Chapter Text
45.00°: First Date | Home
She might have found the coincidence funny if she hadn't found it so poetically sad. But then poetry always involved both masks, didn't it? The laughing and the crying. The comedy and the tragedy. In the end, her life had trundled down those rails of someone else's story: lost in her brother's shadow for years in Shinjuku without a role of her own, finally trying to conduct her own train only for the Angel to derail it, suffocating her in the back with the cargo for three long, long years, and now finally—finally!—emerging only to find the rails ripped up. The train couldn't budge forward anymore. Only backwards up the tracks she'd already been, coughing up smoke in reverse.
Oh, she'd followed Shiba, Hishima, and Kaie back to her city's ruins. The heroine of Shinjuku, her brother had called her here and there, in the years between her first death and his final one. But nothing about her felt particularly heroic.
What she had managed to do, after all? Send distorted, confusing, anxiety-inducing Trailers out of desperation? Help convince Shiba, surely, but even then Hishima had done the bulk of that. What had she managed to do but let her puppeted husk patrol around Shibuya for three years like a hollowed-out engine conducted by someone else's hands on a track of someone else's choosing?
No, no heroine of Shinjuku. Side heroine, perhaps. Fit to support the heroics of others. Fit to smile and wave, wear her high school uniform, and make amends.
Just in the name of normalcy. For herself. For others.
She couldn't even walk the streets of Shibuya without the sudden squeezing in her beatless chest, without the sudden icy fingers stroking down from her nape to the small of her back, curtains of all-too-familiar darkness closing over her vision, her body jerked along into convulsions by the thousand invisible strings that had spasmed her muscles against her will for three years. Couldn't even look at the mascot of what could become the most popular brand in the city, possibly the country, even the world. Couldn't even—
So she went back to Shinjuku. The UG's reconstruction began. She busied herself in what she called recovery in her room at headquarters. The old pictures of cats and such she might have once kept vanished from her walls. In their place she found something to do with her hands. Carvings of pine. The solidness of the wood in her palm, the heaviness of its freight and roughness of its surface that gradually gave way to something light, smooth, and beautiful. The knife, the 𝑣-tool, the chisel, working into the wood, chipping away at the blocks, every slice and scraping and gouging out another brief moment of pain to come ever closer to the beautiful wood carving she could visualise just beneath the surface.
Like one of her Trailers, really. Visualising it, picturing it, Imagining it, and then finding the track that led towards the Trailer as much as Kanade Rindo had laid down the tracks that led away from the Trailers he'd seen.
Because she could only ever trundle along those rails someone else had laid down. A side heroine.
That first year, she spent so, so much time alone in her room. Recovery. Yes, she had called it that, hadn't she? Recovery, by herself, bringing up the courage and the strength to smile and thank Shiba, Hishima, and Kaie whenever they visited, whenever they updated her on how Shinjuku had come along, whenever Shiba's bombastic fires collapsed into embers of guilt and she had to comfort him. Of course he hadn't intended to hurt her. Of course he had done the right thing by helping the Wicked Twisters in the end. Of course he could recover from this: from leading a city into Inversion and killing all of its inhabitants, from dragging hundreds of Players through over a hundred and four weeks' worth of despair, from leading to the deaths of even their former friends.
Ayano, she had grieved long. Big Su, she—
Shiba really, genuinely could recover. Could become better. Could seek to never make the same mistakes again. Yet in those moments when she rubbed his back and listened to him whisper despondently of how badly he had hurt her, of how he had done nothing to deserve any of this kindness, of how he had done all of these awful things to her and so how could she possibly treat him with so much compassion, she could only find herself saying that she wanted nothing more than for things to return to normal.
And Hishima. Hishima, who never let the flickers of shame cloud his features, but who had—she could tell—tried to walk some path of atonement for his inaction. He had volunteered to take the Conductor's seat after the four of them had agreed that Shiba did not need the seat of power again, that it would do nothing for his recovery. He had led much of the reconstruction work, at least the parts they could manage to do from the UG, and had taken up liasoning with the Composer more formally to arrange what the Angels would need to finish. The guilt that left his expression unruffled trembled his hands instead, and so she sought to hold them, her fingers warm on his frigid knuckles, to remind him that he had nothing to atone for either.
He hadn't acted then, yes. He hadn't intervened. But he acted now. He interevened now. And that mattered.
The now mattered. Why, then, did her body seem stuck rutting down those same broken length of rail, accidentally looping again and again?
And Kaie. Dear, sweet Kaie, who sent her good mornings and good evening stickers every day, who fashioned her and her dear friend an app just so that the two of them could talk privately without fear of anyone else—even those upstairs—checking in. She had offered him a hug in gratitude; he had declined it with a smiley kaomoji, and they had both understood how much they meant to one another. Programming, he had told her, functioned a little bit like a private language, like a secret poetry. Maybe with this, she, too, could regain the words that she had lost.
Maybe with this, too, she could develop her own private poetry again.
But nothing would ever be normal again, would it?
Nothing would ever be normal again.
She had died all over again, and this time, no posthumous reunion with those she thought she had lost awaited her. This time her brother really was gone. Forever.
The private poetry she'd had with her brother—when he had called her the heroine of Shinjuku—she would never speak to anyone's understanding ever again. Nor what she had had with Big Su: not the Def Märch songs they had karaoked so much time together, heads banging until they both wobbled from dizziness; not the music they made together, their voices mingling between the bass and the drums, the lyrics strewn with references to monochrome, to snaking rails, to broken boards, to puffing locomotives, to deer and crane just to poke fun at one another; not the jokes that had developed little by little over the years they'd known one another, building up the rails together until the tracks crisscrossed from him to her and vice versa.
Never, ever, ever, would she hear her brother's disappointed sigh when she derailed their baking again. Never, ever, ever would she tickle Big Su's side when he suddenly stopped and stared at some incoming brightness, a deer in headlights.
Never, ever, ever, would she ever feel her brother's hand on her head. Never, ever, ever, would she ever feel Big Su's arms around her in the tightest of hugs.
And her Trailers only ever showed her the rails to come. Never, ever, ever could she go backwards. When she did have something like Trailers of the past—at night, when she slept with every single light in her apartment on, or during day, when she caught a glimpse of an advertisement outside for the brand that had done nothing wrong and yet which she couldn't stomach—those Trailers only ever repeated the same short section of track, like a skipping CD, over and over again. The darkness, the cold, the pain that left her staring at the nothingness on the ceiling and trying to calm the jittering of the nerves burning up her limbs.
Nothing would ever be normal again.
Even if she could fold a thousand paper cranes, even if she could carve a thousand cranes from pine, those three long years had sliced and scraped and gouged out the wood of her body. Not a crane at all. Not even one who could return Shibuya's favour. Just a tiny bird in a tiny tree, clinging desperately to its branches.
She'd lost her appetite for meat. The taste, the smell. The acrid bile that climbed up the back of her throat made her shudder, made her push her plate apologetically away, made her smile with such sorrow at inconveniencing her friends who had spent so much effort preparing such wonderful meals for her, done up in the plum-spread flavouring that Shiba considered the best-in-class taste. So she forced herself to eat the steak Shiba made for her with its thick iron burn, surreptitiously pinched her nose with her kerchief under the excuse of politely covering her mouth, and swallowed it without chewing. Only later, after her friends had departed for the night, would she retch it all out in the toilet, the reddish-brown pooling against the white porcelain, staining it no matter how many times she flushed, no matter how much water she wasted trying to get the red out, out, out.
And Coco. Oh, Coco. How long ago had they met, now? All those years ago on -Live Remix-. The site defunct, now. Erased from the internet. From everyone's memories but for the memories of the Reapers who remained in the UG. Ever since 777's erasure during Shibuya's first Impurification. But of course, for how could a Def Märch fansite dedicated to the Def Märch composed of 777, BJ, and Tenho possibly go on, when the Def Märch that the RG remembered had someone named Ishimoto as their lead? She couldn't hate the Def Märch that had replaced her Def Märch in the RG's collective memory, undoubtedly plucked from some parallel universe where that had always been Def Märch all along. The five-member band who had made all the same songs she attributed to the trio she had squealed over at the tender age of thirteen.
She'd joined the website a little earlier. A special, special day. 2006. September. The 13th. The day of her brother's meinichi. Def Märch's soothing death-metal screams had pounded through her ears when she had holed up in her room with her headphones pressed so tightly over her head that she could make out nothing but the throbbing migraine that scorched behind her eyes and the pulsing bass that thrummed through her skull. She had found -Live Remix- by complete accident, as a link to someone's profile on the fansite at the bottom of some blog post about new Def Märch merch next to the RSS feed. The site had demanded to know her birthday, demanded her to have parental permission, and demanded her to have at least thirteen years under her belt.
Well, she had had twelve years and change. That rounded up. She had just plugged in 1970 for her birthday year as she had done for years, sworn up and down that she definitely had parental permission, and dove into the world of Def Märch fandom. The forum had requested an eight-character unique ID and a four-character short-tag, joined by an odd-one-out hyphen to make a lucky thirteen character username. In her excitement she'd called herself bakuwaku_HYPE.
But that day held few pleasant memories for her. Not like another day she could think of, a little under a year later.
That another day: oh, she could still remember the day she had met Coco for the first time. 2007. July. The 27th. She had the screenshots saved, of when her thirteen-year-old self had run into the most obnoxious fellow Mixer she could have ever imagined, some total weirdo who considered the beta demo MMM:001 of all songs the absolute peak of Def Märch. She engaged this nezumimi_LIVE into a heated debate about the band's many superior tracks. The forum thread they had suddenly taken over—the poor opening post had asked about where one could acquire a replica 777 collar for cosplay purposes, of all things—had gotten locked, and she had received a three-day ban for her trouble.
Ooh, this nezumimi_LIVE had incensed her. Little punk that they were, with their horrible taste in music and even worse declarations of love for the most eye-searing colour combinations in their forum signature. Clearly some kind of seven-year-old, with those lurid pinks and garish teals, all the more insulting when juxtaposed against the beautiful 777.
So she had followed this horrible little child throughout the forum and discovered this horrible little child following her just as much. After months of spotless behaviour with no infractions whatsoever on -Live Remix-, she had found herself regularly running into the moderators. Whatever grief she might have bottled up inside her chest had—temporarily—vanished into smoke. Death could not have fazed her, for she had stumbled upon something to march for.
She could not possibly have let this evil being exist on such lofted, sacred ground as a Def Märch fansite. This, this person had held no appreciation for what it meant to be a Mixer, much less a Märcher.
And somehow, gradually, over so many forum threads, she had scanned the posts looking for that familiar awful pink, had grinned widely whenever she'd seen that screenname pop up, had spent countless nights typing up lengthy arguments and learning how to edit images so that she could retort more memetically to this little rat, had daydreamed in class about the edits she would make as soon as she could get onto her computer, had come home every day after school looking forward to yelling at this nezumimi_LIVE, had woken up early the next morning just to get onto her computer so she could scroll through the latest terrible posts nezumimi_LIVE had made and fire back with the cleverest of insults to protect 777 and the rest of the band's honour.
When -Live Remix- released its private messaging feature, she had PMed nezumimi_LIVE first. nezumimi_LIVE had offered to show her two ASCII birds. Intrigued at the olive branch, she had agreed. nezumimi_LIVE had shown her the birds:
{nezumimi_LIVE}
............/´¯/)................(\¯`\............
........../....//................\\....\..........
........./....//..................\\....\.........
...../´¯/..../´¯\.............../¯ `\....\¯`\.....
.././.../..../..../.|_....._|..\....\....\...\.\..
(.(....(....(..../.)...)..(..(..\....)....)....).)
.\................\/../....\..\/................/.
..\................../......\................../..
...\................(........)................/...
How she had fumed. She had practically felt the steam billowing from her revved-up engine. And so she had messaged back.
And forth. And back. And forth. Little by little—little by little by little by little—the stranger danger claxons in her head melted away. nezumimi_LIVE hadn't turned out some seven-year-old kid or some random adult of the kind her parents and teachers had warned her of.
In fact, nezumimi_LIVE had gloated endlessly about their birth a week before her own. That made them older, wiser, and all-around better, so this bakuwaku_HYPE had to treat them with respect.
She had refused.
And yet whenever someone else had tried to make fun of nezumimi_LIVE, she had found herself leaping to the keyboard to defend them. Only she could do so. No one else had had the right. And nezumimi_LIVE had done the same, turning their obnoxious expertise onto others, onto anyone who had dared to disagree with bakuwaku_HYPE. The forum-goers had called the two of them a menace, partners-in-crime. They had vehemently denied it every time.
Little by little—little by little by little—the strangers in danger had given way to something that neither of them would ever call friendship. But she had learned that nezumimi_LIVE lived in some little countryside town called Daten City. And she had learned that nezumimi_LIVE deeply believed that one day their real parents—of the fairy court, surely—would come whisk them away from their horrible boring life. And she had learned so many small details about nezumimi_LIVE. The fact that they hated veggies, especially carrots, and loved meat, especially lamb prepared nearly raw. The fact that they adored Harajuku's decora fashion and sought to dress themselves in it. The fact that they considered obnoxiousness a form of high art, cultivated as others might study the brush or the blade.
And about herself. Like the fact that she...that she had started to find that hue of lurid pink and garish teal...so utterly, lovingly endearing.
nezumimi_LIVE called herself Coco.
And she had messaged Coco every single day up until her eighteenth year, in the idle tides of summer, when she had realised with a start that—should she have survived to her next birthday—she would have finally reached her brother's age at the time of his death. That he would truly never be her older brother again.
And she had messaged Coco an apology, and she had messaged Coco a good-bye.
Coco had ended up a Player a year after her, having fallen to a bad case of meningitis. And Coco had chosen to become a Reaper in the hometown she'd hated so much—tiny, suffocating, boring—though she had put in requests to transfer to Shinjuku after every single Game. And Coco had finally gotten part of her wish once Daten City had turned tiny, suffocating, boring even to its Composer. With the city purified, its Reapers had had to go elsewhere. Shinjuku had had no slots empty, but neighbouring Shibuya had accepted two transfers. Coco, and another newly minted Reaper whom Coco had hated.
And so they had spent two blissful years as neighbours before Shinjuku had come crashing down around her. And so they had spent three agonising years apart from one another—no contact whatsoever—before Shinjuku had risen from its ashes like the phoenix of its Composer.
And, much like the same phoenix, a particular screenname had also risen from the ashes once more.
She might have found the coincidence funny if she hadn't found it so poetically sad. But they had both agreed on it. To meet one another once they had recovered.
She hadn't wanted Coco to see her suffering like this. And—no, more than that—she hadn't wanted to hold Coco back. She was the side heroine, after all. She had to support the others. She couldn't derail Coco's route by trapping her with her in her room for years. She had to smile and wave, smile and wave.
In the meantime, her beloved Coco, her best friend for so many years, the woman who had tried her damnedest to save Shinjuku during that final month up until the Inversion itself, the Reaper who had screamed that she hadn't saved her hometown from the Angels and she wouldn't lose her darling again, the fairy princess who had spent three years trying to make it up to Sakuraba Neku in Shinjuku and finding some way of reversing the Inversion, the person—the person—who had convinced the kind people of Shibuya to save her dear friend's life—
The coincidence. That once again, after everything, Coco had become nezumimi_LIVE again.
Because she lived in Shinjuku, among the people Coco couldn't forgive, and Coco had left Shibuya for a temporary excursion to the remains of her old hometown in a quest for revenge.
Yes, Coco once again took on the role of the screenname nezumimi_LIVE, existing in stolen conversations throughout the day, mousey stickers sent over chat, a thousand thoughts every day, updates on how her work in the ruins of Daten City had gone, remarks that catalogued how she had gradually warmed up to her partner-in-crime over the last few months: the Minamimoto Sho she had used a forbidden refinery sigil to revive and convinced to help her with her attempts at vengeance through the promise of aiding him in becoming the Composer.
She...she couldn't really condone that violence. Not what Coco had decided to do in the purified ward where Daten City had once stood, before its Composer had tired of it. Not what Coco and Minamimoto had decided to do, finding a way to remove Shibuya's Composer, by force if Coco could get away with it. Not any of it.
But despite the hypocrisy, despite the stain she couldn't flush out no matter how much water she wasted, she still grinned widely whenever nezumimi_LIVE's name flashed in her notifications.
Coco—who would kill for her friends, who had killed for her friends, who had figured out a way to generate incredibly powerful Noise regardless of her limitations as a mere Reaper, who had sought to try to do the equivalent of stabbing the ocean or, more accurately, punching the sky and winning, who had elected to make herself out an inhuman monster to keep anyone from underestimating her ever again—made her wish her heart still pounded in her chest, just so that she could feel it thump-thump-thump when she heard the door buzz.
Because the coincidence had finally ended.
The long year had drawn to its close.
Coco, her beloved Coco, had returned from the countryside . In the morning, in the dawn, Coco would return to Shibuya for an apparent meeting with someone she had described as completely frigging irredeemable. But for this evening, for this night, Coco had taken the train to arrive at her door. For a sleepover. For a first date.
And for this evening, for this night, Tsugumi opened the door to the ebbing heat of the day giving way to dark.
"Welcome home," she whispered.
The neon teal nezumimi_LIVE no longer flashed in her phone. The woman stood on the doorstep, that lovingly endearing lurid pink and garish teal curving up Tsugumi's lips.
When Coco smiled back, Tsugumi could see all of those sharp, filed shark's teeth, and she could see the most precious happiness in the entire world.
"Tsugumi, darling," her Coco whispered back, "I'm home."