With the light on Matoi's scar growing, the Elite Three had trouble sleeping in one room that night.
"…Matoi." Mia winced an eye open in bed. "There has to be some better way to hide that. I-I can barely fall asleep with that in the same room."
"Imagine how I feel." winced Matoi, shoving her glowing scar under her blanket, green light still emanating through the covers.
"…let me ask Yuruko for something." muttered Mia, setting off to Serena & Yuruko's room. She came back after a minute with a Vantablack set of gloves, and Matoi nodded as she put them on.
Mia glanced at Samuel on the floor and frowned to find him still sleeping. "How does he do it?"
Matoi laughed as she sat up. "He was going to join the military before Urasaria - he already learned how to fall asleep quickly."
"He's mentioned that before, but…" Mia's head shook. She never had any admiration for the military like she had Urasaria students. "I still can't believe that he would want to join."
"There's a lot of lesbians that would say the same about Urasaria."
"You know there's a difference."
Matoi smirked. "I do. But, as for Samuel, I doubt he was ever very serious about it regardless. You know what his politics are like now. Part of it was that he felt he needed a strict mentor to guide him, and fortunately, he was assigned to me."
"He's the opposite of how Serena was." mumbled Mia. "She thought I was too overly strict, too protective."
"Does she think you're too strict as a squadron leader?"
Mia shook her head. "No, but I don't give as many orders as you did. I know Samuel and Serena do better by themselves, and with Yuruko, well…" She frowned. "…I feel as if I still don't know her well enough, admittedly. She's studying to be a researcher. I give her as much time away from hunting as she asks me for, but... She doesn't really talk to anyone but Serena."
"I'm surprised you chose her."
A little defensively, Mia said: "Well, she wasn't my first choice, but -"
" - no, I was going to ask why you didn't think one otaku was enough." said Matoi and Mia nervously laughed. "I don't understand what an ostensible adult sees in anime and manga."
"Doesn't Rin read it?"
"That's different." muttered Matoi, though Mia saw her smile a little.
"Serena's always been a little immature. I just wish I knew what Yuruko thinks of me, or Samuel."
Matoi yawned, part of her green light shining underneath her glove on to Samuel's head. "…I never understand how he sleeps like that."
"On the floor?"
"Yes. I remember in our first year, whenever it was raining, he refused to use an umbrella because he told me he needed to be used to discomfort. I don't think he's ever found a situation he can't make more pointlessly difficult."
In the beginning Mia had laughed about his propensity for extremity, both in appetite & violence, but the two had found over the summer they likely had the most in common out of any pair in the Elite Four. Samuel had come from a Texas family whose money was cut off at the pockets - Mia's had moved near Urasaria for the low rent. One experience they shared, common to many latchkey children, was an overbearing elderly figure who knew when their parents were working, choosing then to affectionately pat their hair & try conversation with them. Mia often asked the first student she saw to walk her home, and Samuel had attended a school with hosts.
Though she knew enough to say the two weren't linked, one event she was never able to get out of him was what caused his Revenant to activate. She doubted she ever would - he was a man who you took as he wanted it or left him. He unraveled himself slowly and was enigmatic in a real way, not how some men used cliche mysteries to paper over their banal realities. Archetypically masculine in appearance & interests, he nonetheless almost solely interacted with women, and had told Mia that he believed that, while women drawn to work for Urasaria were usually fangirls, men were often the type that filled other authoritarian jobs like civilian police. This was another point of connection for the two - both considered themselves separate from that type of work.