Together we found a car to ferry us, and we drove like the wind back to the observatory. Troubled as the driver was to head that far into the desert, Lily made sure to leave him extra payment.
Oh, how everyone demands pay, pay, pay in this world. Truly, you can't do people to do anything without this "money" they insist on using. There's never any room to simply do things for the good of it, or as an exchange of favors. Money always has to be involved.
Some days I felt as if the three women you'd brought me to were the only ones in this world who'd do things without need for money. Right from the night they met me, they'd done it all out of simple kindness for a stranger.
They showed even more kindness that night, as Meiko and Lily helped me limp my way back to the main computer station. I lurched to my chair and hopped onto the terminal.
"You already know what I gathered initially," I said. For good measure, I brought up the data and played it back a series of screeches and strange babbling noises, the same as last time. "But I didn't account for something in playing this back."
Meiko put a hand to her side, expectantly. "What?"
I punched in some code, quickly as I could: formulas, alterations, mostly thought up on the fly.
"It has to be stretched out," I said. "Slowed down. In the universe these sounds came from, time runs very differently—it's far slower, you see. So, coming through to here, well…"
"…it must have been sped up," Lily concluded. "Like a record being played too fast."
"Exactly," I said. "So, to filter the data better, we need to slow the stream way down. Not just changing the speed, either—the input has to be modified on an algorithmic basis, to account for fluctuations in space as it travels. And then…"
I hit a final key. The computer processed the changes quickly, loading the data anew. The readout was altered to match—and then a long, plainly understandable track of audio sat where once there had been jumbled pieces of unrecognizable wavelengths.
My heart ready to jump out of my throat, I hit play.
And it could have jumped out all the same, as I listened in. Though I felt no sting in my eyes, I know tears immediately poured forth. I sat silently, taking in the resulting song, bathing my senses in its beauty.
"Oh my god," Lily whispered, "it's fantastic."
"But this isn't…" Meiko was muttering to herself, in repetition. "It's not possible. It's not possible."
But it was possible. For it was happening before us, bringing me to open weeping and the highest peaks of joy.
Your song was playing over the lab speakers, dearest. With that bit of tweaking, your voice was coming through loud and clear for all of us.
I turned about in my chair, triumphant before the amazed Lily, the bewildered Meiko, the shocked-into-silence Ia.
"You see?" I said. "I told you. I told you we would—"
But my words were cut short. In a flash, as I heard more of your voice reverberate in my head, a picture came before me: stars, joined by lines. The night sky, bright and unclouded. Rolling waves of ocean sighing and throwing their salted spew against the black fabric of the universe.
Virgo. Points in space. Linked in time. Quarter rotation.
My three friends were yelling over me, shaking me as I came back to. I but smiled at them.
"I'm fine," I said. "Better than fine, actually."
"You were out for a solid minute," Lily said.
"We were worried," added Ia.
I meekly shook my head. "I saw what must be done to send me home."
They were quiet then, letting the buzz of computers and the sweet serenade of your song speak over them. Something else they had not understood, clearly: the magic inherent within song, when sung with true intention.
"You understood by hearing that?" Meiko asked, as if to reiterate my thought.
I nodded. "It's all plain to me now, yes."
"Just who the hell is that singing?" Lily asked, bewildered.
I should have anticipated that question. It only made sense to ask, of course—and yet I had no response prepared. Nothing I had mentally or indeed emotionally readied myself to give.
I swallowed, hard. "That's not easy to answer," I said.
"How's that?" Lily asked.
"That is a person singing, right?" Meiko chimed in.
"It is," I said. "A… very dear person. But, you see, to explain who she is…"
I gulped again. Long had I feared saying anything related to you, to my real past, my arrival here.
Yet it had to come out now. They had to hear this part from me some time, much as I'd dreaded it. Of course, I did trust them—dearly, truly.
But that was just it: I was just so, so afraid to lose them.
I thought of all the times I could have gone out more with them, stayed longer with them. How long I'd been spending cooped up in here, chasing you.
Maybe, deep down, I had assumed I'd be able to take them with me once I finally open the way to you. Though of course I can't. What a naive thought—I suppose I really have spent enough time here to lose my perspective on things.
But I would have to risk losing them in that moment all the same. I had to tell them, of course. Yes, I trusted they would know me better than to assume the worst from the truth.
I sighed. I would do so.
"The truth is," I said, "I didn't arrive here by accident."
The three of them went blank. Ia turned pale.
"Then, you don't mean…" Lily started. "Like, you meant to—"
"No, not exactly." I smiled a tired, hopeful smile. "I was sent here as banishment."
They sat in quiet amazement, perhaps bewilderment, as I explained the rest. I told them of how you and I sang in our choir, and you were the most beautiful singer of all; how King Kaito wanted you all for himself and worked you to exhaustion; how it was my simple act of defiance that sealed me away from the universe I called home.
And I told them also of how it was this union of song between you and I that surely would open a way for me to at last return.
I explained it all plainly, as calmly as I could. But the only way I could do as much was to leave something out.
What I did not explain to them was just who you were to me: how you are my everything, dearest, my sun and moon and sum of all the songs ever played across all time and space.
For there was still no need to reduce our love down to a thing to put on display.
Still in their seats, though, they merely looked about from one another as I finished. It was disheartening, I must admit, to see them still so perplexed, so tense in their wheeled chairs as I spoke. A part of me wondered if they had no reason to believe me, even now, after all these years together.
But I had to remind myself: this was all still a new world to them. Now more than ever, I understood theirs was a world of numbers, rules, and logic. A place of mad kings and living stones and songs that travel across universes was a vast sky being presented to a school of fish.
Lily spoke up first: "You never thought we should hear any of this before?"
Of course I had thought of saying as much before. Of course it had weighed on me to keep it to myself. But how was I to present it without reason, out of the blue?
"I never wanted to give you more leaps of faith than necessary," I simply said. "Our worlds are very different. To explain mine in full would at some point surely seem like nonsense."
And of all things, as if following Lily's lead—Meiko smiled at me. It was warm, gentle, even understanding.
"I won't say you should have just told us," she said. "What matters is you did what you thought was right, for you and us both. Besides, if I'm being honest, I don't know if I'd believed you."
"But," I said, "you believe me now?"
She nodded firmly. "I don't have any other choice. I mean, we just heard singing come from space."
And Ia beamed her warm smile at me, enveloping me in comfort. "We trust you, Luka. I hope you always understand that."
Had I tears left, I could have cried again. Instead, I went one by one, hugging each of my friends close, whispering more thank-yous to them.
"In that case," I said, "can you trust me on just one more thing?"
"Name it," Lily said.
So I smiled, and I explained to them what you had revealed to me.
We would now have to follow the stars to the exact point of time and space relative to where your voice had come from. It didn't matter over what mountains, under what tunnels, or through what deserts we would cross; that spot had to be reached, at a specific time, or else the whole plan would fail.
At the proper spot, your song would have to play. A recording would not do. It would have to be your song, never before heard, sung in that moment into the universe, to be heard by waiting ears and then disappear.
With that song, spontaneous and brief, I would have to join in with my own in a harmony that would only become clear to me within that single moment of music.
"And that union of voices will bridge the two worlds," I said, with finality.
They all stared long and hard, occasionally nodding. After processing it all, Meiko at last pulled out her rectangle device and pressed into it several times.
"So, the constellation you have to be under is…" She frowned. "The first point of Libra, right? Which you say we have to reach by the autumn equinox, turning it into Virgo, so..." Still frowning, she hummed a long note, then went silent with more tapping. "That's… out in the middle of the ocean right now."
The waves I saw—yes, it would have to be right, what Meiko said. That was where it must happen, where we must go.
No matter the struggle or cost.
"We can't afford to wait," I said. "The message reaching us won't last forever. Miku is risking capture every second she sends her song to this universe."
It was more than clear that the equinox would soon be upon us. The leaves were already changing here, and time ran short to organize the journey.
But it was more than that, too. For I knew you were risking yourself, dearest, and that you had to receive your other half of the song soon.
As Ia sat silently, Lily raised a hand.
"Question," Lily said. "Once you actually make it home, uh—well, what are you going to about this Key-to…"
"Kaito," Ia corrected.
"Right. But what are you going to do about him?"
"What I have to," I answered.
My faith in you, dearest, had gotten me this far. I trusted it would get me the rest of the way.
"Okay," Lily said, "but couldn't you, I dunno, bring along a gun or something?"
Instantly Meiko shot her a glare more deadly than any firearm I could imagine.
"Lily…" Ia sighed out.
"What? I'm just being realistic," she responded.
"It wouldn't work," I said. "Time runs so differently in my world compared to yours. Anything from here would age a thousand years in an instant."
"I suppose that goes for people, too," Ia said, quietly.
I nodded. "It would. I'm sorry. But there's no way anyone or anything from this world can make the crossing."
In the ensuing quiet, I thought I heard sniffling. From whom, I can't say. All three looked downcast, and even the humming of the machinery around us had shifted to a minor key.
But at last, Meiko looked up.
"But you still can," she said, smiling at me. "We can still get you home."
"And we won't waste any more time doing it," Lily said. With a slap to her knee, she sprang up from her chair, the sudden motion forcing it to roll backward. "First step, we find out how much to charter a boat."
And in an instant Meiko was behind her. "Don't forget a crew, please, Lily. Or at least lessons!"
My heart swelled in my chest such that I thought it would burst.
How did you come across such noble souls, my dearest?
You know the funniest part of it all?
After I explained that much, they had no questions for me. No speculation about what King Kaito had been doing, or requests for a full life story, or any such deep prying. Instead, they all went to work figuring out the full star charts, working out the sailing arrangements.
Maybe they were just too embarrassed to inquire further. Or maybe it was just a side of me they were happy to let me keep private.
While I studied my notes later that night, though, I sensed Ia standing behind me, with a certain inquisitive tilt to her brow. She didn't have a notebook with her—nothing to suggest she planned to work later into the evening.
"Are you busy?" she asked.
"Always," I answered. "But I can take a break."
She fetched coffee from the break room. I carefully poured a creamer into mine—you had to, here, the taste of drinks always being so much more bitter—and she sat near me, warming her hands with the mug.
Swirling a stick in the drink, I nearly spoke. But I didn't even have to ask what was on her mind.
"You want to be reunited with someone, don't you?" Ia said. "Back where you're from."
It took me aback, I had to admit. Still I managed to swallow the coffee I'd just sipped.
"Have I made it that obvious?" I asked.
"There were some giveaways," Ia replied. "In quiet moments, you have a certain look about you. But that was only before." She looked off, holding her coffee close to her chest. "Just now, you… oh, how can I say it? You had this look of… longing." Though she hadn't took a drink, she swallowed, hard. "As though you wanted to go back home for someone."
And what was I to say there? Because distance, longing—that's nowhere near the truth of it, my love. If it cost an ocean of gold to see your face for just a second, I'd find a way to pay the price.
Of course there could be no revealing that to Ia, as dear a friend as she was. These depths, they're for you alone to plumb, my love.
"I do long," I said. "In my home, you see, someone waits for me."
"Has she been waiting long?"
"Years, in her time."
The flinch from Ia could have spilled her coffee, had she been bringing the mug to her mouth.
"How do you know, though?" she asked. "Well, that is—are you certain she's waiting still? Not to be rude, but that's such a long time."
"Time is a luxury she and I both have in abundance," I said.
"And you're sure that means she's still waiting?"
A smile broke naturally on my face as I thought of you, of explaining why.
"I know it because I feel just the same way. If all I had to do was sit here, to wait, I'd watch mountains crumble. But with how the pieces have landed, well, it's on her to wait, and me to pursue."
Maybe I showed too much on my face as I said that. Maybe the words themselves got to her. But in the silence that followed, Ia gazed forward, focused on empty space. The shine left her eyes, and her comforting smile disappeared.
"Once you're back together, though," she said, "you'll have forever together. Won't you?"
"And even more. If you can imagine."
She shook her head. "I'm not sure I can. You make 'forever' seem so unknowable for the rest of us."
"Because it often isn't knowable," I said. "Forever isn't a thing you can reason out. It's not an idea I've ever seen put into numbers or figures. None of it is the neat, tidy thing so many of your explanations become."
Ia frowned after indulging in another sip.
"But, what's it like?"
You already knows this, my love: in truth, there was no explaining it. There's no real passing onto another the warmth of sunrise, or the sweet taste of an untouched spring. Even if I wanted to tell this world of what you and I share, there could never be a way of conveying the ceaseless joy that is you.
But Ia had always been a good friend. She's noble, you know—as pure of heart as any one of the best of us.
So I did my best to approximate.
And what I said was this:
"It's a contentment, above all else. A comfort. There's the feeling you've found a kind of glow in life, a more beautiful sort of music in the air. What's even better is it's as if she's harmonizing with that music, and even with how you sing. And you want to sing—all the time, if you could."
"And you never get tired of singing?" Ia asked.
"Never. With her, that feeling of singing never stops, and it never gets old. Because with her, every day is a new something, even if it's just like an old day. It's a chance to feel alive and take in the sweetness of breath, and it tastes even sweeter knowing I share it with her."
She gave out a sigh, then, long and full of dreams. Though she leaned forward, practically swooning at it all, her eyes had turned so dark and distant.
"You'll only experience that," she said, "once you've left us."
What shook me some was the quiver in her voice, a break at last in her usual politeness. The way the words trembled instead of coming out smoothly.
But it was the way she looked at me after that, dearest—that was what did really did me in. At home, one would never see half that much pleading, that much grief.
"Were you ever going to tell us?" Ia asked. "That you had someone waiting for you? It's your life back home, yes. But I suppose I'd always hoped I—that we were…"
"It's not as if it has to do with you, or with Meiko or Lily," I said.
Because—forgive me, darling, what else could I have said? That, at least, was the truth.
It had nothing to do with them. It had everything to do with you.
Still, Ia just shook her head.
"But there's nothing we could do, is there?" she asked. "Not a single thing I could do, or even a single thing I could say, to…"
She stopped herself, maybe to think of the kindest words to say. More likely, to fight off the tears I saw gathering in her eyes.
"…to make me stay," I said.
She nodded. Still the tears were leaking out, despite those efforts which kept her silent.
"I wish there could be," I said. "I wish I could stay longer. And I never would have felt that way, if not for you three."
"Then why don't you?" Ia cut in. "Maybe, say, just for some more years? I get it, it's asking a lot. I'd be keeping you from—well, it sounds literally like heaven." She swallowed hard. "But, hey, you've got an eternity to spend there anyway. Right?"
The way the tears overflowed, as she asked that—if only you could see them, dearest.
I wish you could have, because perhaps then you would forgive me when I admit: if only for that moment, how badly I wish I could have stayed.
"I can't make her wait for me," I said. "She's been waiting for me long enough already. And all the while, calling out to me. Because she needs me."
"And she really needs you right now?" Ia said.
"If I don't reach her soon," I said, "I may never reach her at all. The door is closing, you remember. She can't hold it forever."
"But you've been here so long already," Ia pleaded. "What's another year to you or her? It must be so short, for you. I don't mean to force you here. No, it's just… it's so short for you, and so long for us."
Shame bubbled up in me. How could it not? The acknowledgment, then, that our eternity could not accept them—the reminder that they could not follow me back—it all blindsided me, in the blistering shimmer of her watery eyes.
Because in those tears, I at last saw it: the same longing, the same need to be seen as there was in a certain girl who once shuffled behind me during choir practice.
She felt something more than friendship, dearest. And though it was not a feeling I could return, my heart ached.
I knew all too well how badly it hurt, to hold onto an image of love that was so close, and yet so far.
"I'm sorry," I said, because that was the only thing I could say.
And besides—I meant it.
She sniffled. I could see it in her drowning eyes: she knew I had realized it. That it was all out in the open, and still they were feelings that would never see reciprocation.
"Then there's just no way," she said.
And I shook my head. Because there wasn't. No way to wait, no way to bring them along. They could not survive it, even if we were to try. If we took just one step forward, in that instant they would turn to dust as thousands of their own years caught up with them.
Yet that was just as impossible as waiting any longer.
"I can't risk it," I said. "I'm sorry. But I can't risk being too late to reach her. Because if I am too late, if she's pulled away from her side of the door…"
"Yeah. I get it." She sniffed. You know, she tried to cover up her nose as she did it. Actually, she nearly made me think it was natural—that it wasn't her swallowing another wave of tears. "If you wait her too long, you might never see her."
But again Ia shook her head. "Don't be. After all, if I found someone like that…" And she laughed. Only briefly, but it was so clear, so bright—as radiant as her sad, longing smile. "…if I had someone like that, I'd want her to come back to me one day, too."
I returned her laugh. We finished our coffee. The night swallowed up her car as she drove away, and the stars saw me return to my nearby bed.
Should you next see me with tears in my own eyes, my beloved, you deserve to know it will not only be from joy from seeing you again.
The invitation to Gakupo's office seemed, at the time, a sign of good fortune. We had to secure a grant for sea travel anyhow—he'd surely oblige, I thought as I walked back into that enormous lobby, boarded that shaking metal elevator-box, stepped onto the abstract colors of his office's rug.
The businessman himself, too, boded well, approaching us with a smile and outstretched hand.
"And here's my favorite astrologers!" he said as he vigorously shook our hands in turn. "Tell me, how have you been? Have a rough time getting here? Not too rough, I hope."
"Astrophysicists," Lily said.
"What, now?" Gakupo asked with a start.
"You said 'astrologers,' and, I get the words are similar, but we're—"
"We're doing just fine, thanks," Meiko cut in. "The train ride over was wonderful."
"Oh, you didn't get my limo?" Gakupo shook his head. "Shame. I really have to make a note to talk to the reception here."
"It's really no trouble," Ia said.
"No no, I insist—get comfortable while you're here, please."
He waved at the cushioned chairs in the office, and we all took his offer for us to be seated. Not content with that, though, he pressed a button on his desk—some sort of communicating speaker—and ordered teas brought up to us.
Sometime later, a woman with pink hair and a black-and-white sort of dress came in to serve them. Pastries came with them, too, of incredible sweetness and flaky texture. Naturally, I took time to eat them. This whole while, Gakupo urged us to eat, to drink, as he rambled on with small talk.
"How's the weather been out there? Maintenance crews are working well enough, I hope? Say, did you catch the baseball game last night?"
On and on, in that sort of way.
I frowned as I set my cup of tea down. Something felt terribly off.
"With respect, sir," I said, "we know your time is precious. And, we have a matter of some importance we'd like to bring to you."
"Well. That makes two of us," Gakupo said with a grin. "Or would that be five? You know—I've got a point to raise too. That's what I'm getting at with the manner and, well, the words and that sort of thing."
"The manner?" I repeated. Seeking reassurance, I glanced over to Meiko, Lily, and Ia, who all wore faces just as confused and distressed as mine.
"Ah, I've given it away, haven't I?" With clicks of his tongue, the businessman shook his head. "Yes, I'm sure you all know the trick. What I mean is, I try to keep guests like you comfortable when I invite you in. Usually, it serves to soften the bad news about your funding."
"Our funding?"
The four of us said the words in unison, rose from our seats as one. In a staggered cacophony our teacups rang out as they clattered onto their saucers.
"I may as well pull the band-aid off, eh?" Gakupo went on. "Yes, you see, I'm afraid we'll have to cut funding to your little venture. It's just, well, you've had quite a number of months to work, and we simply haven't seen anything of it. I mean, when you first walked in here you were talking about radio waves from other universes—wild, adventurous things—and since then, it's only been radio silence."
"That's because these things take time," Meiko said. "This is science we're doing—discovery, at that."
"She's right," Lily added in. "Come on, you wouldn't call off surveying a mine just because there's no gold in the first few meters, would you?"
"I wouldn't," Gakupo replied. "But then, that's all because I expect gold at the end of that venture. Here, we'd be getting… well, bits of sound, yes? As time has gone on, I've found myself thinking that I can't really impress the public with anything you'd turn up."
Think of it—him calling your song, your ethereal voice, nothing but "bits of sound." Without even noticing them move, my fingers had dug deep into my palms at that. How the blood in my head, my chest rushed and raced.
But Ia spoke before I could do anything foolish.
"But we found something," she said. "We found actual results—incredible results, even. And to prove what they mean, all we need is a bit more…"
"A bit more?"
The businessman's booming voice brought a hush over us all. He sprang up from his chair, then with a leg outstretched stepped onto, then over his enormous wooden desk.
"I don't think you lot understand the position you're in," he said. "Are you under the impression this is a negotiation? No, no, no—this is a termination. A firing, a layoff, a cut. The decision has been made."
"All we'd need is a boat," I said.
Somehow, the tone I'd used must have stung. He craned his neck over to glare at me, far down the end of his nose.
"A boat," he repeated. "You use my money to listen to space for months, hearing nothing the whole time. And now, you want to go to sea."
"It's where we have to go next," I said. "Frankly, I'm not sure you'd understand."
He stood still, at that—still, firm, and very, very tall.
"Get out," he said.
"Mr. Gakupo…" Ia had gasped out her words at the horrible shape he cut, his fiery glare.
"Look, just hear us out a bit more…" Meiko started.
But it wasn't enough. The businessman loomed large over us, shaking with rage.
"Get out!" he shouted. "You don't put me down in my own office! Not when I'm firing you, no less! Out, out with you, get lost and out!"
It didn't take long for guards, along with that woman in the black and white dress, to reappear. They gathered behind us, grabbed our arms—hard, hurting. We started walking out on our own but they kept a grab on us all the same.
Outside, the sky looked so wide, so blue and empty. I couldn't see a thing in it.
"We should get going," I said, if only because no one else would.
It took all the way to the train before someone spoke after that.
"What next?" Ia asked.
The car had been so quiet that her words startled me. On and on we'd rolled, clacking like insects overwhelming a forest, and then her voice had boomed like thunder even though she spoke as softly as ever.
"What's next," Meiko said, "is we pack up all our notes and get a new grant. Come on, we're bound to get one."
"But how long will it take?" I leaned over to stare into her eyes. "It'll take a while, you know. Far too long. We'll miss the window for sure. It's closing already as is."
"Well, what other choice do we have?" Meiko shouted it out—yes, raised her voice, even on the train—yet quickly backed down. "I'm sorry, Luka. But this is how things work. I don't know how it is where you come from, but here, we don't just see miracles. I've been trying to tell you that for years now."
"You can't say that when you just saw one," I replied.
"Maybe, but how are we gonna conjure another one? By pointing our dish to the right part of the sky again?" Meiko threw her hands up. "We can't work this without cash, and I don't exactly see that raining down."
A grunt shifted my focus away from her. Lily had sunk deeply into her hard shell of a seat, eyes half-closed over a rather lopsided sort of smile.
"There's no need to count ourselves down and out just yet, you know," she said.
The air swelled again in my lungs. "There's not?"
"Are you saying…" Meiko trailed off.
To all that, all Lily could muster was a shrug. "All I'm saying is get off at my station with me."
As we left the train station, the wind hit us like a rush of water, stinging and cool. But none of us broke the silence, even to complain about the discomfort. Not even Meiko could manage to ask what the plan was. I think perhaps it was all we could do just to keep walking, never mind talking.
Maybe it was all our way of healing—of patching something up inside ourselves, diverting internal energy to do so. You and I understand it only too well, darling. We heal our own wounds, and have the luxury of plenty of time to do it. They, however—with such fragile bodies and so little time to keep them safe—don't recover in the same way as we do. And even so, I think that night, my friends walked as we do after taking a bad fall, or even perhaps drowning. They staggered under the clouded night sky, and their feet dragged along the sidewalk.
All as if they were doing as we do: taking the time to repair ourselves.
I had spent very little time in the apartment Lily had purchased, because I had almost exclusively confined myself to the observatory. What I'd seen of it was grand, sharp—here they say "swanky." Until then, I'd only seen her charming entry room, where minimalist artwork hung on the walls above a sofa composed of three straight lines.
The apartment very much seemed a point of pride with her. An achievement, you might say. Who knows how much money she'd invested to get the place bought and decorated.
Lily showed us all in. With a grand gesture, she motioned at the space—so much larger than I remember the common room of the old campus house—and at the well-made couch and chairs, as well as the décor hanging along the walls.
"Take a last look," Lily said. "It'll be gone in a few days."
My jaw hung open, wide. How long had it been since she even bought this residence? A few months, perhaps—barely any time at all to live in it, to show it off.
"Lily, please," I said. "You can't do that. Not just because of…"
"It's not because of you."
Lily smiled at me, her lips forming such a delicate and subtle grin, far more at ease than usual.
"I was gonna announce it later," Lily said, "closer to when it actually happens. But, well, I guess now's the time. Now that we might not have any time left at all."
My legs went weak, wobbled, yet didn't give out. I don't think I could have forced myself to sit on the couch, even though it looked so inviting. Beside me, Ia kept eyes locked only on the floor in front of her.
"Things with Gumi, well, they've been really good," Lily said. "Great, even. To the point that we're thinking we should just move in together." She raised a hand, as if preempting an interruption. "No, no need to congratulate us or anything. I'm really happy with someone—really, deeply happy—and that's enough."
"But," I stammered, "to sell all this…"
Lily just shook her head. "It'd be too much for the two of us. Hell, it was too much for just me. Besides, if I'm really gonna move in with Gumi, well, it'd be better if the place is in both our names, right?"
Maybe there was a point in that. Maybe there was some reasoning or logic I wasn't understanding. There had to have been countless ways of things working in this world I still hadn't grasped.
But I couldn't let this go. There was no accepting her giving it all up—all that she'd worked for, all that she longed for.
The walls, covered in artwork and hangings, loomed so large over us. The doors to the rest of the rooms seemed to stretch out in front of me, growing more distant, infinitely unreachable.
"There's no use arguing, trust me," Lily said. "The fact is, we need money, and I'm the one who has it. I've just gotta convert it to usable form first."
"By giving all this up?" I asked. "Everything you worked for?"
"So I can help you with what you've worked for." Again, that smile of hers—that soft, gentle smile—left me soaring on a cloud, even as I wanted to collapse to earth. "But I'm getting something that I worked for, too. And that's being with a person I really care about. In a way we both want."
"But," I stammered, "you're truly sure?"
"Of course I am," Lily said. "I know it's what I want. What can I say? I'm in love."
Around me, all the decor, the expensive sofas and chairs, the very walls of the building—every bit of it melted away. All before me was Lily, smiling, hands in her pockets, as if she were ready to hum a tune.
At that point at last, I understood.
My arms swept around her, my dear friend. My eyes stung with salt.
"Thank you," I said again and again, enough to turn the words into mere sounds, a mantra notes sustained out from me.
Even as the tears flowed, through the blur I could see Meiko clutching her chest and her own eyes welling up—through my blurry eyes, she looked as if she were stained glass, an entirely different Meiko.
Yet with perfect clarity, I saw Ia standing beside her with a smile so strained it could have been painted upon her, and eyes blinking back a pool of tears.
Within the twins' workshop, the bond you swore with the machinery was enough to keep the engine running, I saw in another dream. The craft soared higher, riding on the winds, climbing upward, ever upward.
Oh, what exhilaration it was to experience that climb as I did through your mind. The upward rush pulled at the body with forces strong and firm. As the craft cut through the air, the very clouds parted in front of it, as if to barrel out of the way.
Your spirit soared with the twins' flying machine, heart lifting even as your stomach twisted and spun.
"I'd say it works!" Rin shouted from the front seat, her hair and ribbon trailing in the velocity.
"I just hope it'll hold until sunrise," Len said. "That's a long time for this thing to stay in one piece."
For indeed, the sun had fallen, and night was chasing away the light in the sky like ink spreading through water. One by one, stars peeked out from the blackness, and as the craft rose, you could barely see the twins in front of you in their dim light.
Yet the night would serve as enough cover to keep you hidden from the pursuit.
For that long, at least, you could seek me.
Below, oceans of green rustled and rolled by as you passed forests upon forests. The machine flew on over them, seeking the taller trees. Here and there in the growth underneath, giants arose like great towers of the earth, casting shade upon fields beneath.
Yet these were nothing; on where the craft flew, there grew the eldest and mightiest: the arch-trees, tallest in the world, towered above all else. They rose upward, upward in a cluster, thick as a sprawling city in their bundling together, with just as many creatures and homes nestled amid their vast spread of leaves. Each towered so high it seemed they were perched on a mountain, yet none had such need. Their trunks alone were enough support for them to pierce the sky, and their bark stood visible far above the canopy of trees below.
Upward the craft zoomed, up and far along its course. As it climbed, the metal rattled, rang, and sank momentarily in the rushing wind. At the front, the engine coughed, rattled in protest.
"No, no, no," Rin said. "Not yet. We're not even there yet, come on."
She and Len punched at buttons, pulled at levers. The engine coughed again, then smoothed out, and the plane careened along its rise up to the top perches of the arch-trees.
"So, what, it's around here?" Len shouted. "Around the tallest trees, right?"
You squinted, and then pointed off the port side. "I think it'd be right there."
For there, amid the blanket of dark, was an area of space aglow—yet with a different glow than starlight. It shimmered, rippled like the surface of water, as though a part of the sky itself had worn away.
And it even sang, humming with bright, ethereal tones, like a thousand strings made of dew and jewels strummed in chorus.
"Yeah," Rin said, "I think that might be it."
On the craft soared, until it reached that spot, this narrow section of the sky. It pulled to a halt, and the wings on the side began to beat, to hold it in place.
"Whatever you're planning on doing," Len said, "you better do it now, Miku."
"We won't have long," said Rin. "We're waiting on the sun and this thing's integrity both. If one gives out before Luka answers…"
"They won't," you said, and within the dream my heart and mind soared. "Luka will hear. She'll find my song in whatever world she's trapped in. She'll hear the music, and it will guide her back."
"How can you be so sure?" Len asked.
And you stood upright in the craft, smiling. "Because the feelings she and I share can't be kept apart—not even by the boundaries of space itself."
With that vow, you opened your mouth, and out poured the magic of your song.
The smell of salt is so overpowering out on the oceans here, dearest. It's harsh and cool and slick all at once, like falling into a deep, dark cave, even though you're standing still on a pier or slowly bobbing about aboard a rented boat.
I felt it in full when we set sail a few weeks later. Lily easily made enough from her sales to charter a ship down to the equator—one with a captain, a crew, a whole force working the ship whom I seldom saw.
That was because from the beginning I spent the voyage standing at the bow, keeping my footing firm as the waves rolled on and on beneath us. My stomach rose and sank, rose and sank with the endless motion. How this world turned and turned, this whole other part of the planet roaring and rolling and cycling with an unpredictable rage.
I should have been fixed on the sky, but that sea—that sea kept my attention for so much of the voyage. It was so deep, so endless. So much that I would never see.
Even if I were to spend a million of their lifetimes here, I would never see all of it.
I fiddled the knob on the radio I carried, and it returned only static, random signals from the beginning of this universe. The smell and taste of the sea had faded by the time I noticed Meiko, Lily, and Ia all beside me at the bow. Perhaps I had simply gotten used to the frigid salt that surrounded us. There was an ache in my legs, but still I didn't want to leave that one spot.
"We're well set on course," Meiko said.
"Yeah, captain said so himself," Lily added. "Should be right on the equator within a few hours."
I nodded. Though the taste of the ocean had gone, the sting still hit my eyes. My skin prickled at a sudden gust, and I wondered why I hadn't bothered to pack more.
But I remembered immediately. Ia drew a coat around me, though just the smile she cast was warmth enough.
"We sail due west once we've reached it," I said.
"Right," Ia said. "Due west. We've already let the others know."
"Just making sure."
Again I toyed with the portable radio, fidgeting with its controls, wiggling its antennae. Still nothing picked up, naturally. I didn't need Meiko to tell me we were too far from an actual station to get a signal.
Still, I knew it would come in handy soon enough. Like I said, though, it had to be at the equator, and it had to be due west, so far west that we reach the point where your star sits directly above our position.
So far west that I become on a direct path to you, dearest, to your spot in the night sky.
"So, there was really enough?" came Ia's voice.
Lily's laugh rang even richer, crisper out amid the sea air. "Are you kidding? My sale paid for this and then some. Plenty over, I might add."
"Maybe you could also pay for a voyage for me, then," Meiko replied, winking.
"Oh, no, I've cracked that code word already," Lily said. She leaned over close to me, hand cupping her mouth. "'Voyage' from her is gonna mean 'bender.'"
"I heard that!"
They argued back and forth, laughed, held one another's hands. Their heavy raincoats glistened with the misty spray cast over us every few waves. A flash of lightning resonated in my head, cast by the storm of years and years ago, when these three showed me into a warm, caring home.
I thought if this moment on the bow were to be my real final image of them, I'd have been satisfied.
Still, I had something to know before that moment could come.
"How long did you know you loved her?"
The three of them quieted down, turned to me.
"What?" Lily asked.
"Gumi. I want to know how long it was that you realized you loved her."
She grinned, widely—and yet for some reason her eyes couldn't meet mine. You know, dearest, I think I even saw her blushing.
"I never really thought about it," Lily said. "How long, I mean. It didn't come in roaring—that's the weird part, really. I thought it would make itself known." For a fleeting moment, she actually looked at me, and her eyes were shimmering wells of diamonds. "Except, it wasn't loud. It just kind of walked in one day, without my really noticing it. Then, some day later I finally noticed it was there."
"As if you just stumbled upon it?" I asked.
She shook her head. "More like, once I noticed it was there, I wasn't shocked or anything. It was more that I realized that I'd always known it had shown up."
My breath swelled at that. It was short, but it was enough. Oh, dearest, you would already understand why it was more than enough.
"So she does mean that much to you," I said.
"She does." Lily stood back up full, even laughed. "I should probably leave over some money for a ring, come to think of it. Can't leave her waiting on me too long."
I fiddled with the radio knob again, and though all it played was static, in my head there echoed bells.
By the time I picked up sound on the radio, night had fallen, and I had already cycled back and forth between the lower and upper decks several times.
They were only brief trips, each one. Once, pangs in my stomach brought me over to a parked chilling vessel—a cooler—and to feast on meat held between bread. Then, only to ask the captain if he thought we were quite at the equator yet. He told me we were nearly there, and that I shouldn't be worrying too much.
You know what? He was right.
Because not long after that, on the bow, I heard you. You, yes, your voice, trailing out from the radio as I toyed with its control.
No more static. Your song, reaching us, all of us here.
The sky hung dark over us. Yes—that was because we had actually crossed, actually hit the equator right on the solstice. Somehow, we had actually hit it.
And somehow, your voice again reached me; and it was as bright, as sunny, as much like a clear ripple of joy as ever.
"Is that…"
Meiko stood over me, astounded. Yes—and even better, it was again not just me who heard it. Again, you managed to reach all of us.
She gaped at the radio, shaking her head in quicker time than your song.
"That… It still shouldn't be possible," she said. "There's no way it can…"
"What's next?" Lily cut in.
I held tight to the radio. For as much joy as I wanted to shout out, I dared not open my mouth, for I felt my heart in throat.
"Do you know what to do?" came Ia's sweet voice. "And what should we do?"
All I was safe in doing was to grin. But I ventured a quick, coughing laugh, and some words instead:
"Please simply make sure," I said, "that we make it to where I asked," and I held the radio firm in hand.
The song resonated in my throat more than gave me a chance to hear it; I let the notes build themselves, birth themselves, and out they poured. It was singing without thought, without expectation. It was my voice matching the tones of yours, following in harmony with this song I'd not heard once before.
Around us, around the ship, the dark of the night was suddenly shattered—a flash, a bolt like lightning, yet with not a trace of thunder. Instead, the light came with music. And, as the bolt struck, a section of strings plucked, as if it had brought a second burst of music.
I took in its sound, the mood of its light. And I changed my pitch to sing on its note.
The light came back—but no longer a bolt. It flickered, now, like a flame going in and out of vision. The warmth of it sputtered, and that song I heard, the strings, they all faded in and out of hearing.
But they stopped altogether just after I heard Meiko shout:
"Wait."
Right as I heard it, I shuddered, even stumbled in my notes at how afraid she sounded.
"We're not going west," she said.
"What?"
The panic in Lily's voice made me stumble again, and just as hard. My throat balled up, tightened. And still I sang. It hurt like knives through my tongue, but I sang.
And amid that singing, I heard Meiko say:
"Look, the constellations are wrong—we're not going west."
"Dammit! Of all the times to realize…"
I continued my song, all attention on it, even as Lily stormed off somewhere—somewhere downstairs, clambering and stomping down them.
And I kept on holding the note, building to a rise and matching crescendo, even as she clambered back up to shout out:
"They turned us around! Say a storm's coming at us from the west!"
"So we're stuck going east?"
"They said it's the only safe way right now!"
East—no, we were going east. The radio had lost its trail on you, your voice changed out for flickers of static. Still I sang, a capella; at once my notes shook, quivered with fear, as if they were walking guideless in the dark. Frantically, I twisted and turned on the radio's knobs. I couldn't have lost you—no, not when I was this close. Not here, not now, not ever.
And it was as if I regained my balance: back you came, as I'd twisted enough. My song grew firmer footing, harmonizing properly, resonating.
Back the light came, too. It shone down on us, with every measure shining brighter, brighter…
"Luka, I'm sorry," came Meiko's voice again. "We can't keep sailing after that star. It's dangerous. We're turning around."
…and then fading, turning softer, softer.
"But that would mean…" said Ia.
"We don't have the time it takes to turn this thing around!" Lily shouted. "The solstice is nearly over, and at this rate…"
The dark had returned—yes, the stars were still over me, and the light and singing strings I brought with it were gone.
Your voice was cutting in and out, in and out. Static drummed along your notes, drowning you out. Even the starlight began to fade; already, clouds were rolling in, shrouding them bit by bit.
"It's… it's coming right for us!"
Ia was right—they were storm clouds, rolling in as if in pursuit of us. Your voice came in staggered amid this static, and now, the light of your star flickered.
You were close—so, so close to me, dearest. How I rose at how your song resonated within my chest. How I stood up on my toes, as if to jump up at the fading star above.
But it disappeared. I stumbled on my feet, and interrupted my song, gasping. I fell a step forward, up to the railing, and nearly lost hold of the radio.
"Shit, is she…"
"It's fine, she's still on board," Meiko shouted back.
Still on board—except I saw below me the ocean, just through the bars. Its smell rushed back up to me, a surprise strike of salt and cold.
It was growing more powerful, more violent. The storm, it was rolling in, just to the edge of this patch of sky. Like a wall, impenetrable to any vessel.
And I rose to my feet, another flash of light briefly shining upon us, another sting of strings. Even without the song, I sang, sang loudly, sang on instinct.
On I sang into the sky, even as the clouds were looming, even as the waves were thrashing, and…
…thrashing as you clung desperately to the aircraft.
"It's coming apart!" Len was shouting. "Miku, please, it might not hold up for longer!"
"Stop stressing her," Rin said. "She's trying her best—you want to stress her out?"
Yet you were still in that trance: the eyes barely open, the notes being held long and unbroken, one after another as long as each breath could hold. Strange, that they were coming out so long on your side, so short on mine.
You didn't hear them, you were so entranced. Somehow, you registered their words, but didn't think on them.
Yet something else registered within you, too: a faint kind of ringing, like a kind of chime. Something so totally unlike the vague buzzes you had been hearing before.
Your breath caught, only for a moment. But it could not catch for long.
The song had to change. The pitch, the shape—the information had to change.
You cried out the last note in a might scream as the airship's wings finally began to tear and give out.
…But that was you just then, wasn't it?
Of course it was. I felt it, I lived it. It was every bit one of those dreams you'd given me, every bit linked to your thoughts and life.
To think, you were close enough for that. Just on the other side.
Yes—just on the other side.
"We're not close enough," I said.
"Yeah, we know!" Meiko's reply was tensely shouted, full of fear. "We need to keep going east, though, or else we'll be caught in a damned thunderstorm at sea."
The boat sat nearly under the spot—yet not truly below it. Staring upward, I locked eyes on the constellation Virgo, singled out from the rest of the sky I'd come to memorize from these long years here. And it was clear, all too painfully clear, we were far from beneath its gaze.
My stomach churned as I stared on. Ringing in my head, your song became more strained, more desperate. It was as if your voice was becoming thinner over the radio—its sound waves drawn taut, like an overextended length of string.
And it would not be long before it would snap completely.
"We won't make it," I said. "If we don't get back there now, right now, then—it'll be over by then."
"What?" Meiko shouted.
"Shouldn't you keep on singing?" Lily's voice—oh, how clear it was, how it cut through the winds like a knife.
Even so, I heard you. Above it all, I heard you.
My fingers fell numb, and the radio clattered to the deck. It was so much clearer, all of it.
Your voice wasn't just a noise from that electrical box. It was shimmering inside me, like a tiny star. It was pulsating and growing, and it burned with such heat.
And it was pulling me. Inside, it tugged and tore, and it yanked at my entire body against the boat's railing.
"Luka!"
There was Ia, screaming—she rushed at me, her outstretched hand the only solid part of her. The rest was dissolving into droplets, into a rush of ocean mist sprayed across the boat.
The cold of the water hit me as hard as steel. Again my skin prickled up—every little hair, every little follicle. The bumps began to sting as my clothing held fast to them, wet and tight.
"Oh my god, she just—"
"Overboard! Hey, we got someone overboard here!"
Still they were shouting. Not one of their voices, none of them, cut through the storm any longer. Now they faded into a buzz—a swarm of background wavelengths, projecting out into the universe, out past the sky.
But still the pulsating star within in me pulled and pulled.
"No, change course if you have to—well, fuck, then change course!"
I tried to sing, but water rushed into my mouth the moment I opened it. Instead, I thrashed. My arms flew about, hitting the water, legs kicking beneath.
But I didn't feel it. I didn't panic as I coughed up the freezing, stinging ocean around me, within me. That beating inside me, that ringing glow of light…
Its pull alone was all I could feel command me.
A crash in the waters next to me—I kept up thrashing, and my hand hit something soft, something solid.
"Grab it, Luka, oh please grab it and hang on!"
"She's got it? She's got it!"
I did as Ia asked: I held firm and tight to the floating ring of safety. I clung to it, and even so my body beneath floated under the ocean's currents, to and fro with the raging waves.
Again I opened my mouth. I gulped in air tinged with the freezing mists.
I sang.
And then light shone down upon me, so bright that it was as if time had turned itself back, the long dark of the storm rolled back to daylight. It cascaded down like a torrent of ribbons billowing down a staircase. Yes, the very light itself had a kind of weight, blowing in the sea breeze as it descended.
Still, I sang. Oh, how I sang, how the notes simply poured out of me. The sound rose, fell, at which points to where I can barely recall. Simply the sound of it lifted me, hands clutched to my hips, up and up out from the water as the music poured out from my entire ringing self.
I shivered as the ocean air hit my skin, as it collided with the seawater that had soaked through my clothes and was now dripping back into the ocean beneath. Above the waters I rose, higher and higher. But still I sang, and still the music resonated like a chord commanded by an invisible player.
They were watching from the boat. Watching with wide eyes, where the depths of wonder ran so deep they themselves could not plumb them.
But even so I pulsed with joy. Those storm clouds shrouding the sky—in an instant, they dissipated, leaving only a clear night sky. The starlight caressed me, strange yet calming, making me tingle at its touch. A trillion golden feathers fluttered along my skin, born from the rolling light, lifting me still as my song neared a pause.
I took a brief rest. After a breath, I found a few measures more.
"Thank you," I shouted, "thank you for everything. Truly, my friends."
How odd, those next moments of singing were. Though I'd left the ocean, its salt still covered my skin, my face. Somehow the tingling had grown warm, and it coursed down from my eyes.
"I won't forget you," I shouted. "Not for all eternity. I promise, yes, I swear it—I'll let every moment live forever."
But still I rose. No, there could be no end, even in the moments my song reached rests. The light stampeded out in a flood, now, out from the shimmering patch of sky I was floating toward.
Down below, their faces blurred—and then cleared up, themselves again.
For one moment more, they were a bewildered Meiko, a gasping Lily, and of course Ia, smiling that warm smile despite the tears flowing so freely down her cheeks.
I turned. I sang as the pull began again, as it lulled me back into its track of motion.
The heavenly shimmering intensified as my voice rose to song again. My arms reached out, all on their own, and touched a patch of sky soft and solid, like a family quilt hanging upon a wall.
Your bright and beautiful face appeared before me as the remnants of the universe I'd just left faded to memory.
A/N: Once again, thank you to Can't Catch Rabbit for the editing of and complete support for this story.
