When Mikuru Asahina was young, she tended to find herself surrounded by people who dreamt of becoming famous when they grew up. Personally, she didn't see the appeal. She wasn't totally sure about where she wanted to go in life, but she knew she didn't want to be in a position that would get her too much unwanted attention.
When the famous gravure idol Mikuru Asahina looked back on those days, she would ask herself what happened, and the answer would come to her immediately: Haruhi Suzumiya happened.
Haruhi's specialty was finding talented people and bringing them into the spotlight where she felt they belonged. But throughout Mikuru's experience with stardom, she would continue to feebly insist that standing in front of a camera and looking pretty was not a talent, and even if it was, it wasn't one she had any interest in.
The complaints fell on deaf ears, and Haruhi would constantly insist that Mikuru looked on the bright side. As far as Haruhi was concerned, the bright side was practically the only visible side. How picky would someone have to be if they weren't satisfied with a life that earned them truckloads of money with minimum effort?
Mikuru never found herself agreeing with that sentiment, but she never seemed able to put a full counterargument into words. And so one day she decided: If she couldn't reason with Haruhi, her only remaining option was to run away. It took her weeks of planning and false starts, but on the night she finally went through with it, she didn't look back once.
But she wasn't exactly looking forward, either. She had no real destination in mind other than as far away from her former life as possible. When faced with multiple routes, she always tried to take the one that looked safest, but as the world around her grew darker and made her vision less reliable, the same became true for her judgment.
Mikuru was sure she'd passed multiple points of no return once she was in a shady looking city she didn't recognize. On the one hand, she was glad it wasn't so dark anymore, but on the other hand the neon lights surrounding her were making her very woozy. She figured at that point that the best thing to do was to find somewhere she could settle down without any hassle, but when she tried to call out to a group of people nearby, she felt her voice die out before it could make it past her lips.
Luckily, the group happened to notice her anyway.
"Well well well," the leanest of the group smiled unnervingly at her, "look what the Playboy Bunny dragged in!" He leaned slightly and nudged the person immediately to his left. "Doesn't she look just like one of those gravure idols from the magazines?"
The short recipient of the nudge nodded eagerly. "Oh, absolutely! She's a dead ringer for that Asahina girl!"
The largest of the group brought out a threatening pair of hands. "How about we take her someplace quiet and pretend it's really her?"
"Now there's an idea." The lean one's grin widened as he looked directly at Mikuru. "We can pretend all night long, and you're just the person to help jog our imaginations."
By this point, Mikuru's voice still hadn't returned, in spite of her growing urge to scream. She didn't suppose anybody who heard would feel inclined to help her, but it was all she could do. Or rather, it should have been all she could do, but even that was taken from her. She just wished that somehow, she could turn back time, or at the very least bring it to a-
"Stop."
Upon hearing that voice, the whole group froze completely, remaining completely static until Mikuru noticed the source of the voice appearing from behind them, like a ghost suddenly manifesting in the mortal world.
"It's Sankyo," one of the men murmured. "What's she doin' here?"
"It is not too late for you to make it through this night unharmed," said the newcomer. "You could still return home and pretend nothing out of the ordinary happened tonight. I shall give you all a moment to make your decision."
About a second and a half later, the whole group had fled, and Mikuru finally got a good look at her savior. It was a short girl with similarly short hair that appeared to be a curious shade of violet. While Mikuru certainly found her intimidating, she didn't really understand why the same would be true for the men she'd driven away with words alone. 'Sankyo' was most likely a nickname, but Mikuru couldn't begin to understand where it may have come from.
While she was still searching for her voice, Mikuru noticed the girl extending her hand. "Come with me," she said. "I know a place where you will be safe."
Mikuru could only nod, and even that required almost all of her remaining nerve. She didn't resist when the girl gently took hold of her hand and began to lead her elsewhere. Their destination turned out to be a small bar that Mikuru might never have noticed had she not been directed there. Judging by the sign, the place was run by someone nicknamed 'Kyon'. Did no one in this town want their real name known?
Kyon's bar looked like it saw enough business to stay afloat, but only barely. The first thing Mikuru noticed was a heavy looking crate near the entrance, which seemed to have been delivered and then immediately neglected by a procrastinating bartender. Speaking of whom…
"Morning, Nagato." From out of the back room came a man with a simple appearance; the kind given to the protagonist in a story so that most readers could identify with them. "I see you've…" He took another look at Mikuru and cleared his throat nervously. "...I see you've got company."
The girl, now identified as 'Nagato', nodded while gesturing for Mikuru to take a seat for the time being. "She is in shock, and so I brought her here in order to keep her safe."
"Well," Kyon chuckled, "really it's only safe because you're here. You could take her anywhere, give her time to recover, and she'd probably be good as new. But while you're here…" He looked towards the crate. "As much as I hate to constantly rely on you for this kind of thing, do you think you could take that box into the back room? My back's been killing me lately."
Without any comment, she walked back to the crate and, to Mikuru's surprise, she lifted the whole thing without a moment of struggling, as though it were an empty shoebox. It didn't even seem to slow her pace as she made her way to the back room. Mikuru kept her eyes on that door until she noticed Kyon approaching her with a glass of water, which she accepted, expressing her gratitude with a simple nod.
Drinking the water helped her find her voice again, but she didn't have much to say until Nagato returned from the back room and took a seat next to her. The first sentence to leave Mikuru's lips was a simple 'thank you', to which Nagato responded by telling her it wasn't a problem. There wasn't much conversation after that until Mikuru remembered one of the many questions she asked herself after losing her voice.
"Why did… why did those people call you 'Sankyo'?" She said.
"Because they think of her as a machine."
Mikuru was surprised to hear Kyon answer her question, mainly because she'd forgotten he was even there.
"They nicknamed her 'Sankyo' after the people who make music boxes," he continued, "because even though they see her as a machine, they can't deny she has a really good singing voice."
Mikuru couldn't hide her intrigue. This 'Nagato' girl, who had so far only spoken in total monotone, and never gave the slightest clue as to what emotion she may have been feeling, could sing? And well enough that her talent was incorporated into what was otherwise intended as a derogatory nickname for her? She was just full of surprises, it would seem.
"In fact," Kyon said, "more people come to this place to hear her sing than to buy drinks. She's basically the main reason I'm still in business." He looked at Nagato as if he'd noticed a change in her expression, but Mikuru didn't see anything of the sort. "I'm sorry, am I embarrassing you?"
"No," she said, but Kyon didn't seem to believe her. "I think I should be leaving now." She turned to Mikuru. "Is there somewhere you would like me to escort you to?"
"I…" Mikuru lowered her head. "I don't really have anywhere to go… I'd like to stay with you, but if that's too much of a hassle then I could…" She quickly realized that she couldn't think of a way to finish that sentence.
"I would certainly be willing to let you stay in my apartment," Nagato said. "There is a room other than my own in which you can sleep."
"Then I guess it's settled," Kyon said. "You both look like you need some rest, and I know I do. I hope to see you again tomorrow."
"You are Mikuru Asahina, are you not?"
Mikuru didn't really understand why Nagato had waited until they were alone to ask that, but she answered anyway. "Y-yes. How did you know?"
"While I was in the back room," she said, "I saw your photograph on the cover of a magazine." She neglected to mention that she owned many similar magazines herself.
"I see..." Mikuru blushed. "So that means you know more about me than I do about you..."
"If that is an issue," she said, "then my name is Yuki Nagato. And this is my apartment."
Once they'd entered, Mikuru was shown the room in which she'd be sleeping, but it didn't look to her like a guest room. There seemed to be a personal touch to it, but Mikuru wasn't sure who the person in question might have been.
"Does… does someone else live here?"
"At one point, there was somebody else," Yuki said. "But she is currently in prison."
"Oh…" Mikuru decided to not ask any more questions and get some sleep.
A/N: I worked on this on and off for a long dang time, and for most of that time I intended it to be a one-shot. In fact, I've already started on what I've only recently decided will be the next chapter.