The Hum in the Earth

Inhuman

———Y/N———

Ever since the airship, I had noticed that the red string around my finger seemed to be almost disappearing. The red bow that was once vibrantly laced onto my pinky finger, had somehow been turning... translucent?

I didn't quite understand, but it also seemed that I could still somewhat see the trail that was left from the string, although faint. Getting in the Taxi with Illumi to make my way to his home, I wondered if the other side of the string would lead to him. Perhaps he was the one that was really waiting for me on the other side, but I don't remember a string on his finger during the dream...

———————

———Illumi———

After what happened before, I realized that her leaving wouldn't have really made much sense. For a while, through the exam I believed that she forgot all of the things that we did together. I thought that she forgot about me, the time that she spent with Mother, and even how Grandfather practically adopted her.

I wonder if Milluki remembers her, he was born a few months after she came to live with us. She will probably enjoy seeing all of the siblings. She's still going to be loved by mother though, she's probably going to become part of the family because of her again.  I doubt mother will want her leaving again after what happened last time, and I suppose she will want someone by her frequently.

Pausing my thoughts, I stopped the car to tell the driver to pull inside the parking lot. I went to the other side of the car door, and opened it for Y/N to make sure that she exited safely, and also to keep the chances of her running away slim.

"The airship will be waiting for us in about an hour, would you like to get lunch in the waiting area before it comes to pick us up?". I could practically hear her stomach groan in distress at the mention of food, she must be starving. Without waiting for a response, I took her hand and headed towards the airship port's food court.

"Do you have a preference as to which one we enter? I am not sure which foods you like, and while I know that you enjoy sweets, I think we should eat a proper meal first."

She seemed to be contimplating which food she would rather eat, but then she suddenly gathered a burst of energy and this time, took me by my hand.

"I see sushi, and I smell miso soup! The last time I ate it was when your mom brought me food after one of her missions."

I hummed at the girl, and then followed her inside the small sushi shop. The room was covered in decorations that I would assume most would consider to be cute. There were tiny figurines for sale, and there were stuffed animals along with various other themed products in the corner of the store. I didn't pay mind to any of the items, as they don't really fit my interest, but I did notice that Y/N couldn't take her eyes off of one thing in particular.

"What are you looking at?"  The girl seemed slightly taken back, an emotion similar to confusion spreading across her face. She shrugged it off and continued,

"I found a catalogue in Meteor City once, and it was full of the same characters here. I remember as a kid that I wanted to collect all of their stuffed animal versions, and I even used the spellings of their names to help me learn how to read and write."

"So which one is this one?" I pointed to the dog-like stuffed animal from before.

"That's Pochacco! He's my favorite of all the characters!".

"Hm...". I noticed that she somewhat fidgeted with her pockets, and I could only assume that it was because she was trying to attain a sense of how much money she had.