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“Are you happy, here?”
“…What?”
“In the new DGP,” Ace says. Tsumuri blinks. It’s been a week or so since he returned, and he still wanders from place to place. Like she’d realized his shrine did, when she left it. She supposed there is a big world, and only one Ace.
“Of course I am,” Tsumuri says. “If this is about your—”
“I can take care of my own place,” Ace says. “My world isn’t one of trades.”
Tsumuri sighs.
“I suppose so,” she says. “Then what is this about?”
Ace hmms, stirring his drink. He’s sitting at the bar as casually as when he was just a player, and she just a navigator.
(But isn’t she still…)
“You can go anywhere in the world,” he says. “Do anything. Is this what you chose? Don’t have anyone you miss?”
Tsumuri flinches. There… well, there is someone she misses, but she hopes to never see her again.
Fuu …
She straightens up and shrugs off the thought.
“I am a navigator,” Tsumuri says. “And I told you. My wish is to support your world.”
“A world where everyone can be happy,” he says softly. “You feel it too, don’t you? About the DGP. About the players.”
Tsumuri thinks they’ve spoken about this before. She’s known so many Aces across his lives, but a different order than he knew her. She remembers being young, unsure in her existence, and meeting a man called Yakumo Eisu, who asked her why his card wouldn’t write his wish “when he finally wrote it”. She remembers being older and a man called A looking around at the DGP like it felt familiar to him, even though it would have been Ace’s very first game in 1AD.
She remembers plenty others, too.
And she thinks at some point, yes. They spoke of it.
“Hey, Tsumuri?”
“Yes, Miss Ace?”
“What do you think of this?”
“Of… of what?”
“The DGP. What do you think? Kind of depressing, isn’t it? All these wasted wishes.”
“I don’t think they’re wasted. I remember every one.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because I want… ah, it doesn’t matter. I’m just the navigator.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever given me a straight answer,” Ace says. “Supporting my world isn’t a wish of your own, and I’ve asked you before but you said it didn’t matter. Who was the GM back then?”
“Cecilia” Tsumuri says. “She was fired for running a three year game that ended in failure.”
She treated Tsumuri well, but Tsumuri hated the costumes. A new one for each round. She much prefers her current dress.
Ace hmms, nodding.
“I suspected,” he says. “So tell me, why do you remember every wish?”
“Because I want to see them granted,” Tsumuri says. She’s never said it before. “I read them all, each game. Not for the audience, they’re shown from your hands. I read them during the rounds.”
It’s easier than watching the common round one massacres. They had certainly gotten worse lately, but it was always a part of the structure.
It was a grace most GMs allowed her. Chirami hadn’t, but she’d known that handful of wishes already.
Ace is grinning at her. Tsumuri frowns.
“What?” She asks.
“Nothing,” he says. “I’m just happy.”
He usually is, since he’s been back.
“And?”
“A Desire Grand Prix that simply brings happiness,” Ace says. “It is a nice dream, isn’t it? Fighting for a wish.”
“Not every player is a good person,” Tsumuri says. “I know that.”
“And so do I,” he says. “But it’s good to know. The future is in the safe hands of my sister.”
“I’m not your sister,” Tsumuri says, entirely out of habit. “But I am the navigator. And this is what I chose.”
Ace tips his glass to her.
“Then I’m glad,” he says. “To join your game.”
It really is nice to have him home.
Ace waves at the camera, ignoring the distressed faces Kyuun is making, and Neon grins.
“Looks like we’ve got a special guest,” she says.
Ace keeps doing this. Brings Michinaga food at work - which he claims causes all sorts of problems when his coworkers ask why a celebrity brought him lunch, but he doesn’t seem entirely annoyed. Bothers Keiwa when studying.
And this.
Neon doesn’t entirely mind the surprise cameo, though, so she rolls with it. Her and Ace have an easy rapport, and that goes for their public personas as well. She’s bubbly and he’s charismatic and she gets to bully him a little on camera and watch him try to keep a straight face.
Turtle minutes later, when the street ends, she hugs him.
He tenses, but he lets her. He really is so easy to fluster if you know him.
“Have fun bothering me?”
“Your fans did,” Ace says. “I see you’re doing well.”
Neon rolls her eyes.
“I know you stalked us when you were playing dead,” she says. Ace looks always.
“Yes, well…”
“It must have been lonely,” Neon says.
“Only a little,” Ace replies. “I’m back now. And here to stay.”
Neon grins.
“Good,” she says. “Because you’re buying me lunch.”
She really has missed him.