Apart

You are a Houzuki.
You need to act like it.
But even if you don't, remember.
You are a Houzuki.
You will always belong with us.

"So this is it," Marina says.

Pearl swallows hard and tries not to breathe through her nose. The one-bedroom apartment is... is... it's certainly a one-bedroom apartment. "Where should I put the leftovers?"

"Kitchen's there, set it on the counter. I don't have a table yet." Marina gestures towards an area where the diseased carpeting stops and bare dirt-it has to be a floor, they're up too many stories for it to actually be a dirt floor- and Pearl tries not to step too hard as she makes her way over. Sure enough, there's a little door there, leading to an area with a sink and a fridge and a stove and a small square of counter space that must've been scrubbed until it's a completely different color from everything else.

Pearl sets the take-out bags there and opens the fridge. Mold greets her, and she gulps and closes it. The water from the sink sputters and gasps out gray for several seconds before settling into something more appropriately water-like; Pearl shuts it off with a grimace. She's never drunk tap water before, but if Marina offers, she's damn well not gonna insult her by refusing.

Across the ugly dirt floor-Pearl's just gonna call it that, since there's no hope of actual tiles in sight-is a doorless opening that leads to a closet, a bathroom almost as small as the kitchen, and the bedroom. Pearl finds Marina there, lying flat on her back, not even on the questionably stained pile of blankets she used under the bridge. "Rina?" Pearl asks.

"This is mine." Marina whispers. She presses her hands against her eyes; her tentacles are spread around her, like she needs all the contact she can get. "It's real, I have a place now, I-I belong."

Words stick in Pearl's throat, telling Marina to stay with her, that this place is a dump, that she needs to get off that carpet before she gets a disease, but she can't say them. Not when Marina's so happy at having something for herself that she's pinching herself.

No matter how much Pearl doesn't want Marina to leave, and oof, that hurts. It's not as though the band'll break up once Marina isn't forced to live with Pearl, not like she'll lose the only friend she's had in years, but Marina sits up and frowns at Pearl. "What?"

"This place stinks, Rina," she says before she can stop herself.

Marina sighs. "Yeah. I'll air it out tomorrow and start cleaning everything. It'll be fine once it's had some CLT."

"Gonna need more than TLC." Pearl emphasizes the letter's proper order. "Got a spare key? I'll stop by with supplies." Like enough bleach to sanitize a salmonid. "You sure you wanna stay here tonight? You don't have curtains. Any loser could peek in and-"

Marina leaps to her feet and wraps Pearl in a hug. "I'll be fine," she mutters into Pearl's head; has she always been this tall? Pearl's nose is almost in Marina's collarbone, and she smells of applewood soap, and Pearl hugs Marina back. "I've dealt with a lot more than some dirt and mold."

Pearl believes it, but she doesn't want to let go. She doesn't want to go back to that big, drafty house, with only servants she's not allowed to know the names of. But her parents are coming home soon, and her relatives will be visiting for Squidmas and staying until next year, and really, Marina's spent her whole life in some sort of shit cult that took her out of school at nine and told her she was too deformed to ever amount to anything without them. She needs to stand on her own and know she can, without Pearl propping her up. And now that she's not gonna be sleeping on the streets and eating from the trash, it's safe enough to let her.

But Pearl doesn't let Marina go. She doesn't want to. What if Marina—what if...

Marina lets go and takes a step back. "Our agent—that's a word I never expected to say—will be meeting us tomorrow, right? Noon?"

Pearl nods. "We'll meet at eleven at makomart?" Her throat feels thick, and she coughs to clear it.

"Absolutely." Marina spins in a circle, hugging herself. "We're going to be famous. It's just—there's no way this is real."

That makes Pearl laugh. "Real as it gets, Rina. This is as real as it gets."