The world was empty, but that made sense. What was a raid platform but ones and zeros decorating the aether? Winding their way through genetics and minds to create blank, fascinating worlds for people to rip apart?

Emilia stared into the abyss, and nothing stared back. Was it black? Red? White? Had it ever been anything at all? She reached out a hand, her fingers slipping through golden strands that reminded her of herself. Why did they remind her of herself?

A scream echoed out of the dark light, brilliant and earsplitting. She couldn’t scream back. She tried, but there was no oxygen here, and she didn’t know how to speak into the aethernet. Feelings, sometimes. A laugh, a sliver of anger. Those things could shutter through the aether with enough concentration or emotion, but a word? A scream?

Even Emilia didn’t know how to—

✮ ✮ ✮

“Hey, cutie. You’re awake.”

Emilia rubbed a hand over her eyes, pushing sleep aside to blink up at the strange man—V. V, who most certainly wasn’t giving her his real name. She blinked at him, trying to find the familiarity that had occasionally swiped at her memories before she’d fallen asleep. She saw none of it, just a sloppy, cheerful man.

“Yes,” she said, pushing herself up and stifling a yawn.

V looked like he wanted to coo, his smile pressing into a tight, wobbly line. “I have food, if you want some,” he said instead. He offered up a bag to her, stuffed full with… something.

Emilia eyed up the dubious looking food.

“They’re pretty good. Not as good as most of the stuff from our world, but—” V shrugged, popping a few of the orangish-red blobs in his mouth. He chewed… and chewed… and chewed.

He didn’t look particularly put out to have needed to chew his food so much before it became swallowable, so Emilia wasn’t sure if he normally chewed his food thoroughly or if it was tough or tasted gross or what. Regardless of the why, Emilia was slow to take a piece herself, V watching her with glittering, expectant eyes.

The thing was squishy in her hand, and weighed far more than she would have thought. She brought it to her nose, giving it a little sniff.

V laughed, those awkward dimples of his popping up across his face. Apparently, her nap hadn’t erased her dislike of them.

“You gonna eat that, or what?”

“I’m working on it,” Emilia said, glaring at the piece of food.

“Just get it over with.”

“I’m psyching myself up.”

“You’re gonna psych yourself out of it at this rate.”

“Says who?”

“Says me~” V sighed, leaning back on his elbows to continue watching her attempt to eat the thing. His focus wasn’t making her attempts to just put the strange food in her mouth any better. “Seriously, it’s not that bad—” V cut off, making a little “ah~” sound, his mouth holding open for a moment.

“Ah~ what?” Emilia asked, scowling at him. She thought it was a pretty good death glare, but V seemed annoyingly unfazed by it. Most likely, she made herself too cute. Instead of looking scary, she probably just looked like a tantruming child.

“Ah~ you must be one of those people who only eat the food they grew up with.”

“I grew up eating plenty of different things,” she snapped back. “And just today—like, our time today, although I guess it was technically yesterday afternoon…” Emilia trailed off as she contemplated how weird the concept of time was. Even Censors could skew time, to some extent. It wasn’t exactly recommended, but they’d all done it during the war—at least in their unit they had. Skew time a little to get a moment more to analyze the situation. Hope you didn’t burn your brain out doing so.

Only one person had completely burned their brain out. It had been horrible, but none of them had been able to deny that their effective death had been worth it. Almost none of them.

Emilia blinked back into the moment, finding V still watching her intently. She swallowed, glanced away. “Anyways, I just ate at a place in the slums near where I live. They have good food. Then we had dinner at this totally upscale place. The waiter was a jerk, but we ordered food from the west.” It had only been afterwards that Emilia had realized the restaurant Pria had chosen had served food from the region she was from. Expensive, bougie food, but from the region Pria had grown up in, nonetheless.

“Then why not try this?”

“Because almost all the food I’ve eaten here so far has been gross,” Emilia replied, annoyed that the man was so… sensible. No, that wasn’t quite right. He was sensible, but in a way that implied he was actually extremely illogical in most matters of life and was just saying things he knew he would hate to be told himself.

V simply laughed, popping another piece in his mouth. At the very least, he didn’t eat with his mouth open. Emilia wasn’t a fan of seeing mashed up food inside someone’s mouth.

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She hated it enough that she had hidden inside a cave by her house once, when her father had tried taking her on a trip where she knew eating with your mouth open was a thing. The cave had flooded as the tide came in, and she’d almost died—she’d only been eight, and the water had come in so fast it had forced her further back into the cave. A young man who’d been visiting his girlfriend’s family for the summer had rescued her. She could still remember his arms around her, still remember his softly soothing voice and wet blonde hair.

She hadn’t seen him again. It had been the end of summer and by the time she’d been allowed out of the hospital, he was gone—returned to university with his girlfriend. He’d never come back, and she’d eventually learned he was from a sub-50 family—something he apparently hadn’t even shared with his girlfriend. The name he’d given—the only thing she’d had to potentially track him down and thank him properly—was fake.

During the war, she’d considered asking Seven about it. He could have known if some sub-50 had run away to attend a regular university under a fake name, then tried to marry his way into a sub-30 family and saved a random, stupid little irregular girl on the beach. Seven had never really been one for chatting, though, and Beth wouldn’t have even been alive yet when all this happened—actually, Seven might not have been either, now that she thought about it…

“Open up.”

Emilia’s eyes narrowed as V tried to press a piece of food into her mouth. She wanted to say she wasn’t a child, that she didn’t need to be fed by hand. She certainly didn’t need to be fed by such a filthy hand. Seriously, if they happened to come across water, she was half-tempted to manhandle the man into it.

“Come on,” V pouted, his bottom lip even sticking out. “Just try it. Please~?” Thick lashes batted at her over those gorgeous blue eyes, the effect somewhat dampened by a black stain under one.

Tentatively, Emilia opened her mouth, watching as V’s face lit up with something between astonishment and… something else. Arousal? Maybe. Fascination? She had no idea, but those unlikeable dimples of his deepened as he slid the food into her mouth, politely careful to not actually touch his fingers to her mouth.

He leaned back, gazed locked onto hers as she chewed. He swiped the uneaten piece from her hand, popping it into his mouth and rubbing crumbs off his hands and onto his pants. Based on the way his lips twitched and amusement danced in his eyes, he knew full well he shouldn’t be wiping his dirty hands on himself—not that his pants could get any dirtier.

“So?” he asked as he swallowed.

Emilia continued chewing her piece, trying to figure out if she should swallow it or spit it over the edge of the rock wall. It wasn’t exactly good, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the food her Risen Guard had given her, during her first few meals in this world. This thing, though… it reminded her of a horrible sweet they had in the north—sweet being a relative term. She’d only had it once, when she was young and stupid enough to eat the gifts her father received from people looking for his attention and support.

“It reminds me of pranpran,” she said, grimacing as she choked the so-called food down.

V laughed, his eyes squeezing shut as his head tilted back. When he stopped, he continued staring upwards, because even though the rock wall had ended, there was still impossibly more space until the ceiling. “Had that, have you?”

Emilia blinked at him, nodding as she used her tongue to try to remove the sticky substance from her teeth. “Have you?” It was rare, if he had. Pranpran was only produced in one of the sub-50 wards, sections of land within larger regions that were almost exclusively inhabited by sub-50s and their servants. It was rare for them to accept visitors, and many of their creations—whether food, artwork or people—rarely left the area. Even children rarely attended normal Baalphorian universities, and adults usually worked inside or nearby their ward.

“Not often,” V told her as he continued staring upwards, “and not in a long time.” He shrugged, shooting her a smile. “It’s not the worst thing in the world, but I can’t say I’ll be craving it or this stuff once we leave here.”

She hummed, starting when he reached into his coat and pulled out another bag of food, handing it towards her.

“This is actually good,” he promised.

Emilia tried to not snatch the bag of sweets out of his hands, recognizing them from her lunch with Key and Rin the day before. Given the way V’s smile deepened, he seemed to have realized she was trying to downplay her enthusiasm for the delicious food.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely as she popped a few pieces in her mouth, moaning as sweetness melted over her tongue. “I love sweets,” she mumbled, eyes squeezing closed.

Across from her, V was silent as she ate a few more pieces, and when she finally opened her eyes again, she was unsurprised to find him watching her. His smile had fallen, his dimples disappearing into his skin. Emilia tried to imagine him clean. He’d still have the terrible dimples when he smiled, but with clean hair and clothes? Without the lingering scent of sweat and grime?

She shook herself. “Don’t do that,” she scolded herself. “Hoping someone will change for you isn’t sensible. Plus, you have no idea what he looks like outside of the raid. Plus, open relationship aside, technically, you’re already taken. Plus, this is a competition! Don’t just blindly trust people, dumbass.”

Still, tit-for-tat, and Emilia couldn’t stop herself from picking another sweet from the bag and leaning forward to offer it to V. His eyes widened, his smile wavered. He was a good boy, though, opening his mouth to let her press the sweet into his mouth, the pads of her fingers grazing over the tip of his tongue and lips. He didn’t stop her hand from leaving—didn’t clasp his mouth around her fingers or anything else—but she didn’t miss the way his eyes darkened, nor the way his eyes didn’t leave hers as he chewed.

She didn’t break the eye contact, either. Partially, because this was a simple, soft moment that she didn’t want to break. Partially, because she was a little worried if she looked away her eyes would confirm the hardness growing in his pants, just out of sight enough that she could deny that she’d had the effect on him. It wasn’t a bad effect—with only a few exceptions, she’d always loved the fact that people found her attractive—but she’d feel bad for causing it when she had no intention of things going further than this brief moment of fun.

She had tried to change men in the past. She wasn’t going to let herself fall into a trap of trying again, just because she’d met a nice boy who seemed full of intoxicating joy and freedom.

Emilia and V’s eyes shot simultaneously to the doorway on the other side of the ledge. The sound they had heard—the soft whispers of voices floating through the aether—grew closer, closer. V flipped over, all ease disappearing from him as he skirted back to her side, both of their eyes glued to the doorway as he passed her her bag.

Her hand rummaged through the bag, wrapping around one of her new {Blood Needles}, in case they needed a quick attack to blow some enemy up—not that she particularly wanted to risk destroying their only means of getting off this ledge that didn’t involve a surely suicidal attempt to descend the rock wall and—

“Rin!” Emilia half-yelled, half-sighed in relief as her friend appeared in the doorway, an older man stepping in beside her.

“Taoran,” V greeted beside her, voice shocking cold, all levity gone from it. “Guess our babysitters found each other, just like we found each other.”

Emilia glanced towards him, finding her saviour turned maybe friend was no longer the cheerful, smiling man he had been only moments before.