a/n: part two of...this!
"You're connected?"
"I am. The gates are open."
"I'm visiting, then." Nozomi cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she navigated her character into the airport, clicking a little impatiently through Orville's dialogue until she realized she'd accidentally turned down his offer to take her flying, and so she started the conversation up again. "It's really nice we can still do this, what with, well, you know." Nozomi looked out the window. Her house felt a little bit too small for her, nowadays. She hadn't been the blue bird, she'd known that for years now, but the big cloudy sky still invited her out. "Everything."
"Everything," Mizore echoed, voice tinny but still so distinctive through the phone. Nozomi's heart clenched at the sound of it.
"And you're okay living with your friend - Chiharu?"
"It makes more sense than taking a train back home."
"Okay. I just-" Nozomi swallowed, licked her lips, felt very small and childish and stupidly protective all of a sudden. How Liz of her. "I want to know you're okay."
"I'm fine." Mizore's voice dropped off, and for a moment Nozomi thought she'd lost her, but then she heard the distant sound of a French horn. "Chiharu-san?"
"I'm-okay? Girlfriend-her?" Little snippets of a voice, low and warm, came through the phone. Nozomi felt like an intruder for listening.
"Sorry about that," Mizore said, a moment later. "Are you almost there?"
"It should say I'm arriving an-y se-cond now." Nozomi drew out her sentence, hoping she'd land on Mizore's island by the time she'd finished. Even with all the time in the world, she still wanted to get there as soon as possible. You couldn't change nature, she supposed. "There we go. Aoitori?"
"That's it."
"Clever." Nozomi watched as her character stepped into the airport, pressed the B button until it left a little groove in her finger as she ran to greet Mizore. "You're cute."
"Wh- oh. The character?"
"Uh- yeah. The character. With the…" Nozomi made a few vague gestures that Mizore probably would've understood with context before realizing she couldn't see her. "The blue hair."
"Thank you." There was silence for a moment, then, and then Mizore's character blushed and rubbed the back of her neck, sheepish. "My house is up here."
"It's probably way nicer than mine," Nozomi joked, though it wasn't really all that funny. She just wanted to fill the silence, mostly. Mizore's house was a little unbalanced, only expanded on one side, with a blue door and a blue roof. Nozomi followed her in, and for some reason her heart beat faster, which was a little silly, right, because this was a video game and Mizore was a hundred or so miles away and she wasn't actually in her house, but still…
Maybe her standards for what constituted as flirting had just been lowered more than she'd thought, what with the isolation.
"You have a lot of pufferfish, doncha?" That was the understatement of the century. Mizore's house, with its soft blue walls and hardwood flooring, was lined, wall-to-wall, with tanks of pufferfish.
"They're nice." Mizore stopped in front of one of the tanks, watched the little digital creature bob up and down in the water. Nozomi stood next to her.
"Yeah." Nozomi thought of her own house, on her own island, chock-full of random knickknacks she'd gotten from villagers and balloons because she liked the attention, didn't like the thought of how open and empty her house would be otherwise. "Say, has Kenzaki-san gotten the game yet? I feel like she'd enjoy it. Especially the egg thing."
"She doesn't play video games."
"Huh." Nozomi sat down on a peach chair, watching her character's head bob back and forth. It was a little hypnotic.
"I have most of the fruits if you want them."
"Ah, no, I'm okay." Nozomi was still missing the peaches, but something stopped her from saying it. The couch felt too soft, like it'd swallow her up. "It's nice, that we can do this."
"Mizo-takeout-anything?" Chiharu's voice rang out in the distance again.
"Sorry, one moment." Mizore set down the phone, then, or did something like it because Nozomi heard static and then silence and then Mizore picking it up again. "Sorry about that."
"It's fine!" Nozomi waved her off, then remembered. "I just wish I could see your face."
"So do I." Mizore's voice took on a breathy tone, and Nozomi's heart hiccuped. She wondered what Mizore talked about with her friend in the apartment, if she still looked like she did in high school, if the apartment had a balcony and she could open the window to hear the birdsong. "This is at least a replacement, though."
"It's definitely something." Nozomi left the house, felt something strange when Mizore followed her out. "What's your museum like?"
"I haven't been able to catch most of the bugs."
"Really? With your oboe-playing skills? I'd have thought you'd have great reflexes."
"I get too close. They disappear."
"Oh." More silence. Nozomi heard her father playing a classic rock song from the floor above her. "Can I see your aquarium, though?"
"Sure. Follow me." They walked past villagers and trees and bridges, Nozomi trying to keep up with Mizore as she expertly maneuvered the island she'd probably logged hours and hours on. "Here we are." Nozomi followed her inside, and they ran past snoozing Blathers, through the entrance to the aquarium where the music became muted and strange and - Nozomi had always thought this, though she didn't dare utter it aloud - a little bit sad. "Natsuki gave me the sturgeon."
"She gave me one too." Nozomi had been to Natsuki's island - messy as it was, it had its own kind of charm, and Natsuki was lucky enough.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah." Nozomi took a shuddering breath. She was a third-year university student, for crying out loud, she shouldn't have been reduced to a stuttering schoolgirl by a video game, but Mizore did that to her.
"Nozomi?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you all right?"
"Oh, yeah, totally!" Nozomi laughed, lightly, practiced. "Just a little sad, you know. Everyone's sad, right now."
"You can feel it, too?"
"Yeah." Nozomi pulled her knees closer to her chest, wished Mizore was there, wished it so badly that she actually hurt. "I miss you."
"I miss you too." Mizore's breath, then, fluttering like the bird's wings that seemed to permeate all of their conversations. Nozomi wondered if Mizore took the time to listen to all of Blathers's rambles. She probably did.
"Mizore?"
"Yeah?"
"When all of this is over, could I visit you?" Nozomi stared at Mizore's character, her eyes drooping, her dark blue dress swaying a little as she walked past the fish. "In- in real life. I'd like to meet your friends."
"Of course." Mizore walked back, then, to stand next to Nozomi's character, and she stayed there. Nozomi might have cried. "I would love to."
"It's a date." Nozomi didn't feel as nervous as she should have, saying that. It just felt right.
"Chiharu-san is calling me to dinner, though, so I should log off. I hope you're doing all right, Nozomi."
"You too, Mizore." Nozomi waited a moment, then, for Mizore to hang up the phone. She didn't. They both just stood there, then, in silence, until Nozomi closed her eyes and pressed the red button that still flashed behind her eyelids, and as she flew away she pictured herself in the sky with Mizore, someday, hopefully.
That was what she had to hold onto, after all.
a/n: oh, to be a lesbian, yearning,
thanks again to my friends for some of the suggestions!