Here's chapter 5. Sorry for missing last week. Should be smooth sailing from here on out!

As usual, Luka was up early the next morning. She went through her usual routine, starting with a ration bar breakfast, and ended up seated outside. Someone had to stay on the lookout after all, even if it was just after dawn. After some time, she took out her notebook and, balancing it on her knee, she painstakingly wrote.

Dear Meiko,

It's Day Three, and last night was a hell of a night. You'll never believe it if I ever told you all of it, but long story short, Miku almost drowned. I saved her, and then she returned the favor by treating my collarbone, which I'd apparently broken during the crash. She went to nursing school at seventeen—can you believe it? She must have been a model student, getting to university so early. But then she intentionally flunked the exams because she was sick of playing that role. Now she just goes and has fun, perhaps for the first time in her life, and acts up because her dad won't pay attention to her otherwise. It explains so much about her, it's crazy. Sure, she's still acting like an entitled, self-centered brat sometimes, but now I'm pretty sure I know why. She might actually be self-centered and entitled and a brat, but I think it's because, at her core, she doesn't really have anything else. Her parents are miserable, and that's rubbed off on her, it seems. She doesn't have a calling in life. All she has are her friends and her social life, which is something, I'll admit. Maybe they taught her to act the way she does.

Luka gazed over the open sea for a moment before returning to her book.

Either way, things are getting better for us here. We're constantly leveling out the terrain between us. We're seeing eye to eye. We're talking. We even—

Her pencil hovered over the page for a moment.

—cuddled, in a way? After she fell in the ocean, she was ice cold. We must have drifted over a cold current, or maybe it was because it was already nighttime; I don't know. But she was literally freezing to death, I think. She approached me with such urgency, I couldn't really refuse. I think she knew she was dying. Maybe she knew because of the nursing degree she could have had. But I held her to get her warm again, and—

Luka hesitated again.

—I'll admit, it sucked for a bit. She was leaning on my broken shoulder and that sucked. But it was also weirdly, well, not exactly nice, but somewhere closer to that. She held onto me and I held on to her, and she was weirdly stiff in my arms, not just tense but really tense. It stuck out to me, I don't know why. We slept like that for a while. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but maybe it could've been if it hadn't been for my shoulder. I don't know. I can't stop thinking about it.

She looked at the ocean again and breathed for a moment. This was turning out to be a long letter.

Anyway, I hope we get rescued soon. My clothes reek and I'm pretty sure I stink too. I don't exactly want to take a bath in the ocean, but I'm maybe two days away from doing that. Now that'll be fun: I can barely wrap my head around how deep the ocean must be where we are. So much water, and who knows what's down there under the surface. Ha, I'm just grateful I'm not on my period, you know? That would've been awful. Imagine.

Her hand was growing sore, so she pocketed the notebook again. Then she stood, on the lookout, ever on the lookout, until she heard Miku's muffled voice.

"You outside again?"

"Yep!"

"Okay," Miku said. "I'm going to eat breakfast."

"Bon appétit."

"Yeah, yeah."

Luka heard Miku shuffle about, surely going for the ration bars, eating, and then afterwards doing who knew what. The girl seemed weirdly active, shuffling about a lot. Eventually, Miku unzipped the door and crawled through it; to Luka's surprise, she was wearing a life vest.

"Good morning," Luka said.

"Morning. How come you're out here?" Miku asked, coming to sit next to her.

Only then did Luka see that sure, Miku was wearing her life vest over her suit jacket, but she wasn't wearing any pants.

"Oh, uhm. I'm just on the lookout. For boats, low-flying planes, you know. People who might be looking for us."

"Okay." Miku seemed entirely unbothered, leaning against the canopy, her legs now laid over the inflated tube edge of the raft. Her feet barely grazed the water.

"Doesn't it spook you?" Luka asked.

"What, the water?"

"Yeah. You were in it less than half a day ago."

Miku shrugged. "You're here. I'm okay."

Luka hesitated for a moment, before saying, "But it's so big. And dark. And empty. And who knows what's in it."

"Nothing I can help though, right?" Miku deadpanned.

"I guess not."

Miku sighed. "This is all so boring."

"Want to help with the lookout?" Luka asked. "We can take turns, now that you're wearing a life vest. Might help against getting too sunburned."

"Ah, that's why your cheeks are so red all the time."

"Ha, yeah."

"I'll let you do this, then," Miku said. "I won't stay here long."

"Fair."

Miku scoffed. "It's so wet in there. In a bit, I'll mop up the puddles inside, since you can't with your shoulder. Maybe we can take the canopy down for a bit so the inside can dry properly."

"That's a good idea."

"Hm. I need my clothes to dry."

"Oh, they're already on the sunny side, there. I wedged a life vest in them so they wouldn't blow away."

"Thanks."

They sat in silence for a moment. Miku shifted from side to side every now and then, her life vest squeaking against the material of the canopy, while Luka sat upright, scanning the horizon.

"Thanks for saving me yesterday," Miku whispered.

"It's no problem."

"For a moment, I thought you wouldn't," she said, voice quiet. "You just didn't show up for ages."

"I was sleeping. My dream, uhm, incorporated your screams. I didn't know something was wrong until a minute in."

Miku let out a shuddering breath. "I almost died."

"I'm sorry."

"No. You saved me. That's what matters." Miku eyed her speculatively. "Even though you hate me."

"I don't hate you," Luka said. "I did a few days ago. But now? You're all I have. I'd hate to lose you."

Miku's eyes widened slightly, and she looked away, arms crossed.

"How's your shoulder?"

"It's great, thanks. This sling is doing wonders."

"You'll likely need to get it set when we get back to dry land. Now it'll get a chance to heal, but depending on how long we spend here it might heal crooked. They'll have to re-break it so they can set it properly. So, yeah, be ready for that to suck."

Luka laughed. "Thanks."

"I'd set it now, but I don't know how. I never got that far."

"It's okay. What you did is more than enough."

"Hm." After a brief silence, Miku asked, "Show me how to use the water thing?"

"Sure. I'm thirsty anyways."

There was enough water accumulated to share. After they'd drunk it, Luka showed Miku how the device worked, and started explaining the physics behind it only to find out that Miku knew perfectly how it functioned on that level, a stark reminder that she was a model student. Then they busied themselves with collapsing the canopy, pushing it to one side so that the inside of the raft could dry. Miku mopped up the puddles with two sponges, letting Luka rest her shoulder, so Luka took to the lookout once again, flare gun and whistle at hand. Eventually, the canopy could be put up again, Miku's clothes were drying slowly, and there was more water to share. Luka came back inside to get shelter from the sun. They had lunch, then sat in silence for a bit, Miku tending to her hair, Luka busying herself with sketching the inside of the supply compartment.

They kept a peaceful atmosphere like that for the rest of the day. Miku's clothes slowly dried, the water slowly refilled, and the sun slowly crossed the sky, eventually sinking back down to the horizon. Luka peeked outside from time to time to check on it all and to scan the horizon. When she was done with her hair, Miku took her turns as well, even going so far as to station herself outside for a solid hour, until the sun went down. Then they had their dinner rations, and Luka busied herself to prepare for another early night's rest.

"I hope I don't get more nightmares," she said offhandedly as she laid out her blankets. For the first time, they were all completely dry, which was a blessing.

"Do you get them often?"

"Ever since the crash, yeah," Luka admitted. "I keep seeing Gakupo die, one way or another. Just...again and again."

Miku looked at her for a long time. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Can't be helped. Might need some therapy when I get home."

"I won't be flying around for a while. At least, I think so. So you'll have some time off."

"Nice."

Miku stilled in her own preparations for the night. "Do you think you'll fly again?"

"Once I can, yes. I know that what happened wasn't my fault. Something went wrong, mechanically. The handbook said there was a failure, but I don't remember which part was to blame."

"Oh."

"So I'll just be a bit more stringent with my pre-flight checks. A little more demanding about maintenance."

"I blamed you for the crash, didn't I?"

"It's fine. Water under the bridge." She laughed, lying down on her blankets. It was a warm evening, so she left her extra blankets to the side. "Maybe I shouldn't be using metaphors with water in them."

Miku scooted over from her pile of blankets. "Luka?"

"Hm?"

"I wanted to apologize. For what I said."

"It's all fine. Emotions were running high, you know. It's all okay."

This didn't deter Miku, who continued to crawl closer, until she was right at Luka's side. Luka looked up to her.

"I promise it's okay," she insisted, spotting the restless expression on Miku's face.

"I just..." Miku hesitated. "There's so much I did. So much I said. And so much you did. So much you lost. I..."

Instead of finishing her sentence, Miku got closer still, to the point that her still-bare thigh touched Luka's.

"I'm bad at talking about these things," the younger woman went on. "I wanted to say that I'm grateful."

"What for?"

To Luka's surprise, Miku threw one of her legs over Luka's so that she was straddling the pilot.

"Wha—"

"You saved my life twice, didn't you?" Miku whispered, leaning over her. "Once on the plane. I would've died if you haven't told me what to do."

"I guess, but—"

"And yesterday. Without you, without that life vest you tossed me... I was seconds from drowning, Luka. I was so cold."

"What are you doing?"

Miku also looked confused, but also somewhat dejected.

"I wanted to thank you. And I owe you, don't I? You'd said so yourself."

"You treated my shoulder, didn't you?"

"A sling is hardly fair payback for my life, twice," Miku said, her frustration evident. She lowered herself, her hands resting on the lower edge of Luka's life vest. "I still owe you. You lost a friend because you needed to take care of me. You saved me twice. I've given you nothing but being a burden to care for."

"That's hardly a good way to talk about yourself— hey! Stop!"

Luka pushed Miku's hands away, which had traveled down to the top of Luka's pants. Then she quickly slid away from the woman, so she didn't tower over her so imposingly.

"Okay, what's going on here?!" Luka exclaimed.

The younger woman offered no protest, staying put. "I'm just paying back what I owe…?"

Luka gulped. "You don't owe me anything."

Miku's brow furrowed, a frown crossed her features. "I wanted to do something nice for you for once."

"Today was nice. This? This is so far out of left field. Why are..." Luka's confused, angry expression disappeared. "Does he ask this of you?"

"Who?"

"Your boyfriend."

Miku's face twisted into a bitter, scornful grimace. But she didn't deny it.

"Miku. Miku, look at me."

She did, and Luka sustained the eye contact, making sure her words sunk in.

"You don't owe me anything, okay? No favors, no treats, nothing."

"It's... It's so unfair, then."

Luka gulped. "Okay. Want to do one thing for me?"

"For my life, I'll do anything."

"Leave him."

Miku's expression fell. "But—"

"He'll only bring you misery. You don't want that life, I promise. Leave him. Find someone that makes you happy."

Eyes downcast, Miku digested these words for a moment, before giving her a single, firm nod.

"You don't want this?" she asked, her voice tiny.

"Not like this, no," Luka answered.

"Okay. I'll leave him. I'll... I'll look for someone who... Makes me happy."

Miku then slid off of her companion.

"Thank you," Luka said.

"Hm."

"I know that might mean you won't find somebody rich, but..." Luka trailed off. "Sure, money solves a lot of problems. It can get you a lot of nice things. But it's not everything."

"Okay."

Miku crawled back to her own nest of blankets, back on the other side of the tent, her head hung low. Luka watched, still sitting up, her heart pounding.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Miku answered. "I just... I've embarrassed myself, haven't I?"

"As far as I'm concerned, it never happened."

"Thank you."

Luka cleared her throat. "Does he... Does he do this often? Demand—"

"No. Not really. It's more in the way he acts. When he thinks he's owed something, he turns even meaner. So I need to.., you know, smooth things over. Do a favor for him in return."

Luka put a hand to her mouth. "How long have you two been together?"

"A few months."

She let out a shuddering, but quiet breath. "Leave him right away, you hear me? This isn't normal."

Miku looked at her, but it was hard to see; it was getting really dark and the total obscurity of night was blinding.

"I don't know what normal is, do I?" she asked. "What my parents have isn't normal, either."

"No."

"What we have isn't normal."

"Depends on what we have," Luka said slowly. "For two strangers coexisting on a raft, I'm guessing this is about as 'normal' as we're going to get."

"Hm."

Luka looked around. The darkness was everywhere already, rendering even the blinding orange-red canopy a muted, dark color.

"Hey. Come with me."

"Where..."

"We're going outside."

Luka let Miku leave first, before she took down the support strut of the canopy for the second time that day. Then she followed her out the door, flattened the canopy into a floor. Granted, all their things were underneath, but they only needed a bit of space.

"My clothes are almost dry," Miku mumbled, turning over her pants, her shirt. "I might wear them."

"If you're not uncomfortable, it'll be better to wait for them to dry totally. It's warm now, but who knows how it'll be later. Don't want a light breeze to freeze you stiff," Luka said. "Come here."

"Okay."

"Lie down."

"Hm." Miku obeyed, resting on her back. Then she blinked. "Oh."

Above them, a star-filled sky greeted them. Not just the number of stars, but their brilliance, their colors—they were incredible, bedazzling, awe-inspiring. And they were spread out across the entire night sky, as if they formed a carpet of enthralling glitter covering the two women entirely. There were only the pitch-black waters, together with the millions and millions of tiny points of lights overhead, brightening the night sky.

"Okay, I expected this," Luka breathed, "and even I'm in awe. Wow."

"This is..."

"It's incredible, isn't it?" Luka said. "I'd just remembered that one day I'd wanted to go to a zero light pollution zone. Well, guess this is one."

"It's unbelievable."

Luka grinned. With her free hand, she found Miku's, and held it tight before the other woman could protest.

"It'll all be okay, I promise," she said, squeezing her hand.

"You assured me things were fair, and then you went and gave me something else?"

Luka laughed. "First off, sure! That's exactly it. It's not about being fair. Sometimes you can just do things for other people without being asked. It's good to be kind. Second, I guess I'm not really giving you anything. I'm sharing this."

"With me?"

"Yeah. I wanted to show that, well, there are other ways to share things. To smooth things over."

Miku heaved a sigh. "Perhaps there are."

Luka squeezed her hand, then released it, but Miku then grabbed her hand in return.

"Don't let go."

"Okay."

Miku breathed deeply, unevenly. "I don't know— Oh!"

"What?"

"I think... Was that a shooting star?"

"Could have been. There's plenty of those, all the time."

"I thought those were rare."

Luka chuckled. "Nah. There's always something burning up in our atmosphere. Look up and you're guaranteed to see a few."

After a minute of silence, Miku squeezed her hand. "I saw another one!"

"I saw it, too." She turned towards the younger woman. "Are you making wishes?"

"Oh, that's right."

"You get two."

She saw Miku close her eyes for a few long seconds, before opening them slowly. "Do I get more if I see more?"

"Yeah." She chuckled again. "Have a long list of wishes?"

"Maybe I just want one thing really, really badly," Miku said with a grin.

"Fair. Go ahead."

"You make wishes, too."

"Okay."

They took in the night sky for a while, and every now and then, a shooting star streaked past. Some were bigger, large trails across the sky. Others were so small, they felt more like a trick of the eye, an illusion, leaving Luka unsure it ever existed at all.

"Do you think we'll get rescued?" Miku asked out of the blue.

"I'm wishing for it."

"But do you think we will?"

"There's no reason to think that we won't be," Luka said, speaking thoughtfully. "We did what we could. People know we went down. I'm sure they're looking for us."

"What if…" she never finished her sentence.

"Yeah. What if. What if we drifted too far, what if nobody cares, what if they give up." Luka sighed. "There's no way to know."

"What if I spend my birthday out here?"

"When is it?"

"In a little over two months."

Luka laughed. "I'm glad to say that we're definitely not spending your birthday out here. If we're not rescued by then, at least one of us is dead."

Miku whimpered. "At least?"

"Maybe we'll resort to cannibalism. I can't imagine such insanity, but with enough despair…"

"Oh, no, eww! I can't eat you. I won't!"

"And I can barely stomach the thought of eating you," Luka said with a chuckle. "Don't worry. I really doubt it'll go that far."

"It'd better not."

For what felt like hours, the two women basked in the glory of the starry night sky. The moon was new, so nothing dimmed the starlight, not even their own little raft light, not a single light on the horizon, from the sun to a city to a passing boat.

"It's kind of depressing, in a way," Luka whispered.

"The cannibalism?"

She laughed, though half-heartedly. "No, the sky. All this means that we're so far from civilization that even its light won't touch the sky here. We're... It means we're really far out."

"There's nothing here," Miku said.

"Exactly."

"Nobody here but us."

"Nobody but us..."

They shared the silence for a minute, then Miku rolled over to face Luka.

"Can I do one thing?" the younger woman asked.

"Depends. What do you want to do?"

Miku's expression was hard to read in the night.

"Something I want to do. Not because of IOUs, not because I feel compelled to."

"Then go for it. What—"

Her sentence died when Miku kissed her. Unable to pull back, Luka flinched, her hand tightening around Miku's. Her brow furrowed, a protest at the back of her throat, but it never came. Instead, she relaxed, and gently returned the chaste kiss.

Part of it was unpleasant, really. The surprising element of it was only partially to blame: the real issue was that neither of them had the luxury to brush their teeth for days. But Miku was warm and surprisingly soft, her touch gentle and loving. Luka did her best to return her effort in equal measure, holding her hand tight. In the end, it was actually a very nice kiss, one that had Luka craning her neck up for more.

It only lasted a few seconds, the younger woman breaking the kiss slowly, eyes still lidded.

"What was that?" Luka asked quietly.

"Something I wanted to do."

"Okay."

"You kissed me back."

"Yeah." After a pause, she added, "I guess I wanted to."

Miku laid back down, but this time, she curled up against Luka's side. Luka let her, her eyes frequently darting to the other woman, holding her hand tightly as she breathed deeply and evenly. Eventually, she sighed, relaxed, and gazed up at the night sky.