Chapter Text
Ai thought she could keep a secret. After all, she has four she wants to take to her grave: she has kids, the identity of her ex, her force-sensitive nature, and that she’s from another galaxy.
The last one is kind of the most important, though she doesn’t think she’d lose her career over it. Unlike the other three secrets.
Sith tradition dictates that there can only be two at a time: Master and apprentice.
Ai never got too good with the force back on her home world. She was only two or three when she and her mother secretly moved to planet Earth to live with their people. It was startling how close their languages were. In her old language, her name sounded remarkably similar to the Japanese “Ai.” So her mother chose that. As for their family name, Ai thought “Starfield” and the fact that they were outlanders was amusing and nothing more.
She wasn’t too in tune with all the inner workings of the force, or Sith tradition, or any of that sort. There’s always just been a presence she can’t quite place her finger on. It’s always so cold, so bitter, and so terrified of loss .
Ai doesn’t know what it’s like to feel warm. Not with this following her wherever she goes. She was told that it would protect her. That her fear isn’t paranoia, but logical. That all her anger and bitterness to the world could be used for the better.
However, Ai had nobody to direct her hatred towards. She only wants safety. So instead of burning hatred, perhaps she could channel her fear instead.
She grew jaded, realizing that her mom was in it for power. Arrested by thieving humans and never coming back for her. To pursue her own goals. Her mother wasn’t using it to protect, but hopefully to revive the Sith for the what– 3rd time? It never worked. The light always conquered the dark.
Though in her professional opinion, there cannot be light if you don’t have something bad to compare it to.
Even as she did feel bitter hatred towards her mother, as she dug into her rice and glass glittered back at her, even as the orphanage locked her door with a chain and told her that she couldn’t come out until she was “good…” She still was just the same scared Ai.
There was no desire for power. Only an all-consuming cold. Even as she curled up in her thin blanket, she shivered a bit too much for the summer weather.
Ai knew that she was probably going to be sensed one day. That someone would find her and realize she was an anomaly, the last traces of the dark side.
She’s the master of lying, though. She’ll pretend to be “light,” to be the warmth for other people. “I Love You,” she says, even though she’d never been told that directly.
Ai will keep lying until it fails to protect her. She will remain fearful instead of paranoid until they’re actually out to get her. She’ll give into the bitter hatred and cold air surrounding her until she freezes to death.
She will take her secret to her grave.
~~~
When she meets Kamiki Hikaru, she feels something off.
If a human touches her, she usually feels faint warmth. Nothing nice, but noticeably different.
If she touches him , the abyss stares back.
Ai couldn’t tell you why. Something about him had an air of a person completely destroyed, someone who had given into his feelings of hatred and bitterness and fear. Like her.
Except the force had nothing to do with it.
No, it must’ve been something more sinister. Two fucked up people meeting each other. Even if Ai is a broken person, he was inherently human. Not warm. Just human.
Ai learned that when she moved to this planet. Humans and humanity are not exactly synonymous. Plenty of criminals out there are so ‘human,’ yet lack empathy.
Humans are ugly creatures inside after all.
Hikaru's smile lacks feeling, just like hers. It looks like a professional’s– one practiced in a mirror to look as pleasant and presentable as possible.
When he moves, he moves like he’s acting as the character of Hikaru. Like an alien pretending to be human.
Like the very human concept of devils in this world, the bane of humanity.
Hoshino Ai might’ve met her match. Or more importantly, her love.
~~~
Unfortunately, she didn't. Though she did walk away with two twins: Aquamarine and Ruby, beautiful blond children. Aqua really looked like his father. It was adorable.
Bit by bit, she could feel her bitter heart melting. A genuine smile spread. Everything felt a bit less cold and practiced.
Though in turn, the fear of losing it all hung over her head. The fear that she’ll be just like her mother. One who couldn’t protect her children because she kept pushing them away in favor of her own selfish motives.
As her powers gradually weakened, she felt her anxiety building up. The prospect of losing them makes lightning crackle at her fingertips.
No! It won’t happen. Not while Hoshino Ai is still warm. Not while she can hold onto her bitterness for her mother, who didn’t give her the same treatment.
It’s getting more and more difficult, the more she puts love into her actions. She’s steadily realizing that maybe she can’t balance this.
But Hoshino Ai is a greedy girl.
~~~
On a whim, she contacted her ex again.
Hikaru had that practiced tone with her. In the past 4 years, he’d really grown. Even a master of the dark side and lying had a difficult time telling his intentions.
“I’m sure they’ll understand our situation,” Ai adds. Her children were smart… but Ruby could come up with such weird conclusions for a prodigy!
Kids will be kids.
“Well, I just recently moved. Our new address is–”
~~~
Ai’s nervous. Even if she’s been doing this for a year, a lot of people’s jobs are riding on her and B-Komachi’s performance. She’d hate to disappoint them.
She meditates. Something feels wrong today.
It creeps around her. It isn’t the stiff and frigid darkness she’s grown accustomed to. It’s foreign.
Like a bad feeling.
Hoshino Ai only gets bad feelings like this one sometimes. When something bad is about to happen. Normally, her “bad feelings” are general anxiety, frustration towards the state of the world, and cynical disappointment. This is…
Dread.
The doorbell rings.
“Coming!”
She cheerfully runs up to the door. Inside, the bubble of dread is about to boil over.
Nothing about this is good. Some force– her force. Everything is telling her not to open it.
Ai, for a second, just hesitates.
“Hello?” She greets, and the door swings open.
“Congratulations on the dome concert,” a man says. He wears a black hood and is holding white flowers.
The dread spills out, and Ai almost collapses from how intense it is.
Something is wrong.
“How are your twins?”
Ai sees the knife, headed straight toward her stomach.
In an instant, Ai has him pinned up by an invisible force. The knife hits her, just a bit, leaving a nasty gash on her stomach. She grunts, putting her hand out defensively and one on her stomach.
So this is who he is. An entitled stalker. This is no fan of mine.
He tries to stutter out words, but she tightens her imaginary grip.
Black clouds her vision. Ice spreads through her veins.
The color of crimson red hatred spills onto the bouquet of nicely assembled flowers, now on the floor.
“You’re Ryosuke, right?” She hisses. Her fingers constricted around something that isn’t there. The filth kicks helplessly. Her knuckles turn white, and her palm is stained red.
“T-traitor…!” is what he decides to say, gagging on his spit, eyes popping out of his head.
“I said ‘I love you’ and some parts of me, deep inside, hoped it would come true. It was obviously a lie. It isn’t my fault that people eat up the words of someone who can’t possibly be human.”
She chuckles darkly, turning her head to look at him in his desperate eyes.
“I’m not perfect. See? How dare you assume I am. Is it so wrong for me to want love? Maybe you weren’t enough. You know who you thought loved you?” Hoshino Ai smiles, blood trickling from the corner of her lip. Ah, It was deeper than she thought…
“It was the idol, Ai. But Hoshino Ai,” she loosens her grip, letting him drop to the floor just outside her apartment.
“Hoshino Ai is a greedy, impure, selfish, girl.”
Hoshino Ai, her eyes filled with stars, feels only the most bitter taste of ice flow to her fingertips. It hurts, but not in a way of passion. No… all she feels is blind rage as thunder cackles around her.
What remains of Ryosuke is charred. He grunts weakly, running away as fast as he can in hysterics. Probably in a lot of pain as well. Deserved it anyway…
Hoshino Ai stumbles back. Must’ve taken more out of me than I thought. She slumps against the door, vision hazy at the sight of…
“Aqua?”
And for the first time in her life, she feels pain. So hot and so bright she feels white at the corner of her eyes.
“Ah, fuck,” she mutters. She shouldn’t use that language in front of the kids. “This is what the door chains are for, huh? They didn’t teach us that.”
The force told her not to. For once, she didn’t trust the darkness.
“Ai? Ai!”
“I’ll be fine… just give me a moment, to catch my breath, hah…”
But it led to this beautiful sensation.
Ai feels dizzy. Like she can’t keep her head straight. Her eyes struggle to open. She grits her teeth.
“Right, I guess I gotta explain what just happened, don’t I?” She takes one hand to Aqua’s head, pulling him to her chest. Everything is so warm right now…
It feels nice.
“Don’t talk, please!”
A sharp knock on the outside of the glass door.
“What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing, Ruby. Don’t come in,” Ai responds weakly. She’s losing a lot of blood. Shit.
“Sorry… Ah, I hope this isn’t it for me. Hehe.”
She presses her hand against the glass door. She can’t muster up the will to speak anymore.
It’s a long wait until the ambulance arrived.
They say it was a miracle that Hoshino Ai survived.
~~~
In truth, it was a bit more than a miracle.
She wasn’t pronounced dead or anything, but the soothing sensation of coolness once again brings her back. It’s not the unwelcoming atmosphere she’s used to.
It quickly switches back to normal.
The dark side saved me. Maybe it isn't so bad after all, hm?
~~~
Ai, the idol, took a hiatus for several months. The police investigate the crime and the lightning burns. They concluded it must’ve been really lucky timing, though many are suspicious.
“The famous idol, Ai from B-Komachi, has been stabbed by a stalker.”
Fans are largely sympathetic. Why wouldn’t they be? What a crazy entitled guy. How could someone be so deluded as to do this?
Aqua and Ruby hug her as soon as she comes back. Ruby, face streaming with tears and sobbing loudly; Aqua silently crying, but still smiling and hugging her with a tight grip.
Now that I think about it, Aqua’s always been oddly cold. Like me. Perhaps it’s genetics?
“Ehe, careful, mama’s stitching will pop out if you hug me that tightly,” she says, returning the hug gratefully.
Her kid's grip immediately loosened.
“I thought you were gonna die!” Ruby outright yells.
“No way I’d die from something that silly! I’ll bounce right back up, and the dome concert won’t be delayed for too long.”
She is in pure bliss.
“Oh yeah, I should tell you this…” Ai remarks, suddenly solemn.
The darkness recedes for just a moment. And everything is warm. It’s just right.
A genuine, bonafide smile spreads across her face, gentle and happy.
“Aqua, Ruby.”
Two blonde heads poke up, eyes slightly puffy and cheeks red.
“I love you.”
Even if the darkness follows her for the rest of her life, she knows she can protect the things she treasures the most just fine.
Hoshino Ai’s fear disappears.
The dark saved her, but she’s not one to linger on the past.
~~~
Hikaru has a lot of baggage, and three secrets he’d take to his grave: the fact that he wasn’t human, his encounter with Himekawa Airi, and his relationship with Hoshino Ai.
Manifestations of chains appear at the edge of his consciousness, sometimes. Sometimes it feels like he’s on top of the world, and other times he feels worthless.
When he’s with Ai, it’s like he’s looking into a mirror.
Her eyes are filled with potential. Bright and dreamlike. Ditzy and unprofessional, yet still “perfect” in a sense.
(She told him her family name, in a trade of intimacy. He told her something else in exchange. Hoshino Ai, the girl from the stars.)
But there was a strange darkness surrounding her. All the moments around her were still cold.
Hikaru liked having someone as his equal. Liked. But it wasn’t love. If anything, it was an obligation. Two not-quite humans trying to fit into human society. In a way, they were trying to discover how to be human together.
Then she went and got pregnant.
He knows why. He understands. She just wanted a bit of love of her own. But after they’re born, (twins, Aqua and Ruby), Hikaru feels just a bit jealous.
Maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t the problem. Maybe humans were just a bit flawed. Too flawed, if you ask him. He might not be human, but is that really a bad thing? No.
Kamiki Hikaru acts to discover what humans are like. When he portrays a character, he is portraying something as real as it gets. As close to ‘human.’ The concept of Kamiki Hikaru is human. So, so human.
With no humanity.
Even the persona of “Kamiki Hikaru” is fake. A pleasant, shy young teen who belonged to the Lalalie theater troupe. A polite young man who runs his own production company. In that way, he never retired from the stage.
Ai’s darkness disappeared just a bit when she was around her kids. Maybe he used to be her equal, but she’s been tainted. No, she, the perfect “Ai”, had become flawed. Flawed by the human experience.
He felt betrayed, in some form. He hates betrayal. Ironic, considering what he’s doing now.
Ai trusted him. He trusted Ai.
Now, neither of them will trust each other.
Ai is smarter than she lets on. She’s probably figured out who sent Ryosuke to kill her just a day after she told him her address.
And something tells him she’s a vengeful human.
But she doesn’t want to be seen as Hoshino Ai, the monster consumed by revenge. No, she wants to be Hoshino Ai, the mother consumed by love.
How weak of her.
It was easy to manipulate Ryosuke. A little persuasion (though he isn’t sure how he does it) and the seeds of doubt ran through his mind.
Hikaru didn’t even need to tell him to kill the doctor for him to do it anyway. Hah.
Kamiki Hikaru is twisted, yes, but he is not human. Not at all.
He never was harmed as easily as his victims. Just a bit of a tap on the back and they can go tumbling off of cliffs, choking on food, or committing suicide. With just a magic word.
“Contract.”
Give me everything, and I will give you love.
~~~
Hoshino Aqua has two secrets he’d take to his grave: his reincarnated identity and mysterious abilities.
When Aqua was born, he’d accidentally frosted over his water multiple times.
Of course, he broke the ice before the rest of his family could see, but it was extremely awkward trying to keep the secret of magical ice powers from the ever nosy Ruby.
Especially since they tended to act up when his emotions did.
So when Hoshino Aquamarine sees his idol bleeding out and shooting lightning out of her hands…
Layers of ice thickly creep up, fogging up the glass. He grabs Ai’s phone, frantically calling an emergency number.
His hands are so cold, the ice making it difficult to maintain a grip. Keep your cool. He reminds himself.
Even as his tears crystalize into little fragments, Ai holds him in her bloody hands, and he can feel her warmth fading rapidly…
Keep your cool.
Because otherwise, everything will freeze over. And he can’t have that, can he?
It’s great that Ai’s safe, though he suspects that something was out of the ordinary.
Due to Ai’s intervention… The knife wasn’t so deep as to hit vitals. However, he got a good look at the stalker’s face.
A face so similar to the one on the night Goro Amamiya was murdered.
~~~
Ruby knows a lot of secrets. So many that she doesn’t care about them anymore.
Despite how good people are at lying, she’s grown increasingly perceptive. Knowing someone for thousands of years will do that for you.
Oh, did she stutter? Thousands of years.
She’s been stuck in an infinite time loop where she dies and then her mother dies and then she and her brother move on to revenge but it never works and then she dies again and then goes back to the start.
Ruby’s pretty much going insane. Though something, when she looped back to the start, seemed different here. Like her dear brother being surprisingly secretive, or the dark aura surrounding her mother.
Something made them significantly less trustworthy. So Ruby naturally didn’t tell them anything.
She’s seen timelines where Aqua acts more like her brother than her friend. It’s always when she pretends to be a normal baby. Besides, she’s not sure she could trust him anyway…
How bad could it be? She thought sarcastically.
As time passes, she begins to like them more. They might not be the usual Aqua and Ai, but change is nice.
Then that day arrives.
You know, no matter how many times Hoshino Ruby has seen her mother’s blood on the other side of the door, it doesn’t fail to make her heart stop with trepidation.
Ruby’s also grown to be a good actor. She gets the tears flowing, and her lines right. Hah! Now there are two “Genius child actors who can flick a crying switch,” eh, Loli-senpai?
Even as Ruby’s lost in her thoughts and Ai’s taken to the hospital, Aqua seems even more gloomy in this timeline. About now is when he starts thinking about their father, right?
Except Ai wasn’t pronounced dead.
No, she just went on a hiatus. Now, she’s awake in her hospital bed, slightly groggy.
No, this isn’t so bad at all.
Though it does have her wondering–What makes them so special?
