“Supporting my brother isn’t a ruined night. And maybe I need it too,” Nida counters. “Besides, in most cases we could probably find a way to wear ourselves out enough to fall back asleep.”

With anyone else, in any other situation, that would be an innuendo. Right now it is a statement of fact. He has a responsibility to Seifer, before just about anyone else. Before himself even. Seifer might not believe it, but it is what it is.

“And of course I knew. What sort of SeeD would I be if I wasn’t aware of what was going on under my own roof?”