Loyalties (an Among Us fanfic)

8. Detective

"So Red did actually talk to you?" Yellow asked, finishing the last bite of his cheeseburger.

Orange nodded while sipping his drink. "Yes she did. Did you tell her to do that or something?"

"Uh . . . Well, I only suggested the idea. Plus, I think she could learn a lot from you." Yellow glanced at Red on the other side of the cafeteria to make sure she couldn't hear. Then, he said, "In doing these tasks, I mean."

Orange chuckled, nudging the straw out of his mouth and fixing a few strands of his spiked hair. "We all have our strengths and weaknesses. But we didn't actually talk about tasks. The main topic of our conversation was"—he paused—"politics, actually."

Yellow blinked in curiosity. "Politics, huh? Let me guess, you chatted about the Uprising, huh?"

"Precisely. I made some points about why that rebel organization would actually be somewhat reasonable, and she was pretty open to my ideas. It was a bit surprising, but then again, she and I never really talk. Anyways, I'll go put"—he held up his empty cup—"this away."

When Orange stood and left, Yellow also got up. He threw the wrapper of his cheeseburger in the garbage then went to the big wall of windows. He stared out at the infinite stars while being reminded once again of his love for the universe, which was the reason he got into astronomy in the first place. There was something about the vast unknown that attracted him like a magnet. Like the peculiar Great Attractor, maybe.

Yellow tucked a lock of blond hair behind his ear, but in doing so, he saw Brown from the corner of his eye. She, too, stared into the stars. "Hey," Yellow greeted.

It took a while of silence, but she responded with, "Hi."

"How you doing, Brown?"

She glanced at Yellow, making her bob cut sway gently. Her circular glasses reflected the light of the glittery sky, and so did her caramel cheeks. "I'm okay. You?"

"Same." He stared directly at Brown for a while longer, which must've made her uncomfortable. "You sure you're okay? Like, I know you've always been quiet, but you still were throughout that murder mystery. And we've ejected Cyan, so I'm pretty sure the threat is out of the way."

Brown eyed the universe again. "This is how I always am. I don't talk."

"Okay . . . I'm just worried, because that fact makes it harder to tell if you're secretly, I don't know, going through something—we probably wouldn't be able to tell. Or you might be trying to hide the fact that you're the impostor in the crew, I don't know."

She sighed and suddenly approached him. Yellow even took a step back from how sudden it was. When she stopped walking, she said, "I just don't see the point."

Yellow took a second to study this somber look in her thin eyes which he'd never seen before. "The point in what?"

"We're down to only half our crew. Even if the mystery was solved and Cyan was the impostor, we most certainly did not emerge victorious." She nudged her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Actually, I've never been able to see 'the point' in a long time—every human dies someday, and in this world, the only meaning in our lives is to work and serve the Human Empire in some other way. Our purposes just happen to be taking field trips through the universe . . . rather, less than one percent of the universe."