The Promise We Never Made Aloud

by Aiko Isari

They never promised to protect each other. They never promised to wish for only good things. In a world where everything might just come to an end tomorrow, it's surely okay to be a little bit selfish, isn't it? Sonoko/Sumi. AU.

14. 14

14.

Everything feels wrong as they train. Sensei's voice seems to warble, mixing with Sumi's wonder. Does Sensei know? Does Taisha know?

Do the others know? That she wants to know more than anything. Iona had mentioned Yuzuki, not Piriluk. However, Piriluk was eccentric, special, terrifying. It was possible that she knew more than them.

Sumi, on a day when she could see without the universe spinning in terrifying directions, made herself ask with the promise of Udon. It was worth the slight lightness in her wallet.

"Iona knows someone named Ruko," she begins without even taking a slurp of udon. (Sumi knows she will pay for that later.) "She said that Yuzuki-san would too."

Sonoko takes a happy slurp and then looks over at Piriluk. Her own LRIG has gone quieter than usual, tracing a pattern on the floor of the card. Gin lifts Yuzuki's card to squint at it.

"Is that true?"

Yuzuki looks all around her card, searching for an escape. Then Piriluk lets out a quiet sigh.

"You weren't supposed to say anything, Iona," she says flatly. "The Taisha will be cross."

Iona lets out a snort. "Let them be."