Chapter 74: Not Affiliated (Part 1)

"What’s his name?"

"You don’t know him."

"That’s why I’m asking."

"Milo."

"Is he Survey? He punches like someone from Field."

"He was showing me what our last match looked like from inside the box."

"Our."

"Okay, enough about me!" She clapped her hands once on her knees. "How did you do? I lost you in the first ten meters of that crawl, and nobody could tell me where you went."

So Milo told her about a redhead’s handshake, a knife versus a stick, and the arrow that shot out of nowhere.

For a good while, she laughed about the arrow.

Apparently, Ollie’s trick had secured him wins deep into the tournament before failing against her pair.

The knife in his right pocket wasn’t mentioned. Neither was the flower in his left.

When he reached Maigh’s defeat, she threw both fists into the air, and he started describing the fight in more detail.

Of course she cared about him. On Thursday, it had been Milo waiting beside her while she wheezed at the finish, and this morning he’d walked her to the white line. That boy hadn’t been there for either of those.

Now, with a capsule due for Jence, it was him and Layla again.

If the one bound for the cities hadn’t come so conveniently, though, would there be three of them sitting here?

Or would she have stayed there and kept laughing?

...

On Sunday morning, at the counter of a street stand, Layla bit into her kebab.

A strip of meat tipped over the edge of the dough. She shifted aside, clearing her coat out of its path and letting it slap the pavement beside the stand.

Within a few chews, ants converged on the fallen doner.

They climbed the gloss of fat in a line as the girl bent over her knees to watch it happen. Forgotten, her flask stood on the counter, the pink thread around its cork fraying at one end.

Milo had more pressing concerns.

In his hands, the kebab was not only thicker than his own forearm, but squeezing it into biting range only forced more meat out of the top.

"My cousin has an ant colony," Layla said.

"And he feeds them kebabs?" He tipped his chin at her phone. "When are the results?"

"They will come when they come."

Buzz-buzz!

Their eyes locked.

Layla tossed her kebab onto the tray and shot a hand out for the phone.

Taking the opportunity to rest his aching palm, Milo lowered his own portion. Her glare stopped him just short of the tray.

As the entirety of his spending fund consisted of a knife he had yet to sell, she was the one who had paid for it.

The kebab stayed in the air.

White flashed across her narrowing eyes as the screen lit.

"Milo, Milo... They’ve posted my group."

"Hm? I’m with you?"

While she went on staring, he tore off another mouthful. Meat and dough, both saturated with fat and spices.

Had he said yes to the extra sauce, he would have needed somebody to roll him home. Unlike relics and omens, ordinary food took its time absorbing inside of him. His stomach’s experience with such meals mostly ended at sandwiches, too.

"I... no..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Paul... Jesse..."

A harder strip of meat went sideways.

"G-Gakh!" Milo choked. "Paul? And who’s J-Jess—hhk—"

Since the girl remained absorbed in the device, he had to pound his own chest for the piece to come loose.

"Jesse was my teammate..."

So the puncher of air had a name. Not only would she and Milo be separated again, she’d be leaving with Paul, of all people, and with someone she seemed to have loads of fun with.

Asking about that would likely get him another enough about me.

Along with the rebellious doner, he swallowed that line of questioning and moved onto pragmatism.

"What about my group?" he asked. "The scores, also."

"I’m not... sure." Layla licked the remaining sauce off her fingertip and scrolled lower, eyes skimming over rows of data. "They don’t seem to have released the other groups. But scores are here."

She angled the screen toward him.

Studies: B+

Survey: S

Field: S-

No wonder. Seven omens and a streak of victories in the tournament ought to compensate for her unremarkable run times.

At his nod, she scrolled further, down into the M’s.

Studies: C+

Survey: B

Field: A-

So that was him, huh. The best letter marked his Field performance, which had been the idea all week, and the worst the track he had spent years in.

By Layla’s standards, the whole column was a disaster.

"If my group’s not there, where do I go?" He wiped his thumb on the foil. "Who do I even go with? Both academies are in this. They could put me with a dozen people from Hallorch I’ve never seen."

"They’ll send it." Layla turned the phone over in her hands. "They’ll send it to..."

"To my phone. Right."

"I can check for you tonight. And in the morning."

"And after the morning?"

She set the phone face-down beside the flask and nudged the two into a row.

"I don’t know how long these things last," she said. "A week? More? Nobody’s told us if we even come back in between."

"I’ll manage a week."

"That’s not what I..." Her nail picked at the pink thread. "How would I know if you didn’t? Manage."

Only once it had become a phone did he mean to bring up the knife.

But at the rate her nail was going, the cork would turn bald first.

"About that... Maigh had a knife. I beat him, so now I have a knife. Rules are rules." He cleared the last of the doner from his throat. "Common, with a Week left in it. I’d guess it sells for more than a basic phone costs. Like, a device that sends messages. And receives them. Hm?"

Would she get angry that he hadn’t told her yesterday? He’d given her most of the tournament already, and she might want to know exactly which parts he’d left out—

"Show me."

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⋆˚࿔ Coming right up: "Not Affiliated (Part 2: Finale)" ... ⤵︎ [!]