Archive of Our Own ^beta

Yachiyo is the last one to arrive at the student council room, to find Michiru and Mei Fan standing outside. The door is closed, and Akira and Fumi are nowhere in sight. Doors are usually just doors to Yachiyo. To get into the particularities of the symbolic meaning held behind or on or in front of each door is to get into the weeds of a kind of pretentiousness that Yachiyo simply can’t stand. This door, this door in this moment, is imposing and cruel. It is a barrier to their familiarity. Pushed them to a form of alien existence, standing outside this door, in this hallway. Mei Fan is a mix of fidgeting and pacing, two actions which always spell perfect serenity and calm, certainly. Michiru is leaning against the wall next to said unfriendly door, eyes closed. Her face looks impassive enough. Yachiyo isn’t the best at reading between Michiru’s emotions, yet.

“Hey all. What’s up,” Yachiyo begins awkwardly.

“Where were you?” Mei Fan glares at her. 

“I had to talk with a teacher.” Yachiyo turns to look at Michiru.

“Akira’s inside.” She answers the question before Yachiyo can ask it. “Fumi wasn’t in class today.”

Yachiyo hums. “I did only hear three people leave before me this morning.” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “Do you think she’s playing hooky?” 

“An Edel would never do that!”

Yachiyo shrugs. “She has a bit of a temper.”

“She’s barely been doing any of her work recently,” Michiru adds.

“Plus, I think a delinquent Edel would be kind of fun.” The idea does not seem very fun to Mei Fan. 

“But you don’t think that’s what it is,” Michiru says. Yachiyo blinks and looks at Michiru, who’s smiling at her. She laughs. Of course.

“Neither do you,” Yachiyo lilts back. “I wonder if we’re thinking the same thing.” 

“I almost didn’t notice,” Michiru says, her smile seeming strained for just a moment. Maybe it’s just Yachiyo’s imagination. “But Fumi’s name wasn’t called for roll. Akira of all people has been on edge since morning.” 

Yachiyo blinks. She’s closer to the mark than she’d expected. But of course, even their combined assumptions (however good they may be) aren’t a definitive answer.

The door swings open, and someone from school administration walks out. Yachiyo hasn’t the faintest clue who, probably someone new they could send to suffer the tour de force that was Akira. She glances between them before scuttling off.

“Oh dear,” Michiru mumbles, more to herself than anything. The three of them had been left to deal with Akira's impending emotions, the ones that made the administrator leave like that. Worse than usual.

They enter.

Akira is pacing, behind her usual seat at the head of the table. There’s a stack of completed paperwork on the desk to her right. Otherwise, it looks exactly like they left it yesterday.

“What happened?” Michiru asks, and there’s no pretense of politeness.

“She’s stupid,” Akira says.

“Well, that’s not really fair. It’s probably her first real job outside of university and she didn’t know what-” Akira’s glare shuts her up. Okay, probably not best to be joking right now. Not like she could help it. 

“Akira.” Akira is just glaring at everyone, apparently. Even Michiru. Usually she doesn’t glare at Michiru. Usually when she wants to glare at Michiru she glares at Fumi instead, and Fumi always, instinctively, starts an argument about something. Always has an argument to start about something, even if it’s just “why are you staring at me like that.” Fumi is not here right now.

“This won’t work,” Akira says. “I can’t-” Akira lifts the chair a few inches, by the back, then sets it down suddenly. Her bag is hanging from it. She picks that up instead. “I have something to do at the dorm.” She’s never been one for equivocal speech, but her tone is more clipped and direct than usual. “Lead rehearsal without me.” She puts her bag on. “Tomorrow Michiru and I will begin work for Frau Jade auditions.” 

They’re silent. Akira leaves mechanically. It’s hanging in the air but nobody wants to address it specifically. Well, Yachiyo doesn’t. Frau Jade auditions. New Frau Jade auditions. 

“She seemed calm, all things considered,” Mei Fan says, and Yachiyo almost laughs. She did not, but Mei Fan too earnestly takes someone at their word, and Akira’s words seemed calm enough. Had been putting what clearly amounts to a Herculean amount of effort into making herself seem very calm.

“I think she’ll hurt the next person she sees,” Michiru says, and moves to Akira’s desk. Looks at the paper on the top of it. 

“Maybe we shouldn’t have left her alone,” Yachiyo says, looking at the door Akira passed out of. She kind of wants to get out of here. Not to sit with Akira and incur her emotions necessarily, but to process in her head first. To not have to seem like herself in front of other people. 

“She left,” Michiru says, looking up from the paper on Akira’s desk. “Fumi.” There were few other options for them to hold auditions for Frau Jade, but still. Hearing it.

Mei Fan is by her side in an instant, reading the paper over her shoulder. “Approval of school transfer request. School undisclosed? They can’t do that.” She looks between the two of them, bewildered. “They can’t do that, right?”

“They probably know, but won’t pass the information along to us.” 

“Student confidentiality,” Yachiyo says. Michiru nods. 

“Unless we hear it from Fumi directly, we’ll never know.” 

“I’m going to call her,” Mei Fan says, and has her phone out in an instant, already looking through her contacts for Fumi. Yachiyo runs numbers in her head. It’s taking Mei Fan a while, which means she’s not a recent contact, not a recent conversation in her messages. Akira doesn’t text, and Michiru seems to keep contact with such a wide range of people. Probably Yachiyo was the one she talked to most recently of the four of them, but they’d never talked deeply, or kindly. Someone had confessed to Fumi and she’d turned them down, like always. Unkindly. She was always unkind. Obviously you liked her. Why did you have to say it? Makes an awkward situation for the both of them. Michiru would probably have had a conversation about being a good role model, the way they had to be above the student body but not so unattainable (it was Akira’s job to be unattainable. It was their job to fill in the gaps.) Yachiyo had just laughed at the whole thing with her. Fumi’s heart wasn’t in it this time, but Yachiyo’s never was. It’s not kind to be cruel, but Siegfeld is like that. Cruel. It is a school. A means to an end. Fumi had always seemed so representative of Siegfeld’s arrogance and cruelty. Is this part of it? 

“Voicemail,” Mei Fan says, like it’s in any way surprising the runaway Frau Jade would ignore their call. 

“You think after such a tearful goodbye she’d be calling first to say she misses us,” Yachiyo says. Mei Fan glares at her too. She can’t win. She’s not sure what to say right now. She wants to go for a walk, probably. How come Akira gets to go for a walk and not poor Yachiyo? They’d never exactly gotten along. It’s not like her to be upset over it. Fumi’s weak. Too weak for Siegfeld. “What now?”

“Now,” Michiru looks at Yachiyo. Smiles. “Now we rehearse!” It’s forced. They’re all reeling from what happened. Nobody knows how to show it. How to say anything about it properly. She was in class yesterday. In the dorm. Yachiyo had said goodnight to her, and then Fumi had gone to bed. She was sure of it. How can she just be gone today?

“I’m going to call her again,” Mei Fan says, moving towards the door. To the rehearsal room. She’s texting. Probably Fumi.

Yachiyo is pretty sure, for the entire time she knows her, Akira never directly admits it out loud. It is always omitted. Implied in what she will say. But she skips over it. It’s not the same to say the title. It’s not the same to put that space between them.

Akira never says Fumi left.

("I wasn't fit to be a king..."

"I overlooked my realm from the throne, thinking that my power extended to the entire land."

"But I was wrong. My power was limited. I couldn't save anyone."

"That's why I lost my dear friend...")

Akira has some poise, even though her vision goes wobbly and her heart goes white and her legs go hot and wait—no that's not right. It doesn't feel right. She's not sure. Nothing does. She keeps her composure enough to get out of the room. Held it together a surprising amount before, talking to the representative from administration. Michiru will be able to piece together enough information. The paper is still on her desk. Michiru will snoop.

The dorm is quiet. It's usually not. Mei Fan and Yachiyo are usually bustling around in the common room, engaged in some mix of Yachiyo making fun of Mei Fan for simply being herself and Mei Fan fighting against her. Akira's usually the last one back, except sometimes, early on last year, when Fumi would beat her, by moments usually, and get back later.

She checks the room first, like for some reason it wouldn't be as it is. The door is open. It wasn't when she left in the morning. Fumi always kept her door closed, whether she was in the room or not. You had to knock to talk to her. She hadn’t marketed herself an inviting presence. Did she leave in the middle of the night? Did she stay until mid-morning and depart while everyone else was in class? Maybe she had to return—maybe she had forgotten something. When had she moved everything out of the dorm. They used to leave rehearsals together, once upon a time, but as of late Fumi had been returning first, skipping rehearsal when she got scolded too much. When had that started?

(Less than a week ago, Fumi lingered to leave the practice room. Everyone else was returning. Akira stayed. Things have to be perfected.

“Are you staying?” Akira asked. “Your form needs work.” What gets left out. I’d like you to. Akira’s mouth moves of its own accord. It only says the worst of what she means. Fumi’s the kind of person who reads between the lines. It should work. They should work.

“I have something to take care of,” Fumi says. She lets her leave. She doesn’t think about it. Fumi is strong enough. She knows what she needs to do. So she thought.)

The kitchen is, at best, sparsely populated. Calling it a proper kitchen when it’s so small and underused is unfair. There is a very well-beloved microwave, the favored tool of any self-respecting chef. An electric kettle, too. Tea was the primary dish produced in the Edel dorm (coffee, too, once Yachiyo joined). 

Fumi used to cook, sometimes. It’s a numbness that brings Akira in here. If Fumi isn’t in her room, isn’t in the practice rooms, she’s here. Used to be.

(Fumi dragged Akira in, made her stand around, leaning against the doorframe, while she finished up. Proudly forced her to try the soup she’d made. Espousing the wonders of ponzu. Akira’s memory is hazy at best. She was supposed to be preparing—they had an upcoming performance and Akira wasn’t perfect yet. Why had Fumi wasted her time cooking? 

The whole thing felt so inconsequential. Akira has better things to do than try a soup Fumi made. Had better things to do than listen to her talk about ponzu, a sauce Akira decidedly does not care about.

Akira does not remember the taste of the soup, anymore. Why Fumi had found it so important to cook. Flour and water over heat in the pot. Make your own roux. She’d said that? 

Akira tries to remember the taste of the soup.)

Looseleaf tea— a nicer variety—had been a gift from her sister for her birthday, if Akira remembers correctly. Maybe her parents. Maybe an admirer. It’s gone now. Not immediately apparent, but Akira has enough sense about her to notice that there’s less in the fridge, in the shelves. Mostly it’s just pantry essentials—salt, pepper, spices, Akira’s specific spice blend, contained in a vacuum-sealed container she’d been gifted. 

(“It lasts longer this way,” Fumi says.

“I don’t need to hold it for so long.”

Fumi rolls her eyes. “If you buy the spices in bulk they cost less. You’ll save money.” She cared so much about that, back then. Akira didn’t get it. Still doesn’t.)

There’s a jug of milk in the fridge, whatever kind of non-dairy creamer Yachiyo uses in her coffee sometimes. She's moved everything of hers out. Pushed things together, consolidated the spaces, removed herself entirely.

Why is she looking through the fridge? What would she possibly find-

There’s one bottle. A quarter to half filled, Hanamaru Natural Yuzu Ponzu. The brand she always got. One thing forgotten, in a dorm devoid of Fumi.

Akira takes it out of the fridge. It’s cold in her hand. That’s normal for things in the fridge. Things made of glass, that sit in the fridge where it is colder than it is outside to keep them fresh for longer. It is not colder because Akira feels colder.

(“I’m having an off day,” Fumi says, and maybe back then she believed the excuse. She’d made a mistake too many, and Akira was annoyed. They were supposed to be role models for Siegfeld. They were supposed to be role models to Yachiyo and Mei Fan, too.

“We must prove ourselves every day as Edels,” Akira had said. “If you cannot do that, you are not fit to bear the title.”

It was supposed to just be one off day.)

The ponzu bottle doesn’t arc. Time doesn’t slow for its short flight. It’s an action so fast it almost doesn’t register to Akira that she’s done it until it hits the wall. Shatters into smaller pieces, covered with the ponzu, forming a sticky, dangerous puddle on the ground.

It makes her feel a little bit more normal, some how, some way. Akira doesn’t have time to unpack that. Would prefer not to. Michiru will lecture her on making a mess in a public place, then doing a poor job of cleaning it, then just standing there like an idiot while she does the proper job. Akira doesn’t think she could find the words that articulate that she needed to do it, it made her feel better, to throw a bottle of ponzu across the small kitchen and smash it against the wall. 

(“Ponzu,” Akira says, slowly. They’ve only met once before. Michiru said Fumi was good. That Akira would like her. “Sashimi.”

Fumi rolls her eyes. “It’s good on everything.”)

"Hi-hi." Akira jumps. Yachiyo's been there for probably too long, and a shattered bottle with ponzu sticking up the floor is far too incriminating and obvious. It's not like she can talk her way out of it. "Michiru is still watching Mei Fan angry-pace around the practice room." They stare at the mess. "You both seem to be taking this great."

Akira opens her mouth to speak, but finds nothing. She is not taking this great. Yachiyo's sarcastic comment is correct.

"Betrayed the ideals of an Edel, that's what Mei Fan said," Yachiyo continues talking.

Akira finds herself wanting to rebel. Fumi is her friend, was her friend. She wouldn’t- she didn’t-

“She’s-” 

Yachiyo watches her, waiting. Waiting for Akira to say something—for Frau Platin to say something. Up until now, up until this moment, Akira has never felt the difference between Akira Yukishiro, Frau Platin, and Akira Yukishiro, sixteen year-old girl. She’s always been one body, one mind, with the same goal ahead. She’s fraying at the edges. If she makes one wrong move, she’ll break character.

“Akira-san,” Yachiyo says quietly. It feels too close. Like they’re going to break character. Like both of them are going to drop pretenses. Talk earnestly. “Are you-”

“She’s a disgrace,” Akira says, and her voice wavers only because she wants it to. “She should never have been appointed an Edel.”

Michiru said the last time she saw Akira genuinely cry was years ago. She can’t remember how many at this point. “All tears I shed on stage are genuine,” Akira had said, and meant it, and felt affronted at the way Michiru rolled her eyes.

There is a difference. Yachiyo should not see it.

“I can call Michiru-san and get her-”

“No.” It cracks because she wants it to. “I’ll deal with this mess. Leave.”

Yachiyo stares at her for a moment, like she wants to argue, to say something. Akira musters the last of her dignity as Frau Platin.

“I can clean this up,” Yachiyo says instead. “You have things, right?”

She doesn’t. She has no such things. Things are not had—

“Right. Of course.”

Akira lingers at the entrance. She should say something. Her voice will betray her. She’s already betrayed everything. She leaves without a word.

("I couldn't forgive him for dying before me. I couldn't forgive myself for not being able to bring him back to life.")

There's a pile of clothes, clean and half folded, overflowing a laundry basket in one corner, and ten scripts in various states of open-ness scattered across Akira's desk and the floor. That’s two less than last time, Michiru notes, which means Akira's entered the bizarre stress-cleaning stage of her emotions, in which she cleans and yet things never seem to get cleaner. Akira herself is pacing the room, holding a script in one hand, flipping through the pages a tad too fast to imply she's really reading. Ah, one script less than last time.

It's Elysion. Worse yet, it's last year's copy of Elysion.

It's been three days. Akira has not said a word more about the new Frau Jade auditions, but Fumi's departure is known.

"Akira," Michiru says, a warning tone that's enough that Akira pauses, looks at her.

"I texted her."

"Did she reply?" As if she would, doing something like this. Hasn't replied to anybody before, but Akira texting is unique in and of itself. Demands attention. Akira can get Fumi's attention for less. Could.

"No." Of course not. The calls rang to voicemail. Maybe she listened. Maybe she didn't care. Michiru wonders about the sister. Maybe she knows more. Maybe not.

"What went wrong," Michiru asks aloud. Akira doesn't answer. She could. She knew, in bits and parts. She knew something was wrong. She knew and yet she thought-

Had thought. She'd been enough. Siegfeld was enough. Why hadn't it been enough? (But in the end I couldn't save anyone.) The performances they were never going to have.

Akira starts to flip through the script again.

"There aren't answers in there," Michiru says. There aren't. Akira knows that. But there are notes, scribbled into the margins. Research Fumi had done that she'd left for her, notes on her line delivery. On one page a crudely drawn bottle of ponzu.

They’re there on the other scripts too. The previous Frau Platin had been odd. Always took the main roles for herself (as Frau Platin ought to, as Frau Platin always had), but had a tendency to assign every other role based on what seemed most Utterly Hilarious to her that day, hence an exciting performance of Hamlet where Akira and Fumi had to do their best to match the comedic timings of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, something neither of them were particularly apt at doing, it turns out.

There was no secret message in her notes. Nothing for Akira to decode. No forewarning. There was writing on the wall but Fumi had clearly meant it to remain gibberish until she was long gone. But she'd planned it. Her room wasn't just abandoned, it was completely barren. Devoid of anything that belonged to her. Not just of value but otherwise too. Cleaned, sanitized. Perfectly prepared for the new Frau Jade. Could Fumi be so easily replaced? Would anyone match the expectations Akira had for Frau Jade? Was that it? Had Fumi not met them?

Michiru watches her pace. Sighs. "We'll talk about this on Monday. You need time to grieve."

Akira shouldn't. Frau Platin shouldn't. Frau Platin would nothing short of hate Fumi for inconveniencing them with this, blindsiding them, but something's smacked Akira's emotions out of sorts. It’s not normal.

She drops the Elysion script. Rifles around for their copy of Hamlet. Begins flipping. Needs answers.

The piano in the practice room remains untouched. Things feel colder, less open, and the best player is no longer around. Nobody will breach it.

—Where is she, right now?—

Akira used to sit and listen to her play, eyes trained on her hands floating over the keys. It was just a console piano, and a more obnoxious trained musician might complain about invariable sound differences (inferiorities) between it and a proper grand piano. But a console piano is cheaper (when talking in the prices of pianos) and easier to move around (when talking in the weight of pianos). It’s contrivances, either way, in the hands of a skilled player. Fumi looks at ease playing, more so than she ever does, almost as much as Akira feels. Sometimes, she slips into a song Akira knows more specifically. Akira could teach her the steps that go along to it, if she’d let her. But she’d never say it. 

Akira feels very far from the arrogant stage of kings, watching her. She can feel how Fumi would hate her, if she dared say it.

“What do I say?”

“The school's official statement is that you had intended to strip Fumi of her position because she was underperforming and, out of essentially spite and shame, she resigned from school.”

“So we strip her of power in death.”

“Would you rather tell the truth? That the Edels function so poorly we didn't even notice Fumi transferring schools and moving out of the dorm until she was just gone? That she was struggling and nobody noticed?”

Akira has half a mind to talk about the things she did notice—the quieter, more sunken way Fumi held herself. The way her final weeks had felt like acting, something Akira was unfamiliar with. Fumi had always unflinchingly been herself off stage, but the subtle nuances in herself and her performance of that were too obvious for Akira not to notice. Small moments Fumi didn't realize or intend for that ripped back the paint of their being Edels, of the expectations of Siegfeld, and reminded Akira they were both just girls. 

But Fumi was strong. A good stage girl, and Akira had considered her something of an equal. Certainly an adequate rival. It just scared Akira that Fumi could fall like this, nothing more. If she could, why not Akira? 

It is a lie, and it feels fake even as Akira convinces herself of it's validity.

“How do you feel about this?” Akira asks. 

“The pressure of being an Edel was too much for her and she couldn't handle it. It's best she got out when she did, I suppose.”

“But how do you feel?”

“About the same. I should have noticed something.” Michiru says. I should have reached out, Akira thinks but doesn’t say. “She struggled a bit after the final exams first year,” Michiru says. Akira knows this, but lets her tell it like it’s new information anyway. “But she always seemed like the type to bounce back after a blunder like that.”

“Something else happened.” 

“Exactly. But I don’t know what.” Akira has guesses, but keeps them to herself. “She has a younger sister.”

Akira hums. “Shiori Yumeoji. Third year.”

“Bit of an up-and-comer. The teachers are really fond of her, and classmates liked her well-enough on her own, not to mention her older sister having been an Edel. I wonder if she knew anything.” 

“I wonder,” Akira echoes. Fumi talked about her sister, quite a bit at first, and then less and less, as she talked less and less about anything that wasn’t vapid and easy to slide through. Weather, current events, schoolwork (schoolwork Fumi probably wasn’t even trying on at that point. Projects that didn’t matter and tests she didn’t study for). But still, the pride on Fumi’s face when she talked about Shiori, about how she was improving and able to attend school far from home and their doctors, telling her late one night about her illness, during their first year, sitting in the kitchen of the Edel dorm while she made ramen, some super spicy Korean kind they’d found in a convenience store (and wanted to try to see if Akira would find it very spicy). Akira doesn’t remember the taste of the ramen anymore. Doesn’t remember much beyond Fumi’s story. Seeing Elysion by chance on a trip with her father, her sister too sick to leave. Retelling the whole story piece by piece even as she forgot it, making up the bits she couldn’t remember. Creating roles for Shiori to fill. Their promise to perform on the same stage one day. 

How many people had Fumi betrayed without a single word. 

“How do you feel?” Michiru asks.

“I’ve moved on,” Akira says. Michiru looks at her for a moment.

“Good.”

“It suits you,” Akira says, and Yachiyo wants, for just a second, to read between the lines and spaces in Akira’s words. In her silences and pauses and looks. That maybe she had hoped Yachiyo wouldn’t suit the look. That it was Fumi’s to wear. Something that proved that she was meant to be there.

(“I hereby announce...the title of Frau Jade shall be given to one of you, who can prove her ability,” Akira said. Michiru had told Yachiyo to prepare to play both roles. Contingencies). 

But Akira’s look has none of that. Just genuine appraisal, and a cruel part of Yachiyo wants to tell her. That maybe if Akira was hurt by Fumi’s departure, she might still be here.

“You know something,” Akira says, and Yachiyo hums. “Something about why Fumi left.”

“I may have figured some stuff out,” Yachiyo lilts—she’s like that, always lilting or something of the sort—voice light and airy and unconcerned.

“What is it?” Akira asks, stupidly, boorishly, and Yachiyo just laughs.

“It’s not my place to tell,” she says first, as if there’s someone there to sign the Inner Workings Of Fumi’s Mind consent form. “But you don’t want to hear it from me.”

“There’s nobody else to hear it from.”

“She’s not dead, you know. She could be just around the corner. If you left campus once and a while, you might actually run into her.”

“You- Have you-“

“Nope! But I’ve heard around. She goes to school somewhere in the city. Nobody’s figured out where yet.”

“Then why…”

“Something only she knows the specifics of, I’d say.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Apparently a few of the younger sister’s classmates were pestering her for information. This was some which way what she knows from her parents.” Pause. “It’s weird. You’ve never called Shiori-san in to ask her any questions. If anyone’s likely to have heard Fumi-senpai’s reasoning, I’d say it’s her.” Yachiyo looks at Akira, expectantly.

“But she’s not the person I want to hear it from,” Akira says. Yachiyo already knows. It’s an admission she doesn't like making, anyhow.

The realization of it startled Akira, only revelated about in the most insignificant of events. She hates Fumi, sitting in the student council room and painstakingly hand-writing approvals and denials of performance room space. And she wants her to come back, so she can lecture her about her choices. And she wants Fumi to fight back, to push against the ideals Akira holds to be self-evident or plainly, obviously true, and she wants to be able to yell and argue back. Things only Fumi did with her.

She misses her.

There’s a ponzu bottle in the fridge again, even though Akira had thrown them all out after Fumi left. She’s not nearly so bad as her sister, but it seems to be a family trait. 

“She used to visit me sometimes, at the end of the day,” Shiori says. “Everyone in class was really excited that Frau Jade came to visit us.” They’re having tea together, at a small cafe a few blocks away from campus. Shiori likes to do it. It’s nice that they talk, sometimes. Akira doesn’t talk to many people besides Michiru, not in a way that has value, at least. She had thought she talked to Fumi like that, too, but now she wonders if it was only on her end. Fumi had not trusted her with what mattered most. 

“They must be more excited now that Frau Jade is in their class.”

Shiori smiles, bashfully, but pushes past it. “She really liked the attention, I think. And then we’d go to a cafe and have tea.” Not this cafe. Akira wonders if Shiori can’t go there anymore without getting upset. It’s rude to ask, even if she’s curious. It’s Michiru’s voice in her head that tells her this. “She wouldn’t let me pay, even though our parents gave us the same allowance and I never had anywhere else to spend mine.” 

“Perhaps she wanted you to save it to spend with friends.” 

“So did I.” Shiori pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “But she never did.” It stings more than Akira would like it to. 

(Fumi stays with her in the practice room. Everyone else has returned to the dorm, even Michiru, and it’s only because she’s Frau Platin that they can stay so late. The dining hall closes in 20 minutes.

“We should stop.”

Fumi looks at her through their reflection in the mirror. “If you’re tired you can leave. I want to keep going.” They argue. Akira can’t say what she wants to—that they should go and get something to eat. That it might be nice—to just chat. She’s feeling weird, sentimental. Wants to shed the skin of Frau Platin for just a moment.

They stay for another hour. Michiru grumbles and shoves a sandwich into Akira’s hands when she gets back. Does Fumi eat dinner? Who brings it to her?) 

“It’s funny,” Yachiyo says. “Sometimes when I’m half asleep I’ll be going to the bathroom and see Shiori in the hall and think she’s Fumi. Do you ever feel that way?”

“No,” Akira says, because it would be so cruel to Shiori to confuse her with her sister. To do the very thing that seems to cause her so much distress.

It would be so cruel to Fumi to imply that she could be so easily replaced by someone who simply looked similar. To imply she meant so little. Shiori was not her replacement.

Rinmeikan Performance Department Presents: Ghost Patrol
Kibi no Komachi—Tomoe, Tamao
Tsuchimikado Setsuna—Otonashi, Ichie
Ashiya Tsukumo—Yumeoji, Fumi (Guest Performer)
Kiichi Miroku—Akikaze, Rui
Abe no Suiren—Tanaka, Yuyuko

The advertisement presses down on Akira’s skull, wedges somewhere between her humanity and her pain and thumps down, exerting pressure, stretching a canvas in her heart. 

(“Seisho and Seiran haven’t had any unexpected transfers recently,” Michiru says. “So we know she didn’t abandon us for another school.”)

(I couldn’t save anyone.) 

Akira knows that Shiori goes to see Fumi perform. She has half a mind to say something about it, but they're trying so hard to be discreet. Mei Fan and Yachiyo, who help her sneak out the day of the performance.

If Michiru noticed, she says nothing. They say they're going shopping and then to get dinner. It's the Sunday performance. Matinee.

Ghost Patrol. The kind of play only Rinmeikan would perform. It's quaint, historically focused, with a heavy amount of mythology and folklore sprinkled in.

It's not Elysion.

There are equal parts betrayal and relief that fill Akira's heart at the thought. That Fumi has returned to the stage. What was she supposed to say? How was Frau Platin supposed to respond to this? The script does not demand this, and anyway, Fumi was no part of her dream. Her dream was Elysion, with Michiru if with anyone. And it is irrelevant, that Fumi gave up their stage for Ghost Patrol.

Michiru had always been her right-hand man, but Fumi was the rival that stood across her. Shiori, Yachiyo, Mei Fan, Michiru—all, all in their own way too willing to let Akira sit on the throne of king. Fumi wanted to defeat her. Saw her as a surmountable goal. Fumi saw her—

Akira's never even heard of the student representative of Rinmeikan before. Akira couldn't stand to see her on a stage so small. But she lets them go. Shiori has everything to do with her.

(“I have to cover for her because she quit! I have to work harder to prove myself! How can you tell me not to live in her shadow…?”)

Yachiyo and Mei Fan are one on each of Shiori's sides when they get back. Mei Fan tells jokes too loudly for what they've just come from, and Yachiyo is quiet, whispering to Shiori and propelling the three quickly to Shiori's room.

Like they'll somehow go fast enough that she won't notice Shiori's crying.

"Check on them," Michiru commands.

(Fumi tears through a form, trying to erase an error she'd made, scowls, glares at it.

Are you okay is too trite a platitude. Of course not. It's okay that you're not okay is too. I don't know how to help you is a weakness.

"You're wasting paper." Slow down. Take a break. The rest of the sentence is nothing. But it's part of their script. Fumi complains that her inability to fill out paperwork online wastes more paper.

Fumi furrows her eyebrows. "Right."

They deviate. Akira's pen feels heavier in her hand. She must improvise. The scene moves too fast. Fumi picks up another sheet.)

Akira isn't sure there's anything she could say to make Shiori feel better. Mei Fan tries her best to keep Akira out of the room, but it feels half-hearted at best. It's far too easy to brush past her.

They're sitting on the edge of Shiori's bed, Yachiyo with an arm on either side of her, holding her in a kind of side hug and whispering words. Probably comforting ones. Shiori is wiping her eyes, trying to pretend she hadn't been crying, like her eyes aren't actively welling up with tears.

Fumi had never cried. Not in front of Akira. Maybe not at all. Maybe it hadn't hurt to leave.

They unfurl in front of her, all of Akira's failures. Yumeojis. 

"Akira-san, we were, um-"

"I am aware." Mei Fan shrinks.

Akira stands in front of Shiori. The voice in her brain that sounds eerily like Michiru tells her to sit, on the bed, at the desk, on the floor. Anything to not be lording over her, arms crossed, like Shiori's somehow done something wrong.

The voice in her head that sounds eerily like Fumi tells her to stop standing there like a creep and say something. Do better.

"She hates me." Shiori speaks before she can. Bewilderingly.

"She said-"

Yachiyo shakes her head. "We left halfway through." She turns more to Shiori. "She doesn't hate you."

"Why else did she leave?"

"She's an idiot," Akira says. It’s automatic.

"She's not an idiot!" She is though, they’ve both admitted it. Akira keeps her mouth closed. She only gets this angry about Fumi. 

(Three students dropped out of their class within the first month at Siegfeld. Akira's first year. Michiru is understandably empathetic. Siegfeld isn't for everyone, but it's a shame that they get burned by its brilliance. Fumi is far less forgiving. They agree.

"It must be a shame though," Fumi says. "To realize your talent is subpar."

Akira wonders who is racing to keep up.)

"How was it?" Akira asks.

"You can tell their budget was lacking," Yachiyo says. "They did the best with what they had, but a lot of props were reused or repurposed, from years past if not from entirely different shows."

"But the story was good," Mei Fan adds. They even out the other's review. "The special effects were immersive in their utility!"

Shiori hiccups. "It was perfect." Akira sucks in a breath. "She's still-" she chokes out a sob. She doesn't finish, but it's enough. Akira has to say something, even if words like this fall out wrong. Even if she’s always Frau Platin, always lording over them. She chokes down her own desire to cry. Even if they would always misunderstand. She had to find the words that would be enough. She has everything to do with her. She has everything to do with Akira, too, but she can keep that close to her heart.

"We will put on a stage that makes theirs irrelevant." Shiori looks like she wants to argue against her. Yachiyo furrows her eyebrows. Akira knows she’s said it wrong again. “Then she'll have no choice but to acknowledge you."

It seems the Edels weren't the only ones suddenly interested in the Rinmeikan Performance Department. The school is generally abuzz on Monday with the kinds of things that usually never get to Akira. From what little she can glean, and what is passed along through Yachiyo and Michiru, more than a few people went to Rinmeikan's show to see if Fumi was as washed up as one would presume.

The verdict: Siegfeld had been holding Fumi back.

Akira would prefer a collection of knife wounds directly in the chest.

The mood in the Edel dorm is rather electric, following the revue with Rinmeikan. Mei Fan and Yachiyo lead the cheer, and Michiru joins in the revelry. Shiori is subdued, conflicted, a mix of emotions about Fumi so painfully obvious on her face. Akira tells them to prepare for the next revue. To face Seisho. They can’t be so stuck on their existing accomplishments. Always look ahead to the next stage. It falls on deaf ears.

“And then Ruirui looked at me and said ‘don’t talk about Tamao-senpai like that!’ God she’s kinda scary when she’s mad,” Yachiyo says with a laugh and an impression of Rui’s voice that can best be described as laughable.

“It’s not good to be a sore winner!”

“What’s the big deal? Ruirui is funny. Hey, you know, I think you just don’t like it because you feel the same way about-”

“Yachiyo! You know that’s not true!”

“Why interrupt me, then.”

“You had a tough time against Yuyuko-chan, huh?” Michiru said, cutting into their conversation, so they won’t have to watch Mei Fan chase Yachiyo around the coffee table yet again.

“That’s-”

“To be expected! It’s what I’d heard about Yuyuko-chan,” Michiru says, pushing past Mei Fan’s flustered excuses. “She looks, seems, and even says she’s uncaring, but actually works as hard as any Stage Girl. Appearances can be very deceiving.”

“Right!” Mei Fan jumps on her story to save herself from what she imagines is an incoming Akira lecture about never underestimating your opponent. Akira will hold off. They did win. She will prepare her lecture and give it tomorrow. Put proper effort into the whole thing, to match the effort they put into the revue.

“I’ll tell you what, though. At one point, Ruirui’s got me on the ground, and she’s about to take me out. Full sword slash. Pretty sure it would actually kill me, but all I’m thinking about is the revue, and how I cannot be the one to lose. The death is insignificant. Kill me, sure, but don’t touch the cape, right? And then...”

“Shiori,” Akira says quietly, not cutting Yachiyo off. Only talking to her.

“Huh?”

“Would you like to get tea?”

“I, um, yeah.” Akira follows her to the kitchen. Yachiyo and Mei Fan don’t notice, too engrossed in Yachiyo’s story of her duel with Akikaze. Michiru gives Akira an approving nod.

“How do you feel?” Shiori asks, leaning against the counter space the tea kettle has been allotted to, waiting for the water to boil. "About winning." She’s got a nice blend today, something her parents sent that she’d been saving for a special occasion. Akira’s pretty sure she’s seen the packaging before. Shiori frets over not making enough for everybody, but the tea is an excuse. Something she knows Shiori finds comforting. They’re supposed to have a conversation. Akira will provide a guiding voice (“Comfort,” Michiru says, sounds tired. “You’re supposed to provide comfort.”). She will direct Shiori to greater performances.

“We now move on to the next performance,” Akira says. She ought to be happy, winning. Rinmeikan—Fumi and Tomoe—they prove inferior. It’s all they can do. But in her victory, she’s been defeated by the one thing she cannot ignore. Fumi has returned to the stage, but it is not her stage. It should be enough that she performs again, even if Fumi will never come back. Even if Akira wants her to. Even if Akira swallowed her pride and asked her to. “We become better.” 

She doesn’t say Rinmeikan is an inferior opponent. That will upset Shiori. She doesn’t say Rinmeikan shouldn’t have been that inferior an opponent, that will make Shiori even more upset.

Fumi used to belong at Siegfeld.

“Yukishiro-senpai,” Shiori starts, with a quiet uncertainty Akira hasn’t heard since she was first appointed Frau Jade. “Sometimes I don’t know if I want to move to the next performance.” Akira isn’t sure what to say. “That- that’s not- I didn’t mean-”

“It’s difficult. I know.”

“She didn’t even look at me,” Shiori says, finally. The Rinmeikan formation had been bad for a reason. Akira was surprised by it. They’d faced other schools already, both of them had. They shouldn’t have left so many open spots—spots Fumi could have, should have filled. Ways they could have moved that wouldn’t have made them so vulnerable. But she avoided them. Otonashi took up most of Shiori’s time and Akira was so fixated on humiliating Tomoe she had almost forgotten Fumi was there. Who had she gone up against. Michiru? 

Rinmeikan had gone out of its way to make sure Fumi didn’t have to face Shiori.

“Why can’t she stand to see me?” Shiori asks, and Akira at least knows, now, that it’s rhetorical. She doesn’t have to answer. Shiori doesn’t think she’d know. She needs to say it, or it’ll spill over in worse ways, in worsening schoolwork or rehearsal time, in making more mistakes than normal and feeling more frustrated at herself for making them. Akira will let her say it, even though every time she does Akira wishes she could answer, and berates herself for not figuring it out. For not at least being someone Fumi could have trusted.

(What had Fumi needed to say? What hadn’t she said?

A part of Akira, small and stupid and crushed beneath the hydraulic press that prevents her from having stupid little teenager thoughts that aren’t befitting of Frau Platin, wonders if Rinmeikan’s formation had meant kept her and Fumi apart as well. Would Fumi be able to stand to see her in a revue?) 

“It feels like no matter what I do, I can’t catch up to her,” Shiori says.

(In their first year, Fumi had a self-assuredness in her abilities that took even Akira back. An arrogance she didn’t know how to handle. Even as Akira got assigned Frau Platin, even as she was rightfully placed on her throne, she couldn’t shake the feeling that all this time, it hadn’t been Fumi desperately keeping up with her. Desperately trying to overcome her.)

“For now,” Akira says. “If that’s your goal.”

“What?”

“For now, if that’s your goal, just to catch up with Fumi, that’s okay.”

Shiori goes silent for a moment. “What if I can’t?”

“You will.”

“If I can’t?”

“On my honor as Frau Platin, I will make you achieve that goal.” 

“Just to reach her?” Because Akira should be demanding she set her sights higher, as high as possible. But Akira is learning. Akira is trying to learn.

“Once you reach that height, I cannot imagine you will want to stop.”

Shiori smiles at her. It’s small, bashful. “Thank you, Yukishiro-senpai.”

Akira nods. “It is my duty as Frau Platin.” Because that’s easy to say. Very her. It’s her duty as Shiori’s upperclassman, generally. It’s her duty as Shiori’s friend, too, although perhaps this is a one-sided friendship. Shiori likely has many more people to talk to outside of the Edels, outside of Michiru and anybody else who is willing to tolerate Akira’s eccentricities. It’s her duty as the other person Fumi left behind.

They save Starlight. Shiori tries to be strong. She is strong, in her own way, a way Akira sometimes mistakes as weakness. Akira is proud of her. She likes to imagine Fumi is, too, covertly glancing at them across the stage. 

(Fumi had left a note, detailing the historical background of Elysion. It was Siegfeld's most famous play, and the original author—name lost to time—had journals full of notes, plans that got scrapped, initial drafts, sketches.

Fumi had read all of them. Told Akira the most interesting bits. Akira had read them initially. 

She's returning to them now. Rereading them, like she'll be able to tell Fumi's past through a story. She has no other choices.)

Akira likes Shiori. She’s nice, patient, a little awkward (and overly apologetic for it, as if Akira is a bastion of good conversation and she’s somehow the dead weight). She’s nothing like Fumi. The silences stretch out longer. Akira has to start conversations more. She’s not sure Shiori has a judgmental bone in her body. They look alike, she supposes, in the way one would expect a sibling to look like another sibling.

They run scenes together. Michiru expects her to become a role model for Shiori. They are all finding ways to fill a void that Fumi left. This is Akira’s.

“How was that?” Shiori asks. They’re getting water.

“Better.”

(“You can’t even say it was good?” Fumi scowls. “Is it so hard for you to just give a compliment.”

“I won’t flatter you with false praise.” Fumi glares at her. “We’re aiming for perfection.” When she says it, it’ll be sincere.)

Shiori beams.

“It’s good.” The word is choked out. It is a word so mediocre.

“I won’t stop until it’s perfect.”

Michiru had made a joke once, in front of Akira but not at her, to a few underclassmen who had said just one thing wrong, that she ought to write a user manual for understanding how Akira functioned. Like a keyboard but the keys are all mapped differently, she had said. Like your first time using a Mac after only using a PC and things are just slightly off. Command instead of control. Akira had scowled. It’s not quite fair, she thinks, to compare herself to a computer.

(“What happened?” Akira asks.

“I don’t know. I messed up.”

“I am aware.” Fumi refuses to make eye contact. Glares straight ahead. “Siegfeld isn’t the place for mistakes like this.”

“I know.” The script is fraying. “It won’t happen again.” 

It does.)

It feels more apt now. She’d like a copy herself.

“Yukishiro-senpai?” Shiori is staring at her. What? Were they talking? “Would you like to take a break?”

She’s not tired, not really. She could keep going. Maybe Shiori could too.

“That would be fine,” Akira says.

(“Take a break,” Fumi says. Raises an eyebrow at Akira. It’d be challenging if she didn’t look concerned. Akira’s been here since morning, since before Fumi even woke up. She’d say it wouldn’t be satisfying, to only finally dethrone Frau Platin because she’d overworked herself to inferiority. Fumi will beat her because she’s better, not because Akira had made herself worse.

“This is nothing.” Fumi sighs. Doesn’t believe her. Doesn’t stop her.)

They are nothing alike, the Yumeojis.

Mei Fan is the only one who never wants to talk about or address the Yumeoji problem. At least not with Akira. They both dealt with their feelings separately, in their own equally boar-headed ways. Michiru always wanted to talk through feelings, always felt Akira’s process of crushing anything she didn’t immediately like or understand in the hydraulic press of her mind was “bad for her,” psychologically speaking. Yachiyo was frequently, blatantly, trying to steer the conversation towards Fumi, or the ponzu bottle, or the possible psychoanalytical possibilities the two of those had together (“you weren’t held enough as a child,” Yachiyo nods solemnly, and Akira runs the mental math on her probability of getting away with murder). Shiori, well, she’s a special case. She’s allowed to do anything she wants in relation to Yumeoji matters. In fact, she’s the reigning magistrate on them. 

Mei Fan and her made a silent agreement they would just never talk about it. It’s easier. She’s not sure what she could say to her. Would talking about Fumi lower Mei Fan’s opinion of her? A weakness so glaring and obvious.

If Frau Platin is uncaring about everything that is beneath her, what does it say that she cares about the failed Frau Jade? It is a weakness Akira is trying to crush in her mind, but it clings to the walls. She cannot escape it.

Shiori’s steps seem lighter. Not by much, but enough. Akira knows the vague facts of the matter—she had a revue with Fumi. They fought. Saijou mediated.

Fumi doesn’t hate Shiori.

It should be enough. It’s enough for Shiori (at least, for now), but it doesn’t fix the curl that started in Akira’s stomach the second she’d heard Fumi’s name was on the Rinmeikan playbill.

(It’s enough that Fumi is performing again. It’s enough that she wasn’t driven from the stage entirely. It’s all Akira can ask for, that she still stands on stage. 

It runs like a mantra in her head. Fake, hollow, convincing someone. Akira doesn’t know who.)

It leaves more questions. Opens the door to more confusion, and whatever small amount of relief Akira had felt that she hadn’t run Fumi off the stage completely curdles into even more resentment. Tomoe’s stage, Rinmeikan’s stage, what is it compared to Elysion if not less? A stage where good is the best she can hope for, perhaps. Far from the noble stage of kings.

There are worse thoughts, crueler thoughts, ones that feel like they belong to someone else. Wonder as to if Fumi is bringing down Rinmeikan’s stage. What good is a coward on stage?

And what good is the stage fit for a coward? 

(Fumi performed again at Rinmeikan. She stood up on the stage again.

...That alone is all I can ask.)

She wants to ask for more.

Akira watches Tomoe far more than she’d care to admit. Far more than she should, far more than is reasonable. If she were watching a more adequate stage girl, perhaps she would be worth paying such close attention to. Like Tendo, or Kocho.

There is something Akira needs to find though, in Tomoe, in her vast inferiority. Akira must wade through it all, the worse response times to ad-libs, her lack of ambition or conviction, the way she lets her costars stew in their present abilities, never pushing them further. Akira must wade through Tomoe’s abilities to find what she lacks.

Perhaps it’s very much that inferiority. Fumi liked taking care of people. Reveled in the times when Mei Fan or Yachiyo didn’t know how to do something and needed help—she was a good teacher, too, back before she got worse and worse at everything.

She’s thankful the shadow isn’t here for this performance, these rehearsals. She’d heard, without meaning to (Michiru had rambled during dinner), about Akikaze challenging Hanayagi for how she treated Tomoe.

Inevitably, Akira would say yes. Inevitably, one of them would get hurt. Inevitably, it would get back to Fumi.

Did she like it when she knew something they didn’t? Did she stand on Rinmeikan’s stage because it didn’t demand she strive higher the same way Siegfeld’s did? (It does. Akira just can’t see it.) If she only stands on their stage because she’s already above it, because it’s inferior to their own-

Akira gives up. She needs to focus. She cannot read Fumi’s mind. She never could.

Akira catches things in spurts, unintentionally. The Rinmeikan Performance Department has closed down—had a while ago? Had just now? They have a Performance Association now. A club. Fumi is still performing in it, even though it’s just a club. 

What’s her stage now? What stage does she stand on? Where is it? 

“Mei Fan.” They’re rehearsing. “Take a break.” 

“I can get this,” Mei Fan says. Her brow is furrowed, she’s been at it for an hour nonstop, hasn’t stopped for water, barely even stopped to breathe, it feels. 

“Take a minute,” Akira repeats. Her voice holds enough command. Mei Fan stops.

“Right.”

When Mei Fan gets frustrated she gets worse. She locks up more, struggles to seem fluid and in control. Movements that should be sharp and precise become jerky and approximated. She needs to take a minute to calm down. Akira is not like Yachiyo, she cannot make Mei Fan relax when she’s riled up.

“You will get it,” she says.

“It’s not getting better.”

“In weight lifting, giving muscles time to rest is as beneficial as working them out,” Akira says, knows the confused look Mei Fan inevitably gives her. She pushes through. “Stage girls are the same.”

“As muscles?”

“Time spent resting is as important as time spent rehearsing. It gives you the opportunity to reflect on what you’ve done, and relax, and allows your brain to store everything in your long-term memory.” The short-term memory can only remember 5-7 things before it starts to forget them. It’s why chunking is such a good memory strategy—helps you remember more. She’d been reading about it recently. Or Michiru had, and thought it was fun to share over dinner while Akira tried to shovel her food as quickly as possible to get back to rehearsing.

Mei Fan, in spite of clearly trying to stop herself, laughs. Akira stiffens, but sees the way her shoulders untighten slightly. “Stage girls are muscles.”

“And a play is the body,” Akira responds.

“Who would say something like that?”

(“Akira-senpai isn’t like other girls,” Yachiyo is telling Shiori, loud-whispering so Akira could hear her. Meant for her to. “She’s worse.”)

Mei Fan nods to herself. “I like it.” 

Shiori is beaming, approaches Akira first. 

“She saw me perform,” she says. 

"Ah." There is nobody else she could be talking about.

"At the mall. Yachiyo told her about the performance. I wanted to, but I hadn't spoken to her since the revue and I was worried."

"How was it?" Shiori frowns. How was what? It says but doesn't ask. "The performance." Meeting with Fumi. Talking to her again.

"She said it was really good. I think it went really well, too. Yachiyo-senpai helped me get over what was holding me back in performing, and I could use my emotions to improve my performance at the same time."

"Yachiyo is a skilled Edel."

"Yeah, she's a good friend." Shiori understands. “She made us all dinner after, even though Yachiyo-senpai and Ebisu-san said she didn’t have to,” Shiori continues, bashful again. “She wanted to thank them for taking care of me. She’s gotten better at cooking. I think she refuses to get take-out, even when it would be more convenient, unless she’s bringing something home from her job. Her apartment is nice too, but it’s small. It’s definitely—she’s definitely on her own. It’s good I have other upperclassmen to help look after me, so she can focus on herself, but I guess shouldn’t those other upperclassmen also? Maybe I’m being too silly about this. Am I rambling?”

“I’m glad the two of you have made up,” Akira says, and means it. And locks away the part of her that is jealous and angry that Fumi would never afford her the kindness she afforded to Frontier.

Maybe Fumi thinks the best way to thank Akira for taking care of Shiori is to leave her alone. To never cross the line she created by leaving.

Akira and Fumi fight, and Fumi wins, and it doesn’t hurt. Maybe a little bit, the way the sting of losing always hurts, but Akira doesn’t really know what to do when overwhelmingly, she feels okay. 

They return to a rapport Akira is familiar with. It’s been months since Fumi left, since the script had become drenched and waterlogged and unreadable. It shouldn’t matter. She’s memorized it. She knows how they work. She can interact with Fumi, who doesn’t think she’s a fool but sometimes babies her (sometimes babies everyone) without realizing it.

She’s on step six of explaining to Akira how to clean their water to make sure it’s potable (a process that’s become second nature to all of them), when Lalafin points it out, laughing at how silly it is to watch Akira sit through the entire lecture like a child being explained how to tie their shoes.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Fumi asks, red in the face from embarrassment. She hadn’t realized it. Akira had said something that caused her to, instinctively, go into her explanation.

“A refresher course is always useful,” Akira answers, because she can’t say she missed hearing Fumi’s voice. That she likes listening to her talk. 

“Just do it yourself,” Fumi huffs, and stalks off to Lalafin and Kaoruko’s snickering. 

Akira knows this script. Fumi isn’t mad at her. She likes this small familiarity.

"You were in a re live with my sister?" Shiori asks, alarmed.

Akira blinks up. She's watching old performance recordings in the common room. "She told you?"

"You didn't?"

"It did not seem pertinent?" 

It's a baffling thing to say, at least to Shiori, who immediately takes a seat beside Akira. She should pause the video. Her hand feels heavy. She hadn't discussed with Fumi what she should or shouldn't say to Shiori. It's too late to contact her now. "Did anything happen? Did you fight?"

So Fumi hadn't mentioned it. She supposes she ought not to, either.

"We were on a deserted island with a few other Stage Girls. Hanayagi and Kagura from Seisho, Nonomiya from Frontier. Everything is fine." Shiori frets. She worries and talks, stumbling through her words and thoughts. It's cute. It's familiar—it's like Fumi, but not. The way they fret is different. Still. Maybe now, Shiori would like to hear something like that. Fumi had fret too, when Nonomiya had accidentally whacked her directly in the stomach with her makeshift hammer, in spite of Akira's many reassurances she was perfectly all right, and that Nonomiya had a good swing to her.

("You sound like my dad!" Nonomiya had said with a laugh.

"Stop encouraging her." Fumi frowned at Akira. "You could seriously get hurt.")

"You're both all right? You really didn't get hurt?"

"I assure you, nothing in particular happened," Akira says, like a liar. "We are both Stage Girls. We are mature." Like she hadn't refused to trust Fumi until they came to blows. Like she hadn’t been able to congratulate Fumi on returning to the stage until Fumi beat her, proved she wasn’t at Rinmeikan because it was an inferior stage. Until Fumi had proved to her that she’d improved in leaps and bounds Akira could never have imagined.

"That's what worries me," Shiori mumbles. 

"Do you think something happened?"

"You don't like Onee-chan very much."

"That's not…" Akira frowns. "I was unhappy when she left. In spite of the distance between us, she was a trusted friend." 

("Do you do anything besides theater?" Fumi asks. She's playing the piano. Chopin. It's their first year.

"I enjoy spicy food."

Fumi laughs at it. It hadn't been a joke. Akira stands behind her, watching her back as she plays. She stops, turns around. "Sit down," she commands, and moves over on the bench. "You look like a teacher hovering over me.")

"Is she still?"

Akira's eyes linger on the paused television for a moment. "I don't know."

She goes to the Ghost Patrol revival with Shiori. The other Edels go too. Yachiyo makes Mei Fan swear, in front of all of them, that she will not cause undue problems for Shiori by picking a fight with Fumi. Or anybody else from Rinmeikan.

"Why?"

"You're the most likely to start a fight."

"That's stupid! Tell her this is stupid!" Mei Fan turns to the other three. Akira slides her coat over her shoulders. Next to her, Shiori giggles.

"You're dodging the question," Shiori tells her. Mei Fan splutters.

"Fine, Akira-senpai?" Yachiyo looks at her.

"On my honor as Frau Platin, I will cause no issues for Shiori at this performance." Everyone had been surprised she’d even agreed to attend. They'd felt comfortable enough to discuss it in front of her, but the invitation had likely been a politeness at best. "This is important to Shiori." It's important to her, too, but she leaves it out.

“See? If Akira-senpai can do it, so can you.” 

“You have my word as well!” Michiru says.

“You’d be too nice to do something like that,” Shiori replies.

“You have tact,” Yachiyo adds, more aptly.

They wring a promise out of Mei Fan eventually. She’s only a little upset they demanded it of her.

Akira settles beside Shiori at Rinmeikan’s theater. Rinmeikan is weird. A weird school, a weird place to visit. Frontier demands a level of severe secrecy to not be discovered. If anybody at Rinmeikan recognized them as Edels, they sure as hell didn’t give a damn. 

One person did approach Shiori, said she looked just like her classmate. A short, painful conversation later, Fumi’s classmate leaves with a nod of “yep. Two Yumeojis.”

They are experiencing the anonymity of just being teenagers. Of being like everyone else. When was the last time Akira had felt this way? Had she ever? She felt more likely to be recognized for having at least half a dozen arbitrary records across the city (various food related challenges which, when accidentally mentioned in passing by the owner, became necessary mountains for Frau Platin to conquer). The things that usually made Michiru roll her eyes when Akira returned to the dorms with a new t-shirt for a local joint she had only visited by chance.

(Who are you outside of being Frau Platin? If you strip all of that away, what is left?

Someone had asked her that once. She cannot remember.)

Tsukumo talks about only breeding a demon against herself. She fools herself into thinking Fumi's eyes are just scanning the audience. That she’s not staring directly at them. Shiori takes in a shuddered breath next to her.

Setsuna saves her. She can live again. Lead lodges itself inside Akira's throat. When Fumi takes her bows with the rest of Rinmeikan, Akira worries it will solidify.

They go backstage after the show. Mei Fan says something, Yachiyo makes fun of her, Shiori laughs and wipes the tears from her eyes. Akira was only just noticing the way these things were more intentional. How Yachiyo and Mei Fan both were working together to make her laugh. So she feels better. So she can meet her sister without crying. When has she started noticing? Has she become a better Frau Platin?

Fumi meets them near the entrance, with the ball of pink fluff that seems to be permanently lodged in her side. Akira stands near the back of the group, knows her place in all this. Shiori talks a mile a minute, trying to say everything as soon as she can, before forgetting. Akira's never heard her like this before, even when talking about animals. Maybe if she talked to Fumi about animals she'd go even faster. That might be something, but she can't say that out loud. Can't incur that lecture from Michiru (maybe Yachiyo, too. Does that count as making things difficult for Shiori?) She could see Tomoe out of the corner of her eye, not thrilled about their presence, but accepting it. Shiori is fine, but the rest of them? Akira doesn't know why they've come, either.

(She used to sit in the Edel common room with Fumi, after performances. They'd unpack their show together, critique each other. Michiru joined them at first, but they were too thorough for her. It could wait till morning. Stage crazies, she'd call them.

She only spoke to Fumi during the re live.)

"What did you think?" Akira blinks. She's alone. With Fumi. Otonashi has taken Michiru and is showing her around just about every little thing in the classroom they’ve converted to a backstage costume room. Yachiyo has seemed to find something very funny about Tomoe's shadow that she needs Mei Fan for right now immediately.

"Where did..." Akira looks for Shiori.

"Yuyuko wanted to show her something."

"Shouldn't you go?”

Fumi shakes her head. "Yuyuko gets embarrassed easily. If she wants to just show just Shiori, I'll let her."

“I see.” There’s a chasm between them. Stretching out for miles. When does it form? Where does it end? Who took the hacksaw to the bridge that connected them? Fumi. Fumi had. She’d left without a word, without thinking it worth it to even say goodbye. But still, it feels more and more like she’s still able to bridge. If Akira moves, she’ll die.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” Fumi asks. “Outside.”

(“You lost an eye to protect me...It’s all my fault!” Who had said that? It’s all my fault.)

“That sounds fine.” 

Rinmeikan is nice. It’s something Akira must admit, begrudgingly, inside her own head at the very least. It straddles the line between antique and decrepit, but still. There is a charm all its own.

“Ichie fell here,” Fumi says, at a spot that is so utterly and completely devoid of meaning or indicators. “Slipped in mud. She had been messing with me.”

Frau Platin, the King of the Edels, King of Siegfeld, lords over the school. On a throne most can’t even come near. Fumi Yumeoji, fallen star though she is, does not.

“She deserved it.” It’s meant to be a question. It does not come out like it.

“She could have gotten hurt.” Fumi likes to take care of people. Akira knows she will never be someone who lets Fumi take care of her without a fight. Frau Platin’s weaknesses aren’t meant to be presented to anybody. Fumi is not an Edel, either way. “What did you think of the play?” She asks again.

(“If you hadn’t laughed and stayed beside me, I wouldn’t have been able to stay myself.” It hadn’t been enough just to be there. Akira thought it would be enough just to be there.)

“You used projection mapping from Frontier,” Akira says.

“We couldn’t afford it on our own.” She’s annoyed. “They lent it.” Akira can’t compare this to another stage. She can’t say she thought it made it better than their initial run, she doesn’t know. She knows Shiori cried—she can’t say Shiori cried. It’s not her place. Fumi will fret. It’s cool today, not cold. Her jacket is a good idea. 

Good job returning to the stage —she’s already said that. Fumi’s been on stage again for a while at this point. I liked it —did she? Did she like seeing Fumi perform on stage while seated in the audience? It would be unfair to lie. But the whole truth, laid out like that. She isn’t good at this, but she has to try.

“You were brilliant.” It is not a lie. It is the truth. She’s not sure she’s ever told Fumi that, before.

“Everyone was,” Fumi says. “We all worked hard. Rui choreographed most of the fight scenes. Yuyuko rewrote the script.”

It is far from the noble stage of kings. Akira cannot tell in what direction. Maybe there are no directions. Maybe it is simply not nearby. A direction is relative to a point of reference. Their points of reference no longer overlap. Fumi is glowing as she talks about the other Rinmeikan students. She’s proud of them. Is this what her Frau Platin would have been? 

“It was a stage only Rinmeikan could perform,” Akira says. 

“You didn’t have to come.” She’s messed up again. Fumi changes the steps of her dance on a whim. Expects Akira to know how to keep up. That’s what it feels like. Is this how it felt?

(“In the end, I couldn’t save anyone.”)

“I wanted to. Even if Shiori hadn’t invited me.” She is trying to bridge the gaps.

“This isn’t a joke.”

Akira stops. “I’m trying to support you.”

“I don’t need your support.” Fumi turns, a few steps ahead. Glares at her.

“But I want to give it to you.” Akira blinks once, then twice. Frau Platin would handle this stoically. Bravely. She isn’t some stupid teenager, struggling through her emotions. Her voice will not waver. She will not cry over being misunderstood.

(“And when I was about to cross over into the underworld, the captain and the others told me that it wasn’t my time yet.”) 

Fumi sighs. “I’m sorry. I always assume the worst, don’t I?” Akira feels like a stupid teenager.

“I’m not good at my feelings,” Akira says, and it feels so utterly stupid. Shiori had told her it was nice to hear her talk more like a person and less like the idol she was ascribed by the student body of Siegfeld. Fumi had always wanted to take her down a peg or ten. She cannot bridge the gaps.

“I didn’t know you had them,” Fumi says. She’s smiling but it’s fake. It’s a joke. Akira knows that. It’s not supposed to sting like it isn’t. Akira cannot smile back, even if it’s fake. “Shiori brings out the best in people.”

Finally, she finds a place in the script.

“So do you.” Fumi shines on her new stage. And she does what she’s always done best. She doesn’t have the words for it yet, but as long as Fumi still shines like that. For now it will be enough.

(My days spent with you were fun. Really. I won’t say goodbye.)