Chapter Text
Mizi had always been a wayward child.
If love was childish, as the Segyein so loved to say, then Mizi had never truly grown up. If love was foolish, well, then her jet-black stage costume should have had all the bells and whistles of a jester’s. Love was her everything and, despite her usual alacrity to adhere to Segyein ideals, she had no regrets.
So, to Mizi's ears, the announcement that Round 1 was starting in just five minutes rang out not as a death knell, but as a wedding bell.
Winning—tying—meant freedom . A treacherous freedom won with blood and pain, but freedom all the same: the only gift befitting the beauty standing on the steel platform adjacent. Mizi had read enough of Sua’s storybooks to know that they usually centered around a worriless couple enjoying a life of indulgence: a woman and her darling whiling away the night wrapped in fluffy robes, sipping sweet, almost ambrosial, cherry wine from the next solar system south. Staining each other’s lips with that rich red until the hearth dulled and they fell to sleep.
Sua read those books so fondly that Mizi thought that must be the life she wanted; and Mizi had seen Luka showing off enough times to know that winning promised that and more if one had a kind owner.
But that wasn’t what Mizi wanted. In her truest, most foolish fashion, she wanted something far more simple yet complex: freedom to tell Sua, plain and simple and without pretense, how much she loved her.
“Sua?” Mizi reached to take her hand, squeezing it gently. “Are you ready? Remember the plan… we have to sing so perfectly in sync that they couldn’t possibly choose one of us over the other! I’ll sing higher, and you’ll sing just a touch lower, and—and I won’t trip over my notes this time, I promise!”
Sua nodded, but her eyes betrayed none of her thoughts on the matter, and neither did her lips. Instead, she raised her free hand to toy with the ends of Mizi’s hair, now dyed a cotton-candy blue. “You convinced your mother to let you use that box dye you bought from commissary? It looks lovely.”
“Really? You think so?” Mizi’s eyes must have brightened, judging by Sua’s shy smile. “Thank you! You look pretty too. Really pretty. Your dress is, like… well, not glittery, but shiny in a really colorful sort of way—”
“Iridescent? Pearlescent, maybe?”
“Yeah, those! Whatever it is, it’s you.”
Sua brought her hand to cup Mizi’s cheek and she was quick to lean into the touch, savoring the gentle caress of her gloved hand. Her thumb traced delicate circles on Mizi's skin, a gesture that spoke volumes without uttering a single word.
But the moment of comfortable silence was short-lived. Sua sighed, her hand falling away as she averted her gaze to the ground. “Mizi, before we go on stage, we need to talk about something. I don't want to make this more difficult than it needs to be.”
“... What?” Mizi felt her heart plummet into her stomach, a sickening sensation that made her feel as if the ground beneath her feet had given way. What could Sua possibly want to talk about now, mere minutes before they were set to take the stage? The plan was foolproof, wasn't it? They had rehearsed their performance to perfection, each note and harmony—but the grave tone of Sua's voice said differently, that there was something she’d somehow missed.
“The Segyein have always warned us against falling in love, against forming any close bonds with others. It's been drilled into our heads since we were old enough to understand the words,” said Sua, and Mizi nodded.
“But,” Sua continued, her brow furrowing, “have you ever noticed how they never actually punished us for it? Not when they caught you kissing my cheek, or when Till couldn't stop drawing pictures of you, or when Acorn and Thomas became inseparable during playtime? They never intervened, never made any attempt to stop us.”
“What are you saying, Sua..?”
Sua leaned in closer, her eyes intense. “What if it was intentional? What if they've been allowing us to form these attachments for a reason? Think about it, Mizi. What if they forbade it to make it more likely that we’d try? And if that’s what they’ve been trying to foster, then surely there’s people before us who’ve tried the same thing… and yet, you never hear about a tie being made.”
“That—that doesn’t make sense. Why would they?” Mizi felt her bottom lip start to tremble despite herself and despite reason. “The way you’re saying this implies that they have some sort of bad reason for it. What if they just want us to be happy?”
“If their focus was on us being happy, then they wouldn’t have us sing until we lose our voices,” said Sua, before she took a long, deep breath. “They say that being on Alien Stage is an honor for us. But really, what drives it—what makes them money —are the ratings. Who wants to watch what they see as a ‘boring’ show? No, to make it ‘interesting’, the opponents have to care for each other, they have to—”
Sua's words were abruptly silenced as the platforms shot upwards, far faster than Mizi anticipated.
The timer blipped away the seconds, leaving no room for further thought. Now, it was time to perform. A flicker of doubt, fueled by Sua's haunting words, threatened to consume Mizi. Could her Mother, the one person she trusted implicitly, have sent her here knowing the potential for heartbreak?
"Sua! I'll see you later!" Mizi's voice carried a desperate edge even she couldn't ignore. Her gaze searched for Sua, but the dazzling spotlight blinded her, leaving her more alone than ever before.