"So... you're not here to convince me to come back to SAGS?" Sunny asked, his voice distinct from the other people in the cafe they now sat in.
Before she answered, Moonlight took a big bite of cake, leaving cream at the edges of her mouth and a bit on her nose tip.
"Fyeafh–" she begun before immediately being cut off by Sunny.
"Swallow first, jeez."
"I'm saying, yeah, if you don't want to go to SAGS it's totally fine," she gulped some juice, the cream on her lips staining the royal blue glass. "I mean let's be serious here, you almost die on the first assignment and you get your first tribulation almost immediately after. It's definitely understandable to be mad."
Her eating was way too sloppy to be a lady's. Seeing it made Sunny instinctively wonder if Luna too ate so sloppily. He, however, immediately disproved himself by remembering almost perfectly the moment he had eaten with them back in their house. Luna ate as though she had been trained for that very scenario.
The memory was so vivid that it felt as though he was viewing it again in the spectator room. His memory alone could not be so clear. They never were.
"Long story short," the words brought Sunny's concentration back, making him know that he had missed quite a bit of what was said. "Theoretically, you could just solo it out and just fight the anomalies that come for you without any kind of agent protection. The problem, however, is that you won't have spectators to cover up for you in case you're seen or are sloppy. I doubt it'll take too long before your solo job becomes a threat to order then well..." She deviated from her statement with a shrug and took another bite– too big a bite that she almost couldn't contain it in her mouth.
"So what are you saying, you'll kill me?" He raised a brow.
Moonlight gulped down the cake, her eyes watering and her face contorting in utter discomfort showing that she was swallowing something too big.
"Not me, no, of course not," she began, hitting her chest as she spoke, "but if you're not in an agency you'll either have to join a moderator or spectators will be sent to deal with you. Their job is to make sure the existence of system users remains a secret so you running about will cause problems."
Sunny gripped his clothes again in rage. This was, in the simplest of terms, slavery. He had to join them or else he'd have to join the same people that had him experiencing unimaginable pain over nothing.
"So I don't have a choice then, do I?" He said through gritted teeth.
Fuck this system, fuck SAGS, fuck the moderators, fuck the anomalies, fuck this dress thing, fuck me, Sunny thought.
"SAGS is made to protect system users from everything and everyone, if a system users decides to go solo and threatens to reveal the secret to none users, it becomes an issue," she said, leaning up close as she did, "and outside SAGS when you decline a moderator's invite, they can physically come for you and turn you to whatever they wish. SAGS can't stop tribulations, I won't lie to you, I've been through three now and everyone goes through them. What SAGS can do, however, is prevent the moderators from physically coming for you."
She sat back, revealing that her top was now stained by cake.
Without a second thought, she took hold of the top and brought it up to her mouth, trying to lick off the smudge.
So within SAGS he did have some sort of protection, he only had to deal with the tribulations but once he woke back up, at least the moderators wouldn't come for him in the true world.
She could have been lying just to take him back to SAGS, but then again, if his death would just mean his system would simply find another host, then wouldn't it be easier to just have him leave and die to the first anomaly he'd en ounter and wait for the next user?
His system wouldn't allow his death, of course, but nobody knew that.
"Why can't they?" He asked, before the thought fully went through his head.
Moonlight looked up from her moment of 'cleaning' her top to answer, "I don't know, guess you have to thank Zero for that, now won't you?"
Something in Sunny's head found a deep curiosity to the mention of Zero.
"Who?"
"Founder," she returned to sucking the cake off her top.
"Okay enough of that!" Sunny bursted out, grabbing some paper towels and rising off his seat, getting closer to her and wiping the cream off her mouth and the cake and saliva mix off her top. "I swear you can't be this childish."
"Aww, just say you were itching for a reason to touch me."
Sunny stopped for a moment, looking dead at her face, as though trying to see through it and see if there was a brain in that head of hers.
"Have I told you that hospital gown looks–"
"Good on me, shut up."
She shrugged as he went back to cleaning her top. She just had to get frosting and saliva all over cotton.
In the midst of cleaning her top, he realised his sisters; Trinity and a depressed looking Luce standing at the street, waiting to cross the road to come to the cafe.
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to come to the cafe him and his siblings often went to whenever they felt down.
"We have to go," he said, already walking to the washrooms.
"What's supposed to be the meaning of this?"
"Do it," Sunny said, pacing about, breathing into his clasped hands.
"So bossy, fine!" Moonlight said, reaching for the edge of her top, lifting it as though readying to remove it.
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa, what are you doing?" Sunny asked, turning away.
"What–what were you referring to?"
"The portal! Why would I mean–" he shook his head.
"Well don't talk to me like I'm stupid, of course I knew what you were talking about, i was just testing you."
She walked up to an untouched wall, caressing it, her palm feeling its smoothness.
"Is that necessary or are you just assaulting the wall for no reason?"
"Okay, dad," she said with a roll of her eyes before mumbling to herself as she slid her crystal key into the wall, "you're almost as mean as my system."
The wall cracked, forming the pattern of the SAGS emblem before imploding to a whirling mass of dust, fog, rock and light.
Without any time to waste, to avoid anyone running in on the moment, they leapt through, the portal closing up just on time before Luce walked in.