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The setting is deep space.
(On the edge of a small, dead galaxy, one that had flourished in the far far past, now reduced to a memory of what it once was.)
The final shots are fired.
A match for the ages concluded after years of fighting.
(Yet nothing is left but the knowledge that humanity had made it, despite everything.)
The pilots come out of their machines.
(Giant fighter jets, especially designed to combat the greatest foe of all; the harshness of space itself.)
The taller one’s long hair floats in the lack of gravity and she takes her short, spunky companion’s hand in a gesture of solidarity. Their hands clasp together cooly, and their enemy explodes into a thousand pieces of shrapnel.
(The jets contain a forcefield to protect them, utilizing the newest in nanotech and magnetic fields to fully destroy anything that attempts to get close.)
Their hands touch and the world turns brighter behind them. Their hands touch and their bond grows stronger. Their hands touch and—
Asakusa blinks out of her daydream.
Isn’t there a bit of subtext here?
—
The first thing you notice about Kanamori-kun is that she’s tall. She towers over the other students, even those taller than her. Her walk alone leaks pride and makes her seem taller than skyscrapers.
The second is that she’s mean. Everyone’s already heard of the time she made a boy pee himself for trying to swindle her off a single coin from her winnings during the school fair, and those who miraculously haven’t will know the second she locks eyes with them.
The third is that she’s smart- really smart. Unlike Asakusa, who’d rather doodle in the margins than pay attention and manages to go by with nothing but a pure interest in the sciences, Kanamori-kun retains her status as a decent student if only in the search for money. Her economics and humanities marks are crazy; like she was born to be a lawyer, or the president, or the president of lawyers; up in her huge 600 foot shatterproof glass office that becomes a fighting mechanica. It’s infrastructure made of a light aluminum alloy, and works through a semi-electric powered circuit that runs through the specially made fibers in the glass, which also doubles as a solar powered generator that—
“Ouch!“
Asakusa is hit on the head gently by the history teacher and brought back to the real world.
She grumbles and glances beside her towards Kanamori-kun’s seat, and unsurprisingly Kanamori-kun is giving her the same sideways glance she gives whenever Asakusa gets in trouble. This time however, Asakusa can see Kanamori’s lips twitch upwards just the slightest amount from behind the hand she’s resting on.
It’s strange how Asakusa’s heart seems to go on overdrive then. It must be leftover adrenaline from her daydreams, right? She pouts, unconvinced, and continues to ignore the history lesson going on around her. She doesn’t think she’s ever blushed to her ears before, but she wonders how warm they’d have to be for it to count.
The sounds of pencils against paper and her teacher’s lectures meld into those of engines and open windy skies. Asakusa goes back to doodling in the margins, filling them with drawings of tall glass buildings that unfold into fighting machines, and crossed out crooked smiles that seem all too familiar in between them.
—
The morning is lovely as Mizusaki-kun and Asakusa sit on the rooftop; they’ve just spent the last twenty minutes sharing ideas, animatedly building the story of two girls fighting for survival in a giant abandoned concrete-jungle turned real-jungle ruins.
Mizusaki-kun begins to detail the climax following the destruction of the snake-chimera robot that had been destroying the two girls’ home; describing a scene of two girls falling, their hands clasped together as they free-fall from the highest peak of the greatest tree, where the chimera was rampaging.
The two of them falling faster and faster, the camera panning around them as leaves fly upwards past them, showing the emotion in their eyes; fear, uncertainty, trust, camaraderie. They share their last words- ensuring every syllable is animated perfectly- and pull each other closer for their first and last kiss—
“Kiss?!” Asakusa sputters.
Mizusaki-kun blinks and tips her head to the side, “Yes? Havent you noticed the subtext the entire time?? It’s the natural progression of events!”
Asakusa looks at her like she’s just grown three heads.
“N-natural..?”
Mizusaki-kun likes romance. Not as much as the other kids Asakusa’s age but she likes it all the same. The first time she’d brought it up she said it was something to do with realism.
”Part of making realistic animation is making realistic emotions too! If your characters aren’t feeling anything then how can you show that through your work?!”
Asakusa flicks back through the conversation, and by the time she’s done Kanamori-kun is already back from talking to her teacher.
“What were you two talking about?” She asks, her eyes piercing through Asakusa’s like a high speed laser.
Asakusa opens her mouth to reply only for Mizusaki-kun to exclaim that it’s already the end of lunch. She and Kanamori-kun bicker the whole way back and, for the first time in years, Asakusa is glad that lunch is over.
—
The taller pilot takes off her mask and her glasses fall out of it to rest soundly on her nose.
(They’re electromagnetic, designed to stick to the mask when it’s in use and drop easily onto the wearers nose when the mask is taken off so as to avoid the use of contacts; which can be dangerous in certain atmospheres, while also providing ease of wearability and efficiency.)
She looks down at her partner.
(Her teammate. Her friend. Her—)
“We did it,” she says, and her voice sounds familiar.
The pilot doesnt respond, just continues to stare up at her through her mask’s visor.
(Their enemy has been defeated yet the leftover debris of the only home they’ve ever known surrounds them. They are the survivors, the only ones alive for lightyears. What was that saying again, about someone being the only other person left in the world?)
Their spaceships start to flash red, a tremor sounds through them. It isn’t over. An alert comes through their high-tech gps.
(Designed to catch sign of both infrared and electromagnetic radiation, it’s antenna can pinpoint even an ant in the vacuum of space, so long as it’s alive of course.)
a warning, yet the smaller pilot cant stop staring at—
Boom.
The taller pilot looks at the smaller pilot and the world flashes bright white.
(The first effects of a Photon-annihilation bomb, or PA bomb for short. The Specialized accelerators create enough heat in the small space for light itself to undergo annihilation, releasing terra-joules of energy every microsecond and leaving an active sight so large entire solar systems perish in the aftermath.)
The pilot releases the safety lock off her smaller companion’s helmet and looks her in the eye.
(T-minus 15 seconds till impact. Chances of survival: 0.000002%. Orders from ground control: none. There is no one to help them. They’re the only two left in the world.)
The shorter pilot’s eyes adjust, and she realizes that there’s a reason the other pilot seemed so familiar. It all hits at once, and even the near absolute zero temperatures of space couldn’t stop the warmth building in her chest.
(There’s no reason for them to survive in these conditions. By all means sound should not travel. Air should not flow. A heart should not beat. Both pilots should be dead in the lonely confines of space but the storyteller is too preoccupied, too lost in the view in front of her, to think of a reason so late into the story. Strangely enough it doesn’t seem to cross her mind that it should matter.)
“Looks like this wasn’t as easy as you thought,“ the taller pilot says, and suddenly she isn’t just a pilot anymore, but something more; someone more.
She brings her face closer, and whispers her next words with such certainty that it feels like they could bend space time itself.
“It wouldn’t hurt to try again though would it, Asakusa-shi?”
Kanamori-kun smiles
And the whole
World
Explodes.
—
“Kanamori-kun!” Asakusa shouts, waking up with a start and breathing heavily. It takes her a few seconds, but she manages to puff out a few aching breaths and relax.
“It was a dream...” she mumbles, eyes wide and hands in her hair.
“What dream,” deadpans Kanamori-kun, scaring Asakusa to near death from the desk next to her. Kanamori-kun raises her eyebrow, eyes calculating, and gestures for Asakusa to explain herself. She isn’t smiling but Asakusa still feels her own ears grow warmer.
“Eh, uhhh it was nothing—!”
“Mhm...” is all Kanamori-kun replies with, unconvinced. She flicks Asakusa’s head before changing the subject swiftly, “I have a question for you. don’t worry, class won’t start for a while so there’s no one else here to hear it.”
The classroom was indeed empty. Asakusa must’ve fallen asleep out of boredom, and judging by the food that Kanamori-kun was sliding onto her desk, Kanamori-kun had even headed off to buy Asakusa her lunch too. Her ears grew hotter, and she bit into her melon bread.
“What is it, Kanamori-kun?”
“Are you coming onto me?”
Asakusa sputters and chokes on her mouthful of bread, eyes wide, “Huh?! What’re you- I mean I- How- WHAT?”
“It is a yes or no answer, Asakusa-shi,” Kanamori puts her face in her hands and looks at Asakusa through the corner of her eye. She sounds bored, but then again she usually does unless the topic is money, so Asakusa has no frame of reference, “though if you are, I hope you know that I’ve never liked anyone before, let alone fallen in love.”
Asakusa blinks, her hands tightening around her bread, the sound of crinkling plastic might as well be coming from her chest.
“I’ve never liked anyone before either,” she says, voice weak like the bread between her teeth.
“Don’t lie to me Asakusa-shi, I’ve seen how you stare at me, and dont think I haven’t noticed your newfound interest in romance as a genre either.”
Asakusa only blinks again. Is that what liking someone is like?
“I have to warn you that I am in no way a cheap date,” Kanamori-kun continues, “I expect gifts on a regular basis— that is, if you manage to give me a reason to date you in the first place. I am in no way closed off to the idea, provided you fight for my affections.”
Asakusa looks down, mind whirring like a machine from one of her concept drawings.
“But you, uh,” She starts, quickly desolving into silence.
“I what? If you have something to say, then say it.”
“You would,” Asakusa says, choosing her words carefully, “if I wooed you?”
“I would consider it,” Kanamori-kun says matter of factly. She takes off her glasses and pulls them to her skirt so as to clean them. She looks back to Asakusa.
(And the world goes white.
It’s just the two of them left in the world.)
They’re only a foot apart now, on opposite sides of a single desk
(On opposite sides of the universe.)
Kanamori-kun looks towards Asakusa from behind half closed eyelids
(She takes off her partner’s; her friend’s; her admirer’s, mask off, and looks at her for who she is.)
Asakusa’s eyes widen as Kanamori smiles.
(And her whole
Heart
Explodes.)
“It wont be as easy as you think, Asakusa-shi”
Asakusa reaches out, and clasps Kanamori-kun’s hand in her own tentatively.
“I think I’d like to try.”