Editing City Series:Volume8a Chapter4 (section)

===Aoe’s Sight Mode: In DT Central Redford District===

'''<Aoe’s Over Reload>

The first place Aoe looked was Yuo’s hand after she said Suedomsa might be her father.

Her hand was teasing the hair spilling over her shoulder.

Then he looked to her face.

He viewed the expression there.

But before he could identify that expression and consider what that meant, he made a different decision.

He took action before that decision could appear in a window above his head.

He pulled Yuo toward him and hugged her.

He took a step forward himself and held her in his arms. She twisted her shoulders in protest at first, but only for a moment. When he held her tighter, she stopped.

She leaned into his chest, pressing her nose against him and bending her long ears.

Then she let out a quiet breath resembling a cough.

“I know I’m thinking too much and I have no real evidence of it. But if it’s true…then it means I met my own sister in Japan without knowing it.”

“Mh.”

“What if Alternative was so nice to me because I was her amnesiac sister and she never said anything for my sake? I-I just can’t stop thinking about it.”

Aoe felt Yuo’s shoulders trembling in his arms.

He wondered what he should do and settled on showing he was listening.

“Mh.”

It was only a quiet grunt, but she nodded, coughed, and sucked in a breath.

“I-I’m jumping to so many conclusions, aren’t I?”

She coughed again. She took another quick breath and calmed her breathing, but her voice grew scratchy in response.

She used that raspy voice to speak directly into his chest.

“I’ve lived in this Minus city for 600 years since then, but I still remember that brief time I spent living a Plus life in Japan and I just can’t seem to decide which one is for me. I have to wonder if I can never be an elite of either and that I might be a dropout who can’t choose one or the other. So if you’re a Plus dropout, then I’m a Minus one.” She hung her head further in his arms. “I know…I know I’m just stacking assumptions on top of assumptions,” she said, pressing her face into his chest with her long ears still bent. “So why does it worry me so much?”

Aoe held her even tighter when he heard that. The hands he usually clenched into fists were open and rubbing her back that felt so small right now.

Feeling her back below his hands, he suddenly remembered what Algo had once asked him.

<Why is the wind so cold?>

He responded to both Yuo and Algo’s questions and to neither.

“Yes, why is that?”

''I’m no help,'' he realized afterwards.

''I’m so inexperienced,'' he added.

He sensed Yuo moving in his arms.

He looked down to see her looking up.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

Her eyebrows were gently angled and her eyes were closed.

She still had tears in the corners of her eyes and her lips were somewhat parted. Those lips were moving a bit.

“Why is that?”

He didn’t have an answer for her, so he lowered his head.

He brought his lips toward her face.

He started with her tears and sucked them up.

The tears left a piercing saltiness on his tongue.

“Ah.”

A tremor ran through her face, but he ignored it. He ran his tongue tip down the bridge of her nose to the tip. When he pulled away from there, she angled her face a bit upwards to accept him.

And just as he brought his lips toward hers, the last two windows closed.

'''<Aoe’s Over Zoom>

His eyes instinctually searched for details, but he shut them to block that out.

He pressed his lips against hers.

And…

A sound like colliding stones came from between their mouths.

'''<Aoe’s Sight Mode has ended>