"Nice story, Melanie," Falxian commented when the harp sounds reverberated and the rippling reprised and they were returned to the present day, aboard the airship/apartment. "Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that your uncle called earlier. Said it was kind of important."
"Oh? Did he say what it was about?" I queried quizzically.
"Nope, he just said to call him back when you can."
"Oh, swell," I responded vacantly, my thoughts still occupied by my cute incubatrix friend. The flashback may have been over, but the feelings continued to linger...as feelings...are wont...to do...
"Anyways, I'm having one of my chica friends over later," Falxian insinuated, "so of course you're welcome to chill here, but things might get loud, just a fair warning."
I had no idea whether he meant loud because they were going to do the frick frack or because they were going to squeal over cute Russian male models on the internet together. That Falxian fellow was a hard one to pin down... Not that it matters of course! Haha.
"Oh, I might go for a stroll for a while," I gesticulated with my words, by turning my words into verbal gestures which convey meaning.
I went to find my parka and doc martens, which were strewn around the place as usual. Then I entered the airship's escape shaft, sliding down a long rope that led to the streets of Domino City. It looked kind of like a stripper pole or a candy cane or something like that. There were weird looks from civilians but sometimes you have to shoulder the brunt of taunting, you know? Vicious winds gnawed upon my exposed face; windblown snowflakes bombarded me. When had winter happened? I pondered.
Recently...
I walked around for a while, thinking of Kyubey...
After a while of wandering around nondescript roads and alleys, I wound up on Shenmue Street (try saying that when you're drunk on the mara-jade xD). Shenmue Street was a weird little alley place that made my spidey senses tingle (eww not like that! lol!) because it didn't seem quite real. All the buildings (many of them small shops or curious bars, all packed tight together) seemed to have been constructed under the specific pretense of seeming as close to genuine reality as possible without ever actually being real, and one got the sense of these buildings' exteriors being vaguely incognizant of their own interiors.
A
queer
place
indeed...
Its narrow road and sidewalks were packed with pedestrians who were usually walking around with a calculated air of purpose, but who didn't ever seem to be headed anywhere in particular. To the unfortunate inhabitants of Shenmue Street, Shenmue street was the entire world, sectioned off from the rest of the universe by invisible walls and frustratingly-positioned gauntlets of buildings which barred exit from specific points.
It was weird, but I kind of liked it here... The totally bizarre, kind of unreal vibe of Shenmue Street helped to distract me from Kyubey.
Kyubey...
After a while, though, I felt the need to locate some cheap and nasty dive bar in which to drown my Kyubey-related sorrows... [AN!: I meant in coca-cola! I swear to g*sh that was all I wanted too drink! I'm to young too swig the pill sners and teh flaming mary's, that's for shore! p.s. pls don't tell my mom...] But boy and howdy, I didn't know where the cheapest and nastiest dive bar on Shenmue Street could possibly be! So I went up to a middle-aged South-East Asian lady who was sitting on an innocuous wooden bench on the sidewalk, and initiated dialogue with her:
"Excuse me, ma'am?" (I noticed that my words were not quite in sync with the movements of my lips, which tbh was quite bizarre)
"What is it, young padawan?" asked the lady, immediately glancing up at me, her eyes fixed upon my face in a manner most curious and intense, but not unkind.
"Could you tell me where the cheapest, nastiest dive bar on Shenmue Street would be located?" I asked sweetly.
"Why do you need to know, young youngling?" she probed.
"Well, you see," I ahemmed lyingly, "I need to track down the killer of my father, who killed my father in my father's doujo in a deadly duel. In Kyoto. In Japan."
The lady gazed at me, her curious expression giving way to a more sympathetic one.
"But first I need to track down this one Yakuza gangster who apparently hangs around in only the seediest Shenmue Street bars, because I need to beat him in a game of darts because that's the only way he'll be able to divulge a hidden clue about this guy who apparently used to have a crush on the guy who killed my father while they were both in college, and right now that's the best lead I have on this fellow."
The lady sighed understandingly and pointed to a bar only a few buildings over from where we were conversing. I saw that it was painted in a hot 80s pink and adorned with neon lights in brash secondary and tertiary colours, including one depicting a dolphin perpetually diving into the ocean in a highly dolphinesque manner. On a large LCD screen above the bar doors, an amateurly-rendered polygonal 3D animated dolphin flapped around in a monochrome ocean with some kind of decaying polygonal industrial construction looming in the background. It was almost like one of those animated screensavers for Windows 95 of yore, only the camera kept zooming in and out on the dolphin as it frolicked around in the water. So like, a Windows 95 screensaver featuring cinematography by the lakitus from Super Mario 64, basically.
Following my eyeline, the lady said, "Yes, dearie, that one. That bar be called dolphin plaza. A truly disreputable establishment. You'll surely find your yakuza-baka friend there."
I thanked her for her time and she flashed me anime eyes in return, and then without further ado I headed over towards dolphin plaza...
But
I
never
made
it
there
?
For as I was walking down the road towards the bar, a silver fox suddenly leapt out of a trash can and leapt into my arms!
"Eww, gross!" I exclaimed. The fox wasn't gross or anything like that, just the fact that it had been hiding in a trash can for so long.
"Pleasure to meet you too, miss Melanie!" replied the fox in a chirpy, almost singsong voice.
"Who are you?" I quizzically queried at the fox. "And how do you know my name?"
"I'm the Foxtable!" replied the fox. "And a lot of people know your name, Princess Melanie T'Starlight von Goldensdawn!"
"Don't wear it out, haha!" I shot back cutely with a radiant uwu. Though the "Princess" thing was new to me, I had no problems being addressed in such a manner.
Now, if only Kyubey-sama would call me "princess" like the Foxtable just did... My kokoro would probably explode! Thinking about the Kyubey made me blush in front of the Foxtable, and I hope the Foxtable didn't misconstrue or anything! Haha!
But the Foxtable fellow just leapt out of my arms and began to circle me for a bit.
"What were you doing heading to the disreputable dive bar, dolphin plaza just now?" the Foxtable probed my intent.
I shrugged.
"Friffs and giggles?" I replied weakly.
"That's not the place you want to be heading, miss Melanie!" chimed the fox with a concerned yet affectionate smile. "Why, why don't you accompany me to the Dishwasher Store instead?"
"The... The DSHIASWER SOTREEE?" I asked. "The Sishdasher Snore?"
"The DISHWASHER STORE!" the Foxtable corrected with an infectious enthusiasm.
"But...but... Foxtable-san, I don't even think there is a Dishvasser Strore in this district! How are we to get there?"
But the Foxtable just waved its tail gaily and whistled in a high pitch that I was pretty sure must be pretty much impossible for foxes to reach. Even silver ones!
"Why," the Foxtable beamed, "In the FOXTABALLOON, of course!"
All of a sudden, emerging from the low-res night sky that was probably just a matte painting, a hot-air balloon landed on the sidewalk where the Foxtable and I had been conversing.
"Hop in!" the Foxtable told me as he leapt into the basket, and I felt compelled to oblige. My father always told me that when a talking fox offers you a ride in a hot-air balloon, you gosh-darn well accept the offer and go whereever the heck it wants to take you. And I wasn't about to let my daddy down now...
The Foxtaballoon was a pretty cool balloon. It had a face like one of those anthropomorphic cartoons from the 1990s or early 2000s, always seeming to teeter on the edge of the Uncanny Valley, yet floating just above its precipice with a playful and ironic finesse.
As we took to Domino City's polluted night sky, the Foxtaballoon asked me all about the Void.
"Oh, you mean like that John-Paul Satire and Freddy Niche stuff?" I asked.
"Yeparoo!" the Foxtaballoon replied dourly. "Have you ever gazed into the abyss, miss Melanie?"
I had to think about that for a moment.
"I guess I have," I responded, gazing down into the acrid, stygian eldritch abyss of poisonous miasmic spectral vaporous clouds of the Domino City's nightmarishly wretched urban skyline beneath the gibbous elder cyclopean moon [AN: I'm NOT a racist BTW].
"Did it gaze back?" the Foxtaballoon prodded.
"You shouldn't have to feel obliged to answer if you don't want to!" the Foxtable clarificated sweetly as it gazed transfixed at the blazing flame which propelled the flight of the Foxtaballoon.
"Nah, dawg, it's cool," I assured. "I guess the Void has always been gazing at me. Did you know that I was very sick when I was a young girl?"
"No, I didn't!" the Foxtable and the Foxtaballoon replied in perfect, eerie tandem.
"It's true!" I responded. I didn't usually like to talk about my dark past with people, but the Foxtable and the Foxtaballoon seemed like trustworthy folk. "I spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was young. I kept missing out on school because of it. So I became known as 'the sick girl' when I was actually able to attend. I guess that was the void gazing back at me, with a wry and twisted smile."
"Gee willickers!" the Foxtable exclaimed sympathetically. "Did you have many good friends, at least? To help you through the illness?"
I shrugged.
"A couple of acquaintances who were nice to me when I was around. A couple of boys who thought I was cute, apparently, somehow. Probably a sympathy thing. I guess it's pretty hard to maintain a close connection with anyone when you're kind of shifting in and out of their lives, though, you know?"
Then, I guess my new acquaintances must have seen the single tear that rolled down my cheek, even though I brushed it away the second I noticed it. Because I'm not weak. I'm not weak. I'm not I'm not I'm not. Maybe it just took me a while to notice that I was crying. Anyway, it suddenly looked as if they were both fumbling for comforting words, and my heart lurched like a tumble-drier, and I suddenly wanted them to comfort me, for them to let their sweet words spill out all over me. But I also didn't, you know?
So my words cut through the awkwardness before it got the chance to cauterise:
"But it's OK! Because even through the lonely times, I had friends all along!" I pointed at the side of my forehead, smiling. "In here."
"We know," the Foxtable and the Foxtaballoon responded in unison, with a sage, intuitive warmth. It was if we had known each other forever; known each other longer than any of us had even existed...
The Foxtaballoon drifted along silently until the Cilliancrow Street Dishwasher Store was in sight, and then we made a creeping descent as the sound of reverb-heavy experimental ambient music wafted towards us from beyond the store's doors, inviting us to witness the splendorous spectacles that existed within...