Work Text:
This is the story of two time-scattered souls.
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A spotlight beams down onto Hoshima Junna. The tips of her feet carry her across the stage. The light follows, and illuminates the path she treads upon. She brings her arms into herself, cupping them against her bosom, before casting it into the dark-cloaked stage.
Moments pass. That which is cast from her is received.
A second spotlight beams onto Daiba Nana. The soles of her feet push her across the stage. The light lingers behind, desperate to keep up. A hand extends to catch that was given to her. The cloak thrown over her shoulders whips in the artificial wind.
Junna extends a hand. The spotlight over Nana vanishes with a click.
Junna watches from the audience. Enraptured, her wide, beady eyes follow her form across the stage. Captivated, she leans forward in her seat.
The grip the stage has on her will never relent. It beckons for her, she succumbs to it time after time.
Nana watches from the audience. Dazzled, she sits back in awe. The lighting and peripherals amplifying the performers leave her speechless.
Theater itself has a hold on her. It beckons for her, and she yearns for it so.
Their bodies twirl around each other. Ghosts of each other’s touches are felt, but going to meet them always met with emptiness. They are out of sync, such is the beauty of the tale they weave. One instrument of the stage out of tune, thus the two are unable to be brought together as one.
“This is the story of two time-scattered souls. Though apart in time, they hold each other close, yearning to one day stand in the same time again.”
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Junna watches Nana with observant eyes. Back straight, confidence radiating from her, and a smile on her lips.
The auditions had come to a close. Starlight had come to a close. The curtains fell on their beautiful performance. Nana was anxious more than Junna had ever seen. More anxious than she had been for their first performance of Starlight. Yet she never spoke much on why.
New photos were taken afterwards. Behind the curtain after their final bow, during the afterparty, and even quieter moments such as during the cleanup process. Nana was always diligent when it came to photographing.
But Junna saw. The photos Nana would stare at late at night weren’t the photos taken during the 100th Seisho Festival. They were not the photos she had taken backstage, nor the photos she had taken during the afterparty, nor the photos she had taken during their cleaning up process.
It was instead the 99th Seisho Festival. Their first Starlight.
Junna never felt she could capture Nana in the present. She would converse with members of Class B about their first performance. One day she would weave tales about the trials and tribulations that plagued their first Starlight to the next generation of students. The next, she would read the script during their lunch period.
Junna felt distant. Despite being so close to her, Junna could not bridge this gap between them. She hadn’t the faintest idea of how to try.
The clock ticks overhead. The bell rings, and they part.
Have things always been like this?
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This is the story of two time-scattered souls. [LOVE] and [YEARNING].
[YEARNING] was a noble from a far away land. Days upon days [YEARNING] would spend in the public, socializing with others yet never quite fitting in. She spent her time yearning for a place to belong.
Rumors spread around town about The Wishing Tree. A tree in the depths of the darkest part of the woods that would grant any wish of your desire at an unknown cost. [YEARNING] tired of attending these gatherings and set off to search for The Wishing Tree one fateful night.
After hours of searching the woods, [YEARNING] finally found The Wishing Tree. She sat under it and watched as the sun rose and spoke her wish to the tree.
[YEARNING]: “I wish for a place to belong.”
The leaves rustled overhead. [YEARNING] left for home, hoping for her wish to come true.
Many days pass, yet nothing changes for [YEARNING]. She attended formal events and gatherings as usual. Until one day, she found a stranger at one all alone. [LOVE].
[LOVE] was a noble from a far away land. Days upon days [LOVE] would spend forever glued to the books. She spent her days lost in her love for the realm of literature, finding herself at a loss in the real world in turn.
[YEARNING] sat with [LOVE], and found herself longing to be at her side.
♔✦✦✦✦✦✦✦♔
“Yet it was not meant to be.”
The narration echoes overhead. The dull, narrowed eyes of a giraffe stare from the audience. The seats are barren, with no prying eyes on the stage.
No spotlights illuminate the stage. Only the figures of two girls give the stage a semblance of life. The machinery had long since been deactivated.
Two cloaks lay limp over the girls’ shoulders. In one’s hand, a bow and arrow, both pointed for the floor. In the others’, a single cutlass.
A harsh clinging of metal on metal rings out throughout the auditorium. The music reaches its climax, and the wistful finishing words close the audition.
Junna stares up from her spot on the floor. Her cloak pooled under her feet. Struck down, once again, by Daiba Nana.
Nana gives her a blank stare. She looks numb. She feels numb to the sensation. Junna reaches a hand out for her just as the massive curtains overhead unfurl, separating the two once again. The revue came to its conclusion.
It will start again. Soon, very soon now.
A harsh clinging of metal on metal rings out throughout the auditorium. The music reaches its climax, and the longing finishing words close the audition.
Junna watches Nana, inching away from her now as the girl’s blade narrowly misses her throat to sever the cable binding her cloak. It drops to the floor. Junna’s chest is heaving and beads of sweat dot her face. Her bow joins her cloak on the ground.
Her mouth opens, but the words don’t reach Nana. The crimson curtains fall down with a thud to the stage. An impenetrable barrier. When the performance closes, this line is never to be crossed as one was on the stage. When one stands before people again, they are no longer a stage girl. They were they, and them were them.
It will start again now. Soon, very soon now.
Junna smiles at Nana. She extends a hand her way. The curtain closes.
Junna hangs her head. Her back turns to Nana. Droplets reach the stage in a steady rhythm. The revue concludes.
A brilliant gold light takes over the entire stage. Nana’s sword pierces Position Zero. Her eyes skim the audience. She can see them now. The familiar audience of the 99th Seisho Festival.
In the front row sat Junna. She sat in awe of the revue. Mental notes were taken, she was here to learn, and to support her friend. Notes that would never be put to use.
The giraffe appears on the stage. The reenactment turns its last page.
Daiba Nana stares. Unmoving. Unblinking. The chord of her cloak is cut, and her cloak falls. The back cover is lowering, closing, and she stares.
A spotlight shines down onto Daiba Nana.
“Forever… again and again. I yearn for the eternal glimmer I cannot reach. 99th Generation, Daiba Nana. To stop time for even a moment…”
A spotlight shines down onto Hoshimi Junna.
“The me looking up is gone. Yet the night sky is so dark and barren. 99th Generation, Hoshimi Junna. To have you look upon me with glimmering eyes once more…”
“I will!”
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“I will find a star of my own!”
Junna runs a hand through her hair. A deep huff escapes past her lips. Her eyes narrow into a harsh glare from the back of the class. There was a large crowd around the star of today’s training. The murmuring was incessant.
It wasn’t their fault. The girl front in center was dazzling. She was perfect. Her footwork as she swung around the room was immaculate. Her powerful vocals filling the small room was powerful.
It wasn’t her fault for being perfect. And yet Junna always found herself feeling this way. This same frustration, this same anger at her classmates. An unrighteous anger at others for simply being good. Better.
She should be happy. Not just for them, but for herself. Junna was the class representative. People depended on her and looked up to her for her aptitude in the books. She had a blossoming friendship with so many of her classmates…
A spotlight shone down onto her.
“Are you happy with that?”
Junna’s hand tightens in her hair.
“It’s dark down here,” Junna’s head lifts slightly at the sound of rustling fabric. A smaller her was making herself comfortable by her side. “You’re hardly shining at all.”
“...”
The other her does a small stretch of her arms over her head. “People still know you as the smart girl. The honor student. The class representative. How is a girl like that supposed to stand out outside academics?”
Junna’s gaze falls. “Then what am I…”
The spotlight overhead flickers for a moment before dying.
[The Star]: “Hoshimi-san?”
Junna blinks, and practically the whole class stares back. In front of her is an outstretched hand, reaching from the depths of a brilliant brightness.
[The Star]: “Are you alright?”
[Hoshimi]: “...Yes.”
♔✦✦✦✦✦✦✦♔
[YEARNING] and [LOVE] met day after day following. They would forgo gatherings together to meet with one another alone. In each other’s company, [YEARNING] found happiness, and [LOVE], joy.
And yet, upon one meeting, [YEARNING] found [LOVE] was late by one hour. When she spoke to her, she was unresponsive to her words, eying [YEARNING] with confusion and worry.
[LOVE] left with the vow of returning shortly, yet [YEARNING] followed, [LOVE] still silent to her actions.
It was an hour later that [LOVE] reacted. She spoke of words that she had said to her at their meeting space. Yet [YEARNING] could not be seen.
Time had split them asunder.
Every day [YEARNING] would meet with [LOVE] on delay. She would come with penned topics or questions she wished to discuss, and would respond, waiting for her words to reach her.
Each day, [YEARNING] found her words taking longer to reach [LOVE], and [LOVE] grew scared. Their meetings would stretch on longer, more and more letters would be piled for [LOVE] to read and respond to to keep them talking.
[YEARNING] held [LOVE] close one night, and it wasn’t til morning that the sensation was felt.
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Night had fallen. Nana’s pen flipped between her fingers idly. It was another break, which meant that the dormitories were even more silent than usual. The room, too, was left in darkness with only the light of a desk lamp and the distant moonlight to break through its oppressive swath.
Her notebook lay in front of her. Upon its pages were the fletchlings of a screenplay. There was a premise in mind, it had been roughly mapped out in her head for a little bit now. Putting pencil to paper always left her drawing blanks.
Their first performance still loomed in the distance. Starlight. A screenplay that had captured their hearts. It was a beautiful tale, and yet it always left a pang in her heart reading through the last lines of the script.
Nana’s pen clicks twice. “Hmm…”
“Ah, Daiba-san, you’re still awake?”
The voice almost made her jump. Looking over her shoulder, Nana could see the figure of her roommate, Hoshimi Junna, illuminated by the light from the hall. Her face was barren of the glasses Nana was so accustomed to seeing on her face. A simple gown adorned her form with a cardigan for warmth.
“Mmh, sorry, I can turn my light off if you plan to turn in, Hoshimi-san.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine. I was going to get some reading in before I turned in,” She brandishes a heavy bound book from under her arm. Classical works.
Nana smiles and nods. Junna steps to her side of the room and makes herself comfortable on her bed, with pillows stacked for her to lean against. Their eyes meet awkwardly and Nana returns her attention to her notebook.
“What are you working on? Extracurriculars?”
Nana shakes her head. “Just a little project of mine. We’re on break, right? We should still enjoy it, even if we aren’t home,” she adds with an approving hum.
There’s a couple beats of pause. Junna lets out a small huff. “I suppose you’re right. Best of luck, Daiba-san.”
“Mmh,” Nana simply nods.
…
“It’s a screenplay.”
There had been several minutes of comfortable silence between the two before Nana finally broke it. An unanswered question had been left lingering on Junna’s lips, and Nana’s grievances with sitting in silence while making such little progress made for an abrupt blurting of an answer.
Junna rustles on her spot on the bed. “Ah, your project? That’s impressive! Performing and screenwriting?”
Nana waves down the compliments with a small giggle. “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” She clicks her pen closed and sets it down to run her finger along the page before her. “I was just feeling… inspired. I’m not sure if I’m doing anything right with this in the first place.”
“I see… Anything you’re struggling with? I may be able to help. I’m no playwright, but I’ve read my fair share.”
“Would you?” Nana perks up a bit. Junna was incredibly studious, that much Nana had caught on to. She did not pull punches. If there were a person for the job of honest critiquing, it would be her. “I’d hate to ask when it’s so late…”
Junna’s feet touch down onto the floor with a small thud. There’s a clinking of plastic and her familiar glasses are on her face once more. “It’s no problem.”
Junna closes the distance slowly, and stands leaning slightly over the back of Nana’s chair. Nana looks back up at her with a small, tentative smile. Junna returns it. “Alright. What part are you struggling on?”
“Ah, it’s just this dialogue here…” Nana points a finger to the affronting lines in her notebook. “I don’t know if it should be more… inspiring, or remorseful, or… what words to even describe them as, eheh,” Nana laughs awkwardly to herself. She felt like she was doing a poor job at articulating it. She shifts in her seat slightly.
“Hmm…” Junna lets out a small hum, and Nana can see the flittering of her eyes across the page.
A couple seconds of silence pass. Before the other girl can finish her reading, Nana lets out a small “ah”. A realization.
“I know! Would you read these out for me?”
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“Now I must go, to find a way from this wretched curse that plagues me so,” The papers rustle in Hoshimi Junna’s hands. The familiar, hand-written words leave her lips. “Wait for me here, every day, for I am sure this is not our parting.”
Drip. Drip. Drip. A streak down the side of Daiba Nana’s face. The script hung limply at her side, for there was no need. “Won’t you stay with me, for just one night longer?”
Junna lets out a small huff. She extends a hand, and her fingers meet those of the other girl’s. They lock in a tender hold, yet the sensation was far, far away. “I’ll stay. By morning, when my touch, and my words finally reach you, I will be gone. Don’t forget them, my darling.”
Nana’s hand moves away. The sensation has yet to reach her. Junna moves her hand up to touch her once more, but the distance between them has grown. It grew and grew until it seems insurmountable. The papers crinkle in Junna’s grip.
“This is not… our ending…”
An explosion of sounds fills the stage. Lights kick on, the gears turn, props move into place, extras leave the stage.
Revue of Lost Time
Encore
Yearning
“I yearn for a new time.”
“An old time, a time all for me.”
“Yet this time obscures me in its grasp.”
“However hard I try.”
Nana’s voice carries across the stage. A single sword dangles by her side, threatening to slip between her fingers. The soft piano builds.
Junna raises her bow. Nana doesn’t budge.
The stage splits. The floor roars to life under their feet. A forest of trees erupt through the stage, scattering debris in their wake. Junna frantically catches herself and leaps to the side to avoid one rising from under her. Her head snaps back to where she had been looking at Nana.
In her place was her hand-written script.
The music bellows in her ears. Junna reaches for an arrow, knocking it in her bow.
“Nana!”
Junna kicks off the stage floor, racing through the gaps in the trees. A thin mist had begun to cloud the area. Her glasses fog.
“Stop it!”
The swing of a blade through the haze makes her reel. Junna drops to avoid it, turning her bow in the direction of the swing.
“Stop it!”
Her arrow whizzes past the trunk of the tree, striking naught but air. Junna clenches her teeth. A hand pushes her back up, and a new arrow brandishes itself.
A glint of metal in the corner of her eye. She doesn’t hesitate, and her body swings wide to fire her next shot. Junna can hear it clank against the side of a blade.
“Stop this time,”
“That drags me away from you!”
Junna lets out a yelp as the blonde girl lurches out from behind the tree. Her bow blocks a heavy slash, shoving it aside. The wooden ornament swings at Nana’s head like a club. It passes her in an instant, her defenses drop.
Fabric tears, and Junna winces as pain ignites her side. It was a glancing swipe, yet blood still trickles from the cut. She can hardly see a thing through her murky glasses. Her heart hammers in her chest.
Nana’s disposition opposes her actions.
The blonde whirls on her again, blade striking the hardened wood again. Junna yanks her bow back to knock another arrow. She catches another swing and releases the string. The arrow pierces through Nana’s twintail. Her hair stirs, and Junna can see something ignite in her expression.
“Speak to me!”
“Touch me!”
“Return to me”
“You who makes me complete!”
A boot stomps towards Junna’s chest. Her bow blocks the blow, and her head weaves to the side as Nana’s sword stabs past her face.
“N-Nana-”
The hilt of Nana’s sword slams into the side of Junna’s head. Her vision goes dark. She can feel her hold on the bow waver.
“Without you, I…”
Nana’s lines waver.
Yanking her bow close to her body, Junna turns and runs. Her boots push her roughly against the ground. Her shoulder slams into the trunks of trees as she runs. She felt dizzy. She felt scared. She felt confused. Her throat burns. Blood rushes in her ears.
Then, a light, shining on her closed eyelids. Junna’s eyes flicker open as her body breaks through the maze of trees.
Trees circumferencing the pleasant meadow stretching before her. A clear blue sky shone brightly onto her, and the warmth of the sun began to dry the droplets of mist that clung to her cheeks, only leaving sweat on her neck. A small stream cut past her feet and, following it with her eyes, found it.
A massive tree, casting a canopy of leaves far and wide from its perch on a small hill. Standing under was a girl.
Daiba Nana. A beautiful white dress of an olden time wraps around her body whose frills reach the grass. Her hair was let down, allowing the usually constrained locks of hair to sway as her body turns to meet Junna’s gaze.
Junna feels her chest tighten. “Nana…”
“Forever… again and again,” Nana brings a hand up to her chest. “I yearned for the eternal glimmer I could not have. A fleeting, repeating moment of happiness. A moment that was I.”
Junna swallows. Her bow stays clenched between har hands. She takes a step forward.
“I have lived my life and more in that moment. Again and again, forever, in that unchanging moment, I found happiness, again and again, forever, I made friends, again and again, forever, I found what made us shine,” Nana’s voice wavers slightly.
“Karen-chan, and Mahiru-chan, and Futaba-chan, and Kaoruko-chan, and Maya-chan, and Clau-chan, and Nana-chan, and Junna-chan… That moment was one with I… But that moment is gone now. And with it, I have taken flight, and left this place that was I.”
“Again and again, I selfishly partook of this Tree of Wishes. And like the Stars of Sin, was blinded to the cost that would come…”
Junna pauses. Then, almost a sense of relief comes over her. A meager smile comes to her lips. It felt wrong to smile at such a time. But Junna was finally understanding what had made Nana so distant. “I get it…”
“How can I come back to a life like this? A life without my Reenactment...”
“It’s not fair, is it…? The unknown future…” Junna’s pace increases. The distance between the two of them closes.
“After I’ve lost I… What’s left?” Nana’s voice catches in her throat. Junna can see streaks running down her cheeks. Her mask cracks, and she catches its remnants in the palms of her hands. “I’ve lost I… I’ve lost the friends I know… I’ve lost my glimmer…”
“I’VE LOST EVERYTHING!”
“I’ve… I’ve failed them…”
Junna comes to a stop at the base of the hill. Her small, weak smile starts to blossom. She sucks in a deep breath.
“It’s not a loss,”
Nana’s head raises.
“It’s not a failure,”
“I don’t understand you, but that’s why…”
Junna takes a step up the hill.
“I’m here for you,”
“I’ve never left your side.”
“Jun…na?”
The stage beneath begins to creak. The tree, standing so tall, starts to splinter.
“Everyone has stars they are destined for;
Glittering stars, morning stars, shooting stars.”
“Even if you cannot see your star,”
She reaches her hand out.
“Take my hand,”
“And let me help you find”
“That which you have yearned for.”
The music roars in her ears. Nana’s face of confusion and awe meets her own look. “Those lines…”
Junna gives an almost coy look. “Lines of others are powerful, aren’t they?”
The sky above turns off. The hill Nana is standing upon splits open, and she plummets. A scream tears its way out of her throat, and her eyes squeeze shut. Tears are flung up from her face and the possibly dozens of layers of frills whip against her cheeks.
Then, she lands. In something soft and warm.
“Hah… hah… I gotcha…”
Nana’s heart still hammers in her chest, but she staves off the fleeting fear to crack an eye open. Her other eye is quick to follow.
Looking back at her was Junna once more. Her face profiles against a spotlight that shone down brightly onto them. Her own hair had been let down now as well. The usual glasses that adorn her face were missing. The uniform she had been in had vanished as well, instead replaced by a dress of her own, long, navy, and sleeveless.
“Running in this thing is miserable, you know?”
Nana is speechless for a couple more seconds. Then, a small giggle. It bubbles out of her before she can even parse its happening. Junna might have been sputtering something, but Nana could not hear it now. Her tears were quick to return.
Pushing herself up slightly, her arms wrap around Junna’s neck. Her gibberish words are quick to vanish
“You’re right… I haven’t lost anything…”
Nana can hear Junna’s sharp intake, and a small sigh escaping her lips. “It’ll be hard, but we’ll find it for you again, I know we will. You’ll adapt. You’re not finished growing. We’re all here for you, too. Me and everyone else.”
Nana feels a warmth in her chest. The turmoil in her head and heart had begun to ease.
“Thank you… Junjun.”
“...Ah- you too…?”
♔✦✦✦✦✦✦✦♔
Daiba Nana clasps her hands on her lap. Her eyes close and her chest pushes out gently as she breathes. She sat upon a wooden bench, with a towering hedge at her behind. The white fabric of her dress pools by her feet.
Breeze pushes her blonde hair, grown out to her hip, gently. She winces slightly. Wrinkles on her hands and face tense and relax as the cold comes and goes.
A usual silence. The chirping of birds stills and the rustling of leaves goes with the wind. The world seems still. One she had grown so accustomed to that Nana was lost in it.
Then, a noise. Footsteps.
There are a few more seconds of silence. The footsteps approach. And, rather than a voice, shuffling, as a person takes a seat on the bench next to Nana.
She can feel her heart thumping in her chest.
[YEARNING]: “Would that be you? The one who became one with I?”
...
[LOVE]: “You waited.”
Nana’s heart practically soars from the depths of her chest.
[YEARNING]: “...Of course I did... My Love.”
There’s another breath of silence.
[LOVE]: “Have you come to hate me, My Yearning?”
Nana lets out a shaky breath.
[YEARNING]: “Of course not.”
Nana clenches her dress tightly. The time that had passed weighs on her mind. Yet the memories are still just as fresh in her heart. Hearing this voice again, alone, drew a well to her eyes.
She wrenches her gaze up and finally turns to look.
Hoshimi Junna looks back at her. Barely a wrinkle adorned her apprehensive looking face. Her hair had grown out only slightly. The time between them was evident.
Yet Nana couldn’t care. Her heart felt on the verge of bursting. The well spilt over and Nana dives to meet her love once more. Her hands find their way around her neck, and before she knows it, her lips have captured those that fled from her all those years ago.
The embrace is returned, and Nana feels as if she spent just as long as she had waiting in this one, singular moment.
♔✦✦✦✦✦✦✦♔
Fin