“I’m baaaack. Hn? Am I interrupting?”

“Eh? Nope, not at all. In fact, you’re perfectly on time! Nee-san was just about to begin what she’s been meaning to say.”

“In that case, how about we move first?”

˹ Sora pointed his index finger out to a windowed balcony jutting out from the floor. It was a lounging area with an almost transparent, vitrified canopy within a recess, fitted with panes of equally transpicuous glass on a circular platform. It was like an enlarged spherical pod that could be found in decorated gardens. As we entered the pod, Yuki turned off all the lights in the apartment. In that moment, it seemed like the whole planet was shrouded in darkness, except for the neon dots and lights diffusing from other skyscrapers exiting through the arrays of glass from beneath and beyond. It was a mesmerising view.

The sleepless city of London. ˼

“Amazing… I’ve never felt a marvelous sight like this, even though we live in the same apartment complex. It really hits differently when you can clearly see everything around you without being hindered!”

“You should take a look at the stars and constellations when they appear. Though they aren’t visible yet… huh? Just like in that dream…”

「Within the paracosm of that dream of mine, the heavens were as empty as a void. It’d be no exaggeration to say it was like the starless sky infront of us right now. No matter how many times I look back, that sense of nostalgia doesn’t fade in the slightest.」

“Like that dream? What dream?”

「Sonia asked as I blurted out loud what was on my mind.」

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just that I feel like I've seen these skies elsewhere.”

“Well of course you have, you'd have seen them every night?”

「Well she's not wrong there. But that wasn’t exactly what I meant either...

Yuki sat down on the prepared sofas as she fiddled with her phone. A perimeter of navy blue followed, outlining the floor in a smooth light setting as if waves were rocking back and forth. She probably changed the lighting preset to what’s been pre-configured from before.

Sonia’s palms and eyes were glued to the outside as if she were in a mime, frozen and reveling silently at the cityscape below.」

“Hey Nii-chan, you came back rather quickly. Did something happen?”

「Yuki took the opportunity in this brief bout of silence to ask me about earlier.」

“Can’t really say. For now, we haven’t a clue what’s going.”

“I see…”

“So, what were you two talking about?”

「My turn to ask – so in my curiosity, I happened to overhear their conversation a little when I did a U-turn back and began my single query.」

“We were talking about what it would be like if magic truly existed in the world.”

「Ma…gic?? Oh right, it’s Sonia we’re talking about.」

˹ “It does exist.”

You don’t know how much I want to scream out and tell them that. But that would defeat the whole purpose. ˼

“Oh? Is that so? So that’s why Sonia-sensei wanted to talk about the ending of Magic Insurgence. You're thinking about that aren’t you, Sonia?”

“Yep! That's right!”

「Sonia took that opportunity to spin on the spot and turn to us, answering in the affirmative. She arbitrarily lost interest in the view that quickly?? Damn, she’s even taken the empty seat in front of us.」

“Uh… I'm not really able to follow, what do you mean by ‘that’?”

“ “Superluminal Axion Propulsion.” “

「Both of us answered Yuki's question as it was apparent she didn’t get the idea of using axions for use in magical teleportation via quantum gravity.」

˹ “Oh no. Here we go.” ˼

“Ohhh… aren’t axions hypothetical particles that are yet be proven to exist? They mentioned it somewhere in the last episode of Insurgence, isn’t that right Nii-chan?”

“Nnn. They did. A teleportation device was created for humans to use and warp to Mars by ‘axion excitation’. They ignited it as fuel and the resulting combustion would cause them to zip through space, like teleportation. Even though there's zero truth to it, they still made instantaneous wormholes from it, didn’t they?”

「It went somewhere along the lines of using their ‘quantum’ properties of ‘teleportation’ (which isn’t actual teleportation), neither would it really work that way realistically but hey, it’s sci-fi right?

Gravity is a force of attraction. If you had two strips of cello tape in both hands, both strips would technically be attracted to each other. You wouldn’t see it, because they attract each other so faintly that you might as well think that there are no forces between them. But if you were to let them stick to each other, then pull them apart, they’ll start pulling towards each other and touch back (but not stick back unless the adhesive still works).

That's electromagnetism at work. Why do they attract each other then? Because they both were robbed of each other’s charges and they want those charges back. So, they try to come back together.

The force of electromagnetism is 10 to the power of 24 times stronger than gravity, and that’s why you see the electrostatic attraction happen. That's 10 followed by 23 zeros. Hard to imagine, right?

Gravity is the weakest of the 4 known fundamental forces. It’s in fact many orders of magnitude less powerful than electromagnetism carried by photons, the strong force carried by gluons, and the weak force carried by W & Z bosons.

The acclaimed ‘graviton’ would carry the force of gravity, but they aren’t proven to exist. Not axions, but it’s questionable how gravitons could be used, let alone axions for such applications, which is another story of its own.

Ignition and combustion of such an energy source were out of the question.」

˹ “How do you even go about using axions as fuel?! Explain that!” ˼

“If we used the example of electrons, they create electric fields when put into large quantities. The same could be theoretically said if you had enough axions. But even if you wanted to generate enough gravity with something like gravitons, it might be possible to hypothetically create gravitational fields that can warp space. However, you'd need strong fields to make anything work, but I’m not going to get too technical. The existence of both axions and gravitons haven’t yet been proven, neither have they been detected so it's a very far-fetched idea.”

“That’s true, you don’t even think they exist, do you? You're not such a big fan of quantum mechanics, so there's got to be more than what meets the eye.”

“Hehe, that’s right. I don’t believe for a second that you could quantise gravity – no, the curvature of spacetime and assign it some particle in the Standard Model just to satisfy the imperfect theories of quantum gravity.”

「Think of the Standard Model being a periodic table of the periodic table. It essentially describes fundamental particles that are smaller than atoms.」

“I don’t think you can stop at just explaining gravity – a universal force – at quantum scales like you would with force-carrying bosons exchanged in the interaction of elementary particles. Even then, randomness in quantum theory shouldn’t be up to rolling some universal dice in reality, and gravity isn’t random at all. The mathematics simply break down instead and that's why there's so much conflict with both theories, like fitting a square-faced prism into a similar-sized circular hole. Rather, there’s something more fundamental we're missing. An underlying reality that may never hope to see. But that's besides the point…”

「You could just tell how much hatred and passion she has, riiiiight? Sonia briefly paused to emphasise what she’d be saying next. She continued–」

“Sora, have you heard about how 8 years ago, at Kamiokande, they briefly detected neutrinos that went past the speed of light? That’s what I really wanted to talk to you about.”

「With a stern expression came out a very recondite question. ‘Neutrinos that went past the speed of light’ you say? Nothing in the universe can go faster than the speed of light.

So what she said must have been a distasteful joke… right? Like c’mon…

Before I got the chance to even voice my disbelief, Yuki took up the podium.」

“Huh? Do you mean like how neutrinos went through beta decay into one of the three non-neutrino type leptons as it propagated through a medium of water? I think I’ve heard of the experiment. If I remember correctly, they detected cosmic particles via the release of Cherenkov Radiation, right? The decay of particles caused electrons to release blue light as if it were a sonic boom of sorts, where particles of light travelled faster than neutrinos and they slowed down before releasing light radiation particles. But they were not emitted at velocities above light speed however.”

「With a pensive look, Yuki tried making sense of what Sonia might have meant. But from the look on Sonia’s face, I don’t think that might have been it.」

“Well, you're right for the most part, but that’s not exactly the end of it all. You are right about detecting them with Cherenkov radiation, but what I mean is that neutrinos were actually detected travelling faster than light would through space before being detected on Earth, by slowing them down via refraction into another medium. In 2012, researchers at the Kamioka Observatory detected muon neutrinos and rays of electromagnetic radiation from the SN1987A supernova surrounded by the String of Pearls.

But here's the catch. They were observed within hours of each other, the neutrinos came first then the burst of gamma rays.”

“HUH?? WHAT?! How does that make any sense? You are accounting for spatial expansion as well, right???”

「If I was drinking something right now, I would’ve choked on a whole mouthful of it just from that sheer bombshell of statement.

Ever heard of how the universe is 13.8 billion years old? If light is the fastest thing in the universe, then if light from far away stars came to Earth, you'd be able to see stars 13.8 billion light years away. When you look up into the sky, you see the stars as they were all those billions of years ago.

In reality, we can actually see about 48 billion light years around us. How? Because space expands between galaxies, we can see a lot further out than usual. Vast distances, such that anything travelling at light speed wouldn’t be able to reach us without it.

Because light speed – 299,792km/s – is the fastest anything can go.

So then how the fuc–」

“Haha… That’s kinda obvious, given that these particles would both be travelling in the same direction as each other. I had the same reaction when I looked it up on papers published on particle physics inside MIT’s database. When the neutrinos were detected, they weren’t traveling faster than light as per se. They travelled the same distance as gamma rays did, but happened to arrive earlier.”

「Hmm... a dry laugh? She’s actually not taking this on with levity? Something’s up. I would bet 120% of this is a hoax… unless…」

“That can’t be right? Are you sure you aren’t mixing this up with the flawed 2011 experiment at OPERA that supposedly detected FTL neutrinos, but actually didn’t? And why would MIT have such a controversial report in their possession?”

“I can’t be too sure about whether or not the experiment might have had some fatal error in it as well which would render it as just another obsolete anomaly. And I can’t say whether it is credible. But it’s something I thought would be fun to think about.”

「She brushed off the question with a light shrug and avoided it vaguely.」

“Following up from what Sonia-neesan said, there were past repeats of these observations at the IceCube experiments at the South Pole in Antarctica and at ANITA as well which confirmed these readings, albeit they were much different from the original measurements because of the apparatus used. But they still projected similar records of earlier-arriving neutrinos. A redshift measurement showed that they both originated from the same supernova, but here we are with these observations.”

「Maybe it had something to do with the elementary particles losing energy? But that can’t be because there’s nothing much in space to slow it down.」

“It also concerns me how in 8 years, these findings went completely overlooked. Only the use of neutrinos for astrophysical observation got recognised and even the researcher in charge received a Nobel Prize in Physics. Nii-chan, Nee-san, you do know what this means, right?”

“They either hid the results of these experiments intentionally for whatever reason, or it coincidentally went over their heads. And if they didn’t, it would have caused havoc for the world of theoretical physics. I can think of multiple ways how this might change the laws of physics as we currently know it and many other things about the world around us. For example, sterile neutrinos would physically exist.”

˹ “Okay, now I’m lost?! I had some inkling of an idea of what you all were talking about but what the hell is all this about sterile neutrinos?”

They don’t have majorana states. That’s because–˼

“It would mean that neutrinos that react only via the force of gravity with a chirality of right-handedness really do exist. Wouldn’t it also mean they can also… distort spacetime? What do you think, Sora?”

˹–the problem with thinking that way is that it doesn’t incorporate the laws of higher dimensional mechanics. That’s why determining the chirality of particles in 3 spatial dimensions is premature in and of itself.

In higher dimensions, the neutrino exhibits behaviour of both handedness. ˼

“It would explain all sorts of mysteries if it did, and it'd create various problems as well. Travelling at superluminal velocities would violate Special Relativity entirely since causality wouldn’t allow anything to accelerate past the limit of 299,792km/s in a vacuum. Then, the only way left for a particle with mass to travel through space and at FTL speeds unimpeded by causality is by slightly contracting its own spacetime within its own inertial frame of reference such that it is travels a shorter distance through the vacuum of space at average velocities exceeding the speed limit, while the particle travels at speeds relative to light. It’s similar to Alcubierre's Warp Drive, but at the scale of elementary particles and that space doesn’t expand, but only contracts in front without exerting anything onto spacetime behind them, which doesn’t sound too far fetched. But then, it’d be like saying neutrinos oscillate in their own inner dimensions which affect the fabric of the universe around it, creating distortions of gravity at higher dimensions.”

˹ Close. Super close. And that’s a good sign. If only you considered how intraspatial oscillations worked… Guhhh!! This is so frustrating to listen to! ˼

“And there's the reason why they might have been quiet about this… Extra dimensions, majorana-state fermions, supersymmetry and even string theory could all be tied at once with this breakthrough. It’s probably because they couldn’t make sense of these ideas all at once and just somehow kept everything confidential.”

“I doubt it’d stay confidential at all if it were this serious and ludicrous, and most certainly if it were available to look up at MIT.”

“Nnn? Ah, no. I looked it up at LIU. You can look up whatever it is you want at the databases of other universities around the world, even the one’s inside the Ivy League Universities from LIU.”

“You looked it up at the university?? How?”

“They pretty much have everything digitally stored on servers at the campus library. You can even access them online via the website portal.”

“Really? Never knew that…”

「I'll have to check this out later, it’ll be super useful down the road. Why wasn’t I told about this soone– I can see why…」

“Speaking of supersymmetry, axions are like the perfect solution to the strong-CP problem and why the strong force doesn’t show violation of CP-symmetry like the weak force does. And of course, a potential solution to the hierarchy problem. What if other dimensions really are the fix for these problems…? Where are they? How would that work on the three-dimensional plane of spacetime? Axions are even candidates for dark matter.”

“Nee-san, wasn’t there that XENON1T Dark Matter Experiment that recorded some inexplicable signal?”

“It was a dud. In all honesty, there’s not been much movement in particle physics, not ever since the Higgs Boson was discovered at CERN back in 2012.”

「We might be getting near the end of physics at this rate. But who am I kidding? There’s a long, long way to go before that can really and truly be said.」

“Haaaaa… This is the sort of confusion you get when quantum properties like spin and angular momentum are completely fucked and not fully understood. There must be so many things we’re fundamentally getting wrong.”

「Sonia sighed at the inevitable prospect of things that humans just couldn’t overcome with experimental prowess only.」

“And as far as dimensions are involved, string theory would be able to string together these puzzles. But in the end, even those theories are a completely messy yarn ball of mathematical chaos. Haha… wait till scientists start thinking that dark matter actually exists in another dimension, seconded to our reality which we can’t observe.”

“Oh!?!! That sounds so cool!! Like, 96% of the whole universe is actually in another dimension which humans can’t even begin to grasp at nor fathom!! It'd be like something taken right out of science fiction. Dark matter and dark energy that influences reality and all cosmic phenomena – wait, doesn’t that sound like something similar to magic… but on some grand macrocosmic scale? If dark matter exists, then what if… magic also exists?”

「This time, all three of us sank into a still quandary. Without a single note of sound, we thought and thought. Slightly fazed by what Yuki claimed.」

“Gravitation manipulation and being latent to our perception of the universe would be magic? I mean, you’re not wrong, but that doesn’t exactly sound right either. Anyway, aren’t we going at a tangent at this rate?”

“Does it matter? We're here to talk about Magic Insurgence. We can think about actual ‘theory’ all we want another time…”

「Huh!? Sonia, I thought we were here to talk about potential FTL neutrinos???」

“Really???? I thought we were– ughh, fine. All sorts of miracles, supernatural phenomena and things we don’t understand could be explained, if science couldn’t. It’d be so easy to just blame magic for pretty everything. What if magic really does exist, but we just don’t believe it because humans can’t prove it exists? It’s just yet another cyclical argument. We have no say in things we don’t understand. Like how in many religions, black magic is seen as evil, demented ways to influence things around them through rituals one couldn’t even properly explain. Through unseen powers as well.”

「After all, there’s been mentions of creatures and beings like angels, devils, jinns, ghosts etc. They’re all supernatural entities, but where did they even appear from? Who came up with such fantastical ideas?」

“Uhhh??? Nii-chan, those are just fictional beliefs… Beliefs about occult practices, religious rituals or things like that don’t comply with real world logic. At the very least, nothing like that really happens nor exists…”

“Then again, we’re not working with logic to prove magic exists. Maybe magic was just a way for humans to make their own ideals a reality in the past? But it’s not like we actually know that right? We just subjectively know it can’t be because it’s counterintuitive.”

“Nee-san!??! I hope you aren’t suggesting we try something like discovering magic and fabricating it all of a sudden right?!?? That'd violate all the laws of conservation!”

「Well no shit, Émilie. She was just joking – or at least I hope she isn’t being serious…」

“What could be considered magic then? From the standpoint of all of physics?”

“Huh? What do you mean by that?”

“What if it was possible to violate all of thermodynamics? What would the universe look like? Perpetual motion would be possible and hence, unlimited energy. Negative mass could exist, virtual particles would actually pop into reality and become real particles and loads of other things. Use magic and anything could be synthesised.”

“Then that doesn’t correspond with physics, does it?!?”

「I cried out in opposition. Sure, if a world with different laws than ours existed, that might have been the case. Magic would simply be that. Making things out of nothing.」

“Physics as in a way of explaining how such a world would work excluding our own ideas of how reality works.”

「Yeah. Sounds about right.」

“Then, theories about the quantum fields would take a huge hit. That'd be like saying you could energise all the quantum fields without energy, but that energy would be created through the mysterious medium of magic. Things would just appear like that, but you'd have control over anything whatsoever because those excitations would just turn to quarks automatically.”

˹ “Do they mean ‘quantum fields’ as in the Causal Realm? Hmm… that Vacillating Reality thing that appeared when I looked into the upper dimensions really is an intriguing rewrite. It’s more like a system meant for bullying these poor Ulmas… Even so, they’ve managed to understand this much within a couple centuries no less. That’s impressive.” ˼

“Nii-chan, don’t forget she said that thermodynamics is no longer in the equation. That includes all other quantum theories like chromodynamics and electrodynamics. Basically, you could do whatever you want! No thermodynamics: you have all control over most of reality as you command!”

“I wonder if magic works like that in all fantasy settings… How would mana be incorporated then? Would they just be these messengers of intention that conveys your will to mana, and it just happens? This is like spooky action all over again, as Einstein would put it.”

“Except it’s fantasy.”

˹ “The thing is, it’s not entirely fantasy. A lot of what you’ve said is somewhat true.” ˼

“Yeah, what Yuki said. Maybe, what if magic could explain entanglement? Thoughts influencing the quantum nature of the world.”

“Huh? Where'd that come from?”

「Ah yes, of course Sonia would retaliate.」

“If magic violates thermodynamics, it might as well violate all of physics. General Relativity included. If it breaks GR, then it could be possible that magic entangles the quantum states of particles. It could even explain everything about reality.”

“Don’t even go there. You can’t just break one set of rules to explain something else… Physics would have to be completely re-written if that was the case. Even if in the chance of one in a quadrillion that you were right, all the known physics of today would break down, so what makes you think that interactions at the small scale would stay the same?”

“Just have the laws of physics be broken while still being maintained. We are talking about magic, aren’t we? Why not let magic destroy the framework holding the universe together? Then of course, magic could also simultaneously make a new form of physics topologically possible, even if it doesn’t make sense – having something broken and fixed at the same time. A quantum reality?”

「Sonia’s fed up. She has it written all over her face. AHAHAHA!!! How cuuuuute… Even if she’s angry, it won’t stop me.」

“It's magic after all. Anything goes. Something like there being an under-realm of reality, even if it meant breaking all our ideas of reality. Something humans can’t have access to as we don’t have that knowledge, neither can we ever acquire that wisdom either, except for those blessed by mana.”

“Your inner 8th grade syndrome is coming out…”

“Everything is imaginary within fallacies. Something straight out of a novel but for such fictions, I doubt the minute, small details hardly ever matter as such. I don’t think such deep ideas could ever be built upon at once in even the best of science fiction. It’d be like reconstructing all the constituent parts of reality we know of down from a Planck length up to the whole universe or even beyond. That's just ineffably impossible to do, nor make and create a solid understanding of the world.”

“Only an omnipotent god could ever do something so unimaginable. What point even is there going off on a spiel about all this hypothetical crap ~ ~ ~?? I'm sleepy as hell right now… huwaaaaa…”

「She really did seem tired, resting herself on the sofa and slumping back.」

“That's right, it's gotten late. I might turn in for the night too–”

“Wait, what do you mean sleep!?!? It's hardly even 7 and you're about to doze off???”

「Oh right, Sonia isn’t exactly a morning person…」

“We're highly enervated beings, nocturnals to boot.”

「You two, explain to me how the fuck sleeping now makes you nocturnals? WHEN DO YOU PLAN TO WAKE UP!?!?? Wait, isn’t perfect then?

Fufu... Fufufu... Hahahaha...」

“In that case, I have a suggestion ♡.”

“Sug…gestion? And that is?”

「Oh no, not the heart mark…」

˹ “Oh no, not the heart mark… Ah, we jinxed each other! But you didn’t say it out loud… Hmff…” ˼

“You see how the Kamioka experiment was questionable to some degree right? I thought we could repeat the experiment overselves!”

“…And how do you propose we do that, Sonia-sensei?”

“…”

「STOP! THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING ME!!!!!!!」

˹ “I have this ‘wry smile’ thing going on right now. You go, girl!” ˼

“…We go to Super Kamiokande!”

「Aw hell nahhh, THIS SHIT AIN’T HAPPENING!! OVER MY DEAD BODY!」

“Sonia-san, we can’t exactly go to Japan… so then…???”

˹ “His mind and actions are completely contradicting each other…” ˼

“Then we go to ANTARES through the university’s link with CERN! I already knew you were going to say that, and that it wouldn’t work out, so I already got 2 extra business-class tickets for the two of you, ready for a flight to Switzerland instead of Japan, tomorrow at 8 in the morning! How does that sound?”

「There it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is, there it is…

The nefarious punchline. Wait, where is the joke?! That’s a catchline instead!」

“Eh…? Wait wait what? What are you planning, for real this time???”

“Like I said, we go abroad to conduct an experiment of our own?”

「Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

An experiment? She did just say tickets, right?? AND WHEEEEEEEEEEEN?!

And from what dimension did she summon those from…?? I swear they just came out from her chest (is there enough space in there…? It’s a mystery how they hadn’t crumpled... wait, why am I even worrying about a bunch of tickets? BURN THEM!!) And how’d she land us those tickets in the first place???」

“I had leftover photographic copies of your passports from before, so it was easy-peasy getting one each for you two as well ♡.”

「Passport copies… Sonia had photo copies?

Sonia had photocopies!?

YUKI, WHAT THE FUCK????? HOW’D SHE GET HER HANDS ON THE–??」

“!?!”

「HUH?!? Why’s she acting all surprised?!?

She paled in face of the tickets, shooting herself up from her reverie before slowly standing up. Wait, Yuki, what is she going to do???」

˹ “Now that’s a twist! Ahaha!!” ˼

“Alright, I was holding back the whole time earlier, but now shit’s gone too far, Nee-san…”

「And y’know what, that look on Yuki was horrifying beyond anything I’ve seen today thus far… Smiling a smile that wasn’t even smiling but smiling for the sake of smiling, it sent chills down my spine like being zapped with a high-voltage current from a nuclear power plant down one’s nervous system. I’m sure that’s what’s eminently happening as of this moment.」

“N-nN?? Yuki…chan???”

「Yeah, that sounds about right. She’s probably scared senseless right now. Her self-satisfied smile paused like smashing spacebar on playback.」

“Give me…”

「Red lasers firing from both her pupils, a glare of death aimlocked onto Sonia,」

“THAT PHONE OF YOURS!!! WAY OF BINDING: RESTRAIN!!1”

“KYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! NO, ANYTHING BUT MY PHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!!!!!!!”

「and flash-stepped2 in front of her, pinning her down on the sofa, and expertly snatching away her phone. Nice move! Now finish her!」

“ –!”

“Ahh!! YUKI!!!”

“Huh?? Yuki!? Where–”

「are you going…? Aaaaaaand she's off...

Eloping across the room in the dark, and bursting into her bedroom on the right, she quickly locked the door and sealed herself off. Running after her in a fluster, Sonia was shut out from Yuki’s room.

I guess she should just let her do her thing.」

“Yuki! Open! UP!!!!!”

「Sonia knocked repeatedly on the immoveable door from the outside. Now their positions have completely flipped in contrast to the fiasco from earlier. Hehe… that’s retribution and a half right there.」

˹ “Ahaha… they’re the ones who are a bundle of chaos…” ˼

“Haaa…”

「It didn’t take long before a sigh of defeat slipped out from her voice. She must’ve resigned herself to her fate.」

“It’s a waste of time y’know? I’ve got everything backed up on the net so Yuki, please give my phone back…”

「Nevermind. She boasted as if she hadn’t saved them while taking a step back, hands on her hips. I’d be more worried if she said she didn’t and I’m sure Yuki knows that. It’s only a matter of time before that’s sorted out by her. But that, I’m not gonna say ♡. Sonia’s screwed either way.

I left my seat and went after their trail at a leisurely pace as the room lit up with LEDs.」

“No matter what you do, I don’t think she’s gonna come out from there. Once she’s determined to do something, you can’t stop her. She’s kinda like you in that sense.”

“As if you’re not just as headstrong. You’re siblings after all… ah right! You want the ticket?”

「Sonia extended out the ticket in hand, making sure if I’d take it or not.」

“Fufu, I can’t exactly refuse if you really want to go.”

“Hey, it’s not like you’re obligated to come… and if it’ll bother you…”

“Not all all, hardly got anything to do in my spare time regardless. I’ll gladly accept.”

「Although I say that, I am somewhat a little reluctant, but more than willing to go. I can never deny that things are a lot more fun with her around. I’d rather accompany her out to the end of the world than stay at home, doing nothing of merit.

Reaching out my hand, I gratefully received the folded airline ticket which she proffered out with her dominant hand. I happened to spy a little smile on her as I did. I've lost all and any opposition now, if I had any to begin with. That smile was enough.」

“So, what are you gonna do, now that Yuki’s holed herself up?”

“I need my phone back, so I’ll have to wait until Yuki comes out.

「Sighing for the umpteenth time, it was made clear that she was exhausted from the earlier sequence of events.」

“In that case, Sonia…”

“Yea–?!”

「Stepping in so close I could’ve hugged her sylphlike body, I whispered into her right ear.」

“The rooftop?”

「Haha ♡.」

“…U-unn”

「POOF! An instant later, steam ejected from the crown of her head like a geyser and a fervently bright stain of rose on her cheeks. I can’t help but smile at her demure reaction!

Hnnnng!! That adorable look was so worth it!

I valiantly strolled past her as she swirled on the spot, unnerved, and gave her affirmation. And so, we made our way to my room. We’d most certainly need jackets if we were to go back up to the freezing floor of darkness.

Off into the night sky once again!」

˹ “Fufu ♡! I’ll pretend I didn’t see that.”

I stabbed his back with the deadliest death stare I could muster. How dare he flirt like before my eyes… ˼

-════════════════-

「MY HEART! MY HEART! WHAT’S WITH THAT SURPRISE ATTACK?!?! THAT’S NOT FAAAAIR, SORA YOU IDIOT!!!

And now you’re leading me to your room?!? Eh, why the closet??? But that's–」

“Here, mind wearing it?”

“Ah… it’s warm…”

「Sora draped me in a faux fur coat around my shoulders as I stood there, letting him choose for me. I could be lulled asleep in this fluffy garment, clutching together the fur inside the coat by the buttons... Hyuuuuuuu... Pre-heating?

Would it be asking for too much if I wanted a warm hug too? No wait, why would I think of that????」

“Are you going to take off the hoodie?”

“E-ehhh?!? No, I’d rather not. It’ll be a waste taking this precious thing off… Let me bask in the temporary heat for now. It’ll be gone if I take it off anyways.”

“Nn… good point.”

「Sulking in disagreement, I just couldn’t detach myself from his hoodie. I know we’ll have to separate soon, but I’d like to keep it on for a little longer.」

“Sora...”

「I stopped him from wearing his own extra layer of drown fabric, clutching the cuffs of his jumper.」

“Meanie. Playing with a woman’s heart like that then acting so nonchalant... That’s unfair. Who said you were allowed to make my heart skip a beat like that? Take responsibility...”

“...”

“Why are you so silent... say something.”

“...It was unfair of you to just take advantage of my feelings while you were half-naked. It’s my way of getting back.”

“Huh?!? No, that can’t be! That’s not it! You were supposed to fall for my charm instead and that'd be perfectly fine!”

“Then it’s your fault you fell for my sweet provocation then, milady? I think we're on equal footing here.”

「Waaaahhhh!?!? Lifting my chin in so casually?! So embarrassing!! He's having fun teasing me like this isn’t he?!?? I absolutely hate you, Soraaaaaaa!!!」

“Hmph, I'll definitely get you back for this. But anyways, why the rooftop?”

「Lightly knocking his hand away, I asked him in my embarrassment to divert the subject. Uuuu…」

“Let’s leave Yuki alone for the time being. She’s bound to come out sooner or later. Unless you have elsewhere in mind?”

“How about my place?”

“I’ll have to respectfully decline.”

「Yuki’s probably gonna storm Sonia’s place sooner or later. After that, the two of us went to the rooftop where there was no one else.

Only us two.」

˹ “Nah, I’m third wheeling it over here.”

Do you hear the pain in my voice? ˼

-════════════════-

「Room enclosed. Lights off. Brisk footsteps.

Somehow, it seems that the both of them treaded their way to somewhere that’s not here. Where did they go?

Out on patrol, I stole a cursory glance out into the doorway and took the risk.

The coast is clear!

Retrieving my phone from my pocket at once after I inaudibly closed the door again, I checked for Nii-chan’s location and he was in–!?!

Ahaha, there's got to be a reason for this.」

Bzz!

「A notification? A small, rounded rectangle fell down from the top of the display. Nii-chan sent me a message on Discord.」

『空白 Today at 19:33

i leave everything in ur hands

sonia and i will be elsewhere』

「Ohhhhhh????? So going to your bedroom is your idea of “elsewhere” huh?」

『空白 Today at 19:33

we’ll be on the rooftop gardens』

「Jumped to conclusions, my bad.」

『空白 Today at 19:34

u probably heard me say it, but let’s go to france』

『雪 Today at 19:34

yea i’m kwl w/ that, hf on that date of yours』

『空白 Today at 19:34

its not a date…』

「That settles it then. Nee-san got us tickets, so we might as well go. Just kinda annoyed how this happened so suddenly without our knowledge.

Since I'm in my room, I'll have to prepare some paraphernalia for later. Rummaging through all sorts of cable extensions, tools and devices, I eventually found a spare USB Type-C cable which I planned to use. In my PC suite, I hooked up Nee-san's phone and proceeded to open her phone by pattern and granting myself permission for access. Checking my phone, it seemed that Nii-chan had already left with Sonia for a rooftop date. How enviable.

In exchange, I'll begin searching for any of those passport photocopies Nee-san had and delete them.

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

And there were none, excluding the online booking details. After like 2 minutes of searching, nothing really showed up. That's good enough, but now I'll sync all of Nee-san's data by importing her cookies and saved logins ✩. Don’t worry, I have them kept in a separate folder which I'll erase later when I’m done. I scanned through the cloud backup services that her devices were logged into and any other services she signed out of. How? By going through her phone's root storage and using ADB shell commands, it was possible to access old cache on almost any device.

It didn’t even take 5 minutes to sift through the online data and places she could’ve stored them on. I plan to finish my thorough inspection through everything.」

-════════════════-

「A hemisphere of darkness. If not for the glow of the glass cube’s fluorescent lighting, we’d be walking around the rooftop in total darkness. Kinda dangerous huh?

Thankfully up in the night sky, the moon was in the first quarter of its lunar phase. It was at an angle well enough for us to see the ground that was scantily illuminated. A full week since the solar eclipse on the 14th. This year was full of celestial events.

Leaning against the designated rails, I looked down below. How many times have we seen this same view? I can’t recall as I exhaled puffs of smoke which should have been white but were bleached a dark grey under the lightless light of the moon. Instead, it made me remember something else.

Christmas was roughly 4 days away. In my thoughts, I wondered if it’d be like any other day where we’d torpidly dissipate our time away. Let’s hope nothing outlandish occurs in that time period. I pray, lest we depart from normality.

Fin…

No, there is no way there’d be an actual, proper end to this. What the heck would anyone expect?」

˹ “I don’t think anyone was expecting anything…” ˼

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