Word Count: 7,431
The bus is entirely empty aside from the two of them and the driver.
Maki sits ramrod straight in her seat, staring directly at the back of the chair in front of her, but Nobara rocks back and forth with the bus's jolting. She pins the window curtain open, letting the starlight spill in, then rests her head on Maki's shoulder.
"Hey, Maki?" she asks after a spell.
"Hmm?" Maki hardly blinks.
"Tell me a story. Please?" Her words come following a yawn, giving the way she speaks a dreamy quality, like her words are walking on air.
Maki hums again. Nobara fidgets next to her, pressing her cheek into her shoulder; a few loose strands of hair tickle Maki's own cheek.
What is there to tell? she wonders. 'Hey, Diddle-Diddle' ? She snorts. And it's not like she really has any solid memories back yet, either, just vague thoughts and feelings lost in a cloud of wool.
She slides her eyes towards the top of Nobara's head, where she can see black roots peeking out from underneath the bleached copper hair, then slides her gaze upwards, out the window. "About what?" she asks.
Nobara hums. "The history of the sky," she decides.
Maki rolls her tongue around in her mouth, thinking. "I'm not a historian," she says, a touch chiding.
"That's fine," Nobara replies. "Just tell me what you remember."
Maki rather wants to pull down a projector screen and give Nobara a whole PowerPoint presentation whose message essentially boils down to, "I DO NOT CONTROL THE RATE AT WHICH THE MEMORIES RETURN TO ME." However, she has neither a projector screen nor a PowerPoint prepared, so she merely gnaws her tongue and gets over it.
"The first stars were the constellations, spirits of legend made of story and song," she says, and it feels like she's managed to grab hold of a wisp in her head. (Perhaps if she pulls on it just right, it will spin itself into a thread.)
"It began with the zodiac, right?" Nobara asks.
Maki doesn't respond right away. Instead, she closes her eyes and focuses on the haze in her head, the gut feelings she gets thinking about the question. "Yeah," she says, and the ball of wool begins turning to yarn. "They were greeted by the moon and the sun, who had grown lonely together in the sky. Then, as the stars grew in power and number, the twelve constellations of the zodiac were called upon by the sky king and turned into guardians."
"Of what?"
Maki frowns a little, but she tugs on the memory too hard, breaking that thread of thought. "I can't remember," she admits. She eases her posture for a second, cracks her neck, and watches the trees whoosh by outside the window.
A silence settles between the two women.
"Hey, Maki?"
"What?"
"Does it hurt, not being able to remember?"
A little sliver of something pushes its way into Maki's heart like a scrap of shrapnel. "Well, in the sky, our power comes from stories," she evenly explains. "As long as people remember the stories that created us, as long as our legend lives on, we will see another night. To remember and be remembered in turn is to live and survive."
Nobara hums, but says nothing more. For a moment, Maki considers continuing whatever story she was pulling out of her ass. That is, until Nobara begins to softly snore upon her shoulder.
Maki briefly glances down at the sleeping woman. She blows at her bangs, but while Nobara wrinkles her nose, she does not otherwise stir. Guess not, she thinks, straightening her posture to once more stare stoically out the window to watch the stars while she still can.
The fluorescent lights are blinding.
Nobara stands alone in the halls of her old high school. Her toolbelt sits steady and comforting upon her waist, the only weight she can feel at all.
Everything is so flawlessly white.
Nobara reaches out and delicately touches the locker vents, and suddenly, the desire to smash her fist into the metal arcs through her arm like lightning. Her muscles tense all at once; she recoils, takes a few quick steps back, and cradles the hand that touched the vent close to her chest.
(Why are the lights buzzing so loudly?)
She takes a deep breath— then another, and another— before shaking out her hand and letting it settle on her waist, where she automatically rests it on her hammer's head. She starts pulling it out of its loop, then stops. No, not now, she decides.
The hallways are so much wider without people.
Not that there had ever been many people in them, of course. Kids from five different small towns and villages in the area fed into it, and yet the total student population had never once exceeded two hundred. Silently walking through the halls now, Nobara can't help but to feel put on edge, can't keep her hand from returning to her hammer.
The glass display cases hold nothing within them.
A chill caresses Nobara's spine, its horrid fingers sweeping up and down her back. She grits her teeth and ignores the scream that tries to claw its way out her throat. She forces her feet to keep moving forward, to stop stumbling, to stop freezing like that. She's not scared. She's not scared. She's not.
(What are those shadows dancing on the walls?)
The lights above her grow harsher and harsher; the voices behind her buzz louder and louder. The hallway stretches on for eternity. Nobara clenches her jaw harder and harder, refusing to let her chin down. Her hands start to twitch, craving violence. She feels so damn small. Like her back is up against the wall.
She allows herself to hold her hammer in her hands, clutching it like it's her last life line, and just like that, everything gets easier. Her jaw loosens; her steps come easier.
It doesn't even register the fact that she's at fault for the broken glass on the floor that appears a split second later, not until she sees the blood oozing out of cuts on her hand. (It's odd, how she can't feel it sting (but also not really that odd).) A grin tugs at her lips as joy floods her veins.
She takes her hammer, and she swings it full force at the wooden classroom door, silently splintering it. She runs her leg through the bottom half, stepping inside the empty classroom. The buzzing of voices grows in volume, and the shadows at the edges of her vision dance more erratically.
She slams her hammer into the chalkboard, nearly splitting it in two with the long, deep crack that appears in it. She steps atop the desk, marches proudly across it, jumping across the room to the windows, which she smashes one after the other.
It feels good, to breathe easy again, to let the electricity out of her arms. Envigorated, she leaps over desks, kicking chairs aside as she takes off running.
Through the halls and off the walls, she runs and runs and runs, smashing everything in sight. Nails jangle in her belt pouches, and she decides, why not?
She skids to a stop right in front of the teacher's lounge, draws out a fistful of nails. She lets most of them fall back into her belt as she deliberately walks towards the door. She plants her feet into the ground and clutches the last nail so tightly, her knuckles turn white. As she readies her hammer, her fist begins to glow blue, and when she tosses the nail into the air to take a hard swing at it, it appears to be enveloped in blue flame.
P'tink!
It's such a dinky sound, and yet, the blast that comes from her hammer hitting the nail sends her flying backward, the shockwave shatters the white fluorescent lights above, showering Nobara in shards of glass and sparks of light.
Despite this, Nobara smiles. The teacher's lounge has been well and properly decimated.
She gets up.
And she does it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
She begins to move with a maddening fervor, pulling out whole fistfuls of nails that never seem to run out, spinning 'round in trick shots that embed themselves into the walls, send mazes' worth of cracks into the doors, and shatter windows beyond hope of repair.
But you know, it could almost be called funny.
Nobara can't tell whether she's smiling from joy or from fear.
Maki watches the sun rise from the window seat, noticing for the first time that it doesn't make her yawn. Two weeks on Earth has really messed with her sleep schedule. Next thing you know, she'll be diurnal.
She snorts at the idea. Only the moon was stupid enough to stay out late enough to hang out with the sun.
She averts her eyes from the window as the first orangey rays reach the bus; she can't quite bear the frustration clawing at her chest otherwise. Two weeks on Earth, and she still doesn't know what she's doing here. She's heading to Tokyo with this weirdo girl, and she still doesn't know what they're going to do there. She tries to remember why she's doing this at all, but her jaw hurts when she clenches it. She's been clenching it far too much lately.
Maki takes off her glasses and closes her eyes. Pressing her forehead against the seat in front of her, she forces herself to breathe easy, breathe steady, but even after all that, there's this feeling of irritation crawling around beneath her skin that simply refuses to go away.
What's wrong? she wonders, briefly clenching her jaw. She presses her forehead harder into the seat— the weave of the cloth will probably leave a mark on her for hours— squeezes her eyes shutter and shutter as she tries to concentrate on her own thoughts.
Is it that Nobara keeps asking all these weirdly specific questions? Questions about stuff Maki barely remembers herself until it's brought up? Because that's frustrating as hell, and no one likes a know-it-all.
Intuitively, Maki knows that's not the source of her irritation. Frustration, absolutely, but not irritation. But her intuition doesn't seem to want to tell her why she's so irritable.
She lets out her breath, a loud, sudden puh that leads into her panting. She opens her eyes, then sits up. Tucking her glasses into her collar, she fiddles around with the stuff in her pockets. Butterfly knife, coin purse, now-empty flask— all the things that fell with her from the sky, they're still on her person. There's no one else on this bus that would pickpocket her anyway.
" 'We'll find your prince of stars' ," she mutter-quotes to herself. She settles her hands on her lap and rests her cheek atop Nobara's head (because if Nobara's gonna be using her shoulder as a pillow, then the least Maki deserves is the privilege to use her as a headrest). While she knows she knows who it refers to, it's like there's been a wall constructed in her mind around those memories. She knows it's there, and she knows it's unnatural, but she hasn't yet been able to figure out how to turn her thoughts into something that can get around it.
With a huffy sigh, Maki grabs the sleeping Nobara's wrist to check her watch, only to realize they're just over halfway through their trip.
Maki gently pushes Nobara's hand back onto her own lap, then stares up at the ceiling. (The morning light picks that moment to get irritating, but instead of putting her glasses on, Maki shuts the curtains.)
Since landing on Earth, she's felt as if her life has been slowly rocking back and forth on the brink of adventure, and the anticipation that comes with waiting so long to fall off the deep end leaves her restless. She can't stand it. That's why, despite her lack of trust, she told Nobara about that nagging need to search for something far outside the bounds of that small town.
Maki pauses to listen to Nobara's snores.
Well, if she finds what she's looking for today, maybe she can start putting some genuine faith in the girl.
The bus rumbles on.
"Oi, Nobara. Nobara. Wake up!"
Nobara's eyes flutter open. It takes a moment for her to make out the hazy features of Maki's face, so close to her own, and she lets out a tired groan as she pushes Maki's hand off her shoulder. "Stop shaking me," she whines, "I'm awake already."
Maki frowns as she stands up straight. "Well, we've arrived in Tokyo." She jerks her thumb towards the doors, and it takes a moment for Nobara to realize they're wide open.
Nobara shakes her head, banishing what little sleep still clings to her mind. She cracks her neck as she stands up, getting a real good sound out of it, too. "Let's go!" she shouts, yanking the suitcase handle up with what most would call entirely too much force. Following that momentum, she half throws the thing out the bus doors, only to miscalculate her sense of balance. She starts screaming—
"Oof."
—but jerks to a stop halfway through her fall.
The suitcase tumbles out of Nobara's hands, hitting the concrete outside with a clunk-k'thunk sound loud enough to rival that of dropping the shampoo bottles in the shower. She glances backwards to see Maki holding her back by the collar with one hand, keeping her own balance holding an overhead bar with the other.
Nobara sheepishly grins. "Hi."
Maki hauls her back to her feet and lets go. She steps off the bus ahead of Nobara, who scrambles to dust off her skirt and follow suit. "So. Where to next? What's our next stop?"
Nobara frowns as she picks up the suitcase. "What are you talking about?" she asks. "You're the one with the gut radar. You tell me."
Maki makes a strangled noise; when Nobara glances at her, there's a very obvious blood vessel popping out of her forehead. (Uh oh.) "I wasn't the one planning the trip."
"Uh, yeah, to get you closer to wherever you feel you need to be!" Honestly, how ungrateful! (Princesses ought to be better than that!) Nobara turns up her nose with a haughty sniff.
"Auuugh!" Maki suddenly claps a frustrated hand to the top of Nobara's head, causing the latter to flinch. (The first headpat she's had in years, and it's not one of Saori's fond ones. Horrid.) "Shit. Whatever, let's just explore the area first, then. It'll be harder to get lost later that way."
Just like that, the terrible crankiness weighing down on Nobara's chest flies away, and she feels lighter than a feather. She shakes Maki's hand off her head and twirls around, killing the suitcase wheels with the way she sweeps and drags it along in a circle.
"Let's go!" she sings, chirps— something cheery like that— and skips off to find a coin locker. She pauses before shoving the suitcase inside, however, deciding to dig her toolbelt and hammer out first.
"Got enough money to pay for it?" Maki asks, to which Nobara scoffs.
"Of course I do." She swiftly latches her belt buckle around her waist and drops the hammer into its loop with a satisfying click. Feeding the locker a few hundred yen, she kicks the door shut and claps imaginary dust off her hands. "I've been saving for this sort of thing for years now."
"If you say so."
Nobara decides to ignore Maki's snide tone. "First things first," she says, planting her feet shoulder's width apart and pointing straight at the other woman, "we need to buy you a better wardrobe."
Maki raises an eyebrow at her. "Why did we waste suitcase space on your cousin's clothes if you're just going to waste your money buying me new ones?"
"If you mix and match just right, my cousin's old fashion combined with the newer trends will add a certain pop and flair to your style," Nobara answers without hesitation. She starts walking out of the bus station and into the harsh, bright light of the Tokyo mid-morning. "Just trust me on this," she adds, shielding her eyes from the sun as Maki takes a few quick steps to match her stride.
It's a lovely day today, a rare sunny one in the middle of the rainy season, though there's an odd smell that pervades the air. Smog? Does that have a smell? Nobara wonders, but since it's faint and fading, she decides she doesn't actually care.
They wander the city streets for a while, Nobara tugging Maki along this way and that as they (or just Nobara, really) search for the right part of the shopping district. Even upon finding it, however, they don't get even a moment to enjoy it as Nobara's stomach lets out a horrifyingly unladylike growl.
"Ah, shit," she says, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and crossing her arms.
Maki rests her elbow upon Nobara's shoulder. "What's up?" she casually asks.
"I forgot to eat breakfast." Because it's not her fault they didn't serve any on the bus. (It might be her fault for assuming they did, but she's suddenly too hungry to think about that at the moment.)
Nobara feels Maki's funky stare from just outside her peripheries but stubbornly refuses to dignify it with acknowledgement.
"Look who's the forgetful one now," Maki snips. The weight vanishes from Nobara's shoulder as the other woman starts striding forward, and, glancing backwards, says, "Well? Let's go find somewhere to eat."
It's like snapping chalk. There is no other way Nobara can think of to describe the way Maki's nonchalant, dismissive quip makes her feel.
Nobara stares at the sidewalk some ways ahead of her, knowing that if she looks at anything else right now, the rest of her body will start moving before her mind can decide what to do. ((And historically, that has never really worked out for her.)) Her muscles twitch and tremble; it takes all her focus to keep her hands, now clenched into fists, at her side.
The bystanders are whispering, though. She hears every word they say, whether she wants to or not, and none of what they say is helping her a mite.
"What's wrong with that girl?"
(Nobara swallows hard and continues to train her eyes on the concrete.)
"Don't stare; it's none of our business."
(She feels the sharp tingling beneath her skull from their glares anyway.)
"Why is she carrying a hammer?"
(It's almost as if they're speaking, practically shouting directly into her ears.)
A moment like shattering glass.
In that moment, the whole world is put on mute, save the roaring rush of blood in Nobara's ears. Time slows down to a crawl. Nobara's nails dig into her own palm until they sting worse than any bee or wasp she caught in her hands growing up; the weight of the world feels like it presses down hard upon her head, threatening to crush her to death if she doesn't obey her muscles screaming at her to run.
She pops.
Nobara makes a break for it, running blindly away until her legs start churning like leaden pistons and the slam of her shoes into the sidewalk sends shockwaves reverberating through her bones.
Shit. Fuck. Damn, are all she thinks. (She swerves to avoid a biker.) It's good that her mind is full of expletives, though. Leaves no room for any other thoughts, and that— combined with the healing, calming power of sweat— is what she needs right now.
She eventually slows to a stop right by a lamp post. Leaning her shoulder heavily against it, she dares a glance up, then around her surroundings, recognizing absolutely nothing. Lost, lost, lost is she, but the thought doesn't bother her, quite the opposite, actually. With nothing in sight she recognizes, she can safely assume nothing around recognizes her, either.
She pulls her phone out of her pocket, starts to look up the nearest ice cream place (after all, her hunger still hasn't gone away), but pauses upon seeing a Line notification. She shuts the maps app and switches over to see who it is.
Fluffy Fumi: Hey, text me when you arrive in Tokyo, ok?
Fluffy Fumi: /( T o T )/~~
Nobara lets out a breath, unsure if her heart is pounding from relief or simply because that's what happens when you hold your breath after a good run. Either way, it's not like she cares. The text is not from Grandma.
Nail Guns'N'Roses: i'm here
Nail Guns'N'Roses: [image attached: wherever this street corner is ]
Nail Guns'N'Roses: gonna go out and eat a late breakfast (*￣3￣)╭
Nail Guns'N'Roses: you keep dreaming n i'll keep you posted when you wake up (◡‿◡✿)
With Fumi's sleep schedule in mind, Nobara knows she'll likely have at least four hours to kill before she gets a reply, so she goes back to searching for her ice cream shop. If she's going to be in Tokyo alone, she's at least going to have a damn good time out of it, and there's nothing like having ice cream for breakfast for the first time to clear away the day's sour start. She finds a place about fifteen minutes away by walking and, with a satisfied smile, tucks her phone into her pocket and starts walking.
There's still a bit of anger left in the back of her skull, but it will fade into the background and join the usual ranks of rage that simmers gently beneath her surface soon enough, Nobara knows. It's nothing to be concerned about. She has this under control, so she allows her mind to start wandering.
There's a bakery-café Saori once talked about, somewhere here in Tokyo, which sells cutesy astronomy-inspired foods, though Nobara can no longer remember its name. As she scans the shops on both sides of the road, she wonders if perhaps she'll stumble upon it, with Saori sitting alone at a table outside and everything. It's not the first time she's imagined such a situation, but it is the first time it feels like more than just a daydream.
Of course, that's not what happens. Nobara walks into the ice cream place unaccompanied, orders the most monstrous thing on the menu, and takes her bowl to an empty window booth. She sends a picture to Fumi before digging in.
It's nice, for a moment.
But as her hunger pangs dull, the last flames of her earlier fear and rage subside as well, leaving her with an unexpected feeling of hollow loneliness.
As she stirs her spoon around the bowl's half-melted remains, reality starts to become, well, real to her.
Fumi isn't here. Grandma didn't text her. And she doesn't actually know where Saori is or how to find her.
She eats some more ice cream, but reluctantly this time, since being forced to accept the facts has kind of spoiled her mood for it right now. It kind of falls flat without company around to make it fun, too.
Ah, she realizes as she props her cheek up to stare out the window at the passers-by, I need company.
…Well, all she has right now is Maki, but then comes the very obvious problem (that she created herself) that she doesn't know where Maki is. She has no way of contacting Maki, either, since the woman doesn't even have a cell phone or anything, which is really annoying, actually, and Maki, as pretty as she is, is actually so much of a bother; she's harsh and she's snippy and she's stubborn as an ass. Even if she wants Saori to meet the sky princess of her own stories, with a princess as bitchy as Maki? Nobara almost doesn't want to bother.
Almost.
Funny word, "almost." Nobara thinks it's pointless most of the time, just additional hesitation for an already uncertain outcome, or an added sting to an already painful loss. But there's hope to it, too.
Nobara sighs. She can't stand being alone with her thoughts like this— she's gonna have to track down Maki. Fumi won't be awake to save her for hours. She doesn't know where to start, or what she'll do if she fails, but truth be told, she never thought she'd get this far all by herself anyway, so it's not like she has any other plans she can feasibly be doing right now otherwise.
(Besides, she might not be the prince of stars, but there's a part of her who wants to be a part of the story unfolding before her, not just a witness.)
She thanks the workers and leaves the ice cream shop. She retraces her steps and finds the spot where she abandoned Maki, but that's to be expected. She doesn't think about it, pressing forward as she continues to explore the city on her own.
Somehow, through some grand miracle, Nobara finds Maki again, sitting alone at a table for two, right next to a fountain, as she dines on what— at least, from what Nobara can assume from their remains— appears to be a whole-ass steak, to put it lightly.
"Hey," Nobara says, gruff and curt, and she refuses to make eye contact as she sits down in the chair opposite Maki. She doesn't say anything more, perfectly happy to leave it at that.
"Hey," Maki grunts in return. "Did'ja eat yet?"
"Yes."
The conversation— if you can really call it that— shrivels away and dies, like the balls of every high school boy Nobara has ever known. (Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's every single one of them.) It's not a bad silence, per se, but that doesn't mean Nobara has to like it. She dangles her feet and lightly kicks the metal leg of the table, eyeing the mostly-eaten steak in front of Maki.
"Oi," Nobara drawls, jamming a finger at the plate. "How'd you pay for that?"
"Found a pawn shop earlier. Sold a bit of silver," Maki easily replies. "It's kind of stupid that no one here takes straight silver coins, 'cause paper money is basically meaningless, but—"
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah." Nobara shakes her head and sticks her hand into Maki's face to keep her from talking. "You had silver on you this entire time?"
"Uh." Maki digs around in her jacket, pulls a pretty coin purse out of her inside pocket, and plonks it down on the table. Nobara snatches it up and squawks a little at the large, shiny, and yes, silver coins inside. "Yeah?"
Nobara looks up, some mix of furious, stunned, and incredulous. "How come you never—"
"You never asked," Maki answers, tugging the little bag out of Nobara's hands.
Pouting, Nobara crosses her arms and says, "Well, I didn't know I could." It's not exactly false. It's not a lie if she never thought to ask in the first place, right?
"Well, by all means, consider this your permission to ask me anything you want, then." As snippy as the words themselves sound, there's an amusement in Maki's expression that keeps Nobara from getting hurt again.
Nobara holds her tongue between her teeth as she watches Maki casually sit back and shake her head. Did you know you haven't been forgotten at all? she wants to ask. Because Saori remembers this story, Nobara's pretty sure, and she knows how it ends, too. But whether she should say it or not, she's not sure; it doesn't feel like her place. While she's not usually the type to consider "her proper place", socially, it was the prince of stars who brought back the memories in Saori's story, right?
(Okay, but does she want to be part of the story, or just a witness to it?)
"What else have you been carrying around?" Nobara demands. "What other secret things have you been keeping from me?"
Maki's eyebrow twitches just once, so quick Nobara would have missed it had she blinked. "There's this" —Maki unzips a different inside pocket, pulls a folded-up knife, and tosses it onto the table— "and this" —out comes a well-loved metal flask, likely empty, judging from the sound it makes— "and these things." At this point, Maki stops talking, simply pulling out a first-aid kit, a comb, and a tightly wound bundle of rope and sliding them across the table to Nobara, who gawks. "As for secrets, I'm sure you know more than me."
(There's a part of Nobara that's a little mad at that last bit.)
((There's a part of Nobara that wants to say, "I wish I could tell you," but is that really true?))
(She decides it's not worth thinking too hard about right now.)
"You're prepared for a lot of things," she says instead. "Why, though?"
Maki drags her things back over to her side and quickly files everything away in its own proper pocket. "It's stupid otherwise, isn't it?" She gestures vaguely in the direction of Nobara's waist, where her toolbelt sits. "What situations could you possibly be in that would require that? I don't know, but I don't doubt that they exist."
"I guess," Nobara huffs, suppressing several situations she knows to exist. "Anyway, are you done eating yet? We still have to buy you some halfway decent clothes. I can't believe you walked around the city looking like a mid-90s teenage farm girl."
"I hate to break it to you, princess, but you are also dressed like an out-of-touch farm girl."
Nobara scoffs as she stands up, adjusting her shorts with indignation. "Who said you could call me princess?" she mutters.
Maki gathers up her dirty dishes into a pile, stretches, then shoots Nobara a lazy grin. "No one in particular, but you certainly seem to like acting like one." She stands up.
Nobara puffs her cheeks out, ruffled— both emotionally and literally, as Maki gives her hair a good scruffle. "Well, all the more reason to check out the shops, then. Plus, now we have your money to spend, so it's not like we can't afford good clothes for me."
"Love how you're implying we're spending my money on you."
"Well, I was going to spend my money on you regardless, so I don't see a problem here."
Maki hums a questioning sort of high note, the sort of sound you make when you're signalling that you disagree but aren't going to say it out loud for whatever reason. "Let's go," she simply says, gesturing ahead with her head.
And so they go, together this time. (More together than before, at least.) Nobara wanders this way and that, weaving through the busy city streets like a child in a candy store while Maki remains content simply following her, calling her back when she spends too long agonizing over a decision or starts barking at strangers. Nobara pauses every so often to glance backwards, checking for Maki, and occasionally catches the other woman staring at some trinkets on display in a stall or alleyway display.
They don't make much meaningful conversation— the mood just doesn't seem to fit— but they do bicker back and forth a fair bit, about how often Nobara likes to stop and photograph axolotl merchandise to send to Fumi, about Maki's habit of only ever staring at things she wants and never buying them, about the next street they should turn into, and so on. But it's light and almost silly, if either of them ever think about it for more than two seconds, and so it's comfy when they start slipping into this dynamic as their default.
It's very different than being back home in the village, Nobara notes. They didn't talk so much until today, she realizes, since Maki was annoyingly nocturnal at first. Hell, she's still annoyingly nocturnal, at least a little bit anyway: she catches Maki yawning when they happen upon a hardware store.
"Oi, don't be rude to the nails," Nobara scolds, scowling as she marches in. "They're important."
"Well, excuse me for having to totally flip my entire sleep-wake cycle," Maki replies, following her.
"It's been two weeks; how have you not adjusted yet?" Nobara pauses in the doorway for a moment to appreciate the smell.
"Eugh, smells like puke and shit in here," Maki says under her breath, just loud enough that only Nobara can catch it. Then, at her normal volume: "You've never left your village until today, have you? What prior experience would you have with re-syncing your sleep schedule?"
"Well you come from the sky," Nobara snips, scanning the signs above the aisles for the nails and screws. "I doubt you have experience either." Her eye catches the right sign, and she excitedly zips towards the proper aisle.
"Does what's happening to me now not count as experience?" Maki tries to hand Nobara a shopping basket, which the latter had forgotten in her excitement.
However, Nobara is too busy scanning the bin labels for a good size to take it from her. "No, because you're in the middle of experiencing it. It doesn't count as experience until you're out the other side." She finds the common 90 mm nails, takes one of the brown paper bags provided, and starts scooping.
"What the hell— how many nails do you need, woman?!"
"I want a kilogram." Nobara pauses to estimate the weight in her hand, then walks over to a nearby scale.
"What for?"
Nobara shrugs. "Just to have." The scale reads 1.013 kg, and she decides that's close enough. What's a few extra. She picks up the bag and heads to the cash register.
"You're insane." (Maki shakes her head in disbelief, but Nobara doesn't notice it.)
"How nice of you to finally notice; you're officially the last person in the world to know." Nobara shoves fistfuls of her new nails into the various pockets in her tool belt, but when she turns to hand Maki the remainders (so that she can carry it around with all their other department store bags, duh), she hears the sound of all the bags hitting the floor.
And as Nobara looks to the doors, she catches a glimpse of Maki booking it.
Nobara swears, chucks the bag of nails into a random other bag, and gathers them all up to chase after Maki.
It's harder than she expects— Maki is damn fast— but Nobara's spent enough summers catching chickens to manage this, even carrying bags like this. A lady manages, after all.
Maki sharply turns into an alleyway, forcing Nobara to pick up the pace in case she loses sight of her for too long.
"MAKIIII!" she bellows, sprinting with everything she's got. Turning the corner, she catches sight of the woman right as she stops in front of some goth-looking, urchin-haired stranger and his pink companion. Nobara slows down for a second, thinking, oh, did she find—
Nobara doesn't even get to finish the thought. Her brain goes blank, because the instant Maki stops, she starts glowing red. Nobara's jaw falls open as, in the span of a second, she watches the other woman plant her feet into the ground and deck the stranger right in the chest.
There's an eruption of red and white lights from the impact, but they're not blinding— in fact, they don't hurt to watch at all. And as the little spots of light flicker and fade from sight, Nobara sharply gasps.
Magic?
Meanwhile, the stranger is reeling, almost literally launched backwards and into his companion with the force of Maki's hit, but he recovers quickly, his previously dead blank expression shifting to one of vein-popping irritation in an instant, and he does not hesitate to step forward and slam his own fist into Maki's jaw.
Expectedly, a fight ensues.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Nobara says, carefully putting her bags on the ground and running to get a closer look. She makes eye contact with the pink guy— he looks like a witless booger-eater, but he smiles and nods at her like he knows what he's doing, so maybe—
"Help me separate them!" he shouts.
Hmm, yeah, not exactly what she has in mind. (That plan is somewhere along the lines of, "use hammer on that bucko fighting Maki.") But, he's already running off to try pulling his friend off Maki, and if there's anything Nobara learned in high school, it's that girls in fights don't stop when their opponent is taken away like that, so for the sake of both these guys' ugly mugs, she's gonna have to help him.
"Ugh," she still says anyway. "Maki!"
It's a mess extricating the two, to say the least. There's a lot of shouting and kicking involved, too. But they manage. (It's very fortunate that there's no one around to call the cops on them.)
"Who are you people!?" Nobara shouts.
"What the hell was that!?" Pink Boy shouts back, almost at the same time.
"You answer first!" Nobara demands, because almost the same isn't the same as actually the same.
(Interestingly, Urchin Hair doesn't contribute to the noise; as soon as they're separated and Maki's been taken under control, his face goes dead blank again, and it looks like he just falls asleep standing up right then and there, like some sort of robot shutting down or whatever.)
"Would you let go of me!" Maki commands, fighting desperately against the pin Nobara and Pink Boy have managed to wrangle her into.
"Promise not to hit Fushiguro?" Pink Boy asks, practically yelling the question into Nobara's ear.
Maki sighs and slams her forehead into the concrete. "Yeah, sure."
With that, Nobara and the pink stranger scramble off Maki, who stands up and brushes the dust off her clothes with unfiltered disgust.
"What the hell was that?" Pink Boy asks, his tone somewhere between a demand and a squawk, as he marches up to Maki and furiously gestures to Urchin Hair— Fushiguro, Nobara supposes, but she doesn't care enough to even draw that conclusion for certain. "You just ran in and punched him in the chest! And what was that light just now, too? Weren't you glowing red like a minute ago?"
Maki makes a face of exasperation that perfectly mixes a scowl and an eye roll into the ultimate expression of, "fucking hell, why me?" that any human being could ever hope to achieve. "I don't know!" she snaps, posturing her elbow, Nobara realizes, to get Pink Boy out of her personal space. "I was possessed by the need."
It's hard to tell if Pink Boy is more enraged or incredulous, though his eyes bug out like a goldfish, and Nobara can easily count his molars from how far down his jaw drops. He gibbers for a second (a sight made rather laughable from Urchin Hair's current seemingly catatonic state in the background), but before he can manage anything resembling coherence, Nobara heaves an exasperated sigh, stomps between Pink Boy and Maki, and shoves the former away.
"Answer my question first!" she shouts, crossing her arms and glaring up at him. "Who are you people?!"
Pink Boy takes a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds, then exhales. "Itadori Yuuji," he says, notably peppier than before, "from Sendai! And you?"
Nobara frowns, picking out a few traces of leftover aggravation underneath his changed tone. "Kugisaki Nobara," she curtly replies, jabbing a thumb to her chest. (She exchanges mistrustful glances with Maki.)
"Zen'in Maki."
As brusque as they are, Pink Boy Itadori doesn't seem to mind, his face clearing like the sky after rain. "Nice!" he chirps, entirely earnest this time, and he skips over to Urchin Hair to drag him by the elbow into their little introduction circle. "This is Fushiguro Megumi."
Nobara grunts, uninterested in the weirdo Maki felt like punching on instinct. She almost tunes the rest of his introduction out on that principle, too, until—
"He fell from the sky."
Saori sighs as she walks the deserted evening streets. Her ankles have grown stiff as hell from walking in heels all day— should she have just worn flats instead? Brought them along in her purse and changed after the job interview? Too late now, though nothing changes the fact that her feet are killing her.
(Maybe she should have just listened to her roommate's advice and practiced whenever opportunities arose.)
She stops to watch the colors of the sky change with sunset, from rosy pink to dusty orange to the dark grey-blue of dusk. She'll miss the train she'd planned to take this morning, but if she gets the job, she'll probably take that one home most every day anyway. (Here's to hoping.) She has time.
The streetlamp behind her switches on, its electricity quietly buzzing as it bathes her in a warm, yellow-orange glow. Saori turns around to face the metropolis she's about to leave and watches all the city lights come to life one by one, pricks of color that light up the darkness like the stars themselves. It's beautiful, almost breathtaking (from a distance, that is— everything gets so hard to romanticize when you're up close to the nitty gritty details).
She lifts her face to the sky and spots the first faint stars twinkling above her. Her years spent slaving over her astronomy degree nag her to name them, but it's kind of weird, actually. The stars are all where they're supposed to be, she's pretty sure, but something feels like it's missing from the night sky, has been ever since that out-of-season meteor shower two weeks ago.
It's ridiculous, she knows, to think these two things are related. Sometimes there's unexpected space dust, or secret government stuff, or plain old unexplained random phenomena. But some of the magic inherent to the night sky just isn't there anymore, and she has no idea why.
As she starts walking down to the train station again, the soles of her feet aching dimly with the shifting weight, she wonders, How's Nobara? It's been a while since she's thought of the little girls she met in her year out in the country. She's gotta be starting college soon, right? I wonder what she's majoring in.
Saori glances down at the road and narrowly avoids walking right into a lamp post. Perhaps that's enough stargazing for now, she decides, settling her gaze before her rather than above. Yet, as she does so, the words articulating how the last few nights have been different come to her at last.
The sky feels heavy above her head.
Author's Note iv.
me: ah, yes. zenith. the fic of mine that draws significant inspiration from classic shoujo anime such as fruits basket, princess tutu, and also *looks at notes* cosmic horror indie game night in the woods.
nobara: oh, is that what that dream was? some video game reference? give me a break you're such a nerd
me: there have actually also been references throughout in the dialogue but yeah that's pretty much what the dream sequence was. if the readers know nitw, they can probably figure out your backstory faster. *waggles eyebrows*
nobara: *makes a face so disgusted i hand her one of my hammers to cheer her up*
megumi: what was the point of that fight between maki-senpai and me though?
me: look this chapter's longer than i expected, so that's gonna be explained next time.
maki: *cough cough* because it's fun to beat the shit out of people like that *cough cough*
megumi: i'm sorry, but do you need something maki-senpai?
maki: :)
yuuji: *tugs on my sleeve* oi fushiguro n i are more than just a cameo this time, right? we're gonna stick around as part of the main cast now, right? you said we were main characters—
me: yes yes you're not going to be ignored like that again. not for a long time anyway. welcome to the main cast; have fun getting your n megumi's povs written.
yuuji: *fistpumps* WOOHOO!
me: anyway, i don't think i have enough experience with japanese transit to write it realistically (read: i have zero experience w/japanese transit), so let's not think too much about those details because they don't exist. i just projected my own experience with taiwan and la public transport and hoped for the best.
this chapter was like pulling teeth while passing a kidney stone at the same time. which is to say, slow and painful to come out, and so it doesn't feel like a very strong chapter to me, but idk. you guys tell me. did it drag? do you have any opinions on how it could have been tightened up? i think i can handle the concrit if you have any, so leave it in the comments or my tumblr askbox if you prefer anons.
this chapter's title will ideally be recontextualized to make more sense when the chapter to be titled "the face in the moon" eventually gets written and published. c; that's not coming for a… while, though.
thank you for reading! sorry updates are slow; i'm just trying to be cautious and consistent haha. leave your thoughts in the comments, or just a kudos if you're new n having fun, and as always, stay safe out there~