The impossible has happened: Claudine has seen the person she'd believed to be dead for three years now. And yet Maya cannot allow herself to be seen...
Disclaimer: I do not own Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight.
Chapter 8. No Turning Back
In these past three years, Claudine had lived through many dreams, scenarios, and hallucinations that had seemed so tangibly real.
In each and every one, all of her senses seemed to be perfectly intact, to the point where she could see the blinding glow of the fire, smell the rancid stench of charred metal and burning flesh, hear the rupturing of the vehicle, feel the heat of the flames as if she'd been in that car right beside her…
And then, there had been other times where she had woken in bed and seen a shadow of Maya's figure, breathed traces of her scent, heard her familiar early-morning yawns, felt her gentle, tender touch…
It was hard to say which hallucination was more cruel.
But tonight… Claudine knows it's real this time.
That girl in the audience hadn't just been a vision, nor had she just been another of the thousands who looked like Maya. No one else's presence could cry out to her soul like this, or make her heart ache in such a terrible manner.
Claudine runs. In nothing but her dress shoes and the thin slip of a dress that had gone beneath her costume.
There's no way she's going to let her go. Not again. Once was already far too much for her to bear.
As she pushes and weaves her way through the theater, where the audience has begun to stand and file out, she makes absolutely certain never to tear her eyes away from that patchwork blue trench coat for a second.
People cry out in shock and excitement around her as she brazenly hurries past them in such surprising attire, but Claudine doesn't hear a single one of them. Her heart pounds in a way she'd never experienced before. As though it were being slammed around in her chest like a caged beast throwing itself against its prison walls in a desperate attempt to break free.
Every second hurts. Every step. Every breath.
It's all lights and movement and noise all around her, but she pushes through, never letting the corner of that coat slip away from her.
As Claudine hurries down the aisle, there is a split second in which the girl glances back. She keeps running as she does so, and doesn't show her eyes beneath the beret, but just that simple glimpse of the side of her face is familiar to Claudine in a way she can't even explain, like the phantom of a memory. Past the bustling crowd and their chatter, Claudine shouts over it all.
"Wait! Stop! I want to talk to you-!"
But of course her target never waits for a second. She only moves faster.
Claudine is forced to push even harder as she pursues the blue coat out of the theater, down the hallway, and out the doors into the cold, wet evening.
And for half a heartbeat, she loses sight of the coat, unsure of which way she might have gone down the back alley. And yet, Claudine doesn't even need to pause to consider it. Her feet simply carry her one way over the other, instinctually, as though some invisible thread were connecting them, drawing them together.
She trusts herself. Trusts these feelings. Trusts her soul.
The crowd thins out as she races down the darker side of the alleyway, refusing to slow down even when she stumbles and loses one of her shoes. Even half-barefoot, she continues, ignoring the bruising gravel and splintering pieces of debris that scrape her skin.
A flash of blue. Claudine dashes onward.
Now that she was unhindered by the crowds, she could run at full speed. And it just went to show how continued years of training had allowed her to be so fit.
Whereas, clearly, one of them hadn't been dancing or practicing for a long, long time.
Normally, a genius like her would've chosen to run into town and try to lose Claudine in the masses. But just like always, she had her momentary lapses in judgment, and would act more like a scared, foolish child than a renown, top star.
Claudine rounds the next corner close behind her. Long, silky strands of brown hair begin coming loose from the ponytail at the nape of the coat. And even underneath the layers, Claudine recognizes so much about the way her body moves. After all, she had watched and studied her more closely than anyone else for years…
"Wait-"
Her voice comes out thin and feeble, breathless and terrified and dumbfounded all at the same time. It barely projects an inch in front of her, in spite of the fact that she'd just been belting out lines across the entire theater for hours on end. By now, Claudine can hear her panting, and even the huff of her breath has hints of a painfully familiar voice.
Claudine reaches out and nearly has her until a particularly sharp piece of something plunges into the underside of her foot. She yelps, fighting against every fiber of her being not to drop to her knees and lose that crucial speed.
And as she cries out, something strikes in the blue-coated girl's heart, enough to have her skidding to a halt, turning back, parting her lips to ask if she's okay…
'Saijou-san, are you all right?'
Even after all these years, Claudine can still remember and hear her voice exactly as if she'd really just spoken those words to her.
Claudine flinches from the sting in her heart more than the pain in her foot. But an instant later, the girl in blue is off and running once more. Claudine doesn't let her get ahead.
"Wait-" Again, her voice is too weak. She hisses through the pain as she begins running once more down the hard wet pavement. "Stop-!"
But with the pain beginning to really register with every subsequent step she takes, that blue starts to drift further and further away. Claudine chokes, and only then realizes the tears have started spilling, blurring her vision and burning her throat.
No. She can't lose her. Not again. Not again...
Because this time it really will be the last time.
So with one last burst of adrenaline, fear, conviction, and love, she throws herself forward and grabs that coat.
"I told you to wait… Tendo Maya!"
Their weight collides. Claudine manages to yank the fabric of the coat just enough before she goes down - enough to bring her target down with her.
She'd felt this before. Not many times, but enough. The slight dread and embarrassment that came just as she realized she was slipping.
But just like always, her partner somehow manages to twist around and catch her safely, cushioning her fall.
The dark alleyway sways above her as the tears gather in her eyes and the pain accumulates. Her head lands heavily, but it's against fabric instead of pavement. There's a brief, terrifying second of dizziness, where her vision blacks out and she truly feels she's going under.
But then, a faint hint of something familiar - the most familiar scent in the world to her. The scent of polished wooden studio floors, clean towels, and lavender.
Tendo Maya…
Through sheer force of will, Claudine manages to push herself up, peering at her in the shadows. Panting, shaking, crying, Claudine blinks and gazes down into those familiar silvery eyes.
"Te… Tendo… M-May- mmph-"
A hand is raised to gently cover her mouth. And then her voice-
"Please-"
-a voice Claudine was certain she'd never hear again.
"-don't call me that."
It is simply impossible to describe the profound, heartbreaking, earth-shattering emotions that collapse like mountains over Claudine in that moment. It feels like the world stops, like life all over the planet is put on pause just for her - just for them.
The distant sounds of passing cars and bustling crowds throughout town become warped and staticy. The whir of a plane passing overhead rises into a deafening roar.
Her entire body is aching, trembling, shaking from the inside out, so hard and so furiously she feels she might be ill. There's a burning nausea churning deep in the pit of her stomach, something so painful she's terrified it might take over. Her mouth hangs open wide as she breathes heavily from the crashing adrenaline of the pursuit. Her throat and mouth have gone dry, and her jaw is throbbing. And then her vision begins to blur, and no amount of blinking seems like it will help ever again.
As she kneels there crumpled in that damp back alleyway in broad daylight with all of France moving and bustling just a few hundred yards away, Claudine is only aware of the thundering beat of her own heart.
How many years…? She can't even make sense of the passage of time.
It had felt like a lifetime since she'd lost Maya. Like she'd lived through a million different worlds without her, snared in a vicious cycle of waiting, searching, giving up, and then repeating and repeating, no matter how many times she'd told herself she needed to stop.
No matter how unhealthy it had been, some part of her had always wanted to keep going. Keep hoping. Keep praying. Keep holding onto an impossible wish…
Her chest continues to heave, less from the exhaustion of the desperate sprint now, and more so from the absolutely debilitating shock.
Maya. Tendo Maya.
Who the world had always believed to be dead.
Who Claudine had tried to force herself to accept was dead.
But who she always wanted to believe might have still been alive, due to some unexplainable, perpetual tugging on her soul…
She can barely see past all the tears, which are hot and stinging to the point where she feels like her face is being burned. All she can make sense of are shapes and shadows and sounds that blur together like some strange rainy painting.
But when her mouth finally registers that touch across her lips - that warm skin of Maya's palm pressing with a gentle firmness to keep her quiet - for both their sakes…
Claudine can't be sure if she really catches Maya's scent past all the smells of cement and trash and sewer water, let alone all the things clogging her nose. But even if she isn't really breathing her in right now, her mind recalls that scent as if she'd been waking up next to it her entire life. A scent like freshly-cleaned wooden studio floors, warmth, and lavender.
Too many thoughts and emotions to name rush through Claudine's mind like a rampaging river in only seconds. But in spite of them all, there's one thing that surfaces.
This… is real.
This is Tendo Maya in front of her now. Her beloved, long-lost Tendo Maya. There was simply no doubt about it.
When Claudine heaves another breath, and another, and the girl in front of her still doesn't dissipate into thin air, or prove to have just been some kind of cruel illusion, she starts to sway.
And then, her voice finally climbs its way up her burning, constricting throat, leaking out of her lips and between Maya's fingers…
"Ahh… ngh…"
It starts out as smaller, quieter sobs.
But then… Then it just lets loose.
Breaking. Shouting. Caterwauling.
She all but screams in her hysterics, channeling and finally setting free all of the emotions she'd been fighting to beat down and bury after all these years. They all come out pouring out now, like tormented beasts finally released from caged metal prisons, rampant and boisterous and wild.
Claudine isn't even fully aware of the sounds she's making, because her ears are ringing and her head is filled by the insistent pounding of her own pulse.
Perhaps it's because she startles Maya with how loudly she cries out, or perhaps it's because she'd shaken off the grip on her mouth due to how violently her body is shaking, but the hand covering her mouth falls away. Claudine keeps looking at her, past all of the wails and sobs and trembles. She keeps her eyes on Maya, because she knows if she so much as blinks, she'll vanish.
Maya… Maya…
It's all she can do to think her name, because the syllables to form it won't come out of her mouth right now. She can't even make sense of Maya's eyes or her face. It's all just a blur.
Claudine chokes over and over on her own voice, her own tears. She can already feel her body shutting down from the combination of the crashing adrenaline and the stress. Her vision starts blackening at the corners, and her breath comes more and more shortly with every second.
No-
She can't lose her again-
She has to stay awake-
But no sooner than the thought has crossed her mind do her eyes roll back.
No- Please no-
She can feel herself falling. Helpless. And she already knows that when she wakes again she'll be alone, and Maya will be gone.
Please-
But she can't fight any longer. Everything hurts too much.
Claudine falls forward, and her consciousness fades before she even hits the ground.
Maya runs.
The second Claudine has collapsed into the puddles of the alleyway, Maya stands up and staggers away as quickly as her shaking legs can take her. She runs and runs and never looks back again…
That's what she should have done. That's what she knows she should still do…
But she can't.
Even in spite of everything her parents and the authorities had told her, should she ever encounter anyone from her past life.
Even though she knows it would be for both her benefit and the benefit of her parents.
But she just can't.
The moment Claudine breaks down crying, Maya is torn between wanting to hold her and wanting to run, but she ends up doing neither. She simply sits there, more heartbroken by what all of this had caused Claudine to suffer than she is scared that someone might discover them back here. Dumbfounded, Maya does nothing but freeze as Claudine wails her heart out so hard and so loudly that she loses the last of her breath.
The moment she loses consciousness, however, and starts to fall toward the hard pavement, Maya doesn't even think before she acts. She doesn't let her fall. In that moment she decides she never will. Ever again.
So Maya dives forward to catch her, cradling Claudine's limp body safely in her arms.
In nothing more than the white, now mud-stained slip of a dress and with only one shoe, she is the very definition of tragedy. Her entire face, neck, and the front of her chest are smeared with mucus and tears, evidence of just how hard she had cried for Maya. With her entire body. With her entire soul.
There are frays and stains all over her dress, which clings to the shape of her body enough to show Maya just how hard she'd been continuing her training over these years. She was still fit, still strong.
And still more beautiful than anyone else in the world.
Even now, in her disheveled, pain-ridden state…
Even though Maya knows she'd caused her to suffer worse than anyone else…
Even now… covered in dirt and blood and tears, Saijou Claudine remains to be the most beautiful person to ever live.
Maya couldn't ever possibly hope to even think about letting her go a second time. Once had already been far, far too much.
So she clings to her now, pulling Claudine into her arms with the same ardent fervor in which Claudine had cried out for her; with the force of a soul who had been torn from its other half, only to somehow, someway, be reunited with her again despite all odds.
Maya hugs her tightly, pulling Claudine's limp body across her lap and weeping, stifling her sobs into Claudine's shoulder.
How long…? How long had she dreamt that something like this could happen…?
That she might be allowed to find her again…? That she might be able to just see her upon that stage they both loved so dearly again…?
It was supposed to have ended there - after just seeing her. Maya never should have let it get this far - to the point of mutual recognition, to the point of physical contact…
She should have let Claudine collapse there into the mud. She should have run and left her forever.
But it was too late now. There was, and there never would be, any going back from this now…
Even though it meant Maya would now be endangering Claudine's life along with her own, and the lives of her parents…
Here, in this moment, in the cold, wet shadows of a lonely back alley, Maya makes that dangerously selfish decision.
She chooses to stay. To hold Claudine rather than leave her.
She cries, shaking as her hands find purchase on the thin materials of Claudine's dress. Every piece of Maya remembers these feelings, these senses.
The shape of Claudine's body.
The softness of her skin.
The familiarity of her scent.
The comfort of her warmth…
Claudine. Claudine…
And although Maya would stay out here all night with her, she knows she can't. There's already a fairly high risk that someone had heard or seen them, given the hour of the evening, and she can't afford any more attention being drawn to herself.
Easing herself to sit up straight again, Maya vigorously wipes her sleeve across her face over and over again until the tears have been cleared away. Claudine remains motionless in her arms, showing no signs that she'll wake anytime soon.
There are a million thoughts warring in Maya's mind right now, but she has to focus on the most pertinent, sensible ones. She'd already decided that, even though she knows she should, she won't leave Claudine here. But to carry her back to Maya's apartment in her arms, when Claudine is wearing nothing but a thin white slip of a dress, with her arms streaked with mud and one of her feet matted with blood… It might be just a bit too noticeable and alarming for the peaceful evening streets of France.
Thinking quickly, Maya sheds her long blue patchwork coat - the coat that was meant to cover her and help conceal her identity. But the blouse and pants underneath were from local shops, so it wasn't like she'd stand out terribly on her own. Her hair was back in a low ponytail beneath the beret, which still hid enough of her face in shadow. It wasn't herself that she was worrying about standing out too much right now, but Claudine. Covering her with the trench coat would draw less attention than if she were to remain in nothing but a dress slip.
Holding her up in her lap, Maya gently slips Claudine's arms into the jacket and buttons it closed over her chest. Maya then takes hold of her arms and positions Claudine on her back, leaning forward to compensate for her weight while reaching back to grab her legs.
Now, instead of a famous, improperly-dressed actress who had fled the stage in pursuit of her long-lost classmate who was supposed to be dead, and said classmate in witness protection who had caught and carried her elsewhere... the two of them instead looked like acquaintances who had gone out on the town, one of whom had gotten overwhelmed and exhausted, fallen asleep, and needed to be carried casually home on her friend's back.
The latter of the scenarios is what Maya gets into the role of playing. With Claudine's weight limp against her back, she slowly begins making her way down the alley and back into the main sidewalks of town. Though her mind and pulse are racing, Maya needs to act calm.
And by some miracle, perhaps all those evenings of practicing her old stage skills alone in her apartment had paid off. Because the moment she wanders back out into the crowds, no one suspects a thing of her.
She blends in perfectly, casually. When passerby inevitably notice the girl on her back and given questioning, inquisitive looks, Maya simply offers a bemused, hopeless smile; the smile of a friend just helping her companion. She can't exactly call a taxi like this, because the driver would definitely be too curious. And besides, it wasn't safe for Maya to be in a vehicle with a stranger, for fear that they might just so happen to recognize her face somehow. The risk was very slim, but never zero, so she couldn't ever take it.
So she continues to walk the town toward her apartment, praying that Claudine won't wake before they get there. Luckily, her coat is long enough that the ends cover Claudine's bloodied foot in her curled-up state, so no one notices the injury in-passing.
Only one woman stops to address Maya directly. Clearly innocent and concerned for Claudine's wellbeing, she wonders if Maya needs any help. Maya smiles pleasantly and responds in perfect French that she's all right, that her friend had simply fallen asleep after a long day of sight-seeing. Reassured, the kind citizen continues on her way, and lets Maya continue on hers.
And at long last, her apartment complex is in-sight. She hurries the rest of the way, only slowing down to climb the stairs. When she arrives at her door, it takes some time for her to fumble her key out of her pants pocket and jostle it into the lock, but when she finally gets inside she makes sure to secure all three locks she has on the inside.
She staggers into the living room area and drops to her knees, catching her breath before carefully removing Claudine from her back. She keeps her dressed in the coat for now as she lies her gently on the couch.
Maya always kept the window shades and curtains drawn for privacy, but she doesn't even turn on all of the lights at the moment. She only flicks on a nearby lamp, and nothing more.
Finally, she takes a moment to let it all sink in.
She looks Claudine over, still unable to believe the impossibility of the situation.
Saijou Claudine.
Her Saijou Claudine.
Whom she was never supposed to have seen or made contact with ever again for the rest of her life… was now lying unconscious on her couch.
Maya lets out a long, long breath.
"Oh, what have I done…"
It was far too late to go back now, though.
Firstly, Maya hurries into the bathroom to get some first-aid supplies. She cleans off Claudine's injured foot, which had stopped bleeding for the most part, but there was still a deep gash that might affect her stage practice and performances for the next week or so. After disinfecting the wound, Maya wraps it firmly in bandages and disposes of the messy supplies.
After washing her hands thoroughly, she next opens up her school bag, which she'd luckily gotten to leave home today due to the fact that she'd been going on a field trip and not to class. She pulls out her laptop and immediately types out an email to her supervising professor, explaining that she'd suddenly felt ill during the theatre performance and taken her leave of her own volition. The last thing she needed were school personnel and authorities wondering where she'd gone, and then have them come knocking on her door when she had a famous, unconscious actress in her apartment.
She then fishes her cell phone out of her pocket and texts the same excuse to her parents. This way, in case they heard from the university, Claudine's story of leaving the museum due to feeling sick would match and check out on both ends. If any of her classmates were consulted about her sudden departure, it would make sense that she might've run out quickly and without telling anyone if she felt she was about to be sick.
There were the sorts of things Maya had to consider nowadays. She had to think about her school, her parents, and the authorities first and foremost, account for her whereabouts at all times - all for her own safety. But now that she'd gotten that taken care of, she could focus on the actual situation at hand.
Maya walks into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, then pours a second for her guest for whenever she might wake. She doesn't even acknowledge the thoughts still swirling around in her mind. She simply continues to do things instead of pausing to think about what the consequences of all this could mean…
She paces, paces, drinks her water, then paces some more before returning to the bathroom to grab a face towel. She brings it back to the living room, placing the towel and the two glasses down on the coffee table. Maya kneels down on the carpet beside the couch, looking Claudine over again in the lamplight. She's quite pale, her long ashen hair unkempt, with dried tear trails still all down her cheeks.
Maya should be more worried for her than anything else - worried about the danger Maya is putting her in this very second just for being in the same room with her. Those are the things her mind should be thinking of.
And yet… her heart wins out again.
Because she can't help but think just how cute Claudine looks wearing Maya's clothes - something Maya had always envisioned could happen once she confessed her feelings properly and they started dating.
That's… what should have happened, after all…
Not this. Not any of this…
She blinks, and the next thing she knows, Maya is crying once again.
This… was never supposed to happen… This shouldn't be happening…
But it is now.
She had no plan for this. No vision as to how this could possibly end well for either, or both, of them…
A heavy beat of fear passes through her heart as Maya reaches out and softly rests her hand over Claudine's. Maya sobs, and her voice quivers with uncertainty.
"Saijou-san… oh, Claudine…"
There was no turning back now.
"What have I done…?"
A/N: There is certainly no undoing what has been done now - for either of them. Knowing full-well there will be consequences, both girls threw caution to the wind and did the unthinkable... for better or for worse...
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