1.
She finds it on one of her scavenging trips in the city: A little hole in the wall arcade between an automated coffee shop and an antique book store. It’s true that an arcade on its own isn’t something to be excited about. After all, there’s plenty of those in pretty much every mall and shopping complex. But this arcade is one of those full of old games with physical game cabinets and little 8-bit music numbers. Of course, she calls her brother and tells him about it as soon as she realizes what a treasure she’s stumbled upon. The problem is when he’d answered he was walking with one of those kids preselected to be a pilot for the upcoming Kerberos mission, and while it’s true that nothing’s officially confirmed, it’s all but given that the kid’s gonna be the one going to space with her dad and brother. Which means that he and Matt are expected to hang out and get along. Which also means that this kid is gonna be coming with Matt when she’d really only meant for Matt to come.
Katie sighs and sticks another token into the coin slot. A game of Galaga loads on the slanted screen, and she leans forward, ready to kill more time by blowing up pixelated spaceships when someone places a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turns, ready to punch whoever’s decided the best time to annoy her is right now, when she’s about to play a game.
Instead of some asshole preteen, or petty adult gamer asking for a turn, it’s an Asian kid, or rather, The Asian Kid. Katie doesn’t remember his name, just that it’s something quick on the tongue and that it reminds her of a sneeze. The sound of her ships crashing plays behind her.
“Hey. You’re Katie, right? Matt’s parking the car.” His gaze flits towards the screen, now replaced with a game over screen. “Sorry for messing up your game. Can I buy you another?”
Katie shrugs. A free game is a free game. She’s about to say yes, and then shoo him away, but there’s something about him that piques her interest. Maybe it’s the old world watch on his wrist, or how even though he’s probably got a million flight sims to test at the Garrison, he’s here, at some dinky little arcade with her and her brother, offering to buy her a game. “Play it with me?”
He grins. “I’d love to.”
He drops two quarters into the coin slot, and the familiar opening tune plays. As he adjusts beside her, one hand holding the joystick, the other hovering above the fire button, she spots the name tag on his shoulder. Takashi Shirogane. The sound of a ship dropping from the skies pulls her attention back to the game, and they begin to play. He does pretty well too, much too well for someone who’s never played Galaga before. Maybe it’s because of his piloting skills, she thinks. Someone who flies better than pretty much everyone currently enrolled at the Garrison is bound to be good with their hands, but it’s not fair that his score is higher than hers is! She’s been playing for nearly an hour dammit; she should be able to beat him, easy!
As she loses her final ship, she steps away, turning her attention to Takashi’s ship. He’s on his last one, but he doesn’t seem concerned at all. His ship slides back and forth along the bottom of the screen, shooting almost every falling ship on his first try. The layers of ships between him and the mothership are slowly growing smaller, and smaller, until it’s just him and the final barrage.
He stretches his hand, readies for the final wave, when someone yells in a sing-song voice, horribly off-key. “Shiro! Katie! How could you possibly play without me?”
Takashi presses the fire button a fraction too early, and the sound of Matt’s voice startles him into steering his final ship to the left, directly into the path of the mothership’s laser.
“Come on!” Katie complains, glaring at her brother. He shrugs and leans against the side of a Pac-man game, sticking his hands in his pockets which jingle with the shifting of the quarters inside them.
“Damn it, Matt! I almost won!” Takashi complains, scowling at the high score screen. He’s made it to 8th place, but Katie bets that if Matt hadn’tve messed him up, he could’ve made it to the top five.
Takashi sighs, and starts typing in his initials. Matt watches with a grin, his arms crossed smugly as he carefully enters in T-A-K. “You can always play again.”
“You can always play by yourself.” Katie sticks her tongue out, very aware of how juvenile her response is. Ignoring her brothers faux hurt expression, she grabs Takashi’s hand. “Wanna try Skeeball next?”
He grins. “If you really think you can beat me.”
“You’re on.” She says, tugging him behind her like a toy on a string. Behind them, her brother mumbles about best friend stealing sisters as he sticks a quarter into the Pac-man machine.
Katie pretends not to hear.
2.
A car seemingly appears out of nowhere, forcing her to turn the corner much faster than she’d initially intended to. One of the DVD cases tries to slide out of her shirt, and she has to pause to adjust it before continuing down the hill.
“Asshole,” Katie mutters as she glides downhill.
Now she really wishes she had’ve installed that basket for her bike after she’d bought it. It’d come with the kit, but she hadn’t cared for the distinctly feminine appearance; it looked a bit too juvenile for her tastes, but it sure as hell would’ve been helpful now. Her bike’s one of those old school bikes where you actually have to pedal to move it, and she’d mostly bought it because it looked cool. She hadn’t intended on spending a hundred plus universal credits on fixing it up, but in the end, it was worth it. It was much cheaper than buying a modern motorbike, and was great most of the time, especially since most of her trips were just around the corner to the library or convenience store for more peanut butter cookies. Normally, her backpack was big enough to hold whatever she’d bought, but it had already been full of books and computer parts from the recycling center, which meant that she had no space for the collection of horror movies that she’d come across at the garage sale on the way home.
A disk attempts to dislodge itself from the bundle in her shirt as she turns into the driveway, but she manages to catch it before it falls to the ground.
“Is there a reason why you’re holding ten DVD’s under your shirt, or is it just a new fashion trend I haven’t heard about?” Takashi teases, taking some of the discs from her grasp.
“Some guy around the corner was selling them for like a dollar each, and come on,” She grabs the disc on the top of the stack. “How could I resist buying ‘The face stealer’ and its three sequels when they’re that cheap?”
Shiro unlocks the door for her (when did he get a key to their house?), and waits for her to walk inside before following her in.
“So which ones are we watching tonight?”
She raises a brow and drops the pile onto the couch. “Who said you were invited to my horror movie marathon?”
Shiro snorts. “There’s no fun in watching horror movies alone, now is there?”
Katie taps her chin in faux contemplation. “I suppose not.”
“Popcorn?” He asks as he heads into the kitchen.
“Extra butter, and M&M’s.” She supplies as she hooks up her computer to the TV. By the time he comes back, a bowl of steaming bowl of Popcorn, and two bottles of Coke in his hands, she has the title screen up, and the movie ready to play.
He sits on the couch beside her, taking the corner seat. He grins innocently as if he doesn’t know that that’s where she always sits. She sighs and burrows into his side, snatching the bowl from his grasp.
The narrator begins to speak, his ominous tone seeming ridiculously funny as Takashi whispers the words with him in a high pitched voice. “And the face-stealer took the little girl’s face…”
Katie giggles and nudges him with her elbow. He guffaws and quiets down, his arm draping across her shoulders just as the opening scene begins. Her face feels hot for some reason, even though the weight of his arm around her shoulder feels as natural as the weight of her phone in her pocket.
“You good, Katie?” Takashi asks, grabbing an M&M from the top of the bowl.
He tosses it into the air, catching it in his mouth just before it lands in her hair. “I’m good. I’m great.” She says, staring pointedly at the screen. A green screened monster creeps in a window on screen, it’s face changing into that of a cute teen boy. “If the face stealer was real, whose face do you think he’d go after first? Yours or mine?”
Takashi taps his chin in faux thoughtfulness. “I’d say…it’d go after you first.”
“Why?” Katie can’t think of any good reason for it to go for her first: after all, Takashi’s the strongest of the two, and the face-stealer usually goes after the more powerful person, so logically-
“Your face is cuter than mine, obviously.”
She looks to Takashi, and his face is flushed red too. She leans her head against his shoulder. “Thanks.”
3.
She’s not exactly sure when he started coming over for dinner. It was sometime after they announced the crew for Kerberos for sure, but when, exactly, it became an everyday thing is lost to her. All she knows is that he’s been eating dinner with them so often and for so long, she can’t remember setting a table for just four places anymore.
Her father scoops more peas onto his plate as he describes a new discovery by some college kids and the subsequent possible addition to their mission because of it. Takashi listens with rapt attention, the cube of steak speared on his fork hovering a few inches away from his mouth.
He’s barely eighteen, but he’s going to be one of the first humans to travel past Mars. It’s awe inspiring how he’s gotten so far. Perhaps if she hadn’t chosen to specialize in tech/medical, she could be going on that flight with him, instead of staying behind to finish her studies on Earth. Even so, .that buzz that they seem to carry everywhere has infected her too, and she’s not embarrassed to admit that she’s counting down the days until lift-off. She’s going to miss him, Katie realizes.
Those arcade sessions and movie marathons, and speculations over coffee and peanut butter cookies seem to have happened so long ago. What’s she gonna do when he’s gone? Who’s she gonna do all their things with when it’s just her again?
“Katie?” Takashi calls, and she looks up, unaware that she’d stopped eating.
She shoves a spoonful of mashed peas into her mouth. “Yeah?”
Her mother sighs- she’d given up on her manners years ago, though it still annoys her to death when she acts without them in front of company.
“I really wish they had room for a fourth crew member. Matt’s psychology scores suck in comparison to yours.”
“Hey!” Matt interjects indignantly. “It was only by like-”
“Twenty-five points?” Her father interjects wryly.
Matt sighs heavily and lifts his spoon. “Oh why, mashed peas, why must my friends and family betray me so?” He intones.
Katie giggles, and Shiro laughs, their sounds of humor overlapping.
“I wish I could go, too. Too bad dad can’t recommend two of his kids to come with.”
“Yeah, too ba,” Takashi repeats, half under his breath.
Her parents exchange a look, and then her dad starts on about that new comet, and the moment passes, leaving her heart twisting with that lingering thought: what if she could go with him? The thought it tantalizing.
She’s always had a hard time making friends on her own, but Takashi had practically become friends just by being there. She hadn’t had to work for it, hadn’t had to cut herself off when she started speaking too nerdy. She hadn’t had to hide anything from him for him to like her.
The Kerberos mission would be taking more than just her family with it; it was also taking her best friend.
She sighs, and shoves another spoonful into her mouth. How the hell was she gonna survive without him?
4.
Katie’s one of the few lucky people who get to watch the launch from the control room.
She feels anything but.
Takashi and Matt slowly make their way down the walkway, thanking the various scientists for their contributions to the mission. Her father walks ahead of them, leading their small parade down the crowded hall. The families and friends stand closest to the door to the shuttle, in a small, subdued group. Across from Katie and her mother stands Takashi’s family; a boy in a red jacket with a slightly sour expression. Katie isn’t sure if they’re brothers or just close friends, and wonders why Takashi never spoke of him.
As Takashi exchanges words with the boy, her brother gives her a long hug, with promises to bring a rock back for her. Her father pats her back and tells her that it’ll be her turn soon. They move on to her mother, leaving her and Takashi alone.
“Katie.” Takashi begins, only to be interrupted by her sudden embrace. “Katie, I-”
“I’m gonna miss you.” She sobs. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”
He wraps his arms around her, and she relaxes in his hold, trying her best to memorize the way that his arms feel around her but it’s over much too soon.
“I’ll see you soon, Katie. Don’t watch Deathinator 4 without me, okay?”
“Okay.” She sniffs as he pulls away.
It’s not until they’ve blasted off that she realizes that she’s forgotten to tell him something, although she can’t remember exactly what the words were. She decides that whatever it was, it can wait until they return.
A smaller ‘if’ lingers in the back of her mind. She pushes the thought away and tries to smile for the cameras. Of course, they’ll come back. Of course, they will.
5.
He’s dead.
They’re all dead, her brother, her father. Takashi.
When the Garrison has their memorial, they call him Shiro. They say that he was one of the best and that he died too young.
They say that it’s his fault that they crashed.
She doesn’t believe it, can’t believe it. He was the most talented pilot she’d ever met; he’d trained for that mission his whole life.
She looks into it. Something’s off.
The Garrison kicks her out, and she’s blacklisted from the premises.
She finds a way back in.
She becomes someone new. A boy, fourteen, four years younger than her. She becomes Pidge Gunderson and buries Katie Holt under lies, and secrets and aliases.
She doesn’t remember how his arms felt around her, tries not to remember how easy it was to just exist around him.
For a year, Katie Holt doesn’t exist, and neither does Takashi.
6.
It’s Lance’s fault that she finds him again.
She should rephrase that.
It’s because of Lance that she finds Shiro again. It is, however, his fault that they’re currently stuck in outer space, millions of lightyears from home.
But that doesn’t matter so much.
She’s found one of her missing pieces, and she’s on the trail for her brother and father now. She can’t really complain.
Except she can, because Takashi doesn’t seem to recognize her at all, and he’s not even Takashi anymore. Everyone’s calling him Shiro instead, and the name sounds strange in her mouth when she’s been calling him something different for the past three years.
She decides not to tell him who she is. They have so much more to worry about right now than her petty feelings.
Perhaps, but what will waiting accomplish? It seems to me that this man reciprocates your feelings of love.
Pidge jumps, startled by the almost inquisitive tone of the voice.
“Who is that?” She asks, her voice echoing in the empty hangar.
She looks back towards the door, which is still closed shut. There’s no one in here but her. She looks back to her computer screen, gaze resting reluctantly on the lines of scrolling code.
For someone so smart, you’re awfully dull.
Pidge jumps, her laptop nearly sliding onto the floor before she catches it, and places it aside.
“Green?” She asks aloud. She feels kinda stupid for not realizing it earlier. What else could possibly speak to her in her mind?
You should tell him. He loves you too.
Now that the fear of not knowing who’s speaking has passed, the familiar burn of embarrassment can finally grace her cheeks.
“I don’t love him. We’re just friends.” She protests.
Green chuckles. That’s not what Black thinks, and that’s certainly not what you truly believe.
“How could you possibly know? You don’t know how I felt when he was gone! Or how much I missed him when I thought he was…” She trails off, angry tears glistening in the corner of her eyes. The words come to her easy, much too easy for someone who’d just denied it. “I think I’m in love with him.”
She can feel her lion’s triumphant grin. That you are, my Paladin.
“Now what?” Pidge whispers.
Now you tell him. Her lion supplies.
As if that’s such an easy thing to do.
7.
“Katie?”
She doesn’t turn around. Only one person here knows her by that name.
“Takashi.”
He chuckles somewhat nervously as he sits down beside her.
“No one’s called me that in a while.”
“No one’s called me Katie for a while either.”
The sun is just setting on Arus, the view remarkably similar to that of an Earth sunset. It’s comforting to watch it sink below the horizon, leaving hues of orange and red in the sky. For a few minutes they don’t speak, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
Pidge wonders if now is a good time to tell him; he obviously knows who she is. She opens her mouth to speak, but the right words just don’t seem to come to mind. She closes her mouth again and waits.
“I thought of you a lot, while I was imprisoned.” He says, his voice quiet and subdued. He sounds so much different from who he used to be. The laughter and joy seem to have been stripped from his tone.
“I thought you said you had amnesia.” She says, and Shiro laughs.
“That’s true. I still can’t remember all of the details, and some of my memory before Kerberos is blurry, but I remember you. I remember,” He furrows his brows, deep in thought. “Deathinator 4?”
Pidge laughs. Out of everything that he could remember, it’s that dumb horror movie that comes to mind. “I love you.” She says, not realizing that she’d verbalized her thoughts until she looks at him, and sees the gentle smile gracing his lips.
She hasn’t seen him smile like this since before Kerberos.
“I love you, Katie. I’ve been waiting to say that to you for years.” Before she can reply, his hand is snaking around her waist, pulling her closer. She’s seen enough romance movies to know that now’s a good time to shut up and tilt her head to the side.
When their lips meet, all words seemed to have evacuated her mind.
Error 404 Pidge.exe not found.
When he pulls away, his arm stays around her waist and revels in the familiarity of it. How could she have been so blind for so long when it’s so obvious how well they fit together? She’s not exactly sure. Maybe she’s really known all along, and she’s just been too afraid to admit it. Whatever it was that kept her from realizing the truth, she’s glad that it’s passed.
She’s never felt happier in her whole life.