DEAD RUNE [A Deltarune AU]

Chapter 2

It was a Christmas night as people lay on the fields, watching the night sky field lit with fireworks. Many couples leaned onto each other, and families huddled together to watch the pyrotechnics.

It was no different for the Dreemurr and Holiday families.

The parents from both families huddled near, watching the fireworks display while chatting among one another. Off to the side, Asriel and Dess lay beside each other as they pointed to any fireworks display that caught their interest.

Dess, wearing a cheeky grin on her face, leaned onto Asriel's shoulder, leaving him to tense up as he looked at her in complete surprise. The two stared into each other's eyes before giggling as they returned to watching the night sky.

Just a few feet away, Kris and Noelle huddled together under a blanket provided by their parents. Kris's eyes lingered on Noelle as she stared up at the night sky.

"Kris?" Noelle's voice caught their attention. Her eyes continued staring at the bright-lit night sky. "Can I ask you something?"

"Erm, sure," Kris said. "What do you want?"

Noelle initially looked away from Kris before looking back at them.

"You know about how...Azzy and Dess will leave for college, right?"

Kris looked down upon hearing her question. A pained expression spread all over their face.

"...Yeah," they reluctantly answered. "My family talked about it from time to time."

"Can you promise me something?" Noelle asked.

"What is it?"

"Can you promise me that we'll...that we'll still be friends?"

The request caught Kris by surprise, but they recovered soon after.

"W-wha...of course, I will!" Kris responded. "We're BFFs, after all! Always will be! Nothing's gonna change that!"

They saw Noelle smiling at them warmly from the answer. But after saying that, a thought lingered in their mind, and they couldn't help but ask. So after a short silence between the two, they spoke.

"So, what's with all the questions and stuff?"

"H-huh?" Noelle looked at them warily.

"I asked what was all the questions about?" Kris explained as they huddled their legs together. "I know you're not the kind of person to ask those...deep questions Azzy talked about before."

They remembered one time Asriel suddenly asking, "Why are we here?" and "Are we a product of some cosmic entity?" among other weird stuff while in the middle of playing Super Smashing Fighters. The question stuck into their mind for so long that they asked him one weekend, only to find out that he blurted out a quote from some web show he watched.

That was a whole week of worrying they'll never get back.

Back to the present, Kris noticed Noelle hesitating to answer as she opened her mouth before closing. Eventually, she gave an answer.

"...I'm scared," she said.

Kris knew that Noelle was scared of almost everything. Even she's afraid of Santa Claus, for crying out loud! But the way she said it worried Kris.

"Of what?" they asked.

Noelle paused as she looked down before speaking.

"O-of losing what we have. Losing Dess and Azzy," she paused again, this time facing toward Kris. She then muttered. "Losing you..."