Closer
Young love was wonderful. So wonderful, it made you just that little bit afraid of losing it someday. Or maybe Yazawa Nico was just weird. She'd had that feeling ever since she and Maki had discovered a neglected shrine not that far from Nozomi's temple shrine.
On an impulse, they'd tossed a 500 yen coin each into the old rotting collection box and each written a wish and pinned it up. Something about the noise it made when Maki tossed her coin in had made Nico shake the box, a bit sacrilegiously, and it startled her that it sounded and felt empty. She hoped that wouldn't jinx her wish.
Later that day they couldn't keep their wishes to themselves - another potential jinx. They'd both made the exact same wish - to be closer to the other. That was uplifting and positive enough. Nico didn't know where the feeling came from, but she was convinced somehow that she had a tendency to lose herself in love and turn a blind eye to potential conflicts that needed to be worked out to make the love more real. And would bring them really, authentically closer, to boot.
Being with Nico had made all her wildest fantasies of love come true, Nishikino Maki thought. So why did she have such misgivings. Mostly about herself, too. Somehow, she'd become convinced, at a level below rationality, that she had too great a tendency to simply enjoy the high from being in love and not pay attention to Nico's needs. Well, if that was the case, she resolved to watch herself and always put Nico's feelings and needs on the same level as hers. That was the key, she decided, to having your love grow closer after the initial high wore off.
Come to think of it, hadn't this started when they made that shrine wish? In retrospect, she wasn't sure that had been a wise thing to do. It seemed very romantic at the time, but … Anyway, she searched her feelings. It was comforting. She still felt as amazed and in love as ever. And her desire to be closer to Nico every day was unabated.
They had to admit their relationship the next day in the Idol Research Club room. The way they couldn't keep their eyes off each other defied glib explanations. It was uncanny, how they'd both lost all restraint. Fortunately, everyone else in Mu's approved, and most said "About time you two admitted it!"
It was only after they sat next to each other, actually touching, that either of them could concentrate on what they were there for. They both pouted when they weren't paired up for exercise. There was no one who was particularly used to pairing up with Nico, but Rin and Hanayo were a little bit offended. Eventually they seemed to realize it wasn't personal. That said, everyone but Nico and Maki in Mu's felt a twinge of worry about how excessively couple-y they were. And so quickly, too.
The next day, they came to school holding hands. "How bold, you two!" Nozomi teased, as the rest of Mu's met them at the school gate.
"It's not like it looks!" Nico said, stammering a bit.
Maki backed her up. "This may sound stupid, but our hands literally came out of our pockets and joined, and we can't let go."
They even invited the Mu's girls to separate them. Rin and Nozomi rose to the challenge, and couldn't. But, of course, they could just be playing around and gripping each other's hands with all their might. Nozomi had an idea. She winked at Rin over Nico's shoulder. Rin got the gist of it right away. She was no Nozomi, but …
"Sorry, Maki-chan," Rin said, sheepishly. With that, she started tickling Maki unmercifully. Like many easily embarrassed girls, Maki was actually very ticklish. Meanwhile, Nozomi was, of course, giving Nico-Nico an extreme washi-washi. Both girls collapsed to their knees, then to a sitting posture, but their hands never parted.
"STOP IT!" Nico yelled, finally. "Look, we'll try to help you." And with that, Maki and Nico joined in Rin and Nozomi's efforts to pull them apart. Several feet apart, once the initial handclasp was broken.
And that's when things took a surreal turn, even for the spiritual girl of Mu's.
Nico and Maki's bodies were literally dragged across the ground until their hands joined again. Nozomi looked over at Rin. Rin looked back at Nozomi. There were tears in Rin's eyes, and something else that looked like fear and the beginnings of panic.
After a consultation with Headmistress Minami and all of Nico's and Maki's teachers, it was agreed that the two could attend each other's classes - Nico's more than Maki's, as it was judged that the first-year needed less class time to keep her grades up. They always sat in adjoining chairs at the same shared desk, which they'd learned to organize in each classroom so they could hold what both Nico and Maki might need. It went without saying they always went to the bathroom together, let alone having lunch together. Only when they were practicing or performing did whatever supernatural force was at work seem to lengthen the leash between them. Umi deliberately choreographed amazing parallel maneuvers for the two. They were always perfectly in synch, without even looking, no matter how far apart on stage or the roof they were.
It became a subtle addition to the overall motif of Mu's. And, of course, NicoMaki shippers went crazy. Especially when they saw how after each song Nico and Maki flew to each other to hold hands. And sometimes even wrap their arms around each other's waists.
As for the families? The Nishikinos were quietly paying for scientific and even paranormal research, but the happening was deeply embarrassing for them. So they didn't squawk when Maki moved in to Nico's room. Nico brought half the contents of her room to the school, and gave Hanayo her pick. The rest she quietly sold off (with Maki at her side, of course) and in that way she was able to pay Mu's expenses to an event they'd been invited to perform at in another city far from Tokyo, that they'd decided not to accept due to the inconvenience and costs. She got a great deal after Hanayo got her pick selling the rest to the school idol merchandise shop. She dutifully autographed everything she was asked to, and Maki even joined in on a few items they'd agreed didn't have real sentimental value for the couple. To seal the deal, they took a purikura of them looking in each other's eyes and both of them signed it.
Nico and Maki split the space in Nico's room equally. Maki, who was very diligent, also learned how to cook and do laundry. It was a real struggle not to hold hands, and they had to pay attention in order not to rejoin them. So quite often Nico would do something with her left hand while Maki helped with her right hand. Maki's diligence in studying helped Nico bring her grades up almost as high as Maki's. Nico's siblings loved having Maki there, and the explanation that they were together like a mommy and daddy didn't phase them one bit. And a good thing, as sleeping side by side would have been unbearable for the couple if they could never release all the sexual tension they felt.
As crazy and inconvenient as things were, they nonetheless settled into something approaching a normal routine.
But their fellow students, especially friends like Hideko, Fumiko and Mika, and of course the other people in Mu's, noticed a rather disturbing trait. Traits.
Quite often, when they addressed a question to Maki, Nico answered it. And vice versa. Worse, sometimes the answer seemed almost psychic, it would be so apropos to the question.
At first they chided whoever answered, but it became clear it was an unconscious thing. And more and more, when "NicoMaki" wanted something, one of them would be a spokes-girl for the pair.
They actually hardly talked at all. Maki, writing her notes, would write a short message and draw Nico's eyes to it. She'd usually nod or shake her head, or sometimes write below it. It almost felt like they'd forgotten they could, or needed to, speak.
But none of that prepared them for what was ahead.
One day, Nico and Maki didn't separate at all for practice. "We can't!" Nico said. Maki nodded mutely.
To their utter horror, they saw that their hands weren't just joined. They were fused. Nico and Maki had become Siamese twins.
Papa Nishikino wanted them to get immediate surgery. But the psychic he'd consulted out of desperation told him he'd just be mutilating the girls and delaying the inevitable. The Nishikinos paid to have a facsimile of a Greek manuscript made and translated it. It involved a couple who had been so close they grew together. Like most myths, it seemed pretty straightforwardly metaphorical. But it was with a sinking feeling that they read that, according to the historian, the village where it had occurred still had people living there who remembered the couple, saw them grow together, and reported that eventually they left the village, not needing anyone else to be complete.
Half the Otonokizaka students were spooked by the phenomenon. The other half gushed over how romantic it was. The two sides couldn't understand each other.
The fusion hadn't progressed beyond the hands when the Mu's girls noticed yet another disturbing change. Now, when Nico or Maki answered to each other's names, there wasn't even a flicker of recognition that they even had different names.
Eventually, they took to answering any statements or questions directed towards them in unison. They laughed more than either had in the past, but it was an unsettling, somewhat high-pitched laugh. Nico grew an inch or two, Maki shrunk the same amount. Nico's hair grew red highlights. So did Maki's eyes.
Hanayo got up her courage once and asked if they could tell who was who anymore. She got another chilling laugh in response. The one you could barely tell had been Nico said, "Oh, just call us Mako!"
"No, no!" said the other one. "Nikki! Definitely Nikki!"
"You are too kind, Mako-chan!" the former Nico said, snickering.
"I insist, Nikki-chan!" the former Maki said, bowing deeply and gracefully (especially considering the fused hands).
Then in unison, they said, "Nico, Maki Nikki, Mako … just call us whatever you want and one of us will answer. Or both. It amounts to the same thing, anyway."
That was followed by the chilling, unearthly laughter in unison. Hanayo resolved to never ask them about any of this again. That night, she found it impossible to sleep, and phoned Rin late at night. That girl came over on her bicycle and spent the night. Hanayo was shaking for over an hour before she drifted off in Rin's arms.
As if that encounter had been a catalyst, the next week rapidly finished the fusing of the two girls into one girl. Just like that, Mu's was eight
Nico's mother brought the remaining girl to the Nishikino Mansion. When questioned, the fused girl said she considered all three of them her parents. Seemingly, they had all of the memories of both girls, which got confusing once you reached the era after they'd met for the first time.
You couldn't say the resulting girl - they very reluctantly went with the Nikki suggestion - wasn't both beautiful like Maki and cute like Nico. She was, actually, dazzling. The parents had withdrawn Nico and Maki from school and put Nikki in as a first-year.
She assured them she was still communing with the two parts of herself, still "growing closer." What that could mean now escaped them.
And all three parents thought that might be a good thing.
Nikki proved to be the strongest member of Mu's now. While she didn't quite weigh as much as Nico and Maki had separately, nonetheless, if you grabbed ahold of her, you had to describe the sensation this way: her body was eerily dense. Just as they'd been forced to leverage Nico and Maki's eerie synchronicity earlier, they leveraged her weight and strength in maneuvers where Nikki would hold up to three Mu's girls on her shoulders in a diamond formation. Or swing them through the air or toss them up and catch them.
Rin and Hanayo and Nozomi, who had become the unofficial chroniclers of Nikki, were the only ones who noticed yet another change. Nikki was growing shorter, but still weighed the same amount. The situation had not yet exhausted its horrors, and finally they realized what "still getting closer" meant.
They had two more lives before the now two-foot-high Nikki looked too much like a toddler to be a credible school idol. That girl took initiative for the first time in months, and asked them all to help with a "NicoMaki Farewell Party" at the location of the neglected shrine "where everything started for me .. us … whatever …" they said, not leaving out the unearthly laughter.
At the combined girl's request, they invited everyone in Mu's and A-RISE and their families. Fumiko, Hideko and Mika, too, of course. The Mu's girls had made it as festive as they could, but of course the overall mood was somber.
"We aren't going anywhere, don't get us wrong," that girl announced. "But this is where we'll dwell from now on. We don't have any human needs left - we can survive merely on love. And we're really looking forward to getting closer, faster. It feels like the energy of this place will help a lot."
The attendees kept brave smiles on their faces until they got away from the shrine. Then the tears came.
NicoMaki's last meal was a sweet tomato cake.
Within a week you couldn't see Nikki. You could still hear her clearly, though "sense" was the word Nozomi used, and it was undoubtedly apt. By that point, Nikki had sunk into the ground below the shrine, and that was where the "voice" of Nikki came from. Every day it seemed farther and farther away. Umi and Eli had analyzed the situation. Within a month, NicoMaki would have shrunk to a size where they would form an infinitesimally small black hole. At that point, they would be withdrawn behind an event horizon. Together forever, with no means of communicating with the rest of the world. Not that they would care. They laughed when presented with the notion, and claimed that their love would still shine out and be sensed regardless of any barriers to it.
New couples at Otonokizaka started a fad of coming to where NicoMaki had disappeared to ask them to bless their relationships. When she found out about that, Nozomi acted. Over a weekend, the neglected shrine was bulldozed, and a dozen Shinto and Buddhist priests (and three Catholic priests just to be on the safe side) came and cleansed it. The cost of the bulldozer, and of a monument that showed Nico and Maki holding each other and looking into each other's eyes (and likely just about to share a kiss) placed over their location, was paid for by the Nishikinos. They had their own score to settle with the shrine, but didn't want their daughter to be forgotten.
When Honoka and Eli found out Yukiho and Alisa planned to make a pilgrimage there, they were both horrified, and forbid it.
But:
"Ah, no chance, onee-san. I mean, of us becoming like them. It's even hard to share a bed with her!" Alisa said, adding in a stage whisper, "She snores!"
"Well, she steals the covers, so that noise is probably me sneezing from the cold i am going to get," Yukiho responded.
That did the opposite of what they probably intended. Honoka and Eli both remembered how incompatible the bickering tsundere couple had seemed.
At that, Alisa addressed them more seriously than she usually did.
"Look, we can be apart. Yukiho wants to be a part-time idol and help out with the shop. I want to be full time. She wants to sing, I want to dance. We can be apart. We can even break up and still be friends."
"But," added Yukiho, "a little help never hurts."
"I give Yukiho space and she gives me space. I have friends that are just my friends. I have a life that doesn't revolve around her."
"And that's one reason I love her," Yukiho added. "Same here," said Alisa.
Nozomi had had the men renovating the shrine restore a sill to put wishes up and a box to collect yen for what had become a NicoMaki shrine.
"What did you both wish for," Honoka wondered suddenly.
"To be CLOSER!" they said in unison. At the looks on their older sister's faces, they both collapsed in laughter.
"Actually," Yukiho said, "we really did make the same wish. But there's no way I am going to tell you."
Meanwhile, Alisa whispered something in Eli's ear that had her choking with laughter. Alisa looked a little vexed. Yukiho looked resigned. She leaned over to Honoka. "Listen," she said. "If you don't want us to be in the papers for sistercide, this is a secret. … umm … Arisa really likes a certain area of a girl's body, so … we both wished for mine to … "
"Bigger?" Honoka asked.
Yukiho was bright red, but nodded.
"I think I like that a lot better than 'closer' nowadays," was all Honoka replied.
NOTES
One of the conceits of this series, The Neglected Shrine, is that after one wish has been made, after the wishers have gone down one track, so to speak, back in time when they are first encountering the shrine, they have a vague sense of what happened/will happen, and usually some regrets. The wishes in "Closer" are a direct response to the consequences of the wishes in "Nico Loves Maki."
