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It feels easier than it should, to live with the knowledge that Sua intends to die.
—
At some point during the promotions leading up to ALNST, Mizi and Sua are taken back to Anakt Garden and asked to pose among the artificial trees and race along the grass in Anakt uniforms—modified to fit them, after so long—and in the outfits they have chosen to wear as they kick off the fiftieth season.
A long round of photo-shoots later, under the watchful eye of a segyein who seems to think they’ll break something from a hundred feet away, they sit at the bank of the river Mizi had once grabbed a mechanical fish out of and then cried like a baby about after, calming only with Sua’s hand on her back. With their feet in the water, still as clear and cool as ever, they sit in silence.
Mizi’s skin prickles. Multiple times, she opens her mouth and attempts to form the question any which way she can—why do I have more parts in the song than you do, why did you give me more lines, why are we singing a duet but putting you at a loss, why, why, why. Weren’t we supposed to win together?
Why did I let you do it?
It never comes out, and neither does her mouth open. She has done well for a long time, not allowing herself to think too deeply about the image of Sua, lit by the glow of a screen, the movement of a gunshot or perhaps a strangling imitating the death of the pet human. Was that from season forty-nine, or forty-eight? Mizi doesn’t know, because she hasn’t quite been brave enough to go back and check.
She looks at their bare feet, the cool water sweeping past them. You know I know. But then, that’s why she doesn’t say anything, either.
“Mizi?” Sua touches her arm. Her fingers are cold and Mizi doesn’t flinch, turning her head to look at Sua. “Is everything alright?”
“Just thinking about, you know,” Mizi responds, smiling. “I bet no one’s ever tried to do it like we’ve done before.”
“I’m sure they have, and we just don’t remember,” Sua shakes her head. It sounds like one of the kind lies they tell themselves, again and again.
“Oh, well. Still!”
Softly, she begins to hum their song, tilting her head up to look at the artificial sky. From where they sit, it’s easier to notice the corner where the walls and ceiling meet to their left. Sua joins in, smiling at her gently and with love, and they sing together, both aware that they will face each other as competitors and one of them will die. It is not something they speak about.
—
“You knew!” Mizi shouts, and the horror of using force against Sua, again, sinks into her bones, but she doesn’t let it stop her, grasping at Sua’s wrists and looking at with desperation she did not know she could express. “You knew, Sua, you knew that I know, and still—”
“You didn’t say anything either!”
“I won’t let you do this—” Sua has always been so fragile, and it’s so, so easy to throw her back against the wall. She looks up at Mizi with teary eyes, and raises a hand to cover her mouth. As if to say, it’s too late, Mizi, there’s no turning back now. This is the easiest way out.
She even smiles like it, too. As if she isn’t going to set Mizi adrift in space with no anchor.
—
And in the end, they sing, they harmonize, they render the crowd speechless; they have never sung so beautifully in their lives before, not even while practicing, and for a brief, stunning moment, she thinks, she believes, they might win,
until the gun fires, and she has not quite processed it until warm blood paints her face red, and the crowd goes wild, flashing with light and roaring with sound.
Sua smiles on her way out.