"So are we going to do this or not?"
The closet is stifling and dark; Venus knows that somewhere, on the outside, Jupiter is probably toying with her hairband. But that would be a sucker's bet. She might be listening in, her ears tuned in even as her eyes are fixed on the windows, engaged by the stars which skate glacially across the sky. She might be pretending not to listen in.
Isn't it a shame, that even if we can close our eyes to look away from a thing, we can't close our ears? Sound is a thing that we can't block out with our own bodies, carried through the immanence of our flesh as surely as it's carried upon the wind. Sound is only something that we can run away from, but there's nowhere to run.
"I don't know," Venus says uneasily. Neptune looms in front of him, her presence muted by the absence of light. It's unreal in the closet, it's dreamlike. It's still stifling and dark.
"What, so Jupiter was wrong about your crush on me after all?" Neptune's teeth grin, glowing unearthly in the dimness that slips in from around the locked door. "I'm wounded, Venus."
"It's not that," Venus says. "It's - what about you and Jupiter?"
"What about me and Jupiter?"
"You know. Don't make me say it, it would be weird." Venus wraps one arm around the other. His eyes haven't adjusted to the darkness, and they don't want to adjust. It feels like the confining space, as small as it is, might go on forever. He needs to hold on to something.
"Do go on. I live to watch you embarrass yourself with your weirdness."
Venus scowls. "I don't want you to lose your chance with each other because Jupiter got cold feet for this dumb kissing game."
Neptune wants to say a lot of things. This is hardly her only chance to kiss me, Venus, she might say. And she'd be right, but if Jupiter can't work up the nerve even with a ready-made excuse, then how will she ever work up the nerve?
Or maybe: If Jupiter had gotten cold feet for me, then she just would have taken her turn and pretended to be heterosexual with you, she might say. And she'd be right, because the truth is that Jupiter so obviously got cold feet for both of them. It's too hard for her to pretend that she is something that she isn't, with Venus. It's too easy to pretend that Venus is something that he isn't.
Or maybe Neptune might go with a classic: It's just one, Venus. It's only a game, Venus. It's just seven minutes, Venus. Don't be such a baby. She acts like her meanness is an honesty, a kindness, but sometimes she's only mean because kindness is too ugly, coming up. Kindness is a bile on her tongue, acrid and eating away. She can feel it in the back of her throat, an awful sick that might almost be sweet.
It is sweet. It clings. How can she wash it away?
"You're the one who suggested this game," Neptune says. "Are you so sure that you haven't got cold feet?"
"Yeah, but I wasn't thinking that I would play," Venus says, a little testily. He catches himself before he can continue. "I'm. Like. Drunk and everything. And besides, I was sure that you two would end up together. Um."
"You are the worst wingman ever, Venus."
"It's not my fault Jupiter lost her nerve." Venus mumbles. "I mean, it's not her fault either? I don't want to, like, blame her or anything?"
God, Neptune wants to just beat him over the head with his own obliviousness. "Maybe if you weren't still wearing that skirt, she would actually consider playing."
"I don't follow."
"You look like a girl, Venus. Hell, you halfway sound like one, too."
"Oh. Um, thank you?" Venus tilts his head to the side. Like a puppy. "I still don't follow?"
"Jupiter is gay, Venus. If she can't kiss me, no way she's gonna be able to kiss you."
"She is!?" Venus' jaw drops. "No, wait, that explains a lot of things. Like why she's at this camp and stuff."
Holy shit, he can't seriously mean - "You didn't know?"
"How am I supposed to know?" Venus shrugs helplessly, and starts babbling. "Just because a girl has a crush on another girl, that doesn't make her gay? I mean, I always assume people are straight and then I'm proven wrong so I don't trust my assumptions anymore. And besides, I know I hate being labeled-"
"Ohmygawd, Venus, this isn't rocket science."
"Well, maybe it is to me?"
This friggin' blockhead.
"What am I going to do with you, Venus?"
Venus' face is already flushed with embarrassment. No-one particularly likes the implication that they are being stupid. But already, his blush is shifting, rosy with a different kind of heat. "I, ah..."
"It would be easier to figure out what to do if you were able to deny that you have a crush on me."
Venus cringes. It's almost funny, really. It could be funny. In the dark, without anyone to tell anyone otherwise, he really does look like he could be a girl. Neptune can see it - another Venus, in another life, another sad queer girl to complete this sad queer set.
("But I have a crush on everyone, Neptune, so it doesn't matter? Well, everyone who's nice to me. Which is basically just you and Jupiter. And Saturn, from group Southeast. But she's only nice to me in a condescending way? So not her, I guess. Still, I mean, it doesn't matter. Obviously.")
Venus as a girl, as if through a funhouse mirror. Or maybe just Venus, through the Devil's fucked-up eyes. Through Neptune's eyes. If only everyone saw things the way that the Devil does.
"Sorry, Venus," Neptune says. "But even when I don't hate boys, I still won't kiss them. Ever."
Venus' lips are soft to the touch, hesitating and uncertain.
"Or touch them."
Venus is soft to the touch.
"I don't understand," Venus says. She is stricken trembling and dumb.
"Don't you?"
Venus pulls away, lingering at the edge of Neptune's palms. "I'm a boy."
"And I didn't lie." Hands trace along Venus' hips, too narrow for one role and too wide for another. "I don't do this sort of thing with boys."
"But you're doing it with me?"
Neptune briefly considers clubbing Venus over the head. There's a broom within arms reach, but maybe a something else would do a better job. A purse, or some cliche garbage. "And therefore, that makes you…?"
Venus is warm, but Neptune feels goosebumps all the same. "Neptune," Venus says. "You're being nice but it's just a skirt. I don't understand."
"It's not about the stupid skirt," Neptune says, pushing Venus back against the wall of the closet. There's no way out. "It's about you."
"What about me?"
"Not much in particular," Neptune says. "No one ever said I needed a good reason for what I do."
"But people say that all of the time, Neptune?"
"Yeah, and they're shitheads. Ignore them. I'll do what I please and right now that means having sloppy lesbian makeouts with you."
"But I'm a boy? So you can't?"
"I can and I already have," Neptune says lowly. "Sorry babe, it's a done deal. You were lesbian kissed and lesbian groped and you liked it."
"Neptune, pretending doesn't make it real!"
Venus slaps her hands away. Crushed.
"Venus, who needs to be shown that it's 'real'?"
Neptune can feel a coughing fit whispering up, but she staunchly suppresses it.
"...no-one?" Venus says, breathing heavily. "Me, I guess. You."
"I'm not asking for this to be real, Venus, because it doesn't have to be real to mean something. Why do you want it to be real?"
Venus doesn't say anything.
"When you're not trying to prove anything about a moment, you can't be proven wrong. When you can't be proven wrong, no-one can take that moment away from you."
Venus' pupils are dilated. Her eyes flutter like they're larger than life.
"You get to keep it close to your heart."
And Venus' lips are sweet enough for a girl to fall in love with, if she's willing. The warmth of sunlight on a pond, in some imaginary twenty-fifth hour, a thirteenth month, a sixth season of the year.
There's never going to be enough… time. Space. Opportunity. But this is something that Neptune can keep close to her heart, too.
Maybe another day.