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The Hazbin Hotel’s Secret Weekly Mahjong Club had its inaugural meeting three months before extermination.
The president of The Hazbin Hotel’s Secret Weekly Mahjong Club decided to start the club without the knowledge or acquiescence of its other members, but that was an irrelevant detail. Since the day she decided to start the club, she had been waiting for weeks for the right opportunity to set her plan in motion. The circumstances would have to be perfect. All three members would need to be together, Alastor would need to be busy with his radio show, and Charlie and Vaggie would need to be busy doing whatever sapphics do.
When such a circumstance occurred, Niffty was ready for action.
First, she made a pact with the rats to help her stop any club members who might try to escape. It would set her stabbing progress back a few days, but mahjong was worth it. Next, she found Keekee, who opened the door to the secret vault in the back of the first floor custodial closet. She climbed into the vault and crawled past her prized bad boy memorabilia, extra strength chemicals, and favorite taxidermy creations to find the case carefully set against the back wall. She withdrew the case, re-locked the vault, thanked Keekee with a treat, and made her way past the rat brigades to meet the other club members in the foyer.
They didn’t notice her until she reached up on her tip-toes to set the case down with a thud on top of the bar.
“Husker!” Niffty accepted his offered hand to hop onto the top of the bar. “It’s time!”
“What ti- oh.” Husk recognized the case. “You sure, Niff?”
“Uh-huh!” Niffty was sure. It had taken many years to heal the deep wound of betrayal the last secret mahjong club had left, but she was finally ready to start again. She had taken her revenge on the sinner who almost snitched, and Mimzie, that dirty cheater, was finally rebuked by Alastor. The specter of the great furiten riichi ron incident had haunted her ever since Mimzy “nudged” her discard pile, but seeing Alastor drive her out had given Niffty the space she needed to heal. This time, there would be no nudging. She would make sure of it.
“Why these two?” Husk asked.
The two in question looked very confused. Niffty pointed to the snake. “This one’s really bad at lying, so he won’t cheat. Plus, he can do math and stuff, so he should be smart enough to get it.”
(Sir Pentious wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or offended.)
“That one,” Niffty pointed at the spider, “is funny and smart, and you have a big fat cr-” Husk shoved a hand over Niffty’s mouth. She tried to bite it, but he pulled away. “Plus, I won’t be the only girl!”
(“Angel’s not a-” Husk said before Angel Dust cut him off.
“Yeah, I’ve tried to tell her. Just roll with it.”)
Niffty marched to the end of the bar, grabbed the two new club members’ bowties, and pulled them down to meet her eye.
“You have been chosen. Don’t fuck it up.”
“Okay, this is getting weird. I’m out.” The spider started to stand up, but Niffty used her grip on the bowtie to pull herself up to stand on the spider’s chest.
“No!” she leaned in until they were nose to nose. “It’s too late now! Siddown!”
“Just let it happen,” Husk advised, leaning across the bar to pluck Niffty off of Angel’s face and set her down on the bartop.
While she was distracted, the snake had made a break for the door. When he pulled it open, rats tumbled down from above, swarming onto Sir Pentious as he fell to the floor, screaming.
“That’s enough, thank you,” Niffty said, and the rats jumped off of Sir Pentious and scurried back up the walls, concealing themselves again in the rafters. Pentious lay panting on the floor until Niffty leapt off of the bar and grabbed the end of his tail to drag him back. He let himself be dragged and clambered onto his stool, dazed.
“Like I said,” Niffty smiled. “It’s too late now.”
“Fine, I’ll bite,” Angel said. “The fuck is happening?”
Niffty slid the case to the center of the bar and began undoing the buckles. Her fellow club members leaned in as she delicately opened it, revealing neat stacks of ivory tiles. Each tile was delicately engraved with a different symbol inlaid with rich colors. In the center of the case was a tray with two small dice, a flat rectangle with 東 painted on it, and a pile of long, thin sticks made of the same white material, engraved with various patterns of red and black dots. Niffty plucked a tile out of the box and held it up, revealing the gleaming red shell on the back.
“Tada! These were handmade in Cannibal Town from human bone and cannibal tree wood! They were a gift from Miss Rosie. Look at the detail on the iisou.” She pointed to a tile engraved with some sort of demonic vulture-peacock thing. “Isn’t it pretty?” She looked at the club members expectantly.
“Very pretty,” said Husk.
“Gorgeous,” said Angel.
“Most attractive, yes,” said Pentious. “What are they, exactly? A kind of Chinese domino, perhaps?”
“Mahjong tiles, right?” Angel interjected quickly when Niffty turned to Pentious with a murderous look in her eye. “What, was you a Jewish housewife topside or something?”
“What? No.” Niffty carefully placed the tile she was holding back in the case. “We’re playing riichi mājyan. See how the haku are blank? Every other kind of mahjong has a blue border around the haku, except European and American, which has an ugly nasty word or letter on it. European and American sets put numbers on the tiles, which is stupid, because you can count the sou and pin, and the man already have numbers on them. Can you read one to nine in kanji? No? You’ll learn. Husk!”
“Yeah?”
“Get all this mess off of the bar! It’s mahjong time!”
🀐 🀐 🀐
Husk had a soft spot for Mahjong.
After his fall from power, he had gone cold-turkey on every hobby he had except drinking. Blackjack, baccarat, pool, and poker were all out. His dart sets were abandoned, and he avoided anywhere with slot machines like the plague. He was too depressed to keep up with his magic tricks, so the only thing left for him was alcohol.
He had met Niffty several times on various jobs for Alastor, and he liked her well enough. She was probably the closest thing to a friend he had. Still, he was surprised when she approached him one day and asked him if he could play mahjong.
He’d only ever heard of mahjong, so Niffty took it upon herself to teach him. At first, he was hesitant. He agreed to learn on the condition that they didn’t use it to gamble; she was happy to comply if it meant he’d play with her.
Learning mahjong from Niffty was a fucking ordeal. She was only familiar with the Japanese terms she’d been taught with, and he didn’t know the English equivalents. With a crap ton of notes and many, many bottles of shochu, he eventually started to get it. Such a steep learning curve meant that their mahjong sessions demanded a lot of focus, more focus than he was giving to anything else at the time. When Niffty brought in Mimzie and that sinner whose name Husk had forgotten, their weekly sessions became the first thing resembling a routine he’d had since his Overlord days. When that inevitably crashed and burned, Niffty had hidden the tiles and told him that she wouldn’t play again until she found two new players that she could trust.
All that meant that in the years since he’d last played, he’d completely forgotten how fucking hard mahjong was to teach.
Husk had lost all of his notes sometime after the furiten riichi ron disaster, so he had to balance teaching Angel and Pentious with re-teaching himself. Niffty laid down the repurposed velvet curtain they were using as a mat, and they began to shuffle. Husk had forgotten how tactilely satisfying shuffling mahjong tiles was; with four of Angel’s hands shuffling, they made quick work of it. Niffty had to remind him the dimensions of the walls (seventeen by two), but he remembered how to smoothly lift one row onto the other. Angel laughed when Pentious tried to duplicate the move and failed; Husk laughed when Angel did the same. Niffty did the complicated ritual of choosing the East seat, breaking the wall, and revealing the dora. She instructed them in the orderly taking of their tiles, and had them lay their tiles face-up.
“Okay,” Husk started, “basic rules. Have you ever played gin rummy?” Angel nodded and Pentious shook his head. “Well, mahjong is similar. You’ve got a hand of thirteen tiles, and you’re trying to make triples, matches, and runs.”
“I’m already lost,” Pentious moped.
“Okay, um, we’ll just demonstrate then. Niff, what’s the suit order again?”
Husk put his own tiles in order, then Angel’s. Niffty did hers and Pentious’.
“New question,” said Angel. “Am I supposed to know what these character thingies are?” He pointed to the 🀊, 🀍, and 🀎 in his hand.
“Fuck, I forgot about kanji.” Husk grabbed a napkin and a pen from behind the bar. “Niff, would you mind?” Niffty wrote “一 1、二 2、三 3、四 4、五 5、六 6、七 7、八 8、九 9” and set the napkin between Angel and Pentious.
“Right,” Husk said. “So, next-”
🀊 🀍 🀎
20 minutes later, Pentious was ready to face the rats again. Better to be smothered by wriggling bodies and worm tails than tiles and terminology.
“Misssss Niffty!” he wailed, “I must again impressss upon you that I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying!”
“But I’ve told you! You have two hatsu, so if you can draw or pon a koutsu, you can win with any yaku, because then you’d have a yakuhai, which would give you one han.”
Pentious groaned and banged his head down on the bar, narrowly avoiding knocking a wall of tiles over.
Husk saved Pentious from choosing suffocation via rodent. “She’s saying that you have two green dragons– these– so if you can get a third, you can win.”
Pentious slowly raised his head, squinting at the tiles Husk was pointing at. Two green dragons… Cautiously, he drew a tile. Four of bamboo. “I… I think I do understand, yes… Yes, a third green dragon! My victory shall be delivered by the great serpent! Thank you, Mr. Husker!” He discarded the four of bamboo. 🀔🀕🀖🀗🀗🀛🀛🀛🀟🀠🀡🀅🀅
“Ha, chi!” Angel snatched the tile away as soon as it hit the bar, laying it down with a one, two, and three of bamboo.
“Nope.” Husk put the four of bamboo back into Pentious’ discard row and slid the other three tiles back into Angel’s hand. “You can only make a straight of three.”
“But- you- you said this was like Gin Rummy!”
“Yeah, like Gin Rummy. There’s differences. This is one of them.”
“Fuckin- fine.” Angel drew a new tile from the wall and immediately discarded it.
“Ron!” Niffty cried.
“Who?” Angel asked.
“She just won,” Husk replied.
“Fuck,” Pentious sighed.
🀓 🀓 🀓
Angel Dust was no stranger to overly complicated gambling games. Even if he hadn’t spent enough time watching them while working as arm-candy at a casino to write a damn book about all the stupidest ways to lose at poker, trick-taking had been as much a part of his life above ground as turning tricks was below.
He’d been peripherally aware of mahjong during his life. Rich white schmucks would display sets in their parlor rooms to show off how ‘well traveled’ they were, and the clicking of tiles could sometimes be heard from the windows of houses in the Lower East Side.
After three rounds of Riichi, Angel was starting to get the appeal. For the sensory experience alone, the sound and feel of the tiles beat cards any day of the week. Mahjong had some of the intensity of poker, but didn’t require any bluffing ability (thank fuck for that; Angel didn’t want Niffty coming anywhere near him with that knife). The mechanics of the game were similar to gin rummy, but it required more technical knowledge, which kept the game interesting. Still, there was enough reliance on luck that a beginner could stand a chance against an experienced player.
Plus, Angel was close to winning, which was always a point in any game’s favor.
When Pentious discarded one of the freaky cannibal raptor tiles, Angel turned to Niffty.
“Whaddya say when you draw a win from someone, again? Ran or something?”
“Ron!”
“Yeah, that. Ron, bitches!” Angel plucked up the bird and turned his hand face-up.
Husk groaned, Pentious hissed, and Niffty scrambled across the bar to look at Angel’s tiles.
“That’s furiten. You can’t win with that.”
“The fuck is a furiten?”
“Your hand was tenpai, but you discarded iisou on your third turn, see?” Niffty pointed at Angel’s discard row.
“No, I don’t see! My hand is complete, yeah? Four triplets and a pair? Plus, I snagged that fourth green dragon, so I get extra points and shit. The fuck is wrong?”
“Shit, yeah, Furiten’s a bitch.” Husk shook his head. “You discarded a one of bamboo- that’s the bird- earlier, see?” Husk pointed to the third tile in Angel’s discard row. “That means that you can’t take that tile from someone else and win with it later.”
“And whose fucking idea was that?”
“It’s a special feature of Riichi!” Niffty grinned. “Riichi, dora, and ii-han shibari are special features of Japanese mahjong. That’s what makes it the best.”
Angel glared down at his hand. “I’m so pissed, I’m not even going to ask about the shibari part. Wait here.” Angel jumped off his stool and bounded up the stairs.
“The fuck are you going?” Husk shouted after him.
“I’m getting paper! Apparently I’m gonna have to take notes, ‘cause now it’s fucking on.”
“Hey, no running away! Rats, follow him!”
It was a mad dash to make it up to his room and back before the rats decided he was taking too long, but somehow Angel made it.
“Okay, tiny,” Angel said as he re-entered the foyer, leaving the rats behind him. “Run me through what the fuck a yaku is again.”
“Okay! So there’s menzen tsumo, which turns into ippatsu if you win on the turn after declaring riichi. That’s one han. There’s also tanyao, which means you only have tanyaohai, and-”
“Here.” Husk took a sheet of paper from Angel’s stack and pulled a pen out from behind the bar. “I’ll write down the basics. Pen, you can use this too.”
“Why, thank you!”
The next round was slow as the club members worked on compiling their notes in between turns. Niffty wrote out and illustrated as many yaku as she could. Pentious made detailed drawings of table setup and turn mechanics. Husk translated as much of Niffty’s terminology as he could, and Angel wrote out the basic steps of gameplay (with some colorful commentary added for flavor). By the time the round finished (Husk won with tsumo), they had a neat stack of notes put together.
Now that he felt he had some chance in hell of understanding what was going on, Angel’s competitive flair rose. Sir Pentious, too, seemed doubly focused on the game.
🀐 🀐 🀐
The next round began.
When there were thirty five tiles left, Husk called riichi. Pentious did the same two turns later.
When there were eighteen tiles left, Pentious cried out. “Ha! Victory is mine! Tsssumo, as you say!” He flipped his tiles up one by one.
“Ooh, let me see, let me see!” Niffty leaned over. “Oh. You don’t have a yaku.”
“Bask in my- what?”
“You don’t have at least one han, so you don’t have enough points in your hand to win. Remember iipeikou?” She pointed to the iipeikou diagram on the yaku guide.
“Of course I do; that’s what I have! See? I have a one-two-three and a one-two-three! Twin sequences!”
“Yeah, but for iipeiko they need to be the same shu,” said Niffty.
Husk translated. “For twin sequences, the tiles need to be of the same suit, like one-two-three and one-two-three of dots. You have a mix of dots and characters. Shit out of luck.” Husk shrugged.
“Shit out of-” Pentious’ hood flared, and all of his eyes opened and glowed red as black rings spiraled around the pupils. Angel flinched and held an arm up to shield his eyes; Husk quickly reached forward and clapped his hands in front of Pentious’ face. With a start, Pentious’ hood deflated and his eyes returned to normal, though he still looked pissed.
“Okay, that’s enough mahjong for today.” Husk set a hand on Angel’s shoulder.
Angel shook himself slightly. “Wh-what? Come on, I was just starting to get the hang of this yaku shit!”
“I shall not be fooled by this yaku nonsense again!” Pentious agreed. “I shall obtain all the yakus! I shall be the yaku-man!”
Husk sighed. “I think-”
The group froze when they heard voices approaching from the hallway.
“No!” Niffty dived over the bar to grab the case. She stacked the tiles back inside, moving in a blur. “Same time, same place next week! Tell no one!” With one last warning glance at Pentious and Angel, she jumped off the bar, zooming away with the case in tow.
Moments after Niffty disappeared, Charlie and Vaggie walked in. “Oh, hey guys!” Charlie beamed. “What’s everyone up to?”
🀙 🀚 🀛
The secret mahjong club continued to meet weekly, and the group’s compiled collection of notes grew more comprehensive and less comprehensible. With each passing week, Niffty’s grin grew wider, Pentious’ coils relaxed, and Angel and Husk leaned a little further into each other.
Extermination-eve coincided with their regular appointment. It wasn’t until late that the hotel’s residents and flesh-oriented guests had drifted to their rooms, leaving Angel and Husk alone at the bar.
“Ya know, you’ve got those sharp throwing cards and exploding dice. Ever thoughta doing something with mahjong tiles?” Angel sipped his drink while Husk finished cleaning up from the earlier festivities.
“Not sure what I’d have them do besides explode.”
“Coat ‘em in something corrosive, maybe? Set them on fire?”
“Hmm. Don't know where I’d find enough tiles to experiment with, but I like the idea. Worth looking into, if we make it through tomorrow.”
“Yeah, tomorrow…” Angel looked down, swirling his drink. “Listen, Husk-”
“It’s time!” Niffty burst into the room, dragging a flailing Pentious by the hand.
Husk and Angel shared a glance. “Tonight, Niff, really?”
“Duh! Nothing interrupts mahjong night. If the extermination starts before somebody gets yakuman tonight, I’ll kill those angels.”
Angel laughed. “Pretty sure that’s the whole point, tiny, but fuck it, I’m in. Pen, siddown.”
The first round was an exhaustive draw, and Niffty won the second with a three-han yaku. Husk won the third round, and Angel the fourth. When Niffty declared o-rasu (all last), the air grew tense.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t want this to end,” Angel said softly as they shuffled. Niffty and Pentious didn’t hear over the clinking of the tiles, but Husk offered Angel an open palm. Angel took it, and they didn’t let go until it was time to deal.
The game began with Pentious as the east wind. He considered his first move for longer than usual; Niffty started to get twitchy. Finally, Pentious discarded an east wind tile. Husk raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Angel discarded a one of bamboo, Husk a red dragon, and Niffty a four of bamboo. The game continued, silence only interrupted by the occasional chi or pon. When there were seventeen tiles left, Pentious declared Riichi. Angel scanned Pentious’ discarded tiles carefully before discarding the fourth east wind tile. Husk discarded a west wind, Niffty a seven of bamboo. Pentious closed his eyes as he drew the next tile, holding his breath as he squinted an eye open to look at it. All of his eyes widened, then he declared “kan,” setting four eight-dot tiles carefully aside. When he drew a new tile, he looked at Husk, then Angel, then Niffty.
“I… tsumo, I believe?”
Niffty gasped. “Show us!”
Pentious carefully pressed the eleven concealed tiles together, then flipped them face-up in one smooth motion. Niffty crawled on Pentious’ shoulders to get a better look.
“No way… riichi, rinshan kaihou, menzen tsumo, tan’yao, san’anko- let me check the dora- AND ura dora? Pentious, you have eleven han! You’re sanbaiman!”
“I… I am?” Pentious looked at Angel, who shrugged, then Husk, who nodded. “Yes… yes! I- I am the sssanbaiman!” He glanced at the clock, which showed ten past two in the morning. “This is only my first victory of the day, friends! May the winning streak continue!”
Husk grabbed four small tumblers and a bottle of umeshu from the top shelf. Pentious received his glass first; Niffty tumbled down from Pentious’ shoulders to take hers. Angel’s hand lingered on Husk’s when he took his glass.
Husk held up his own glass. “Niff, would you do the honors?”
Niffty grinned. “Kanpai!”
Angel Dust’s Mahjong Notes
Foreplay (stupid complicated)
- Grab 34 tiles; 17 long 2 high (I’ve taken bigger)
- Figure out directions
- Roll dice; East = 5/9, South = 2/6/10, West = 3/7/11, North = 4,8,12
- Duck-duck-goose
- East throws dice; duck-duck-goose that number starting with your wall + going counter-clockwise
- Cherri Bomb-ing (break the wall)
- Count from the chosen wall’s right side to their left side (same number as duck duck goose throw)
- Grab tiles
- Take the next four tiles (to the left of the break)
- Everybody grabs 4 going counter-clockwise, BUT THE TILES ARE TAKEN CLOCKWISE THE FUCK
- Go around 4 times (12 tiles total) then go around but only grab 1 (13 tiles total)
- Back to the wall ya started drawing from- this is all from that players’ perspective
- Point at the leftmost tile in that wall
- Count 3 to the right and STOP
- Flip THAT TILE (the 3rd one, not the next one!!!) over. That fucker isn’t the dora; the next one after that is, because that makes sense. N-E-S-W-N; 9-1; W-G-R-W
- Order the tiles in your hand- characters, bamboo, dots, NESW, WGR
- NOW YOU CAN ACTUALLY PLAY, FUCK
Actually Fucking Playing
- Discard in front of you in rows of 6
- Chi = 1-2-3 Pon = 3-3-3 Kan = 4-4-4-4
- ONLY CHI FROM THE ASSHOLE WHO PLAYS BEFORE YOU (Nif-Pen-me-Husk-Nif)
- Pon from anybody
- Kan from anybody or kan from yourself, then draw another (kan doesn’t count towards final 14, it’s just extra)
- Pon/kan has priority over chi, ron has priority over both
- Tsumo = self-drawn win (can win with furiten tile)
- Ron = win from some other sucker’s discard
- Riichi = one tile away from winning, didn’t pon/kan/chi. Say this out loud.
- No chi/pon/kan
- Draw a tile from the wall, then either WIN with it or DISCARD it. No changing strategies or Nifty gets out the mace
- Put the red-dot stick above your discards
- Need to have at least 1,000 points left (start with 25,000)
- Furiten = could win with a tile that you discarded earlier (can only win by tsumo)
- Tenpai = one tile away from winning (don’t say this out loud) (counts for points if nobody wins)
Dora (note- make Nifty keep track of this)
- E-S-W-N-E
- Red-White-Green-Red
- Whenever somebody kans all over themselves (sticky), flip the fourth tile on the dora wall. Now there’s two doras, congratulations.
- If somebody wins with riichi, look at the tile underneath the og dora. That’s the ura-dora; it’s another dora. Have fun scoring, sucker
Ho math
- Nobody wins
- Tenpai players get points UNLESS everyone is tenpai
- 1 player tenpai- get 3,000; everyone else pays 1,000
- 2 player tenpai- get 1,500; everybody else pays 1,500 ヤッホー～ニフティより
- 3 player tenpai- get 1,000; sucker pays 3,000
- 1 dora = 1 han
- FUCKING FU- round UP TO THE NEXT 10??? TF
- Win = 20 fu THEN ADD THE REST
- threesome or foursome = 2 fu
- x2 if concealed (not pon/ron/)
- x2 for fancy tiles
- x4 for kan
- Tenpai tile
- One = 2
- Two = 2
- Dragon = 2
- Round/seat wind = 2
- x2 if both
- Hidden tiles, ron win = 10
- Tsumo win = 2
- Seven pairs = 25 fu
- Look at the fucking chart for the rest of the scoring, it’s THE MOST COKED UP SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN AND THAT INCLUDES ME.