"Okay," Blanc said, her words full of crackles thanks to the inconsistent cell service at the academy. "I'll be spending the rest of the evening at the library if you need me. Thanks, Neptune. See you tomorrow."
Neptune lowered her arm. The name at the top of her phone screen was a faded white. She combed her bottom lip with her teeth and turned her head to observe Noire from across the room. Her friend sat in the corner of the bed, arms wrapped loosely around her knees. Not a sound had come from her direction since Neptune's laughably retro ringtone had gone off, though her wandering eyes belied her attempt to appear uninterested.
Neptune looked away for a second to reach back and lay her phone face down on the desk behind her. She was sitting at the desk, in her swiveling chair.
"So, Blanc's not coming today?" Noire asked after a few seconds. Her tone was indicative that she had expected otherwise.
"Nah. Blanc said what she's doing right now is easiest when she's by herself, so she wants to work in the library for a while. She told me she wants to finish writing everything for the first scene before tomorrow so we can go over it."
"Alright," Noire said simply. Neptune wished she would have said more, no matter what about. The lack of flow in their conversation made her uneasy.
Yesterday's events, as dramatic as they had been, felt even more surreal now that it was day—like a rainstorm battering on a roof all night only to slide off the eaves before morning. Everything had been reduced to a fleeting shadow of a memory, and she had no way of really confirming that it had even happened at all. Except for a short, vague apology from Blanc via text, neither of her friends had brought it up.
Neptune tried to ease the tension she felt by getting up and stretching dramatically. "Hey Noire, let's do something to pass the time," she said, as cheerfully as she could muster. "I have games, movies, and anime. Let's have some fun, you get me? What do you think?"
Noire bit her lip and thought for a few seconds. Her mouth, as Neptune saw from the side, was drawn into a taut line. In those empty few seconds, her attention flitted between the top of her knees and the window, then finally Neptune when she answered.
"Yeah, sure. Let's do something fun. I'm okay with whatever you want to do." Noire smiled a bit. Neptune smiled back and stepped across the room toward her sleek television set. She tried to crush the unease loitering in her gut. It was paranoia, like the lingering disturbance of seeing something unsettling very briefly only for it to scatter in the light. Something never visible but always present.
A stack of recently played games lay on the ground next to the TV stand. Most of them were singleplayer games, and the ones that did support multiplayer, Neptune just was not interested in playing. Her library of movies was lined up on the bottom shelf, a collection of watched and unwatched films. Two of them were labeled Film Club. She put them aside without comment.
"Have you seen this one?" Neptune said eventually, holding up a colorful box. She had made a safe choice: a heartwarming animated fantasy by a widely known studio with good art and cinematography and characters not tied to any other franchises.
As the film began to play (Noire had shaken her head and consented to Neptune's pick), Neptune climbed into her bed and mounded the blankets up around her. She deliberately left the space next to her uncovered.
"Hey, Noire," she said, patting the spot by her side.
Noire hesitated, eyeing the empty space as if she felt it were a trap, but in a few seconds she had scooted close enough for their hips to touch. Neptune reached past her and closed the blankets in around them. In the process of trying to shift the blankets, she got a faceful of silky black hair. Noire's shampoo, though unscented, pervaded and lingered in her senses.
Huddled like snowfield explorers by a campfire, they watched the movie for about an hour. To have at least something happening instead of insufferable silence made Neptune glad. However, she still tried to get Noire to relax—she saw the tension in her frame and just wanted her to unwind. Underneath the covers, her hand crept out feeling for Noire's. When she found it, she took it back to her lap and held it there.
Noire's hand was warm and pliable. Neptune pressed her fingers into the center of her palm, and in response Noire's fingers curled about hers.
They continued watching the movie, but the distant expression on Noire's face never fully disappeared. Neptune sighed and tucked her head into her friend's side, a move she thought was screaming cuddle me! while at the same time saying she knew something was wrong. But Noire only shifted her arm so that Neptune wouldn't be uncomfortable and gave her a faint smile.
Finally, Neptune gave up on paying attention to the screen.
"What's wrong, Noire?" she asked, holding Noire's fingers and unballing the fist that was trying to form. She pressed them out like pieces of wire, straightening the knuckles until they were flat and compliant. "You know, a few days ago, you just wouldn't stop saying my name, but now—"
Noire's face went red at the words and swatted Neptune's arm with her free hand. While Neptune snickered, she cleared her throat and stammered out, "S—I'm sorry. I'm not making it uncomfortable or anything, am I?"
"No, but I'm worried about you. You haven't been this quiet all week. What's up?"
Neptune moved her head closer. Something flickered in Noire's unfocused eyes like an indistinct film reel. What was she thinking about, Neptune wondered, that could make her this distracted? "Is there anything I can do about it to help you out here?"
"I..."
Neptune searched her friend's face but found nothing. She put a hand on Noire's shoulder, suddenly afraid and almost regretful that she had inquired too much.
"Noire?" she urged, feeling the words scrape against her throat.
"I'm not sure..."
Noire said nothing else. Whatever was on her mind must have been impossible to put to words. Maybe there just were not enough words in the world. Either way, Neptune did not know, and part of her did not want to know what it was that plagued Noire so deeply that she could not utter it aloud.
Neptune got up and turned off the television screen. She did not realize at the time, but she forgot to pause the movie. It continued to play invisibly and soundlessly.
Climbing back into bed, she settled down again. Noire had not moved an inch.
"I've been thinking..." Neptune nearly jumped when she heard Noire's voice. Realizing she had been staring at the wall for almost a minute now, she turned to Noire, whose eyes were fixated on their hands, entwined in her lap like a tight knot of vines that would not come loose.
"Now that Blanc's coming over and all, I've been thinking that I don't need to come over as much. Since it was only because I didn't want you to be alone in the first place... I feel like I might be overstaying my welcome now. I don't want to be clingy—"
"What? No, of course not." Vehemently against the idea, Neptune gripped Noire's hand tightly. "Come over whenever you want. I'm okay with it, and Blanc's okay with it, even if you two argue sometimes... or all the time, even then. It's cool, you know? It keeps the air clean. It's not a problem."
"But—"
"Oh come on, don't 'but' me," she said, following up with a playful shove. For a second, she reminded herself of her sister, at once playful and pushing and stubborn when she put her foot down. If only she could have borrowed Nepgear's persuasiveness for this moment.
The whole time, she held onto Noire's hand and did not let it go. Her hand was firm, but Noire's was unresisting. She squeezed a little harder, digging for a sign or an affirmation of something, and to her relief she felt Noire do the same.
"I don't mean I'll stop coming over altogether," Noire clarified, "Just that I don't need to be here all the time. I don't want you two to feel like I'm overbearing."
"Don't gimme that, Noire. You aren't getting in the way. What are you saying, you sound like you're depressed. Is there anything we can do to cheer you back up again?" Neptune leaned forward to meet her eyes. "You feel like going out to the city or something? We can hit up an arcade, get something sweet on the way back. It'll be fun, and you know what? I think we both need it. Come on, let's go do that instead of staying cooped up in my room."
Neptune started to throw off the blankets covering their legs so that she could stand up. Her hand, small as it was, could still encircle Noire's slender wrists. She tried to pull Noire along, but Noire's arm was the only thing to move.
When she looked back, and Noire was still sitting there, the slim wrist slipped from her grasp. Noire's hand dropped as if it had been suspended from a string like a puppet's limb.
"Let's break up."
The words reached her heart before they registered in her head. Halfway between sitting and standing, one leg in and one leg out of bed, her empty hand still outstretched, Neptune's whole body froze.
Noire said something. Neptune could not make it out. At that moment, as if someone had run a bow across her heartstrings, she let out a sound and crumpled to the ground. She was on the floor, facing up, her foot trapped under a blanket hanging off the edge of a bed.
"Neptune! Are you okay?" Noire appeared in the center of her vision, her eyes round with surprise.
"S-sorry. My leg gave out," Neptune answered weakly. She freed her foot. From there, the only natural thing to do seemed to be to roll onto her side, putting the bed and Noire and her red eyes out of sight.
"Neptune..." Noire faltered. It was painfully, awkwardly, horribly quiet for a while.
"So," Neptune murmured into the carpet, "That's the way the pudding melts."
"I'm so sorry." Some time passed. Neptune raked her fingers through the carpet and gathered up as many of the fibers as she could in a fist. "I'm so sorry Neptune," Noire repeated, a frantic edge in her voice. "I shouldn't have said that."
Neptune rolled onto her back again. Noire was sitting on the edge of the bed, one leg down and the other folded under it. Her face was downturned but angled away. All Neptune could see was the side of her cheek and her jaw.
"But what made you say it in the first place?" She felt calmer now that she'd had some time to compose herself. But Noire said nothing. The time continued to tick away.
Apprehension began to creep back into her mind, vitiating the frail sense of composure she had barely just regained. Neptune's eyes alternated between her friend's face and that of the clock, its hands moving smoothly and silently in circles.
"Come on, Noire. You can't tell me?" She tried again. Pleading, she stared intently at Noire's chin, as if to it she could convey all her faith and love and desire to help. She wanted to yell, but no matter how loudly she called inside her head, Noire did not bat an eye.
"Not exactly," Noire finally admitted some time later. "It isn't that I can't tell you. Only, it's... well, it's complicated. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I don't know any other way to put it, okay?"
"No, it's not okay!" Having retorted not of her own accord, Neptune swallowed and sat up. She felt childish suddenly, then the feeling turned to remorse. For a second, she was scared of herself and how quickly her voice had turned sharp, how quickly Noire had gone quiet. "Just tell me why. I don't care about what it is or how it sounds. I just want to know what's bothering you, so I can... solve it, or fix it, or whatever it takes."
Neptune argued, but this felt different from the time she had argued with Blanc, way back when they had tried to shoot the third movie right after the second. That time, it had been more exhaustion: her soaking up negativity until eventually her patience gave out like wet clay. But right now, talking to Noire, she had burst out of nowhere, as sudden as the end of a solar system.
"I, uh... I'm going to go. To the vending machines." Noire unfolded her legs and stood up. "Do you want anything?"
She said nothing. Five seconds passed, then ten, and eventually Noire gave up waiting for a response that would never come. Stepping around Neptune, she headed away from the bed, turned into the entryway, stopped at the door. "I'm kind of out of energy too. I'm going to head back to my room afterwards. If that's okay with you."
Noire paused again, and for a heartbeat Neptune wondered what would happen if she were say something, to call Noire back or ask for a drink so she would have to come back. But Noire only paused long enough to unlock the door and step out into the hall, to check both ways to see if anyone was coming. Then: "Night, Neptune. And... bye."
The last two words were almost inaudible, but simply hearing it—Neptune curled her knees in closer to her chest, hugged herself a little tighter. Something inside her that was supposed to be as steady and unmoving as a pillar was now wobbling. She knew the exact word that encapsulated how she felt, but it was one that she tried to stay away from. One she avoided at all costs, even and especially in describing herself: sad.
Trying to reinforce that pillar in her heart, Neptune closed her eyes and almost fell asleep.
But then her body jerked, as if pulling her back from the brink of unconsciousness, and she was awake again.
No, she thought. I can't give up like this. It can't end like this!
Using the bed as support, Neptune forced herself to get off the floor onto her feet. There's something I have to say to her.
She knew why Noire had said what she had said. She knew what the problem was. It had been there from the start, yet neither of them had acknowledged it. Perhaps neither had even realized it was there on a conscious level, but at some point Noire had.
It was her own fault their relationship was falling to pieces, because it had been founded on shaky ground in the first place.
The door was locked. Of course; Noire had a copy of the key, and she wanted to make things easier for Neptune. Neptune undid the bolt and ran into the hallway, not even bothering to close the door behind her.
Someone can raid my room for all I care, she thought, starting to run.
She had to find Noire so that she could apologize to her, to thank her. To tell her about all the things she had almost lost but still had, all because of her.
Noire had not been at the vending machines just outside of Neptune's room. A section of the hallway that ran along the outer edge of the building was bathed in blue light. Neptune looked out as she passed and saw some figures moving around in the moonlit field, but inside she did not pass even a single other person.
She kept running, not letting anything cloud her resolve. There was one more set of vending machines further along, closer to Noire's room. That was where Neptune would find her.
Flying through the corridors, turning corners and praying each time that Noire's unmistakable hairstyle would come into view, she carried on toward the last place she knew to look.
There she is! "Noire!"
The drum of her footsteps slowed. She continued at a walk, her shoes tapping lightly on the metal floor. Noire stood in the middle of the hall, head bowed in front of the vendors with a hand in her hair. Her arm came down, and with it her hair. A strip of cloth fluttered from her fist into the trash.
Adrenaline draining from her system, Neptune suddenly felt like a guilty criminal. She stared at the ground and her white-toed sneakers, the laces not done up in her haste to catch up.
"Neptune... You followed me?" Surprise was evident in Noire's voice. "You... you shouldn't have. It's not like there's anything more to see. I was just stupid."
"No. Noire, I'm sorry." Her guilt growing larger, Neptune walked closer but kept her eyes on the ground. The monochrome floor panels filtered across her vision. "I was running away this whole time. I was afraid of talking to Blanc, so I took the easy way out."
As the story poured out, she gripped the ends of her shirt as if doing so would help keep her voice from wavering. "I didn't feel like talking to anyone at all, but when you came, I thought—it wouldn't be so bad. You understood how I felt. You didn't make any fuss about trying to make me feeling better. We've always kind of gotten each other, you know? So that's why I thought... I thought..." She trailed away, but she refused to give up now.
"I thought I loved you," she finished.
Her face began to feel warm. A quivering blob started collecting on her lower eyelids, and Neptune tilted her head up to keep them from falling. She tried not to look at Noire and instead focus on the darkened ceiling overhead, but with one blink it all spilled out anyway. Tears spread across her eyes and blurred her vision like a soap film.
"I was an idiot!" She raised her voice, fearing she would never finish otherwise. "I wasn't thinking... I lied to you because I wanted to say I was in love, even though that wasn't really the case. I just wanted to keep running away from my problems. Because I was weak, and I didn't know how to fix them, I thought... I would just try to move on. And, well, I couldn't."
She was sure that standing there with her chin up and her hands clenched by her sides, she looked like a wreck. Turning her chin aside, she sank down and laid her elbows across her knees.
"I was in the wrong," she went on when Noire said nothing. "I never should've told you I loved you. I led you down that path, and I am so so sorry. I almost never apologize for anything, but this time I have to, since it's all because of me."
Brushing away tears, Neptune turned her head and drew in a long breath. Outside, the moon gave off the same muted intensity as ever. It would be the sole spectator of their encounter here tonight.
She watched it dolefully until she heard a rattle, at which she looked back up. Noire had given the vending machine a light kick, much like a petulant child would after losing something by dropping it in the water.
"I knew it," Noire said in a whisper. Neptune barely heard her. Making a fist, Noire punched the glowing metal frame, hard. "Why did I ever believe it? Why does this have to happen to me?"
Noire leaned against the glass, her forehead on her wrists. Blue light from the display threw strangely colored shadows across her face. Her voice seemed to break apart more and more with every second, giving Neptune a pang in her chest. "I should've said no, shouldn't have gotten in—hhh—involved in"—she sobbed, unable to keep her voice steady—"in the first place... I'm so stupid!"
"I'm glad that you did."
"No, you don't get it. I'm the one who took advantage of you." Noire lifted her head, straightening up. "I knew it was wrong and that Blanc had feelings for you, and that you probably felt the same about her. But I let it happen. I knew, but I made the wrong choices anyway. I should've been a better friend, but I was... selfish. I wanted you to like me, so I tricked myself into thinking I was only there for you."
"But I was the one who suggested it!" Neptune interrupted almost desperately. "I wanted it. You were just trying to help."
"But I still went along with it anyway, because I wanted to believe I had a chance. At first I didn't want to get between you and Blanc, and yet, even as I told myself that... that's exactly what I wanted. I knew exactly what I was doing, but you just didn't know any better."
"Well, that doesn't mean much..."
Neptune tried to think of a way to prove her point but turned up empty handed. Noire's eyes were on her now, and they were intense. Sad, sympathetic, and intense.
"I know what you want to say. Stop trying to blame yourself for everything. That's not fair to either of us," Noire said.
Neptune's conscience did not want her to believe it, but Noire was right. They had both been in the wrong. It took two to be complicit.
"Just look at us," Noire said randomly. Her expression was the opposite of what Neptune had expected. Instead of a hard, stiff jawline, she saw a half smile; instead of mournful eyes, she only saw Noire's wine-red pupils coming closer. Noire crouched down next to Neptune and placed her hands on Neptune's shoulders and gave her a light shake as if she had come to a revelation.
"We're arguing over which one of us is the worse person. Aha ha... Aren't we both horrible people? Didn't we both do stupid things?"
"I mean, when you put it that way..." At first, Neptune tried to remain serious. "Heh..." But after she had slipped up, there was no point holding back a smile. Playfully, she pushed Noire's hands away before wiping her face with her blazer. "Yeah, okay, you win. But since they were my problems from the start, I get to be slightly worse."
"Don't say that with such a proud look on your face."
Suddenly feeling giddy, Neptune hugged Noire and pressed her face into the niche of her neck and shoulder. She felt a hand come up to hold the back of her head. Closing her eyes, she let herself be lost in her friend's arms. The embrace, familiar and casual, was the same one they had practiced countless times. Nothing had changed, except it felt like it had.
For awhile, they held each other. They cried it out. They listened to each other's sniffles and hiccups, patted their back until they were good again.
Neptune was not keeping track of time, but it must have been at least five minutes before Noire lowered her hands and clasped them against the small of her back.
"I'm sorry," Noire mumbled again right into her ear, otherwise unmoving. She said it again, then again, and then she stopped for a short while. "I hope it works out with Blanc. I really do."
Neptune breathed in slowly. Her cheek rested flat against Noire's shoulder, and her face was turned outward to the windows.
The moon was still there, and unless it was her imagination, it was lower in the sky than it had been the last time she had checked.
"Me too, Noire." She expelled the air she had been holding in. "Me too.
"Also," she remembered suddenly, "don't forget to grab your ribbon from the trash can if you want it back."
Noire seemed to remember her let-down hair and the ribbon she had discarded earlier. "Oh yeah. I will."