"I was going to ask you, Sunny, if you were a boobs or butt type of guy — but I see there's really no need!"
Sunny looked up from his synthpaste with the expression of someone who had been hoping that particular incident had been forgotten. Posterous wish, of course. The Gods had a higher chance of reviving when compared to forgetting the great "Awakening Incident".
"Agh, can we please stop talking about that? You've been hounding me on it ever since I woke up!"
"Oh come on," Juno said pleasantly. "Not every day does a flower boy have the courage to admit something like that."
Instead of answering, Sunny just scowled at him and continued at his synthpaste. It wasn't good at all, but when compared to the stuff he had to eat in his First Nightmare or listen to a stranger berate him on his first words to Jet, he would take the disgusting food.
Across the table, Jet set her tray down and took her seat, expression neutral, eyes on her food. The neutrality was, Juno's perception noted, a deliberate construction rather than a natural state. She picked up her spoon and began eating with the focused composure of someone who had decided the most professional response to this conversation was to remain uninvolved in it.
Sunny ate. Juno ate. The cafeteria hummed its fluorescent hum around them.
"So," Juno said, after a comfortable interval. "What's your type, then?"
Sunny glanced up. "What?"
"Women, obviously," Juno said, wagging his spoon. "Since we know one of your physical preferences, what else do you like?"
Juno knew Sunny's Flaw, of course, and he was deciding to play into it. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, when Sunny still hadn't gotten his Flaw under control.
Almost as soon as Juno finished speaking, Sunny started.
"Well, I would like it if she were taller than me. Confident and driven. Ideally, she would be older than me as well. Someone stronger than me, pushy too. Forceful and assertive, you know..?"
Sunny closed his mouth immediately afterward with the look of a man who was absolutely petrified with fear and a little confused.
'Ah.'
Silently tearing up, Juno was reminded of a certain buff man who made a brother out of another buff man who had the same type of women as him. Oh, how he understood it now!
After a couple more seconds of silence, Juno finally nodded sagely and started to clap quietly.
"Older, taller, stronger, forceful, assertive," Juno said, between claps. "Sunny, I respect you enormously. Truly. That is a very specific and perfect list."
Sunny looked like he was considering whether disappearing under the table was a viable option.
"For what it's worth," Juno continued, composing himself with visible effort, "I completely agree. Dominant women are simply better. There's no arguing with it."
Sunny's head snapped up. "I don't like any dominant women," he said extremely quickly. Juno did not fail to notice the wording of the statement, amazed by how fast this Sunny was adapting to his Flaw. "I was just… slightly confused, that's all. I woke up from my First Nightmare really recently, unlike you."
"You woke up hours ago."
"I was still adjusting."
"To what?"
"Everything," Sunny said firmly, in the tone of someone closing a door and locking it and pushing furniture against it for good measure.
Juno opened his mouth.
"That's enough," Jet said.
She said it without looking up from her tray, in the tone of someone who had been waiting for a natural break in proceedings and had decided this was close enough. She set her spoon down and folded her hands on the table with the composed deliberateness of someone transitioning into a different mode entirely.
Both of them looked at her.
"As per protocol, I'm obligated to inform you of a few things." She looked at them both. "First — you're entitled to receive free psychological counseling. No matter what traumatic experience you encountered in the Nightmare, there's no shame in asking for help. Your mind is as important as your body." She paused. "Are either of you interested?"
"No," said Juno.
Sunny shook his head.
"As you wish. You can also talk to me if you'd prefer." She glanced between them. "Was it very hard?"
Neither of them answered immediately. Juno let Sunny go first, which was both courtesy and curiosity.
"It was simultaneously much worse than I expected," Sunny said carefully, "and exactly as bad as I expected."
'Huh, same thing as usual. Curious.'
Jet nodded, satisfied with that. She looked at Juno.
"Educational," Juno said.
She held his gaze for a moment, then moved on. "That's a good attitude." She straightened slightly. "Now, you're both free to do what you want. No one is forcing any particular decision. You can prepare on your own, or not prepare at all." A brief pause. "However, I'd advise against that. You're both entitled to enroll in the Awakened Academy. Food, lodging, and a wide choice of preparatory classes. More importantly, you'll get acquainted with most of the people who will enter the Dream Realm with you. Some of them might become your companions for life."
She left the rest of that sentence unspoken. Juno heard it anyway. So, he suspected, Sunny did too.
"Is there anything either of you wants to share before we go?"
Sunny said nothing. His expression was perfectly neutral, the careful blankness of someone who had made a decision before the question was finished and was executing it without visible effort. He picked up his spoon and went back to his synthpaste with the air of someone who had decided that food was a more productive use of his attention than the current conversation.
Juno was about to say something along the lines of 'No, we got nothing! But you should watch the news carefully in the next couple of days,' but then he couldn't. Suddenly, his very soul became alight with desire. It was so powerful, so potent, that it was like his Flaw had been saving up all the things he didn't act upon within the last couple of days.
Suddenly, Juno looked directly at Jet and, in a slightly pained voice, spoke.
"I got something. My First Nightmare was actually quite interesting. Yeah, I even got a True Name from it."
Jet looked at him.
Sunny looked at him.
Juno looked back at both of them with the expression of someone who had just been body-checked by their own soul and was choosing to roll with it rather than explain. It was mostly because he didn't understand what the hell just happened, but still.
"Uh, yeah. It's Sun Chaser," he said, since he was already here. "That's my True Name. Sun Chaser. Pretty cool, right?"
The table went deathly still.
Jet looked at him with the calm assessment of someone who had just received information that required significant internal reorganization and was performing that reorganization in real time behind a composed expression. The composure held. It was very good composure. But something moved underneath it, quick and genuine, before it settled back into professional neutrality.
Sunny had stopped eating entirely. He was looking at Juno with an expression that moved through surprise, reassessment, and something in the vicinity of reluctant disbelief before landing somewhere he couldn't quite categorize.
"Yeah, the Spell gave it to me after my assessment. " Juno added, slightly more conversationally now that the initial reveal had been handled by his Flaw and he was back in control of the pacing. "I was going to mention it at the Academy registration anyway. I just decided that, well, why not practice right now..?"
'Yeah, that last part was very convincing. Incredibly, dare I say.'
Sunny's expression shifted almost imperceptibly. Something recognizing something else.
Jet picked up her cup. Took a measured sip. Set it down.
"Sun Chaser," she said carefully.
"Sun Chaser," Juno confirmed.
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, with the decisive quality of someone filing something significant away and continuing forward regardless, which was, Juno was coming to understand, simply how Jet operated.
Sunny looked at his synthpaste.
"Incredible," he said quietly, to no one in particular.
"I thought so too," Juno agreed cheerfully.
Sunny glanced at him again, clearly shocked that another True Name bearer was in front of him. With how smart the kid was, he could definitely tell that this was his [Fated] Attribute at play.
'Is he a kid, though? I am younger than him by like three years right now. Oh, how confusing this world is.'
Juno ate the last of his synthpaste and found, somewhat to his surprise, that it had improved significantly since the beginning of breakfast.
His Flaw had settled back into its usual background hum, apparently satisfied. He made a mental note to be more careful about letting it build up like that again.
He made a second mental note that he was probably going to ignore the first one.
By the time he was making a new mental note, he was already walking into the Academy right next to Sunny.