Chapter Text
45.06°: Holiday | Domestic
{HYPE}
Tsugumi had put on her slip-ons fairly regularly the past year. She hadn't missed a single trash collection day since she had returned. No, she kept the space clean and tidy, reserving all of that emptiness for the carvings she had made, obsessively iterating on her own skills, sharpening them, improving them.
But for the first time in many, many months, she slipped the black shoes onto her socks with the intent to keep moving forward.
Her palm trembled on the door. It opened so slowly that Tsugumi had the most bizarre flash, like she were waiting on a loading screen, thirteen years old, on the PC, waiting for the URL to load properly as it scanned into the browser line by line, as she impatiently wheeled the mouse around in circles and loops, because she had to see whether that annoying little rat had posted more terrible takes on the internet dot com.
And then she faced the open doorway, like the hollow barrel of a gun.
The cold, the darkness, the noise in the doorway: the night-time chill, the rich blackness of the sky overhead, the sounds of cars in distant streets and trains running to and fro. The buses had long since stopped. The salarymen and office ladies who had stayed past would remain overnight, working, sleeping, seeming duly diligent in the buildings that climbed upwards to the skies.
It smelled faintly of recent rain. Of car exhaust. Of still-warm asphalt. That scent of the street outside. Something she'd breathed in hundred of times.
Yet not like this. This time felt different. This time felt: like if she stepped outside, if her sole crossed the threshold, if her Soul crossed the threshold, she'd find all of this an elaborate Trailer she'd made up for herself, nothing but a lie and a cope she had shown herself, a cut-up edited version of some film sprung from her Imagination, and the cold would seep into her marrow, and the darkness would smother her eyes and her nose and her mouth, and the noise throbbing in her ears until her eardrums broke and it all rushed inwards again.
Could she? Could she go outside? She could. Should she? Would she? She...
But her Coco held her hand. Those fingers between hers, clinging onto her tightly. When Tsugumi glanced back over her shoulder, Coco's eyes shone as though full of stars. Past the blue of the coloured contacts she wore, into the blackness of the pupils that held her gaze, her interest, her Coco-ness.
"I've nevz made magpie Noise before," Coco said, squeezing Tsugumi's hand, "but if you wanted me to make a whoooole bridge with them, I'd made an awesomesauce one."
"Coco...I thought you thought the story of Tanabata was some, how did you say it? Schmaltzy, lovey-dovey garbage?"
Every time that Coco stuck her tongue out and made that bleghghgh sound, Tsugumi couldn't help but find herself ever more endeared. "Lovey-dovey crap. I was all like, WTF, why would two people only meet once a year? Sounds stoopid as heck. Like lmao just find someone local instead of staring at the sky for five bakajillion hours every day thingken of tfw no gf. But—"
Tsugumi raised her eyebrows. "There's a 'but' on this rail?"
"—I bet they'd got, like, the interwebz up there up now. So they can just chat and text and video-shill and whatevz errryday. Then if they only get to actually mack on each other like, legit once a year—even less if it's raining or something lol!—they'd be totez delightz."
Coco was batting her eyelashes at her, and Tsugumi found herself smiling, leaning forward, taking the bait just as she had all those times as a Mixer. She trusted Coco, and she trusted Coco's bait, the language that the two of them had written between them on the -Live Remix- forums and on PMs and on texts and on everything else. "Oh really? And why do you think so?"
"Umm, duh? 'Cause I've been living that hashtag-long-dist'-life for, like, fifteen frigging years!"
Oh, Tsugumi clutched that hand of her Coco's for dear life.
"Even if it took us 'til after we kicked the fricking buckets to say it to your face IRL and not online—" Coco threw up a victory sign with her other hand. "—and 'kay I was kiiiind of not rly dead scared that, like, the way I talk and stuff would be totez obnox IRL in a way that it wouldn't be in text. Like, being obnox is an art and I'm totez the greatest artisté of my crafté who ever lived—" Tsugumi felt the lightness in her chest before she heard herself giggling. "—but I thought I better put on my best behaviour for my darling. Then I bonked mymself over the head. Like, why would I evz not wanna be me for realz with you?"
"...that's why you were speaking so differently at first. I thought that maybe..." Tsugumi exhaled. "I honestly thought that maybe you just spoke differently over text than you did in real life. It was going to take some getting used to, but...you're my Coco. Whatever track you take on speaking, I'll listen."
Her unoccupied hand slapped onto her hip as she pouted. "Wowie zowie, you srsly thought I talked so boringly? I only do that when I gotta act up or when I'm being totez polite, like when I'm with dear Neku."
"...then that makes me doubly happy that you can be your real self around me. No fakes. Only our posthumous private poetry."
Coco blinked. "Ew, what?"
"We never got to see each other face to face until after we both died. Until after our cities were purified. For a long time, like you, I'd been on the rail of wondering...what it would be like when we finally got to see each other. When everything happened in Shibuya last year...I was too scared to talk to you in person. I just didn't want our entire friendship to come crashing down because I didn't act like the bakuwaku_HYPE you'd known all those years before." To finally speak these words, to finally travel down this rail that she'd kept within herself for all this time. "I didn't know if our inside jokes would carry over. I didn't know if I'd understand you in person the way I did over text, or I'd be as engaging in real life where I couldn't sit there and think of wittyisms..."
Her other palm slid over the back of Tsugumi's, until Coco held Tsugumi's hands between both of her own. "So we were both totez about to pee our panties in fear that the other wouldn't like us IRL. And we were both totez wrong. But what's that thing you said? Poetry?"
"You know how Final Remix was a posthumous release for Def Märch? Not the new Def Märch...but 777, BJ, and Tenho's Def Märch. Did you buy it?"
"Um, no? I didn't, like, get the chance to snag a copy since I was stuck in Shinz for years. What about it?"
Tsugumi put her hand over her mouth. "When we backtrack from our time outside, I'll show you. I think you'll like it. But what I was trying to say was...it was their forty-fifth album, and they'd made some jokes about it around the packaging. I mean, before it ended up being their final album. Their swansong...Tenho and BJ disbanded Def Märch after that, but they wanted to compile all the songs that they could have. Except for that one that they'd lost the licence for...ugh."
"Don't remind me. Licensing lawyers are totez the worst."
"...and so, they added in all of these little bits and bobs and nods for fans. Everything that they could. All the songs that they'd ever released except for that one, and then some! They really tried to go all out on everything. Remixed a bunch of stuff. I think Tenho and BJ even got a bunch of artists to collab on remixes that 777 had wanted but never managed to get, and..." Tsugumi looked out into the darkness, the cold, the noise of the streets that ran by her side. "...they thanked all the fans for having been with them the entire time. For having been part of the poetry that they'd built up, that private language between the band and their most dedicated. A love letter. Posthumous private poetry."
"So, like...the same that you can totez read through the lines of all my totez annoyz lingo?"
Curling her thumb over the side of Coco's hand, Tsugumi stroked it gently back and forth. "Like that. And the way that you understand me even when we both derail each other to something off-topic. I thought that our poetry might not translate over to the real life."
"Well who needs the Realground? We're in the Underground anyway. It's not juuust private poetry, amirite? It's posthumous private poetry. So, like, a toast to the rest of our deaths together. I do, 'til erasure does us part." Coco's hands suddenly intensified on Tsugumi's. "I mean, like, as a joke, as a haha, merely a prank—"
"Not as much of a joke as you think. You're the one who saved my life and saved Shinjuku." Tsugumi leaned forward and down. Coco's eyes went wide, wider, widest, until Tsugumi had touched her brow against Coco's forehead, gazing directly into her eyes, so close that if she just tilted her chin a little bit down, she could press her lips against Coco's, that easily. "You saved me. And so, like the proverbial crane wife, I want to return the favour to you."
Coco jerked her head back but didn't let go of Tsugumi's hands.
Tsugumi's forehead felt all too cold where Coco had stepped away.
"You're totez still asleep. You're not the crane wife returning some dusty crusty musty favour, 'kay? Absolutely no wai. No, no, no, no, absolutely not, nevz evz forevz. I don't deal in tit for tat with you. So...don't! No favours! You're not even a crane if you don't wanna be. If you wanna be a tapir—"
"Then I better stop being in my dream," Tsugumi said softly, "and better start eating my dreams instead."
"'xactly." Coco puffed her chest out, her expression so incredibly smug that Tsugumi couldn't suppress her giggle. "Don't you do anything except out of selfishness."
Tsugumi bowed her head, and then she lifted her chin again, raised it up high, her spine straight to her full height. "It might take me a while to learn that...but I'll try. And speaking of trying..."
The darkness. The cold. The noise.
"...I think we should go outside."
"Totez."
When Coco stepped in towards her again, Tsugumi shuffled her heels forward until the tips of her trainers aligned with the threshold. Shuffle shuffle. Shuffle shuffle. Shuffle shuffle...stop. She stared out into the darkness beyond the doorway. Nothing to fear, really. Nothing to fear at all. Just down into the street below. Just the sidewalk with the streetlamps spilling over the cement. Just the same place that she could walk anyway. And yet her soles, and yet her Soul, felt frozen down again to the floor. Something that she couldn't move from. Somewhere where she had become trapped. An engine that wouldn't fire. The smoke that wouldn't puff out.
"Hey, Tsu? You don't have to do this. But you're not the crane wife, either. You're just you, y'know? You know what they saaaaay. There's no need to fear or hope, only to look for new weapons."
Tsugumi tilted her head. "Who's 'they'?"
"Umm, IDR lol. But like. You said that you had to be the hope for others, so you couldn't hope yourself, riiiite? You don't gotta. Just look for new weapons. And right now your new weapon is your own determination...and the most totez adorbz little Reaper and future Orchestrator in all of Shibuya! You're not gonna have to yeet out if you walk outside. If you start floating away, I'll anchor you down, rite here and rite nao, with your hand between mine. If your brain starts pwning itself, I'll be right here, forevz. Five-evz, even."
Without closing her eyes or turning away from the darkness in the street, Tsugumi touched her other hand to her chest. "Because five-ever is one more than forever."
Coco beamed. "Then I think it's time to—" She hummed a note. "—fly into the forest where they plant buildings high up in the sky where they build a forest—"
"Coco."
"—blah blah blah blah first stanza irrelevant blah blah blah hm hm hm I just wanna see, how's the Underground, looks from the side of Real."
"Coco."
Her smirk widened. "Beautiful, amirite? It's relevant to what we're doing, too."
"I can't believe that I can't report your posts to the mods right this instant."
"Oh, what, you're gonna try to get me banned? ROFLMAO! Ooooh I'm totez shaking in my boots jk lol." Coco crooked her fingers into claws over her face in faux seethe. "I'm the one actually talking on-topic here about a song from the band that this entire fansite is even about! So go ahead! Report me! I'll report you right back! Get rekt like the scrub you are!"
Tsugumi brought the back of her hand up to her mouth. "O~hohohohohoho! Poor, poor nezumimi_LIVE, unaware of the storm that she has just unleashed upon herself! What did you just say about me, you little rat!?"
Grabbing onto Coco's hand, she flung her leg up, and then she—
"I just wanna see," Coco was singing in the most obnoxious timbre she could have possibly mustered, "you say this for real: 'I'll take my own ro-o-o-ooooaaaa—"
—stepped outside.
Into the dark. Into the cold. Into the noise. The night sky overhead, pressing down on her. The asphalt under her soles, pushing her onwards. The sounds of the distant trains, pulling her forward.
Outside.
Above the ground.
Under the heavens.
On a train of her own conduction, moving forward, forward, forward, as far forward as she could go, pressed, pushed, pulled—but she would decide her own path.
Her own path, with Coco's hand in hers.
She stepped. She walked. She ran. How her soles slapped against the pavement, the sensation vibrating up her legs and humming into her entire body, spreading warmth through her body to her fingertips, unafraid even for a second of floating away on crane wings to the dreams that she could devour to Coco' hand anchoring her. The anchor slowed her gait, kept her from running at full tilt, but the anchor also heated her palm and kept cold at bay.
Even if she floated. Even if her brain pwned itself. For this moment, she would just need to look back—
She hadn't woken up yet. She wouldn't wake up until she could run out on her own. No: even if she could never run out completely on her own, she would wake up whenever she'd decided that she'd woken up.
But she would try to learn how to run out by herself. Without an anchor. Without Coco's wind at her back.
So that she could turn back towards Coco and run with her.
If that never happened, she'd still push forward as far as she could for herself.
As far as she could go.
Set down as much rail as she could ahead of her.
Down and down and down the tracks that she had built for herself.
As far as she could go on the hype train.
Not for fear or for hope.
For herself.
{LIVE}
She'd never noticed it before Daten City became purified, but when she'd spent a year out in the countryside, it had dawned on Coco that she could look upwards at night and actually make out the stars✰. So many stars. For the first time Tanabata made sense to her beyond the usual lovey-dovey crap♮: the heavens really did resemble a river spilling over its banks, creamy as the cowherd's cattle's milk, spangled with so many tiny lanterns. The stars had never seemed so bright, so close, so reachable, so touchable, so punchable♯ as they had during that year in the Daten.
But the Shinjuku streetlamps washed the stars right out in a vague dark grey haze♭.
Or maybe the stars in her own eyes just glittered so strongly from the hand in hers all the stars in the heavens above couldn't compare.
Because Coco held her darling Tsugumi♡'s hands, their fingers interlocked, even if her darling Tsugumi♡ were dragging her along so quickly that she could barely keep up, stumbling along the sidewalk in the most ugly-ass manner possible♮. But how her darling♡ flew along the street, flitting from streetlamp to streetlamp, leaping over the lines in the sidewalk, spinning around: if Coco had still had a beating heart in her dead chest, it would have soared alongside her darling♡'s.
"Coco—" Tsugumi♡ was laughing. Tsugumi♡ was laughing, in sheer darling delight, as if she were laughing the sound of life itself✰. "—Coco, I love you. I love you. I love you! I love you so much! I can say it! You know! And you love me too!"
"I do! I totez love you too!" Coco scrambled after her.
"Sorry, sorry, am I going too fast?" Her darling♡ skidded to a halt; Coco's inertia carried her straight into Tsugumi♡'s back and suddenly Coco's entire body lurched forward. But her darling♡'s grip held firm, and instead of letting Coco fall, she did—something—and dipped her over, her other hand suddenly holding up the small of Coco's back, her long fingers playing Coco's heartstrings as deftly as they kept Coco aloft✰.
She found herself with her back arched, her chest nestled against her darling♡'s, her left leg sticking upwards towards the heavens like a graceful dancer's. And Tsugumi♡, gazing right into her eyes, a small, mischievous, fiery grin on her lips♩. "My knight in shining armour," Coco murmured, "saving me from swooning over your might, you have nothing to be sorry for. So take those words out of your mouth. I only love you harder the more selfish you act, Tsu."
"For a fairy princess of the imperial fey court," Tsugumi started with a giggle and a shake of the head, "you're a very foolish woman to suggest I go down this track."
"Then let me be a fool, if I'm a fool for you, darling. I'll be the foolish princess where I ought to have been wise, and you'll be the courageous knight."
"Shouldn't I be the cowardly knight, where I ought to have been brave?"
Coco winked✰. "That's my itty bitty secret. I've been wise aaaaaall along, asking you to be the heroine for realz I know you are. Totez hilar that you hadn't figured it out yet."
"Well, I haven't been courageous all along..." Tsugumi♡ helped her to a stand. The palm left the small of her back, and Coco squeezed her darling♡'s hand. She could have caught Tsugumi♡'s wrist, could have put it back, but not yet. When Tsugumi♡ woke up, then they could share in their selfishness♩. "...but I will be from now on. Or try to. Wherever that rail of selfishness leads me. If it leads on a path away from you...so be it. But I'll fight it every step of the way, to conduct it back to yours and conduct yours to mine."
"Relatable. Me IRL. I'm gonna do the same."
"Then—" Her darling♡ stepped back—Coco pouted—but then brought herself instead to Coco's side, shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip and palm to palm. "—not ahead of you, but together. On the same rail. Let's synchronise our engines."
What had Coco done to deserve her darling♡? No: she hadn't done anything. Tsugumi♡ had chosen of her own accord, and that had made all the difference✰. "Let's!"
When Tsugumi♡ skipped forward, Coco matched her stride, no longer dragged along behind. They swung their hands between them, down the street, the private poetry of laughter between them, the warmth between their palms that they could have only pressed together posthumously.
But not post-humour-ously, as they laughed about the silliness of Noise form selection and the red tape that Reapers had to go through and super dee duper stoopid things that her shishi Sho♪ had done over the past year he and Coco had spent together and the weirdness of the new Def Märch and the fugly-ass NATURAL PUPPY collab that Top o' Topo had done a few months ago and Tsugumi♡'s opinion on some of the newer rock and metal and drum-and-bass bands that had popped up recently and everything and anything else.
"Coco!" Tsugumi laughed out loud, her arm raised upwards like a conductor's, her hand curved towards the stars as though holding a baton♩. No, not conducting it, but more than that. Composing it♫. Not just conducting the rails her train would take, but composing the tracks in the first place, even if she hadn't realised it yet✰. "I know your birthday's so many months down the rail, but I wanted to know what you want for it! I want to come celebrate it with you!"
"What I want for it?" Coco wrinkled her nose. "No one's fricking celebrated my bday in forevz. I'll just eat some discount fried chicken myself and emoji-heart your bday wishes. Or you mean...like, the care packages you and your bro sent?"
"Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes!" Tsugumi♡'s excited giggles smoothed out Coco's scrunched expression. "Do you want another cake? I want to do something...something domestic for you." Unfair. Unfair unfair unfair unfair unfair. How could Coco reply to that✰? " I'll bake you a cake! Are strawberries still your favourites?"
Coco replied with a gagging noise♭. "They totez are, but you wanna hear something horriblergh?"
"What is it?"
She swung Tsugumi♡'s hand up and down vigorously as she spoke. "That math-erfricker nerd♪ loves 'em too! And you wanna know why? Not 'cause they're the sweetest and kyootest and reddest berries evz, but 'cause you can—ughhhhh—write it as—ewwww—15! And also 'cause they're super dee duper sweet and whatevz blah blah blah yadda yadda but can you belieeeeeve this loser♪?"
Tsugumi♡ only laughed harder, tears forming at the corners of her eyes♩. "You know what, Coco? It makes me really, really, deliriously happy that you made a friend like him."
"WTF are you talking about? He's just some, some Taboo Noise that I have to deal with, that frigging dweeb♪—"
Her darling♡ peeked back at her, the entirety of the night sky reflected in the brown of her irises. "I can hear the way your voice lilts when you talk about him. I can read that—"
"—that posthumous private poetry." Coco sighed♩. "I can't get anything past you, can I?"
"I think you could, if you really tried. But I think...that a language goes both ways, doesn't it? Not a one-way track. As much as I want to read your private poetry..." Tsugumi♡ drew her hand from the stars above, the starlight gleaming in her palm, and instead brushed it over Coco's cheek. The contact came with a sudden jolt, like lightening crackling through her skin✰. "...you write the private poetry so that I can read it, can't you?"
"...yeah." Coco nuzzled her darling♡'s palm with her cheek, Tsugumi♡'s hand still so warm between both of hers♩. "If I'm PMing you my cringe-ass private poetry, I'm PMing you. So here's a poem from me to you."
Tsugumi♡'s expression softened, her smile reaching up to crinkle her eyes once again, not that smile she'd had on at first—sincere, but not whole—but the full, complete beam, like the wholeness of the sun. "A poem just for me?"
"Roses are red, violets are blue, I fricking love you so much, Tsu." Turning her face into her darling♡'s hand, Coco kissed it right on the centre, and Tsugumi♡ gasped, her fingers intertwining more tightly with Coco's. "I love you."
"I love you too, Coco. I'm not—I'm not going to kiss you yet. Not until I wake up, like you said. But I want you to know that, right now, the most selfish thing I could want..." Tsugumi♡
"...is to kiss you again next year on the anniversary of this holiday."
"Wait, what's today? We totez missed Tana—"
"The day you came home, Coco." Even with the streetlamps washing out the heavens above, even though Coco would never be able to look up and see them again as she had in the ruins of Daten, Tsugumi♡'s smile, right now, right here, held every star in the sky✰. "And the day I did, too."
{HYPE}
They had missed one holiday—Tanabata—and Christmas would arrive in six months' time. And when her beloved Coco's birthday came up, she would have a chance to do something domestic. A strawberry surprise. Hopefully Coco would forget about this little conversation over the next few months.
The first cake that she would ever bake without her brother there with her. Without her brother guiding her hand. Without her brother tutting his tongue. Without her brother telling her to pay more attention. Without her brother squeezing her elbow when once she'd actually
But for now, Tsugumi had something to show her Coco at home. Domestic. Here. Now. They had dinner to make together, and an entire night ahead of time before Coco had to return to Shibuya on the train with the dawn. And Tsugumi had so many things to show her. So many dreams to eat. So many dreams to wake up from. One by one. Little by little.
Including the fact that Coco's favoured MMM:001 had finally gotten an official release—not the demo release—in that posthumous album, Final Remix.
Maybe Coco would love the remix.
Maybe she wouldn't.
Maybe she would appreciate that the song had come back from the ashes, like a firebird.
Maybe she would want to watch the remix burn, like a firebird.
Tsugumi couldn't predict what Coco would think, or what Coco would do. She couldn't foresee a Trailer for this future. She could only find out what would happen when that moment came to the present.
Whatever the future would bring: it was supposed to be hard.
Even if she was about to lose it, she wouldn't back down. She'd prove it. No other place than now: she was ready; she was moving. So she would show the world her strength.
She was improving.
Thus Big Su would tell her, in his posthumous private poetry, with one of his favourite songs.
She would stand up, heads up, before it got too late. With the speed of the light she would know what to choose and crave. She'd snap it up and not spit it out before she knew the taste. By the shield of the light she had chosen what to taste on her grave.
Coco just wanted to see how the Underground looked from the side of real. Coco just wanted to see her say this for real: that she would take her own ro-o-o-o-o-ad. And she would.
Thus Coco would tell her, in her posthumous private poetry, with one of her favourite songs.
She wouldn't think; she would just feel the power. She had no looking back. The train was leaving, and her heartbeat kept getting louder. What was waiting for her in the next phase? She knew what she had the power. The past was history; that train was long gone. But she heard her voice getting louder.
Flash.
The lights were shining towards the next phase.
And she would conduct that train herself.
{LIVE♡HYPE}
"Tsu, darling?"
"Coco?"
"I love you so much. I'll be waiting for you forevz until you wake up."
"...I'll keep trying. I'll keep waking. I don't know when I'll pull into that last station, but...the lights are shining. I know that much. Coco...I love you."
"I love you too. I rly, rly, rly...love you so much, Tsugumi."
"Coco?"
"Yes, darling?"
"Hold me? I'm asking from my selfish heart. As the protagonist of this story. Going down the villainess route, because I'll make it the reform route."
"Heehee, good fricking luck with that! You don't know it yet, but this is the corruption route!"
"Neither of us can see the future until the present comes. So...hold me, Coco, if you want to hold me as much as I selfishly want to hold you."
"Always, Tsu, 'til erasure do us part."
