AN: This was simultaneously one of the hardest chapters to write as well as one of my favorites. I am dead inside. I am so tired and dead inside.

tw: alcohol, unreality?

Chapter 27

NICO

Time was running out.

The page to the discussion board was not loading. The glowing corner of Nico's laptop screen told her it was 11:39 PM. Nico wanted to die.

Not that Nico had been looking up shoegaze idol groups and arguing with people on youtube comments of an Angelic Angel mash-up instead of reviewing the lecture. That would be ridiculous.

She'd had sent the mash-up to Eli, who only responded with please stop sending me these.

In the back of Nico's mind, Nico had not truly decided communications was what she wanted to do with her life. Or rather, Nico knew she wanted to be an idol, and slogging through the COM 364 discussion board was simply the alternative reality Nico resided in.

In her fantasies, she was an idol again. A kaleidoscope of colors from the stage lights. Energetic piano music would spill over the roar of electric guitars. Nico's body swayed with the rhythm, her hands up in her trademark pose, as the crowd went wild. Roses of all hues at her feet. Sometimes it was just Nico, in the fantasy. More often though, all of u's was there with her, hand in hand.

She had dreamt of this waking and asleep, but not only this; when they'd gotten back from their tour in Italy the dreams and sensations had started in vivid detail. Pink roses on stage, glistening with dew. (The sky turned grey, the space underneath her rising and falling.) Purple lipstick smearing in the heat, chugging down a bottle between performances. (A light in the distance, above the colorless waves.) In her good dreams, Mari would be behind the stage, calling the shots and booking events, sometimes descending from a helicopter with her own arietta accompanying Nico's, their voices harmonizing together in a duet.

"Nico?" Nico jumped a little as her GAL PAL waltzed into Nico's designated room of the hotel in Tokyo they were staying at. (Mari was flawless as usual, in some kind of gothy get-up with boots more expensive than Nico's last course of college.) "Are you FINISHED? A dear friend of mine is in town and I want to take you both to a new nightclub, it's called THE VOID. LET'S GO!"

Nico guiltily closed a wikipedia tab on shoegaze idol groups. Gimme a minute." The discussion board loomed dangerously across the pixels into her mind. Name the different types of communication methods, the page read, and list some examples in your day to day life. Nico had skimmed the chapter… but that was two weeks ago and she didn't feel like opening the pdf file with fifteen minutes left to go. "Mari, BABE-" And now Nico was talking in random English "-Could you give me an example of communication styles in your day to day life?"

Mari gave her a rare serious look. "This was not due TONIGHT, was it Nico Nico?"

Fourteen minutes left. "Of course not. I-I'll be done soon."

Education was suffering.

When the clock hit 11:59, Nico slammed down on the submit button. It wasn't her finest work, and the mandatory response to her classmate's claim that the purest form of communication was via letter (which had absolutely nothing to do with communication styles) was perhaps not the most diplomatic she'd ever been in a classroom discussion, but god dammit, it was done.

"I did it."

Mari looked up from her phone screen. "Shall we CELEBRATE?" She sat down on the bed. Black lace bunched up over Nico's keyboard. Her hands were so soft, kneading Nico's shoulders. "You'll hurt your back if you hunch over like that."

Nico's muscles relaxed from Mari's firm grip. "Let's go. In… a minute. I could melt…"

"THE VOID is famous, you know," Mari kissed Nico's bare neck; her long black hair had been pulled into a study panic mode bun. Mari's grazes had a pressure to them, blooming warm sensations along Nico's skin. "A modern PHILOSOPHER visited it once, and they say she discovered the ultimate meaning of life after drinking their special draught. It's called THE THIRD EYE."

Nico was more interested in Mari's lips, the way Mari's fingers found her collarbones with the softest of pressing. "Uh huh."

"Do you know what she discovered, what was the meaning of life?"

"Nico is love, Nico is life?"

"The philosopher discovered there was no meaning to anything. Life was an empty hallway that one stumbled down without reason until finally they could crawl no longer. It never stopped. It never ended. Perhaps it never started. It just is. No one would know why the universe exists, why there life to begin with, why the first creatures crawled out of the sea onto the land, why humans can even question EXISTENCE in the first place. No one will ever know anything. There… there is only CHAOS."

Nico yawned. "That sounds a lot like my freshman roommate."

"Oh, Nico. You too will take a sip of the THIRD EYE. You will see the MEANING of LIFE as well."

"So is that like… a rum runner?"

"THIRD EYE is a delicate balance of bitter floral liquors, an imported tea from a convent of silent nuns, and then shaken with gold leaf and meteorite shavings." Mari paused for a moment. "It's about as alcoholic as an electric lemonade."

"Alright, alright. I'll go get a shower. Who's your friend, anyways?" Mari's friends could be anyone from an American Disney channel star to a world-famous violinist to a friendly raccoon who lived in the hotel's garbage bins.

"She's my old teammate! You'll love her." Mari winked. "She's going to be a lot of fun."

THE VOID was a grand cathedral; if a cathedral's windows had been filled with purple neon lights and electric cobwebs, with an ever changing floor beneath their feet, dancing from deep navy to magenta to the brightest amethyst. Something eerie and electric was playing. It was packed with people Nico could have almost recognized, a face from UTX she couldn't place, a girl from a death metal idol group, a model for a site she'd seen Mari frequent. It would have been mildly uncomfortable, Nico thought, if she hadn't just spent the last hour panicking away her last bit of brain power.

Mari and Nico were quickly escorted to the VIP section, where Mari promptly ordered them drinks Nico had never heard of and did not want to know the price of; they had to work their way up to THIRD EYE, Mari said.

A quiet redheaded girl joined them at their private little balcony, not saying much but gave the occasional shy glance at Nico. Every time Nico looked her way the girl would blush and sip at her drink. Mari was teasing her and asking her questions about her sister, if she'd loosened up any since they graduated. The girl was shaking her head, waving her hands. Nico guzzled down whatever it was Mari had gotten for her, entirely too sugary to taste the alcohol and too refreshing not to drink fast.

A band was playing where the altar would have been. They were haunting and low with dark soft voices. All girls, Nico noted, all ethereal and lovely and entirely at home on the elevated stage. It was like they owned it. Up front, the audience was cheering. Nico couldn't help but envy them. In another life, that would have been her. She should have been up there, she thought as she sucked down another one of whatever that drink was, singing and dancing with her friends. Not here. Not sitting on the sidelines, when she was meant to be the center of attention.

There was a glint in Mari's eyes. "Do you miss the LIMELIGHT, Nico?"

Nico stirred her drink with the little straws, swishing around the glittering fluid. Below them, a sick electric piano solo started. "Yeah."

Mari kissed her, kissed her lips, kissed her cheeks, her soft lips finally resting on one burning ear. "One call to my father, and," she nibbled Nico's ear and Nico tried not to react in front of the little redhead, "We can be on tour next week."

Déjà vu swept over Nico, with a heat rushing up to her face. Where was it from? It was the strangest sensation, the way her brain wrapped around the feeling. The thought nagged at her, as if she'd dreamt of this in those labyrinthine dreams of fires and oceans. But. This was not a dream she remembered. There was no placing this conversation in memory; none of these words had been spoken to her. Why did it matter? She took another gulp of her overpriced liquid sugar. "Are you for real?"

Mari nodded earnestly. "I miss it too, Nico. Just… being, the way I am… it's not that same." Nico realized she had no idea what Mari did when she wasn't there. "I'd want to do something a bit harder this time. If…" She bit at Nico's neck slowly, and this time Nico cried out, both apathetic to her friend's gasp and the bartender's sigh. "If that's alright with you. I like PYROTECHNICS."

"Y-yeah.

"Ohhhh!" Mari's expression brightened, angelic in the glow of the overhead lights. "We could do a fire theme, right? Do you want to shoot it on a volcano?"

This statement did not bring back feelings of déjà vu.

"Hell yeah let's shoot on a volcano! Could we get tigers?! TIGERS!" Nico was shouting about the music and she didn't care. "One for each of us. Wanna sing with us, uh, Mari's teammate?"

Mari's teammate nodded enthusiastically. "I want a bunny too, though."

A shit eating grin broke across Mari's face as the iridescent cobwebs hit a neon lime shade, lighting her up into an array of greens. "I'm surprised you don't want a PANTHER, Nico."

Nico opened her mouth to hurl something about strawberries in traps, but— There was fur beneath her fingers. A beast's chest rising and falling. Heavy leather jacket, fishnet stockings. Soft swearing filled her ears, soft bickering with a woman holding a camera. Low familiar gravel of complaining in the background, isn't this too garish? We could have just used a cat. Nico blinked. Just one of those thoughts. But she was going to need something stronger to drink. Typically, Nico could ignore weird thoughts when she was out doing things. She hadn't had a strange feeling in their entire trip to Italy, and it was only upon coming home that the dreams had started again.

In her mind's eye, she could see herself reflected in the green eyes of the panther.

"So are we doing those THIRD EYE shots or not?"

"Oh, SHOTS! How IRREVERANT in the face of THE ABYSS." Mari kissed her. "My little devil. BARTENDER! Give me three shots of THE THIRD EYE."

The redhead- Ruby was her name? -trembled in her seat. "My sister said I had to be at least twenty-five before I'm allowed to have my first existential crisis."

Mari snorted. "Like she didn't have hers at fifteen like the rest of us."

The first shot… tasted like alcohol. Good, smooth alcohol. It wasn't Mari's Everclear, but it certainly… tasted like alcohol. "I'm not seeing an inescapable corridor of meaninglessness, Mari."

Mari was fluid and animated, so exactly like sober Mari. "Keep them COMING," she called to the bartender.

"Hey," Nico nudged her GAL PAL, "I can do that for you just fine."

The teammate- Ruby, it was Ruby, right?- stared up at them with eyes as wide as overfed rabbits at a county fair. "Um,"

Mari looked at Nico, then Ruby, then the bartender. "MORE SHOTS PLEASE."

On the dance floor, Mari's moves were powerful and straightforward; the redhead- Ruby?- was delicate, like a robin learning to fly over the first buds of spring flowers. Mari was an earthquake in Nico's hands, a force to be reckoned with. A dark goddess in platform heels; seven shots of THIRD EYE within her and never once did she lose her balance. Mari danced with abandon, throwing herself into the pulse of the beat that drove them all forward, only stopping to take another shot or chug a bottle of water.

2 AM, a clock said somewhere underneath the haze of a fog machine.

Nothing about the situation suggested it were to end, if anything it were to begin. Despite this, though, it felt like everything was drawing to an end. Plans were being made, she knew. Rin had texted her a picture of a ring last week, Honoka and Maki had all but moved in together. Hanayo had gotten an art show. And Nico, well, Nico was doing… whatever this was. It was not where she expected her life to go, in any potential universe. But she couldn't shake the feeling something was wrong.

She stumbled to the bathroom herself, despite Mari's offer to follow her.

Red eyes flashed in the darkness. Nico started ten seconds later, ten seconds more she realized she was staring into the bathroom mirror. Bright eyes, desperate eyes. The world was a blurry mess around her. Acidic colors from the neon lights turned her face into a make-up ad, a photoshoot. Not quite real. Nico became art itself. Pink and purple and red and green. Dancing before her eyes, like streetlights smearing onto wet pavement.

"I guess THIRD EYE makes everything into a rave." Nico muttered, surveying her eyeliner. The flawlessly applied liquid liner had faded with sweat. Once-straight hair curled with moisture around her marked neck.

Red eyes caught hers. Was it urgent? Did they want something? Nico shook her head. Gravity pulled her down, twisted her legs and bumped her into walls, her head heavy and empty.

Inside the stall was quiet. Stillness enveloped her like an old lover- (Metaphorically, not literally, Maki did not envelope.) Only a glow from the bathroom tiles gave her any visibility. A breeze kissed her bare legs. No eyes here. Thoughts were irrelevant, she thought. Here was peace. Darkness was soft. Inviting. A friend. It took her by the hand and told her everything was going to be okay, inside the air-conditioned club bathroom.

It was okay to be soft. Vulnerable. Something was wrong, horribly wrong, she knew. A star had fallen somewhere. Things that should have been were twisted and changed into whatever this… existence was. But within the broken pieces of the world, Nico had found herself a space within the cracks. A quiet place, in the silken darkness…

No. Mustn't fall asleep in the air-conditioned club bathroom. Mari would be looking for her soon. Mari, the shining presence in her life, who was going to… make her an idol again? Nico stood up. (The world spun, the colors moving like a carousel.) She was going to be an idol… Mari needed to know, what the stillness inside the shadowy bathroom felt like. What was inside Nico, for Mari to peel back and discover. She stumbled to the facet.

Red eyes caught her again in the mirror.

"Fuck." Nico put her hands down on the artistically tilted sink, glaring at the mirror. "What the fuck. You're just my eyes, aren't you? Go away."

The mirror said nothing.

"What's your damage?"

Her expression was unhappy. There was that feeling, like she was dreaming. Like she was looking into the eyes of the panther again. This was stupid, she thought. She was out here to get drunk and make out with her girlfriend, not stare into the abyss of her soul or whatever.

Nico smiled. The face in the mirror did not change.

Behind the reflection the lights had shifted to an emerald. Her reflection's hand reached out, gesturing for her to come closer.

Nico, even drunk as hell Nico, knew this was a fundamentally bad idea. To interact with this. To get involved in her dreams and waking fantasies. Her mother had once told her never to be involved with anything that couldn't be explained, and that advice had been useful for most of her adult life.

But something else told her otherwise. That there was truth behind the mirror.

Nico reached out to her double's hand.

"How do we look?"

Nico surveyed the two girls. Her teammates had spent the last 30 minutes in the dressing room with the make-up artists, and had come out looking like a gothic goddesses; purple lipstick and heavily-lined eyes. Somehow, it suited them. If Nico hadn't known who it was, she never would have believed it to be the dweeby first-years she'd met all those years ago.

"We're perfect."

"N-Nico, I'm…. I'm nervous." Hanayo shook. "I dunno if I can do it."

"Don't worry about that. You did it before, and you can do it again." Nico gave her a thumbs up. "You've got Rin here, and the Number One Idol in the Universe. We're gonna kick ass." Sweat ran down her back. Somewhere someone was screaming, a lot of people were screaming. For them? She heard her name, other names. Nico took the girl's trembling hand. "We're on next. Let's give them what they came for."

"Fucking—"

Honoka was jumped up on a hotel bed. Her hair was longer, bouncing behind her as she moved up and down. "Can we do Disney World? Please?"

"Honestly Honoka, you're too old to be jumping on things…"

"Oh, oh, can we go to a Broadway show after the New York concert?" Someone called from the bathroom. "Think of the costume ideas!"

"Can we see a baseball game, nyah?"

The glare of the computer made Maki look tired. "I'll see what I can book… we really need a real manager, you guys know…"

Hanayo hugged Maki from behind. "You're the best!"

"Yeah, yeah. Like I said, we'll see. I still need to go over those notes for the tech expo next month and finish up the new song…"

"Hey, don't burn yourself out, okay? You don't have to do all of this at once. We can slow down for you, and I'll do whatever I can to help on the astronomy report, so don't try to do everything by yourself, okay Maki?"

Nico snorted. "Like you can talk, Honoka."

"I was sixteen!"

"DARLING. DARLING." Mari's face was above her. Frantic.

Thoughts were a black hole, dragging her down into the center of the earth, into herself. A toilet was strangely close to her. There was the floor. Such a cold floor.

A window seat. Bickering in the back of the plane. Grey skies. "Can you guys keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep."

"This doesn't concern you, Nico."

"That's what I'm saying, keep it the fuck down over there."

Eli stalked over to her. "Now is really not a good time for this, Nico," Terse voice, out of breath. "Okay?"

"Oh my god, I am literally just trying to sleep, you pricks," Nico pulled her sleeping mask back over her eyes, "Fuck off."

"Don't bother, Eli. Isn't it enough you picked the fight with me?" Umi's voice was a frozen dagger. "Or can't you back that one up?"

"You can't win, and you know it. Don't even try me."

The floor was blissfully, wonderfully cool. It was a like a bed. So inviting. Such a nice floor. "Hi. Mari. What. Sleep."

"DARLING, are you alright? We're calling a taxi. Drink the water. I knew I should have checked on you sooner… I'm sorry, Nico…"

She awoke in the early hours with Mari passed out on her side. Ruby was sleeping on the couch, arms pulled to her sides. Liquor still buzzed inside her with her uncertain legs, but she managed to pour herself a glass of water without falling over.

What the actual fuck happened?

Was this what Rin had meant, about the odd dreams? (Granted… odd dreams didn't normally happen when someone was awake. But Rin didn't drink weird drinks at weird nightclubs either.) It was almost certainly what Nozomi was saying. With all of her stupid-ass mysterious bullshit.

Somehow, despite all odds, Nico was not hung over. She surveyed the area. The kitchenette was reasonably stocked, and there was take-out rice, eggs, and iced coffee in the fridge. No veggies, she noted with disapproval, but it would work. She'd make food.

A startled squeak rose from the couch as Nico pulled out a pan. "Miss Y-Yazawa!" Nico squinted at the figure, still not in full light but at least not in a nightclub; bright red hair in little high pigtails, green eyes. Like Maki and I had a baby.

She cracked the egg on the side of the pan. "Just Nico is fine."

There was the smallest look of awe in the girl's eyes, and for a second Nico suspected this girl had been a u's fangirl. "Bet you never thought you'd see Nico Yazawa post nightclub, eh?"

"Umm, well, you're cool, Miss Nico! Like you're a grown-up!"

Nico. A grown up. "Want some breakfast? I'm making fried rice and there's iced coffee in the fridge."

"Y-yeah um, thank you. Mari had me go get it! She said you might need it but she was worried and didn't want to leave…"

"She's the perfect girlfriend, you know." She tossed the ingredients into the pan. What did those… memories? flashbacks? dreams? mean? They pressed up against her brain, taunting her with their ambiguity. Eli and Maki, with a panther. What kind of repressed memory was that? Did Nico have an especially bad double date with Maki and Nozomi and Eli once? Was there a PV she didn't remember? Never mind the rest. The concert, the hotel room, the plane… None of it fit into anything.

Nico was still drunk, a little bit. Her fingers moved on their own towards her phone. Hey Eli, have we ever pet a panther together?

"Miss Yaza- er, Nico?"

"Just Nico is fine."

"Are you and Mari serious?"

Nico stared at Ruby like a deer in the headlights. She had no idea if this was how Mari treated all of her girlfriends of the year, or if six months was dead serious for her. "Uhhh… I think that is a grown-up conversation. But uh. I am fond of her." She took a sip of coffee.

"She really likes you, you know."

Nico's phone buzzed. Eli had typed does Maki count? Nico almost spit out the coffee.

No, for real, have we gone to a zoo together or anything? Or ridden a plane together after New York, for that matter? A second after she sent it, she wondered if Eli had been the right person to ask. Something was happening with her, Nico did have a vague sense of that. But… Nozomi was just so damned mysterious with these things.

"I really like Mari too. She's… a breath of fresh air."

Are you having strange memories, Nico?

They were in silence for a moment as Nico finished up the meal, and doled it out onto plates (saving some for Mari for later.) She typed out her reply as she sat down to eat. Yeah…

Nico, listen to me. There are some very odd scientific phenomena happening right now in the world. It is dangerous for you, especially if you are experiencing these sensations. Wherever you are- you need to leave. Go to somewhere safe. Out of country if you must. As soon as you can. Tell the others. If they've been affected by any odd dreams or false memories like yours, they are in danger as well.

Nico stared at her screen. She didn't think she needed the coffee to sober up.