You're buying stars to shut out the light
We come alone and alone we die
And no matter how hard you try
I'll always belong in the sky
-Marina and the Diamonds
Her first kiss belongs to a scrawny, bespectacled boy from the dusty underground- a faded memory barely present in Yoko's mind.
(To her, the day she was truly born is the day she first crawled, palms bloodied and coated in gritty dust, onto the surface, a searing fireball scorching what seemed like endless stretches of blue and broken beige.)
She sits, knees pressed to her chest, close to the fire. He takes a seat next to her, half-cold portion of fish cradled to his stomach, and greets her shyly, not in the least bit deterred by her pursed lips and icy glare.
In a quick burst of courage, he leans to the side and brushes his lips against her cheek. It's evanescent, barely a sensation at all- totally lame and entirely pointless, she muses later.
But it's real. Oh-so-very real.
Her face scrunching up, Yoko punches him in the face because, honestly- didn't he know no one was allowed to touch her without permission?
Kiss Number Two- a quietly noble boy from aboveground Littner Village- all pale blue eyes and gentle caresses, nights laughing softly and gazing fondly at the stars.
Yoko cocoons herself against her chest, hands gripping the cold metal rifle strapped to his back as they stand halfway between the huts of home and the butterscotch sand of beyond.
"So you're really going?" Her voice is tiny, vulnerable- had she always been this pathetic?
He nods carefully, pressing his dry lips to her forehead. It seems like it lasts for an eternity.
"If it's what you really want…" She chokes back a sob and smiles. "I guess I can't stop you."
All good things must come to an end, the reeds whisper in a sing-song voice, swishing back and forth in the breeze.
"Thank you, Yoko," he whispers, without tears, and slowly pulls away. He unstraps his and places it, face-up, on her palms. They lock eyes, and no more words are spoken, but she understands. Good-bye.
He leaves- leaves the village, leaves a broken girl, lean back retreating in the distance. A swirl of dust paints the sky, and he is gone, swallowed up by the great unknown.
Yoko fires his (no, it's hers, only hers) rifle, calloused fingertips pressing, gripping, thunder after thunder pounding beneath her palms, the bruised wind whistling past her skin as crimson locks tumble past loosely-covered shoulders and all she can do is fly. High-heeled boot scraping across the scratched metal surface, she stamps her feet triumphantly on the fallen head of the Gunmen.
She grins, grins, and grins at the villagers cheering below her.
The world snivels at her feet, never to tap at her window as she soars.
He never returns, but no matter- she doesn't know what love is anyways.
The third sliver of her heart is unwillingly given away to a long-lashed boy with tattooed arms and a crescent moon smirk. He mocks the universe, mocks his destiny, chin jutting out as he points towards the heavens.
He's an egomaniacal, swaggering loudmouth, a long-shot from being her knight in shining armor, no doubt, but he sure isn't a mere mortal. He laces his fingers through hers, kisses her in the dawn of the final day, and pledges to her in such an unromantic way she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. They sit there quietly for a moment, underneath a blanket of stars, as she traces her fingers against his cheekbones, his adam's apple, every curve and dip and line, every heartbeat Kamina, Kamina, Kamina.
You never know what you've lost until it's gone, her footprints remind her.
But she loves, loves, loves him. Foolish, pitiful, fictional, forever forgotten love.
He leaves that day with curved lips, blood trickling down his bruised temple, leaves a speck of dust for the milky cosmos, a vast universe suited to his flare of radioactive brilliance Yoko's world simply could not contain. Leaves a mousy boy screaming and pleading for no one to hear, leaves a ragtag band of heroes, leaves with such a tremendous blow and such an off-handed farewell it leaves her banging against the shower hall and crying for the world to see.
A bang, a touch, a tear, a boom, and he is gone.
Yoko kneels in front of his grave, cape rippling in the half-breeze. The wind swirls a cloud of dust into the air, coating the rusted metal of his sword. She leans forward to press her lips to the cracked hilt, and gently brushes the sand off, ties the cape a little tighter."This is all I can do for you now, huh?"
She is reborn that day, reborn into someone who cannot love and ever truly understand the world.
Kittan Bachika unwittingly steals her final kiss, lips upturned in a wry grin as he presses her to his warm, beating chest. It's cruel, she thinks numbly, how everyone she's loved is so brave, and all she can do is cry and mourn and hurt over bittersweet realities.
It's going to happen, Yoko. There's nothing you can do about it.
The stinging immutability pricks at her heart as she pulls away. She says something, she remembers it, but she can barely hear them. They nod curtly a good-bye is somewhat compromised, a gaze rife with broken dreams and shattered futures, and he is gone.
He leaves in a blaze of glory, a muddle of slodgy galaxies and the half-beauty, half-ugliness of sacrifice. A lilac flame, a blinding flash, and the world spirals on with splitting bangs and ghostly twilights.
Tears stream down her dirt-streaked cheeks as time stops and settles into a cold niche of the desolate world.
She descends into a puddle of gray, eyes wide as she glimpses the future as it will never be.
She freezes as older Yoko steps out in a glimmering white dress and smiles serenely at Kittan. He assures her that she looks fantastic, and she (no, she refuses to believe that's her- this is fake Yoko) laughs, leaning in for a final kiss.
It's taunting, it's beautiful, it's all she's ever wanted.
A wisp of a hand guides her, and shaking fingers prod the button. The television sputters out, and All is silent, sky streaked with emerald.
(It was never meant to be. This parallel, their fate.)
"Thank you." She nods to a grinning, eternally seventeen Kamina, sword swung over his shoulder, posture astoundingly poor. He's exactly the same, she notes, and yet they've all changed. I wish you could see Simon now, Kamina.
He wordlessly gestures to the heavens, jutting his head in her direction, and there she goes, to a cruelly beautiful world that will never, ever belong to them and them alone.
Simon's hands barely flutter in her direction, lips curled in a half-smile. He mouths a farewell, a good-bye compromised as the fabric of her wedding dress tatters and fades away, hair tousled by a gritty breeze.
Her velvet suit suddenly feels uncomfortably tight. Confining, even.
A hawk sends ripples through the clear blue sky, screeching in bitter mourning.
Kamina, gone. Kittan, gone.
And now, Simon gone.
He barely glances behind him as he slings his cape over his shoulder, face broad and proud and forever fleeting. The ring clatters at her feet, and she tentatively reaches down to pick it up, closing her sweaty palm over it. The cold jewel pulses gently, branding her skin with its warm promise.
"Simon!" she shouts, grinning from ear to ear as she tosses it to him.
They exchange a sad, lonely smile- a final good-bye to someone who loved for everything and lived for nothing.
It's the last thing the second Yoko ever says.
Yoko smiles to herself, laying on the cool sand besides the cape and sword, head resting on her elbows. "It's silly, isn't it?" she asks the tattered fabric.
(It responds with a soft flutter in the breeze.)
She dreams of him no longer.
(Instead of whispers and caresses and sacrifice, an emerald ring and gossamer dresses dance and twirl beneath her eyelids.)
The world has no use for a broken hero.
(and that is the way it always will be.)