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“I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar
With angels blest; but even from angelhood
I must pass on: all except God doth perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel-soul,
I shall become what no mind e'er conceived.
Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence
Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.”
— Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi
~~~
No matter who stood in her way, she wouldn’t let them deny her this one joy of hers, this tiny little piece she had. Daiba Nana was determined not to loose the tiny star — for that, at least, she could grasp in her fingers.
There was just one problem.
The price she payed for this gift, this ability to forestall inevitable changes and perhaps permanent separations, was to have to meet one adorable, bespectacled girl over and over and over again.
To fall in love with the same person a hundred times, and have to pretend it never happened the first ninety-nine. She just smiled it off, but it hurt. Junna’s passion and her determination both, they were almost contagious — Nana couldn’t help but smile it off when she was around the adorable girl. Still, she would not lose, and still, she didn’t.
No love was going to stop her addiction to this feeling.
The thrill of crushing everyone, without exception (no Tendou Maya could stop her, here) and experiencing the greatest show to ever exist just another time — that was priceless. She ignored the faults that she could see much more clearly with every successive replay, because that feeling made the imperfections all the more beautiful to her.
Still, sometimes she couldn’t help herself. She really wasn’t the cheerful figure she purported herself to be, after all. Long nights of staying up with a bespectacled girl while she studied something or other and the loosely associated conversations were always like a salve to her soul. Even if she knew all of the answers to her questions already.
Sometimes she dared to go just a little farther, until she realized what she was doing and froze right then and there, mere inches away from Junna’s lips. They would look at each other, and Nana knew that she just couldn’t, and then she would put on her brave face and smile it all away, as was her wont. Nobody would know.
She never looked Junna in the eyes immediately after something like that. She didn’t want to see what was there in the depths. It hurt to just think about how she’d done this over and over again. Nana could barely control herself, it seemed, but she could. When push came to shove.
And so, life went on in the cyclical infinity.
~~~
“Nana,” the purple-haired girl asked Nana in hushed tones (for the goings-on beneath the school were something to be quietly spoken about in hidden corners!) one day. “How haven’t you ever lost a revue before?”
It was as if somebody had punched a hole through her perfect glass world. For a moment, Nana was almost dazed, but she remembered to smile. She always did.
“Sometimes, that’s just how it turns out, Junna-chan! Doesn’t mean you don’t have the power to beat me.”
Junna could probably see the haziness over her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. She never said anything. Always so fixed on relying only on herself. Nana chuckled. “But who knows, really?”
That was an early showing. As everything ran and ran and ran, Nana improved upon her script. But it was never enough to account for everything — and for that matter, she didn’t want it to. Feeling this all anew again and again was not a call for any scripts more than the one she already had for Starlight.
It wasn’t all an act. She loved all of her amazing, sweet friends more than anything else in the entire universe, and the call of the theatre just as much! One girl in particular she might’ve loved too much. Still, sometimes it was a bit difficult to communicate the unseen weight of countless loops when she knew she could never quite say it. If she said it, it would all be over.
She wasn’t dumb. She knew what would happen if the word spread around the other girls vying for Top Star. Nana couldn’t fend everyone off forever and ever.
This will do, she thought. It can last just a little bit longer. Even if it had to die eventually.
Everything had to end. But Nana could just have a repeat performance after that, so what did it truly matter?
This could last just a little longer.
~~~
No matter what happened, she and Junna never kissed, never realized any mutual feelings (if indeed they even existed), never anything — for all Nana knew, she was just the reliable banana-themed best friend.
Watching the moonlight spill out over Junna’s sleeping face, resting on her desk, Nana was satisfied with what she had created. The world she had created. She could never get enough of this feeling, this experience. Truthfully, Nana wasn’t sure if she ever could, and it wasn’t exactly like she was aiming to find out.
Another revue. Another Tendou Maya-hurdle jumped. Listening to what she had to say after those defeats was always fascinating.
(”Who are you,” she once whispered, awed, perhaps terrified, many many cycles in. For some reason, that question got to Nana more than she would have liked.)
But the feeling… it wasn’t the same anymore. No matter how hard she tried, Nana couldn’t grasp that light — it seemed to be slowly inching further and further from her with each repeat.
Maybe Maya was right. The ninety-ninth Seisho Festival’s production of Starlight could only ever happen once.
It didn’t matter anymore. All of this, the revues, they were about more than just the play. They were about change and separation and sadness that never had to come.
With that in her mind, Nana could take her place as Top Star ten thousand times, if need be.
But then Kagura Hikari happened.
~~~
Kagura Hikari.
Nana was admittedly unused to surprises, but this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. She welcomed Hikari to her stage, to see whatever she had to offer.
Had the old giraffe gotten sick of this eternity? She didn’t know, and there was no way to find out.
Sighing, Nana rubbed her eyes. It was too late for this.
Junna looked at her curiously from the desk. “Are you okay?”
Nana opened her mouth. Memories from who knows how many performances threatened to spill past her lips.
“It’s nothing, Junna-chan.” She smiled.
“Are you sure?” Junna emphasized. She seemed a little worried.
“Of course!”
“Okay…”
She was not okay.
That glint in Kagura Hikari’s eyes was something that haunted Nana. Things to come seemed to swim in their sky-blue depths. This was all going to come to an end very soon — and then what? What would Nana do? She… didn’t know. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
“A-actually…”
Wait, what?
“… Maybe something is wrong.”
No, wait, hold on —
Junna’s eyes widened.
Hold o—stop!
Salty tears were running down her face before she knew what was happening. She touched a finger to her cheek, as if to get the wetness to register. Junna was somehow right next to her, wrapping her in a… hug?
“Wh-what’s going on?” Nana wasn’t sure who her own question was directed at.
Junna is warm. That was the one thought that actually chose to float through her mind at that moment. Without thinking, Nana buried herself even more in her best friend’s arms. It had finally hit her, just then and there.
It was all going to collapse down before her very eyes, wasn’t it.
That was when she started bawling.
~~~
Junna knew everything now.
Every single detail of the cycle after cycle after cycle she could possibly remember spilled out of her lips that night, like a waterfall of gushing pain and memory and barely-restrained love (some things were too precious to Nana to ruin in a single instant).
Throughout the entire story, Junna never let go of her. And by the time it was finished, Nana could feel wet spots on the back of her own shirt.
“It must have been so… much for you to have to bear…”
“Y-you believe me?”
Softly, Junna chuckled, rubbing calming circles into Nana’s back.
“A talking giraffe regularly makes us fight each other somewhere underneath the academy. Of course I do.”
Nana let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. “T-thank you… Junna-chan…”
They smiled at each other, and to Nana, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever experienced in all her life. They hugged, and slowly, somehow, they ended up together underneath the covers of Nana’s bed. It was warm. Nana was in love.
They fell asleep there that night, curled up into one another, safe and understood.
Maybe things would be okay without repeating a world and a play (what was the difference) over and over again ad infinitum.
~~~
Maybe.
When Nana woke up the next morning, the only thing she could feel was emptiness. Total emptiness, not even a hint of the joy or the happiness or even the apprehension she had been expecting. Just… nothing. A hollowness. She opened her eyes. Junna was on the other side of the bed — her quiet breaths indicating that she was still asleep. As silently as she could, Nana slid out of bed, throwing something at least somewhat presentable on.
If there was one thing this could give her, it was the strength to win again, and reset all of this.
Nana walked away.
When they next met in class, the soft, gentle, understanding smile Junna had on her face quickly fell into confusion when Nana was exactly the same as she had ever been, the day before. No more affection than usual, no more or less anything.
In between classes, when Junna asked if she was okay, all she gave was the same old banana-y smile, and a cheery “of course!!”
When Nana turned to leave, however, she made sure of one last thing. Saying it — and indeed, any of this at all! — was like driving a spike of cold into her heart, but it was what she had to do.
“Let’s forget last night happened, though. I shouldn’t have acted like that,” Nana said with a cheerful smile and a wink.
She turned away before she could see the expression on Junna’s face. She didn’t want to see what she knew was there.
~~~
Over the past few days, Junna had made several more attempts to try and get Nana to truly talk to her, but Nana had shot them all down — frankly, she didn’t understand what had motivated Junna to make the further attempts in the first place!
Coldness was always just a little bit more palatable behind a smile.
But her plan couldn’t last indefinitely, unfortunately. And so, Nana found herself on the stage, blades in hand, an armed Junna before her.
That damn giraffe. Complications.
Junna seemed surprised by the turn of events, but she quickly recovered.
“Why haven’t you been talking to me?” She said, notching an arrow all the while.
“Who knows,” Nana replied, wistfully. The words seemed to float off into the distance like wisps of cloud.
The revue began.
Junna…
Junna had gotten a lot better since they’d last fought. Had she been training for this in secret somehow?
Arrows whizzed past like bullets, and the song of her swords wasn’t quite what it should have been to Nana’s ears. Still, she supposed it would have to do. After all, that was the basis of her whole strategy now. At least until she made it to the next repeat.
Deflecting and slicing through arrows as if they were paper, Nana weaved a deadly dance toward Junna. Dealing with arrows was one thing, but defeating somebody with a large metal rod when you had swords was much easier.
Theoretically.
Nana hadn’t expected the sudden jab to her ribs — she’d thought Junna would go for something more practical than that. She coughed, stumbling. It was all she could do to protect the piece of rope that stood between her and unfathomable ruin.
The onslaught was almost vicious. Almost. Behind it all was that inexplicable thing again. It seemed like the same something Nana couldn’t comprehend from Junna in the days prior, just in another form. It didn’t make any sense.
Junna backed her away from close quarters, and started firing arrows again. It was masterful. Nana, despite it all, felt the warmth of pride spill into her stomach at the sight. But. Time to end this.
A slight frown came onto Nana’s face as she tightened her grip on her swords and made a sudden and ferocious lunge inward from the depths of the cover on the stage. Something that had felled Maya three or four performances prior.
She felt a slash up by her neck.
Everything seemed to freeze for an instant. Junna (holding an arrow in her hand), the stage, herself, even the giraffe. Nana looked over to the rope.
…
Intact.
She’d missed.
Before anyone else could react to the sight, Nana slashed Junna’s rope with deadly precision, and red fluttered to the ground. They stared at each other in silence.
The curtains came from the depths.
Nana looked at the ground. The emptiness in her heart was throbbing — it hurt. So much. This wasn’t supposed to be what victory felt like.
“… Position Zero.”
There was silence. Quietly, Junna shot three half-astonished, half-angry words into her ears — Nana barely caught them.
“Who are you?”
Nana’s head shot up, but it was too late. The curtains had obscured it all.
She smiled to herself, hiding away the bubbling feelings within.
I deserved that.
~~~
The following weeks were the clockwork Nana had wanted in the days prior to that fateful revue. Junna didn’t as much as look at her, let alone speak, unless it was absolutely necessary. Everyone in class noticed. A smile could ward most of them off, but her friends…
That was another story entirely.
Nonetheless, it was clockwork. Nobody asked any questions (nobody but Junna knew the right ones to ask, in any case) and the days passed like they used to. The motherly, cheerful persona was in some ways healing, and in others incredibly painful.
It didn’t matter. Tonight was the last one.
Hikari may have gotten the upper hand on her once, but by this point, nobody, be it Hikari or three Hikaris or forty Hikaris or forty Hikaris and forty Karens, could stop her.
She had to fix this. This loop was unstable, anomalous, and had proved destructive to her, let alone the Revue.
She sat in her dorm in silence. A deep frown (something that had become more and more common recently) on her face, Junna worked on her computer.
“Tonight is the last revue. I can sense it.”
Junna blinked, freezing for a second. She seemed to recollect herself.
“Oh. I guess it is.”
Nana’s glass universe shattered when that casual, icy spike ran through her.
Oh.
Right.
Nana hoped the night would pass quickly. She crawled into bed, but couldn’t fall asleep.
Whether it was hours or minutes or millennia, Nana didn’t know, but eventually, Junna closed her computer, and stood up from her desk. She cast a glance over to Nana’s bed, and seemed to stay there for a while — it was dark, so who knew if she could see Nana wasn’t asleep? It was as if she were hesitating to say something.
“Nana. Please don’t run.”
And with that, Hoshimi Junna slid into bed herself, without another second.
That incomprehensible motive, that tinge of unknowable feeling in her voice.
~~~
When Nana cut the Tendou Maya’s rope for the who-knows-how-manyth time, she said nothing to her. There weren’t any words left, it seemed.
Victory. She’d done it. She’d defeated this unstable world.
Self-repulsion and sorrow and fear filled her up like a jug of stagnant water — things that a masking smile, genuine kindness, and some homemade banana pudding simply couldn’t solve.
But she had to do this.
She came face to face with the giraffe once more.
“I do not know how many times we have done this…”
Perhaps she just imagined it, but Nana felt an edge of fatigue in the giraffe’s voice.
But, no matter.
She was here. She did it.
All she had to say was what she’d said time and time and time again in the various editions of her repeat performance. To start it all anew.
“I…”
I want to be on the stage of the ninety-ninth Seisho Festival production of Starlight again. That’s all she had to say. That’s all…
“I… I want…”
The giraffe seemed surprised by the development, somehow. It remained silent.
“…”
Why couldn’t she just say it?! This was all it would take to keep everyone safe and happy and together like they had the first time she’d experienced all of her best friends in the entire world at this amazing academy with —
”Nana. Please don’t run.”
She heard Junna’s words from the night before echo in her mind.
”Please don’t run.”
She had to. What else was there? All she’d know for so, so unfathomably long was this — this grasping at feelings she could never reclaim again. It was all she had! What would happen if everything chang—
”Nana.”
”Please don’t run.”
For the second time in who knows how long, tears were flowing down Nana’s cheeks. She sobbed, curling in on herself as much as she could standing up. She cried.
The… feeling. What she hadn’t been able to understand.
Junna cared about her.
She… cared.
And Nana…
Well, this much was clear, at least.
Nana loved her.
“Daiba Nana.” The giraffe again.
“O-oh,” Nana choked. “Right.”
She couldn’t do it. She knew it now. She shouldn’t have done it the first time, and yet here she was — she couldn’t do it now.
“The stage I want is this one, right here and now. This is what I want. Please… just take me back to the dorms.”
If giraffes could smile, this one certainly did in that moment.
“Very well. Thank you, Daiba Nana.”
She nodded, shakily.
“Sorry.”
~~~
Nana blinked. She was sitting on her bed now.
Rubbing at her tear-blurry eyes, she looked across the room. Standing there, shocked, was the bespectacled girl of her dreams. Just looking at each other — the warm, wonderful love just glowed and shined at Nana’s core. This… this was what she’d been missing all that time. This was better, this was worth it, this —
“N-nana?”
Without a word, Nana practically threw herself at Junna, breaking down sobbing half-coherent apologies and choking breaths. Junna — beautiful, determined, passionate, wonderful Junna — held her, and apparently couldn’t keep from shedding a few tears of her own.
“W-what’s going on?”
Resting her head on Junna’s shoulder, Nana whispered the answer into her ear.
“You were right. Of course you were. I…”
Junna’s breath hitched.
“I’m sorry. I don’t deserve it, but can you please forgive me?”
Junna blinked. Then she started up again.
“It’s my fault! I should have done—said—I don’t know—more! Something, anything — if I’d tried harder to help you…”
Nana shook her head.
“No. You’ve done more than I could’ve ever asked for from anyone, Junna.”
This was it.
“I…”
Nana pulled back from Junna, glancing first to the ground, before she looked back up, taking a deep breath. She stared into those green eyes like emeralds, got lost in the color…
“I love you.”
Everything froze. Junna stared. Had she made a mis—
Junna pulled her in for a desperate kiss.
Their faces were wet with tears and they were holding each other to keep from collapsing, but it was perfect. Nana had never felt more loved than she had in that moment. They pulled apart to gasp for breath, ridiculously-wide face-spanning grins on their faces.
“I love you too. And I forgive you.”
Nana didn’t know if she wanted to laugh, cry, or explode. She was so happy… it was almost surreal.
“I… is this real?”
Junna grinned.
“I hope so. If not, we can make it real. No matter how hard it is.”
New tears were running down Nana’s face.
“H-huh?” She blinked, watching the wet spots appear on Junna’s shirt. Junna grabbed her hands.
“Are you okay?”
Nana nodded enthusiastically.
“S-sorry… I’m just so happy that…” she trailed off.
With a quick glance at her best friend’s lips, she communicated her feelings with another kiss.
When they both separated, the looks on their faces were brighter than ever. She’d done it. Nana had finally done it. Found the perfect place, and she never had to redo it again. Freed from her eternal stage world. This… This was…
“I’m so happy…” she murmured.
“Me too,” Junna admitted.
Nana couldn’t bring herself to let go of the purple-haired girl. There was a lot to do from here, but at least she could do it with Junna. The one person she couldn’t help but fall in love with over and over and over and over and over again.
“I’ve fallen in love with you so many times, I can barely believe this is actually happening…”
Junna blushed. “Y-you… every time?”
Nana grinned. “Every time.”
Junna placed her head on Nana’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes had a shiny film over them. Carefully, Nana removed her glasses, and wiped her eyes with her thumb.
“I love you,” Junna said.
Nana’s breath caught in her throat. Junna…
“I love you too.”
At last, she’d found it.
At last, with Junna by her side, Nana was happy.