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Ayano feels amazing . Her heart hasn’t been this light in months, maybe ever . Wonderland 2.0 is a screaming success.
With emphasis on screaming .
Ayumu has her keep the human garbage under her quirk as long as she can even after they’ve finished their performance. She’s vaguely aware of him leading her out of the gymnasium, out into the darkness surrounding the school. The full moon is high in the sky, and so is she.
Within Wonderland, she’s surrounded by sobbing. They’ve finally gotten what they deserve, and they hate it.
Good.
“Drop your quirk,” Ayumu says. She does, and everything goes quiet. He catches her when she stumbles, and they sit on the curb together.
They’re a few blocks away from the school, but not in their house’s direction. Even as she can’t stop giggling, all she wants to do is curl up in bed and go to sleep.
Ayano blinks as Ayumu sets something heavy in her lap- her backpack, but her few remaining keychains and buttons are gone. It’s so sad, just a mottled gray and brown. It used to be purple.
“Where’s my stuff?” she asks.
He shakes his head. “It’s too identifying. And the keychains jingle, remember? They’d find us so fast.”
“Find us?”
“We need to lay low for a while, Yano. We can’t go home right now.”
“What are you talking about?” He’s not making sense. “Why can’t we go home?”
He stares at her, brows furrowed behind his glasses. “They’re going to be really mad at us.”
“So what? It wasn’t much worse than everything they’ve done to us.”
Ayumu shakes his head. “The school actually cares about them, Yano. Their parents are going to be pissed. I don’t think we’ll get off lightly like they did.”
“What, they’ll expel us? We hated it there anyway.”
“I think they’d probably press charges.”
“Yumu, you can’t be serious. We just scared them a little, it was a dream! Wonderland isn’t real, they’ll be fine! That sounds super serious for a prank.”
Ayumu’s eyes are cold and hard. “Yano, I told you I practiced for this. The stuff I took from them might not affect their actual bodies, but it was still real enough. They’re not going to be happy with us.”
“But… they deserved it.”
“I agree, they deserved it. But no one else is going to see past the fact that we used our quirks on them. We’re villains.”
Ayano laughed. “Don’t you think that’s a little much?”
“No. Legally, we’re villains , Ayano, whether they deserved it or not. And I doubt people are gonna take our side. We can’t go home right now.”
All at once, the light feeling drained away. “What? What about Mom and Dad? We can’t just not go home, Yumu, that’s stupid!”
He pats her backpack and his own, next to him. “That’s what these are for. We’ll hang out for a few days. I brought our money and clothes, and snacks, and Snowflake. It won’t be forever, but we’ll have enough for a while. We’ll stay at a hotel or something, I already thought everything out.”
Ha. “And why didn’t you tell me any of this?!” The world is closing in around her.
“You were already dealing with a lot. Besides, you can think things through yourself.”
It’s bad. It’s really bad. “You’re the one that suggested this!”
“And you’re the one who agreed to it. We’re both going to get in trouble, Ayano, so you just need to follow my lead until it’s over.” He puts his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
She’s not so sure, but it’s not like they have another option. She hugs her backpack to her chest.
Ayumu grabs her hand and pulls her up. They go off into the night.
It doesn’t blow over.
Ayano listens to the news from where she’s settled on the floor of their motel bathroom. Ayumu is applying the toner to her hair, to make it the bright white of her dreams. Literally, in her case, although they haven’t figured out how to copy the iridescence that Wonderland gave them.
“The suspects in the Nakano Middle School attack have yet to be apprehended,” says the anchor, “even after one full month of searching. The Suzuki twins, as well, are still missing. If anyone has information on the disappearances of Suzuki Ayumu and Suzuki-”
Ugh, they still won’t use her real name. It makes her queasy.
The news is pretending that they weren’t the culprits, but they knew it was lies. SOmeone had to have talked by that point, though supposedly Tachibana ended up being too “traumatized” to speak for a few days.
Like anyone gave a crap when Ayano had to start therapy.
They ran out of money from home last week. Ayumu had the amazing idea of turning Wonderland into a kind of challenge, and having people pay to attempt it. Their current set up was a small tent in the woods, switching spots every few days in case any customers snitched. Was it legal? No. But it was lucrative, and the more people failed to win the fake prizes, the more people wanted to try.
They were attacked by a small-time hero once, but the guy was powerless once he entered Wonderland. Then he had to play just like everyone else.
He’s still in the hospital, or so she’s heard.
It’s fine. It’s not a great feeling, with how many people fail, but it’s necessary. It’s freeing to be able to use Wonderland so much, and she gets that feeling back that she got after her first- not victims, they weren’t victims. Contestants, maybe.
Most of their contestants are jerks anyway. They need someone to knock them down.
Ayumu finishes her hair, and she washes it out in the small shower.
Her hair’s as white as Snowflake used to be.
Suzuki Ayano is gone.
The full moon rises in her place.