re so many kills and I don’t know if enough time has passed for two rounds of kills from the Impostors.”

“Who fixed lights?” Baekhyun asked in an attempt to gather some information before time ran out.

“I did,” Kyungsoo said. “I saw Bread there once I fixed them and we were both on our way to Lab when the body was reported.”

“So no one knows where Potato or Sausage’s bodies are?” Baekhyun asked.

“Well, if we believe Cereal’s story, then Sausage must’ve died recently,” Junmyeon deduced. “Probably within the last five seconds.”

“I was trying to find Potato’s body so I could inspect it, since I saw him dead on Vitals, but I have no idea where it is,” Minseok lamented. “It must be hidden somewhere. Maybe he died in Specimen?”

“Wait, where did you catch Cheese?” Kyungsoo asked Chanyeol.

“Just outside of Storage,” Chanyeol replied. “I’m assuming that Sausage’s body is in there, but I didn’t check. I just saw another me and knew it was the Morphling, so I spammed Kill and shot him.”

“You should go for a second shot then,” Jongdae cheerfully suggested. “How cool would that be if you got both Impostors in our first game?”

“But we still don’t know if he’s telling the truth,” Kyungsoo argued. “What if we get double-killed right after this meeting?”

“I still think we can let Cereal have a second shot,” Jongdae answered. “If he kills someone without dying and the game doesn’t end, we can just report the body and vote him out. The other Impostor just has to agree not to kill while he takes his second shot.”

“I’m okay with this,” Junmyeon said.

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow at Junmyeon’s agreement, seeing as how he had also doubted Chanyeol’s claim earlier, but ultimately decided not to point it out as he and Minseok also voiced their agreement. Meanwhile, Kyungsoo grumbled that they were all too trusting as he also cast his vote.

As promised, all six of them skipped the voting phase and the Emergency Meeting ended.

All of their characters began running around Cereal, who wiggled back and forth between them, as if he were trying to decide who to shoot. Bacon did his best to stay on the other side of the meeting room table, since he still had several tasks to finish as the Snitch.

However, he was still close enough to witness both Cereal and Egg’s bodies get sliced in half without preamble, allowing him to click the Report button that appeared a millisecond after.

Jongdae’s high-pitched laughter pealed through the air the moment the Emergency Meeting started. “Oh my god,” he guffawed, “Egg absolutely deserved that for throwing so much sus on Cereal.”

Kyungsoo briefly un-muted his microphone to throw a string of curse words at Jongdae, causing everyone else to burst out laughing.

“Should we just skip again, since we don’t have any other information and we’re on four?” Minseok suggested once their giggles subsided.

“We also don’t want to accidentally vote out the Jester if he’s still alive,” Junmyeon reminded them.

“Yeah, I’m skipping,” Baekhyun decided, casting his vote first. The others quickly followed and the voting phase ended prematurely.

With only a few tasks left, Bacon made a beeline for the right side of the Office to quickly scan his boarding pass, which was his second common task. The other three followed him before they all dispersed in different directions. Bacon headed outside to the lava pit and recorded the temperature before heading north to the Laboratory. His heartbeat quickened considerably with only two tasks left to complete.

Donut looked like he was recording the temperature in the Laboratory when he arrived. Bacon made his way to the telescope at the top and quickly aligned the machinery by finding a gas giant in space. With that, he only had one task remaining, which meant the Impostor knew Bacon was the Snitch. He dashed to the weather node and flicked the switch for Node_TB. Once it was marked complete, a giant red arrow appeared on the left side of his screen.

Bacon cautiously stepped out of the laboratory to follow the direction that the arrow was pointing. However, it soon began moving towards him, signifying that the Impostor was in hot pursuit. Catching the faintest glimpse of a blue body, Bacon sprinted down to the Office and smashed his hand on the Emergency Button.

“Oh my god, I made it!” Baekhyun panted, even though it was only his in-game character that had run as fast as he could to stay alive. “I know who the Impostor is!”

“How?” Minseok and Junmyeon simultaneously asked.

“I’m the Snitch!” Baekhyun announced. “I just finished my last task and there’s a giant red arrow pointing at the Impostor!”

“So who is it then?” Jongdae asked, causing Baekhyun to snort loudly.

“It’s you, Bread!” Baekhyun accused. “Don’t act like you didn’t just chase me around the Office to try and kill me before I got to the button!”

“And I would’ve gotten you in the next second! My Kill Cooldown literally just finished right before you got to the button!” Jongdae whined as Baekhyun cast his vote. “I was trying to find you when I found out you were the Snitch, but I was on the left side of the map and you were on the right side.”

“Well, to !” Baekhyun sang as the others cast their votes as well. With that, the voting phase ended and the results showed that everyone, including Jongdae, had voted for Bread. One moment later, the phrase, “Bread was ejected,” appeared on the screen with the blue avatar plopping into a pool of bubbling lava.

Seconds later, all of the crewmates were shown with Victory overhead in blue.

“I can’t believe you actually managed to finish all of your tasks,” Jongdae complained as they were transported back to the lobby room.

“What can I say? I’m a master at speed runs,” Baekhyun smugly replied.

“I should’ve killed you instead of Yixing when I had the chance,” Jongdae griped, profusely ignoring Baekhyun’s snickers. “Wait, Yixing, did you have a special role?”

“Nope, I was just a plain ole Crewmate,” Yixing replied.

“At least you didn’t get shot for some dumb reason,” Kyungsoo said as his avatar menacingly chased Chanyeol’s around the room. “If I’m Impostor next round, you two are dying first!”

Luckily, Yixing manage to start the next game before Kyungsoo could further unleash his rage upon Jongdae and Chanyeol. This time, Baekhyun’s screen read Morphling in red and showcased his avatar next to Sausage, causing him to whoop loudly. Playing as an Impostor was always more interesting than playing as an Crewmate and to have the Morphling’s special abilities during this game was the cherry on top.

Seeing everyone pile up at the top right corner of the Dropship again, Bacon quickly followed suit and faked inserting his key. He also discreetly collected a Sample of Muffin’s DNA while they were all grouped up. He then walked out of the Dropship and headed to the Weapons room to pretend that he was clearing asteroids while he waited for his Kill Cooldown timer to tick down to zero.

As he walked out of the Weapons room, Bacon clicked the highlighted Morph button and transformed into Muffin. He walked into the Office and saw Cheese checking the Admin table for everyone’s locations. However, as soon as Bacon clicked the Kill button, a gong sounded and Baekhyun yelped as he scrambled to navigate his avatar out of the way before Cheese could chase him.

Luckily, at that moment, the Communications were sabotaged and Bacon’s character faded to gray. He ran a lap around the left side of the map before joining a cluster of gray avatars outside of the Communications room. Once the sabotage was fixed, an alarm rang and an image of the yellow character pressing the red Emergency Button appeared with the words, “Emergency Meeting,” directly underneath.

“Muffin tried to kill me!” Sehun immediately screeched.

“What?!” Junmyeon screeched back. “No, I didn’t!”

“I saw you right behind me when I was at Admin! A second person appeared, so I got off Admin table to see who it was and I saw you! And then the gong sounded, which meant you tried to kill me!” Sehun vehemently accused. “You even ran away right after!”

“Did not! I was at the lava pit, minding my own business!” Junmyeon shot back.

“You guys all heard the gong, right? I wasn’t the only one who heard it?” Sehun asked, his voice tinged with desperation.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know what it was, so I ignored it,” Chanyeol admitted with a laugh. “And then Comms got sabotaged, so I ran over there to fix them.”

“I saw Cereal, Bread, and Donut with me at Comms,” Baekhyun reported, which the other three duly confirmed.

“I’m pretty sure Cheese is telling the truth, because I’m the Guardian and I protected him at the beginning of the round,” Kyungsoo mildly revealed.

“Oh my god, yes! Thank you! See?! Muffin must be the Impostor!” Sehun insisted.

“No, no, no, no, you’re making a mistake! It’s not me!” Junmyeon spluttered, the volume of his voice drastically increasing the longer he spoke. “Besides, I saw Sausage vent above Security! He’s one of the Impostors, not me!”

“Are you kidding?! You’re trying to pin this on me, even though Cheese saw you and we all heard the gong?” Jongin replied in exasperation. “I was on the cameras for most of the round, until the sabotage was called, and I saw you run away from Admin!”

“It’s Muffin! Vote for Muffin!” Sehun yelled as he cast his vote.

“No, it’s not me! It’s Sausage! Vote for Sausage!” Junmyeon yelled back.

Baekhyun grinned to himself as he listened to the chaos unfold and he clicked on Junmyeon’s character panel. All according to plan.

After the voting phase ended, the results were shown. Baekhyun, Yixing, Jongdae, Kyungsoo, Sehun, and Jongin all voted for Muffin. Junmyeon was the only one who voted for Sausage. Meanwhile, Minseok opted to skip voting.

“You guys are the worst!” Junmyeon shouted as the phrase, “Muffin was ejected,” appeared on screen with the purple avatar plopping into a pool of bubbling lava.

“Wait, Minseok, why did you skip?” Yixing asked,

“I wanna try shooting one of you instead,” Minseok nonchalantly answered. Which meant he was the Sheriff.

With that knowledge in mind, Bacon chose his next target. However, he needed to make some preparations first. As funny as it would be to transform into Donut and kill him in that form, Bacon knew that the Sheriff would likely spam the Kill button to protect himself from the doppelganger, which wouldn’t end well for the Morphling.

So he took a Sample of Egg’s DNA instead and pretended to repair the drill at the left end of the Laboratory. He then spotted Donut walking through the building and entering the top Decontamination chamber. After silently counting a handful of seconds, Bacon followed the path through the Laboratory and into the Decontamination chamber. As vapor filled the room, Bacon morphed into Egg and then made his way down to the Specimen room. Donut looked like he was starting the reactor, which meant that his screen was likely blocked by his task. Without hesitation, Bacon lopped off his head and ran to the bottom Decontamination chamber.

Just as some vapor filled the room, red splashed across his screen with an image of the fallen yellow character and the words, “Dead body reported,” directly underneath. The Megaphone was next to Egg’s name and icon, and both Donut and Cheese were newly grayed out on the screen.

“Where’s the body?” Baekhyun asked once the Emergency Meeting started.

“I found it in Security,” Kyungsoo explained. “I saw the cameras on again, so I wanted to see who was there, but Cheese’s dead body was the only thing there. The Impostor must’ve vented out after killing him.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t a Sheriff kill then? Donut is also dead and he said he wanted to shoot someone this round, so I was thinking he might’ve shot incorrectly,” Jongdae mused.

“No, I only saw one dead body, unless both were stacked perfectly on each other,” Kyungsoo replied. “And I don’t think Donut would’ve tried to shoot Cheese. We all believed him last round and pushed out Muffin.”

“Does anyone have any other information then?” Jongin asked. “I have no idea who to sus, based on that alone. I didn’t really see anyone this round.”

“Same, I was doing my tasks alone,” Baekhyun piped up.

“Well, since we’re on five, we can take a free shot and vote someone out,” Yixing reminded them. “Should we all just vote who we think it is and see what happens?”

“Nah, we can just focus on completing tasks, since we already got one Impostor out,” Baekhyun smoothly lied. “Otherwise, the remaining Impostor is going to try to use this opportunity to get a free kill.” It was too risky to blindly vote, especially when he and Sausage only needed one more kill to win. If either of them were accidentally killed now, it would make winning unnecessarily more difficult.

Seeing that his logic seemed sound, the rest of them voiced their agreement and promptly skipped the voting phase.

Baekhyun then cackled loudly as he waited ten seconds before sabotaging the Seismic Stabilizers. This left the Crewmates unable to call an Emergency Meeting. Since there was no need to hide his allegiance any longer, Bacon boldly took a Sample of Bread’s DNA and morphed right in front of him. Bread ran away from the Office as fast as he could, heading towards the right Seismic Stabilizer.

But it was too late.

With a mighty slice, Bacon severed the blue body in half for the win.

“Let’s go!” Baekhyun cheered as the screen changed to show the Impostors with Victory overhead in blue. “Morphling rules!”

“I hate you all,” Junmyeon said while the other Crewmates groaned, still miffed from being unfairly accused due to Baekhyun’s transformation.

“I didn’t think we’d actually pull it off,” Jongin said with a laugh. “Nice job, Baekhyun!”

“I’m never letting myself get swayed to not vote if there’s a chance at a free shot,” Yixing sighed. “I was even going to vote off Jongin, since I felt bad for piling on Junmyeon earlier.”

“As you all should!” Junmyeon staunchly said. “I saw him vent with my own two eyes and you voted me off instead!”

Both Baekhyun and Jongin snickered. “I couldn’t take that chance, especially since I knew that Jongin had some sus on him because of Junmyeon’s accusation,” Baekhyun explained.

“Good job, even though Crewmates lost,” Jongdae cheerfully said. “Shall we start the next game?”

Yixing hummed in confirmation and the five-second countdown began.

Moments later, Baekhyun’s screen read Jester in pink and he pumped his fists in the air as they all landed in the Dropship soon after. Even though he knew it was much more difficult to win as the Jester, he was feeling the euphoria from winning his previous Impostor game. Now, it was more important than ever for him to survive and participate in each Emergency Meeting.

Deciding that there was no point in him pretending to insert his keys with everyone else at the top right corner of the Dropship, since he wanted to look a bit suspicious, Bacon walked outside and contemplated where he should hide. He ambled to the top left corner of the map and climbed up the staircase to the top of the Seismic Stabilizer. People rarely ever went there, especially at the beginning, since there were no tasks. And it was too early in the game for the Impostors to sabotage the Seismic Stabilizers, so Bacon was confident that he’d be safe for now.

He didn’t know how long he stood behind the left Seismic Stabilizer, completely alone without seeing a single soul pass by, when red splashed across his screen with an image of the fallen purple character and the words, “Dead body reported,” directly underneath. The Megaphone was next to Donut’s name and icon, and both Cereal and Muffin were grayed out on the screen.

“Hold up, I’m very confused about something,” Minseok began once the Emergency Meeting was underway. “Potato, where were you about five seconds ago?”

There was a short pause before Yixing answered, “I was in O2 filling my canisters. Why?”

“Then how did I see you near the weather node by the right Seismic Stabilizer?” Minseok asked.

“It must’ve been the Morphling, which means Potato is safe,” Baekhyun deduced with a grin.

“Wait, why is he safe?” Sehun asked.

“I don’t think you can transform into the other Impostor as the Morphling,” Baekhyun explained, referring to the previous game. “I wasn’t able to.” His devilish grin widened as he purposely tossed out unverified information. He hadn’t actually attempted to sample Sausage’s DNA when they had both been Impostors, but at least this narrowed down the possible suspects for the Impostors, regardless if Potato was innocent or guilty.

“I was also with Potato in Weapons earlier and he didn’t kill me, so I think he’s safe,” Kyungsoo supplied. “I remember seeing him go to the left when we were done clearing asteroids, so his story lines up.”

“Why does everyone keep morphing into me?!” Yixing complained. “I keep getting used as a cover-up for the real Impostors!”

“Where was everyone else then?” Minseok asked, still not fully convinced of Potato’s alleged innocence.

“I was fixing wires in Office,” Jongdae reported. “I think I saw Cheese checking Vitals too.”

“Yeah, I was on Vitals for a while,” Sehun confirmed. “Cereal’s been dead for awhile now and Muffin just died. I was going to press the button, since I didn’t want to waste time looking for bodies while the Impostors’ Kill Countdown refreshed.”

“Does anyone know where Cereal’s body is?” Jongin asked. “Or has anyone seen him?”

“Nope, I haven’t seen anyone the entire time,” Baekhyun answered, briefly muting his microphone to let out a short giggle.

“Should we just skip then, since we’re on seven?” Jongin suggested after everyone else chimed in that they hadn’t seen Cereal since the beginning at the Dropship.

With no other information to parse through, they all agreed to skip the voting phase and the next round began.

Once again, Bacon decided to hide behind the left Seismic Stabilizer to prevent any of the Impostors from finding him and killing him. He stood there for about twenty seconds, patiently waiting out the round, before slowly stepping out and going down the metal staircase. Although it was risky, especially if the two Impostors were traveling together, he needed to find a dead body and position himself near it so that it looked like he was responsible for murdering another Crewmate.

As he was passing by one of the fuel engines near the Dropship, his name suddenly disappeared and his body color faded to gray. He quickly dashed down to Storage and was able to witness the untimely death of a Crewmate. The perpetrator quickly fled the scene and Bacon began running after him.

He chased the anonymous Impostor for a considerable distance before returning to the decapitated brown body sitting outside of the Storage room and deftly positioning himself on top of Sausage’s bony remains. A second later, Donut appeared and Baekhyun grinned widely when the green character reported the dead body. Cheese was also newly grayed out on the screen next to Sausage.

“Uh, Bacon is just standing on Sausage’s dead body…” Minseok slowly explained once the meeting started.

“No, no, I just got there and I was about to report the body, but you somehow clicked faster than I could,” Baekhyun hastily fibbed. If he didn’t approach this situation with subtlety, the others would easily identify him as the Jester and save him to be killed in a future round. Or worse, they’d vote off a Crewmate and the game would end in the Impostors’ favor.

“Okay… Where did you come from then? And who fixed Comms?” Minseok asked, his voice still heavily laced with hesitance.

“I was fueling the engines near the Dropship, which is why I was near Storage in the first place,” Baekhyun answered. “And then the Comms were sabotaged, so I was going to fix it. But then I saw the body flop over and I walked over to report it since I wasn’t getting a Report button for some reason.”

“Wait, so this body was killed after Comms got sabotaged?” Jongdae asked.

“Yeah, like a few seconds after, so I didn’t get to see who killed Cheese,” Baekhyun said. “Where were you guys just now?”

“Bread and I were in Specimen,” Yixing replied, followed immediately by a glib affirmative from Jongdae.

“I just finished my data upload in Communications before going outside to fix the sabotage,” Minseok said.

“And I was recording the temperature near the lava pit,” Kyungsoo added. “So that leaves Bacon and Donut near the body when it was killed.”

“Well, I trust Donut since he reported on five and saved the game. An Impostor would just camp the body and go for another kill,” Jongdae declared. “So for me, that leaves Bacon or Egg as the most likely Impostor candidates.”

“Or maybe they’re both the Impostors,” Yixing suggested.

“Then who should we vote out?” Jongdae asked curiously. “We need to coordinate, since there aren’t many of us left.”

“I’m not sure…” There was a long pause before Minseok slowly continued, “I’m still really confused as to why Bacon didn’t report the body, even though he got there before I did, and why he didn’t clearly see the kill happen since he was near the area doing tasks.”

“It’s because of the Comms Sabotage!” Baekhyun reiterated. “I panicked when I saw myself turn gray and I couldn’t see who the Impostor was.”

“But you know these new mods the best out of all of us,” Yixing pointed out. “You’re the last person who would freak out over a new sabotage.”

“This is my first time fully playing with this mod pack. It’s different when you actually play it in person as opposed to seeing someone else play it online,” Baekhyun said, allowing himself to sound a bit more defensive than he usually would. “That’s like saying you’ll be good at singing just because you watch a bunch of videos of singers.”

“That’s a terrible analogy and just for that, I’m voting for you,” Kyungsoo stated.

“Sorry, buddy, you’re the only common denominator for the likely Impostor pairings,” Jongdae agreed as he also cast his vote.

“And if it’s actually Donut, then he deserves the win. This is the best he’s ever acted during our games,” Yixing commented with a chuckle.

“I promise it’s not me!” Minseok hastily said. “I’m just a regular Crewmate!”

“You guys are going to regret voting me!” Baekhyun crowed as the voting phase ended and the results were shown. All five votes had been cast for Bacon. Seconds later, the phrase, “Bacon was ejected,” to appeared on screen and the black avatar plopped into a pool of bubbling lava.

“Wait, he voted for himself!” Jongdae cried incredulously.

“…He’s the Jester, isn’t he?” Kyungsoo belatedly realized, putting the pieces together after seeing the voting results and hearing the glee in Baekhyun’s voice.

“Told ya, losers!” Baekhyun shrilled while the lobby erupted in chaos as both the Crewmates and Impostors commiserated in their shared failure.

“I completely forgot about the Jester,” Minseok sheepishly admitted. “No wonder you just stood there like a clown. I was so confused because you weren’t reporting the body.”

“I got lucky when Jongin died in front of me,” Baekhyun cheerily explained. “If that hadn’t happened, it probably would’ve been harder for me to pass myself off as an Impostor.”

“Jeez, has Baekhyun won every game so far?” Junmyeon realized, lamenting over his missed opportunity to win as the Jester in their first game of the night.

Baekhyun beamed and boasted, “Guess my IQ is too high for you noobs.”

“As if! We’re breaking your streak next game by killing you first!” Sehun declared, causing everyone else to cheer in agreement.

“Try to catch me if you can!” Baekhyun shouted as he began running around the lobby room as fast as he could.

♈♈♈

A/N: Happy ninth anniversary to our lovely boys of EXO! It's pretty crazy that the pandemic has lasted over a year now, but I've come to terms with it and the boys have still managed to release some amazing content! We got another solo debut, another sub-unit comeback, some digital singles, and a confirmation for a group comeback with Xiumin and D.O! Not to mention, Baekhyun released THREE solo albums and had his first solo concert this past year! It honestly blows my mind how hardworking and talented Baekhyun is. While promotions for Bambi would be great, I'm glad that he'll be focused on spending time with family and friends before his enlistment next month. I feel like I've been bracing for his enlistment since 2019 and when January 2021 rolled around, I fully expected him to enlist in April at the latest. So getting a few extra weeks with him is really nice, although he is enlisting on his birthday. But I'll save that spiel for later, since there's a lot to talk about there. On the topic of enlistment, Xiumin and D.O have returned to us, healthier and happier than ever. And I'm so grateful that they pushed for the group comeback this year when they really didn't have to, since we likely wouldn't have gotten a group comeback otherwise until late 2022 or 2023. And although I'm still feeling bittersweet about Chen's enlistment in particular, especially since he wasn't able to participate in this year's comeback, I know that he's getting some well-deserved rest and he'll come back to us just as re-energized as the others have! And of course, Lay is as busy as ever in China and I'm so excited that he's going to release Lit as a physical album soon! That'll be another album to add to my collection, which is almost complete thanks to SME reprinting EXO's older discography!

Things have been pretty rough for me in my personal life, especially these past few months. Along with all of the obstacles that the pandemic has brought, there was a medical emergency recently (not COVID-related) that really scared my family and I've been adjusting to the aftermath of that. Although my free time is incredibly limited nowadays, writing for the collection brings me so much joy and I hope that I can reincorporate this in my schedule sooner rather than later. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for being patient and sticking with me for so long! I am forever grateful for your support and I couldn't have come this far without you guys! Anyway, I hope you all are doing well! Please stay safe and healthy during this time! Have a wonderful day and once again, happy ninth anniversary to EXO!