Word Count: 3,790
"Saori, tell me a story!"
Saori taps her chin and hums in thought, pretending to not be bothered by the roughness with which Nobara tugs her hair into braids. (She feels like she fails at it, but then again, seven-year-olds aren't exactly the greatest lie detectors in the world.) What's a constellation she hasn't made anything up for yet…?
"In the sky, there's a pair of twins, together called Gemini," she begins, tightening her grip on her comforter to cope with a particularly sharp pull to her scalp. "Yet, despite being part of the zodiac, it often felt as if no one liked them, thinking them two-faced and uncaring. And so, with seemingly no one on their side, the twins came to rely only on each other for everything. They became naturally mistrustful of those they considered outsiders—"
"This sounds like Ouran High School Host Club," Nobara chirps.
Saori can't tell if Nobara is filing a complaint or just blithely commenting what she perceives as fact, but she sighs anyway, because that's not at all what she was going for. "Nobara," she says, taking in a sharp breath between her teeth as an improperly tucked wisp of hair gets painfully pulled in Nobara's fidgeting. "Can you not interrupt?"
"Sorry, Saori."
Saori racks her brains for what she was about to say next, but unfortunately, the only thing she can think of is that bit in Ouran where the twins mock a girl's confession, which, like, dang, if she were attending school these days—
She shakes her head to clear the thought away, mistakenly pulling her hair out of Nobara's hands and undoing most of her hard work braiding.
"Hey!" Nobara whines.
"Sorry," Saori says. "Anyway, as I was saying:
"It was hard to be so dependent on each other, though, as one twin discovered as time went on. They began setting their sights upon higher, loftier goals, beyond even the stars they lived among, at the same time forgetting that their twin might have other thoughts and desires of their own. A rift began to form between the twins of Gemini, and it was up to them, each in their own little diverging worlds, to build a bridge back to one another."
"Done!" Nobara chirps, right before Saori feels she has to make up a resolution. Saori hands her a hairband, waits the three seconds it takes for her hair to get tied off, then glances at her reflection in the mirror.
Everything stops.
For just a fraction of a second, everything stops.
The argument with Grandma over Maki is a tough one.
Nobara wins, of course. While Grandma may be stubborn about not wanting an extra mouth to feed, it's hard not to when the only other option is to turn an amnesiac stranger out to the streets.
She gets the sense that Fumi is strangely reluctant to let Maki into their lives, though.
"What's wrong, Fumi?" Nobara asks a couple days after Maki's crash landing. They're hanging out, just the two of them, in Fumi's backyard, where years ago their fathers built a table and chairs out of a ginormous tree, fallen from a then-recent storm.
Fumi looks away, sipping at her drink more pointedly.
Nobara frowns and furrows her brow. "Fu-mi," she says, emphasizing each syllable.
"No-ba-ra," Fumi quietly says, mimicking her best friend. Her metal straw clinks against the glass of her glass, then stops. "We're best friends, right?" She gently slides her glass onto the table and looks up to meet Nobara's gaze, her own surprisingly steeled despite the way she sweats and trembles.
There's a twinge in Nobara's heart, twist-twist-twisting it around in pain. "Of course we are!" she shouts, slamming her fists down on the table as she stands up. "Fumi, I—" Her voice cuts out on its own. Where did this come from? she thinks, desperately, almost.
(After all, I should be the one asking you that.)
Fumi just about melts with relief. "Sorry," she says, sniffling. "Sorry, sorry— sorry! I just—" she hiccups "—I don't know; I guess I just got the sense that you were, that you were gonna leave me behind or something."
Nobara feels her lungs fall, and she sits down feeling like she's just fallen off a cliff and survived entirely intact. "No," she says, the word sounding strangely helpless to her own ears. "No, Fumi, you know that whatever happens, we're in everything together." She reaches a hand across the table, palm up, and offers a reassuring smile.
Fumi lays her hand atop Nobara, and they play patty-cake like that for a moment, until both of them are giggling.
"Maki's starting to stay awake during the day," Nobara says, once the mood has been sufficiently lightened. It's best to change the subject after moments like these, right? "She still doesn't remember anything, though. Maybe we have to find the prince first."
"Nobara." (There's a weight to Fumi's voice that brings everything crashing back down, though Nobara is too lost in her own train of thought to notice the shift right away.) "I'm… not sure if that's what's going on here."
Nobara pulls her hand in and rests it on the table, palm down. "Huh?"
Fumi breaks into a nervous sweat. "I'm just saying this because we're best friends! And I respect you. And you don't lie to your best friend," she says. She takes in a deep breath, then sighs it all out. "Nobara. Are we sure that's what's really happening? Because— I don't know— it just feels unreal. I know I've seen her for myself, but I really don't know how to consolidate the stories with reality."
Nobara doesn't say anything. (Her lip threatens to tremble, though; she can't imagine why.)
"I don't know how you do it," Fumi says. This time, she slides her hand across the table, palm up, for Nobara to take.
Nobara stares at it for all of a minute. I don't know how you don't. "Just stubborn determination, I guess," she replies. She reaches out again, resting her palm atop Fumi's.
"I think I'm searching for something," says Maki late at night almost a week later. She's known it for a few days now, felt the restlessness in her bones pulling her somewhere else. Where, she has no idea. (Home, perhaps?) All she's sure of is that this small speck of a town is not where she's supposed to be, a certainty that's only been growing since she first noticed it.
Nobara immediately turns towards her, the yellowish light of her lamp making her orange hair almost glow. "Really?" she asks, excited. "Where are we headed, then?"
Maki gives her an incredulous look, because that's not at all the type of response she was expecting. "I'm not sure," she replies, no longer sure if she wants to elaborate on anything. "What makes you think you're coming along anyway?"
"Because I want out of this dinky, little, backwater, hole-in-the-ground of a village!" Nobara declares, slamming a fist into her desk in her passion. "The people here can go legally brain dead from lack of oxygen by choking on my entire ass!"
Maki's speechless. What the hell is wrong with her? she wonders, then finds herself with a laugh wanting to come out her throat.
She lets it out. Just a snort at first, then a giggle, and finally giving in to a belly laugh so hard she starts crying.
"That's one way to put it," she wheezes, when she can catch the breath for it. I know how you feel, too.
(The thought puts an abrupt stop to her laughter.)
((She's not sure how she knows.))
Nobara, her expression as steely stubborn as ever, says, "I'm coming with you."
"Wherever I end up going." Maki returns Nobara's intensity with a chill sort of amusement.
"Oh, don't worry, I already know where to go," Nobara says, waving her hand dismissively around. "We're going to Tokyo."
"Is this related to that prince of stars thing?" Maki asks, folding her arms over her chest. Nobara hasn't mentioned it since the night she awoke, but the epithet lives in the back of Maki's mind regardless. (Is that what she's looking for?) It feels odd, not knowing anything for herself, and yet having almost everything that comes out of this stranger's mouth sound familiar in some way. Borderline frustrating, even.
It takes a moment for Nobara to respond. "Nooooot necessarily," she says, dragging the first word out in an almost sing-song fashion. "I just think it's a good place to start. Basically everything happens there, after all. It's a good opportunity to make connections and do research and stuff."
Tokyo. Maki lets the name sink into her bones.
Maybe.
(Maybe, maybe, maybe.)
((It doesn't feel like Nobara's being completely honest with her reasons, though.))
Nail Guns'N'Roses: hey fumi
Nail Guns'N'Roses: Operation Midnight Train is a go
Nail Guns'N'Roses: three days new moon
Nail Guns'N'Roses: maki's our way out so buy three tickets
Fumi reads and rereads Nobara's messages again and again, but it never feels less like she's dreaming no matter how many times the words grace her sights.
It's finally happening, huh? They're finally going to ditch their little, backwater town and strike out for Tokyo. To be perfectly honest, Fumi never thought it would ever truly come to fruition, but nope, Nobara's texting her timetables and minimum packing requirements like it's been real and coming towards them this whole time. Like there had never been any doubt in her mind that they'd someday be leaving.
Fumi sighs, lets her phone fall asleep, and buries her face in her pillow. So much of Nobara hasn't felt entirely real lately. But maybe that's my problem? She rolls over, puts an arm over her eyes to block out the bright, early morning sun.
Ahh, I kind of don't want to go, she thinks as she waves goodbye to her father that afternoon. But it's such an odd thought, because she swears she felt and understood the exact same small-town frustration and resentment as Nobara by the time they had both turned twelve. She stops in the middle of a bridge to watch a butterfly flit over the creek, which burbles and gurgles its business as usual, slow with the summer's heat.
It sucks sometimes, yeah, to only have only three girls even close to your age at school. Being friends with Nobara hasn't exactly made Fumi's life easy a lot of the time, either. She quietly sighs and continues down the lane, shaking her head to clear those thoughts.
But it's comfortable. Familiar. And if she just accepts the way things are done here, embraces the future expected of her, then maybe she can just relax and breathe easy. She can get married, have children, and take care of her parents when they get old. She can settle into a routine and enjoy life's simple pleasures.
That's not so bad, is it? she wonders, staring up at the clouds in the pale blue sky.
When the old, unmaintained machine at the train station asks her how many night bus tickets she wants, she hesitates. Despite the fact that the station is very much empty (for which she is eternally grateful), she starts to sweat nervously.
She shuts her eyes and picks at random.
It's the dead of night when Nobara sneaks into one of the many spare rooms in their old, country house to scavenge for supplies. The room in question once belonged to one of her many cousins, most of whom have now moved out, though they've left behind many of their old things. Through the last few years, Nobara's seen Grandma stow a few things here and there inside the various empty rooms, though she's never cared until now, thanks to the fact that Maki needs other clothes for their journey.
Nobara's hand brushes against something soft and leathery, and she briefly wrinkles her nose. What's this? she wonders. It could very well be something she'd rather not know about her cousin. However, the only way to find out would be to take it out of the closet, as she dares not turn on any lights, knowing that if Grandma catches her, she's never going to be able to make it out the door tomorrow night. Grandma would nail the door shut making sure of that.
Her calves start to ache from all her tiptoeing; she takes in a sharp breath through her teeth. She doesn't have forever.
Her curiosity gets the better of her. She falls back to her heels, taking turns massaging her feet for the moment, then jumps up a little to scrabble her hand around in the dark. She swears when her fingers find nothing and her landing rattles the mirror left in storage. Stubborn as an ass, however, she climbs a shelf like a ladder for her second attempt, groping the dusty depths of this closet's topmost shelf until she grabs hold of the strange object.
"What is this?" she mutters to herself. She gives it a good yank, then catches the back half before it can hit a shelf and cause a ruckus. Muttering more curses to herself, she steps out of the closet and holds the mystery thing up to the miniscule amount of light coming from the waning crescent moon.
It's her toolbelt.
An empty pit of shock forms in Nobara's stomach. She steals a furious glance at the inside of the closet. So that's where it was hidden! Grandma's really banking on the fact that I don't clean, huh.
(Well. Nobara kind of has to admit that the bet basically paid off.)
She scowls as she loops it around her waist, deftly fastening the buckle blind. She reaches inside the closet again, hopping up even more shelves to get a better reach, and this time her hands clasp around something wooden, weighed down on the other end.
Is it? Is it, is it, is it?
She pulls her hammer out of the farthest recesses of the closet.
For a minute, all she can do is stand there, in her pitiful splash of pale moonlight, and feel the weight of her hammer in her hands again. It's been a while, more than a while, far more than it should have been, since she last held it.
Tears prickle at the corners of her eyes.
(It's been a while, far more than a while since she's been allowed out on the town.)
She scrubs roughly as her eyes as she pushes down bad memories. Sliding the hammer into its designated loop, she swears softly to herself at the quiet click of metal hitting metal, even though she knows it's nothing compared to the thudding sounds getting the hammer back caused. Still, she quickly grabs the outfits she originally came to steal and absconds to her bedroom.
"Got you some more clothes," Nobara announces as she locks the door behind her. "They're my cousin's, so I'm pretty sure the last time they were in fashion was maybe five centuries ago, but you'll just have to make do." She tosses them in Maki's direction, and the other woman catches them without hesitation.
"Something tells me I wouldn't have fit what you could've lent me anyway," Maki quips, standing up to her full height half a head over Nobara.
"Well, I don't think my aunt's clothes that you've been wearing are doing you any favors regardless." With that, Nobara sticks her tongue out at Maki for all of a second before she returns to stuffing her suitcase with clothes.
"What's with the toolbelt? Planning on boarding the door shut behind us?" Maki asks after a bit, sitting back down because it's just less awkward to assist someone packing on the floor that way.
Nobara freezes for a split second but forces herself to push through. "Just thought it would be nice to have," she replies. "I can buy some nails in Tokyo. It's not that bad of a defense weapon, if you know how to use it."
"Not exactly my weapon of choice, but I'll take anything in a pinch," Maki says.
"It's not for you."
Silence.
Stillness.
Nobara unbuckles her toolbelt, tosses it in, and zips up the suitcase. She's definitely a little rougher than necessary with it, but she needs the catharsis right now. "Get to bed," she says to Maki, pushing her onto the futon with very little grace as she reaches over to switch off the lights. "We leave tomorrow at a half hour to midnight."
Fumi doesn't know how to bring it up the next day, especially not when the plan calls for acting normal until after the sun goes down.
So she doesn't.
She doesn't want to just text Nobara about it, either, since that feels so much like she's trying to distance herself.
So she doesn't.
She almost even considers staying at home altogether, see what happens then (will she stay or will she leave?), but she's the one with the bus tickets anyway, so…
(So she doesn't.)
She shows up at the bus station with nothing but the clothes on her back right as the clock strikes half past eleven. She takes a deep breath and walks over to the shadowy bus bay, finds it empty, and sighs. Nobara's never been the most punctual person in the world, but then again, they did plan around that. It's the whole reason why they're meant to meet at eleven-thirty when the bus leaves at midnight.
Fumi looks up at the sky but finds that there's no moon above to comfort her. The stars hang in the distant sky, cold and uncaring and silent. She shivers despite the warm summer night.
A firefly drifts by. Peak season has passed, but there are a few stragglers still around. Fumi holds her breath as it floats around, soaking in its warm, yellow light, as tiny as it is. It lands on her thigh in turn, and she spends the better part of fifteen minutes simply enamored by the creature.
(How could she ever give up this life of simple pleasures?)
The firefly flies off, leaving Fumi saddened, right as she hears two sets of footsteps and a rolling suitcase approach.
"Fumi!" Nobara says, not at all acknowledging the fact that she's twenty minutes late. The bus has already arrived in town, busy taking its mandated break until the midnight departure time. "What's going on? Where's your stuff?"
"Nobara," Fumi says, shaking as she pulls out two bus tickets. She pushes them towards her best friend, who stares dumbly down at them. "I can't go with you."
"Why not?" Nobara demands.
(Meanwhile, Maki watches from a distance.)
Fumi's eyes sting; her lower lip trembles; and her nose is already starting to run. How? How does she begin to explain herself? That she just doesn't feel the same call to adventure as Nobara? Because she's got no one to feed the dog if she leaves; no one to play with the neighbor boy when all the other kids run off without him; no one to care for her aging parents if she runs away and never looks back?
"They raised the price of tickets," she lies, "and I could only afford two."
Nobara drops her suitcase handle; it clacks loudly on the floor. Taking Fumi's face into her hands, she begs desperately, "Fumi, no, you should have texted me, please, you have to come along, we promised that whatever we do, wherever we go, it'll always be together." Her cheeks mottle red as her watery eyes threaten to spill over. (Or maybe they already have; all of Fumi's own vision has gone blurry by this point.)
"I can't," Fumi says, pushing the tickets into Nobara's chest once more. "Only two," she reminds her with a sniffle.
"Nobara," Maki calls, and both Fumi and Nobara turn to her. Maki flicks her head in the direction of the road, as the bus, now off break, comes rumbling over to their stop. "Let's go."
"We can't!" Nobara objects, letting go of Fumi's face and running halfway over to Maki. "We only have two tickets."
"Leave her," Maki says, which hurts far, far more than Fumi could have ever anticipated. "She can read the stars for us if she stays behind. Most of them won't show in the city."
Nobara looks back at Fumi, both women still crying.
Fumi offers Nobara the tickets with both hands, bowing her head and saying not a word. Please, she silently begs, please, please, please take them.
(Don't just abandon everything for me.)
Something warm wraps itself tightly around her, and Fumi realizes she's being hugged. By Nobara, naturally.
"You find a way out of here someday, too," Nobara says, taking the bus tickets this time.
"Of course," Fumi replies. Her hand falls down to her side. (She doesn't want to think about how truthful she's being.)
Nobara offers her hand one last time, palm up.
Fumi reaches out, the pads of their fingertips just barely brushing together, and they play one last tiny game of patty-cake like that.
It's odd, the way their hands slip away from one another. Fumi expects it to feel different somehow, knowing it'll be their last for a long, long time. It doesn't, though; it feels exactly the same as every other parting they've had through the years.
Fumi watches Nobara pick up her suitcase and board the bus. The doors slide shut, and she stares at the road until long after they're gone.
The tears stream down her face, quietly dripping to the floor, but her grieving heart holds no regret.
author's note iii.
me: *clutching fumi and sobbing* FUMIIIIII I'M SO SORRYY I LOVE YOU FUMIIIII I WANT YOU TO BE HAPPYYYYY ;A;
fumi: *sweats* it's just a story, miss
me: *tears still streaming down my face* you are the only character here who is allowed to call me miss fumi you deserve the world—
nobara: *starts pulling me off her best friend* oi oi get off! gone! shoo! this is MY best friend. MINE. *hisses*
fumi: ah, i don't mind! it's fine! i'm just kind of sad nobara's leaving without me again
me: oh! you're not gonna be gone from the narrative. nobara will continue to text you and rely on your relationship. the main reason you didn't go along in-story is just bc i don't think you feel the same call to adventure as nobara
nobara: you can bet your crappy little ass i'm not gonna give her up, i'm never gonna let her down, or— HEY!
me: okay that came to me as i was typing this all out lol. but anyway, i think maybe you should pay more attention to how your and fumi's relationship is being set up, nobara. i don't wanna say it's gonna be tragic or anything, but it does follow the path of one of those sad inevitabilities that comes with growing up
the main question i wanna point out with this chapter is "how come being friends with nobara has made fumi's life notably harder?" while nobara herself won't be laying it out in her own words for a while, there are a couple seeds planted throughout that should start to grow together in the coming chapters, so i'd love to hear where you guys think it's going :3
ahh, these first few chapters have so much foreshadowing~ i feel like we're still really in the exposition stages, which is weird because usually in fics i have like two paragraphs of exposition, a chapter of setup, and then it's just go time. this fic definitely feels more slowly paced than anything i've done before. at the moment, i don't have any plans for a sequel, so hopefully i'll tie everything off here, but as with all plans in life we'll have to see how it goes.
as you all may be starting to suspect, very long a/n are kind of my thing hahaha. i have chronic can't shut up disease, and i shut up even less on my tumblr (hua-fei-hua), where you can ask me to infodump even more abt my writing, request fics, or just hang out with me. anon asks are allowed so hey even if you don't have an acct C; this is abt all i wanna say here for now, so hey! thank you for reading, leave a review to scream abt any questions, feels, and/or favorite lines from the chapter! and as always, stay safe out there~