A LONG TIME AGO, SOMEWHERE ELSE

AKISAME UNIVERSITY

HONOKA

"Can you imagine if the press caught us out here?" Maki asked.

Honoka was under the blanket, curled up with Maki, both now satisfied. They were in the countryside, in the night-shrouded forest.

Honoka laughed. "I wonder if Mari would make us shave our heads if we got caught." She laid back further into the earth. Wet grass caught in her hands, her knuckles. Honoka held it out and pulled it apart. No more strands.

Maki watched Honoka's symbolic gesture with a sad smile. "Naw, she's too shrewd for that. And Nico wouldn't pick such a horrid manager. Mari would make us do some embarrassing interviews, or some t.A.T.u-esque song, and that'd be the end of that. Fuck, I dunno, maybe we'd get plays at Pride events."

Honoka wiped her grassy palms on her own leggings. "Who's Tattoo?"

Maki blushed. "It's… a Russian pop duo. All the Things She Said? You've had to have heard of them. Eli made me listen to them in high school."

"No bells are being run. Huh. Did she ever show you the Eurovision grandmas? I feel like muse could really go in a fun direction with that. Anyways. So we'd be like. An idol pop duo power couple." Honoka squeezed Maki's hand. "Can you imagine it? Us! Together! In public!

"They'd probably burn our merch, honestly…" Maki snorted." You ever see Perfect Blue?" She shook her head, throwing back her now-wild hair. "We can sing dirty songs together but god forbid we go on a date."

Honoka laughed and then gave a long sigh. She lifted her eyes to the stars, to a new future. "I love you, Maki."

"I love you too, Honoka." Maki nestled into Honoka's shoulder, putting her arms around her back. "I wish… it wasn't like this. I guess we knew that when we stepped back into the spotlight, but..."

"Yeah. I mean." Honoka gave Maki a little nudge, bare feet sliding together. "We're not the popular ones, at least. Eli and Nozomi are the ones getting chased by the tabloids."

Maki smirked. "Oh yeah?"

"They got into a fight at some handshake event and someone put it on youtube."

"Ohh, what happened?" Maki's smirk fell into a guilty frown. "I didn't hear about it."

"I dunno, Nico and Umi won't tell me." Honoka stuck out her tongue. "The headlines were really something, though. Gal Pals in Danger. Claws Out in muse."

"Gal Pals in Danger. How bland. Pathologically so. I'm glad I missed that… what's up with Eli, though? Eli never fights with anyone. She's been so weird since she came back from Russia."

Honoka turned around, lifted her head. She tossed her long red hair - lit white – out of her face."Oh my god. Maki. Maki, look up."

"The shower isn't for another-"

Honoka gripped Maki's head up towards the sky. "Maki, raise your eyes up right now."

Maki's amethyst eyes alit with heat and light. Something on fire was scraping out of the sky.

A comet, far too close to their bodies.

"Oh my god."

There was a crack and the veils of night split open, gouged in white-green fire. It ran through the heavens, as if racing to its descent. Its heat dimmed the stars, muddled the violets and silvers and soft red stars of the evening, fogging the slender scimitar of a waning moon. Nothing but this sickly blaze of light was visible in the sky.

"Maki…" Honoka's voice shook. "That's not the eclipse, is it?"

It was almost there. Green sparks danced above them, too close for comfort. A cold feeling clenched Honoka's stomach.

"This… is not the eclipse. I don't know what this is. This wasn't planned. None of my astronomy blogs covered this. These should be… known. A comet of this magnitude should definitely be known."

A sound of a sudden rendering shook the earth.

"The comet has landed into our forest, Honoka."

Honoka tossed away the blanket and pulled on a sweatshirt."We should… get going, Maki. This is… dangerous."

Green light was moving towards them.

Maki has been getting dressed too. "Yeah."

The light had reached the clearing.

Everything was green and blinding and alien, the trees and mountains obscured into a foggy seafoam mist that covered all.

A viridescent sensation filled Honoka, coating her with its otherworldly glaze.

Green acid spilled into her with tendrils and hooks and shards webs, running through her veins and timelines. Moments flickered past her: Curled up with Maki in the blanket just now, the lime-acid rent in the sky above, Gal Pals in Danger. "We're going to miss the eclipse, if you keep this up….. I brought you out for that astronomy class, you know. You know you need the extra credit." Honoka's fingers danced before her face, gesturing, motioning, using her phone, spreading Maki's legs, feeling the wet grass beneath her glowing fingers.

What was happening?

Sensations drowned her as she put on the rest of her clothes - the socks had been in the laundry machine, Maki had borrowed them by mistake, she might have forgotten those socks, the socks were dirty - Honoka shook of the memories and looked over at Maki, still half-dressed, caught in the same verdant web of cracks and connections running over her body.

"Maki?"

Maki looked up at Honoka, holding the emerald light on her palms as a precious jewel. "Honoka. Do you know what we've found here?"

"Is it the Color Out of Space?"

Maki laughed, but it didn't seem to be at Honoka's Lovecraft reference. "Oh no. We've found gold. We've found the mystery. We've found… the philosopher's stone. We have found… a way to rewrite the world, in our image, if we choose to do so."

Golden-green light passed through her hands, like they were being splintered. Kintsugi, Honoka thought. Gold filling up our cracks.

"What do you see?"

Maki watched her gleaming hands. "I… saw today. You. Me. The comet. Another day. Another comet. A hospital bed. I saw myself. Here. A little voyeur watching over the garden wall." Maki laughed again, as a brittle bark. Honoka shivered. "I can only begin to imagine what this truly means.

"Over the garden wall?"

"Another little Maki is peeking into places she shouldn't be. Or. I shouldn't be seeing this at all. What do you see? Any other Honokas?"

Honoka had only seen herself. "'Fraid not. Just you and me."

Maki grinned, showing the full whites of her teeth. "Well. We'll just have to get some of more of that substance from the comet, now won't we? I have a good feeling about this. You and I… will never have to settle for being mere idols, or mere surgeons, or mere musicians ever again. You and I will become masters of ourselves, of our own fate. Come here." Maki gestured to Honoka with a bright gleam in her eye.

Honoka stepped forward. "Maki?"

"Honoka." Maki took her hand, laced their fingers together.

Suddenly, Honoka saw too much: Nights of stars and asteroids. Kisses in the park. College deadlines. An imposing father. A rural college. Scared words in the rain. Sunshine on a shared bed - Honoka pulled away.

"What have we done to ourselves?" Honoka said, at a near whisper.

Maki put out her hand again. With reluctance, Honoka met hers.

They saw numbers, together, unlike anything they'd ever seen. Labs. Money. Platform. They saw making a great leap, into a beyond so like but unlike anything Honoka had ever known.

"This is going to make us… unlike any other beings in the world. If we can pull it off. We'll be goddesses. Goddesses who discovered the secret to the world."

Honoka looked at her wide-eyed, with dancing green fire still in her mind. She wished she saw a little Honoka, peering over into her reality, to give her some sense of… responsibility, almost.

"Goddess is one word for it."

Maki kissed her, long and deep, lifting up her tongue the way she knew Honoka liked it.

"The only word for you is Goddess, Honoka." Maki smiled, the wild spacefire reaching her eyes. "Let's crack the code of the world."