Chapter Text
Himeko had just finished her third cup of coffee in a row. Rosy chapstick kissing most of the rim’s circumference, dark brown droplets staining porcelain. She remembered exactly when her caffeine addiction began; a familiar scene of screens, holograms, and papers scattered on her desk, each piece completing her thesis on space travel. The final requirement for her masters in Science Aerospace that overcame her desire for sleep, cursing her with insomnia. That was at least a decade ago, a passion pursued for the rest of her life, a dream she’s living. Now, there’s a newfound passion with caffeine, but a passion born out of spite.
For the last few days, she gathered articles, newspapers, IPC posts, and surfed networks of all the planets the Astral Express had been since she first brought it back to the rail of the stars. Her obsession with the Stellaron Hunters had sculpted their portraits in the lobes of her brain. Their names, reading over nearly a million lines, had come to read wrong.
Kafka, especially this one. Repeat it hundreds of times, and it suddenly looks weird on paper. Kafka, Kafka, Kafka– it just looks so wrong now. She’d think the nerves of her eyes were being cut from within, blurring the name. And unlike her final thesis, she’d get something from an hour of research, but of Kafka? She might as well be as cryptic as an Aeon.
The Hunter had identical descriptions from every planet she’s been to. Loves coats. Often seen with a black pince-nez glasses sitting on her head. And an occasional description of drinking red wine in saloons and dinner parties, or miming the playing of a violin as her surroundings blow up.
Himeko convinced herself to give up after a fourth cup. But as she pours herself one from a freshly roasted batch, the music of the jukebox bleeds through her door. A symphony of wind and stringed instruments invoked a sense of nostalgia, hearing it again for the first time in decades. The instruments waned into a soft rest, and a soulful voice entered with a distinct vibrato…
Des yeux qui font baisser les miens…
The concept of day and night does not exist in the Express when warping on its rails, but the concept of sleep does. And everyone should be deep in their sleep already, or at least, trying to sleep in their rooms. Not lingering in the parlor car. She threw on a silver robe over her nightdress, leaving her coffee on the desk to investigate her new interest.
She slid the door open to the parlor car, and a body laid right before its frame. Himeko sighed, mostly relieved, but also in disbelief.
“Stelle?” she made sure to be gentle. “You’ll catch a cold sleeping there.”
The gray-haired Trailblazer embraced her limbs close like a fetus, nuzzling her head on the carpeted floors. There was a slight furrow between her brows, pulled up to paint a tearful face. Her eyes blinked open in response, lashes shadowing her liquid golds. The dim lights clouding them with a misty orange.
“Himeko?” Stelle murmured, lifting herself from the floor. “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Her small smile felt shoved on her lips. And now that the young girl assumed a height taller than her, Himeko noticed the dark circles under her eyes, peering under her long fringes.
She knows that look. Himeko had seen herself in the mirror so many times after barely sleeping for a week, two weeks, three, a month– but she chose to keep that observation quiet… for now.
“I rarely sleep,” Himeko smiled, “you should know that by now.”
“You should take care of yourself more.” Stelle’s bare hands played itself together, wanting to hold something, unnerved under the navigator’s scrutiny.
“Sweet girl, of course. I could say the same to you.”
The music stopped and silence filled the air. Stelle gazed at the device, seemingly wanting to loop it. Yet she’s stuck in her place, afraid that Himeko would see her hands tremble as she operates the mechanisms. And Himeko does see it already, hidden in the plain sight of fiddling.
“La vie en rose, hmm?” Himeko began, circling around the jukebox, “You don’t strike me as the type.”
The jacket of the vinyl slid under its cabinet. The print in the cardboard had faded over time, but Himeko had stored this vintage, along with many others, in a special glass case to preserve them. She’d never thought to take them out again.
“I’d usually hear you play Take the Journey for something melancholic.”
“Um, yeah… I’m sorry for going through your collections. I promise to return them safely.” She glanced to the side, and Himeko followed. Her records of Edith Piaf were being picked upon, but still delicately organized on the tables. It seems that Stelle really wanted to find this one.
Himeko chuckled. “You heard this somewhere?” she toyed with the controls, repeating the music on its chorus.
Quand il me prend dans ses bras…
Stelle’s mouth opened to produce a breathy noise. Her golden eyes melted on the jukebox. Words struggled around her jaw, but she finally answered, “When I was younger… I think.” There was little effort to hide the grimace on her face. Or maybe, Stelle was unaware she grimaced at all.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Stelle shrugged. “Maybe… I don’t know…”
“I’ll make you a coffee.”
As the music finished a few more loops, the air around Stelle became easier to breathe. She sat in silence opposite the navigator, her stare hazy over the series of records, deep in thought. Her coffee — a taste made sweeter than Himeko’s usual bitterness— was left untouched after two sips.
Himeko set her cup down on the saucer with a clink that brought the Trailblazer back to her. “You okay?” It came out as soft as she wanted it to be. “Still too bitter?”
Stelle shook her head with a grateful smile. “Sweet enough,” the rasp in her voice surprised herself. She pursed her lips as soon as it quivered, biting her cheeks from within. Her lashes fluttered, and Himeko did not miss the sparkle on the edges of her eyes.
“Can I take a guess?”
She nodded, slowly; a swallow left unheard but obvious in her throat.
“Kafka used to play this, didn’t she?”
Her head lowered further. “Too obvious?”
“With enough evidence laid before me, I can make an inference.” She picked up a record jacket separated from a bundle, glazing over the title. “ Hymne à l`amour , perhaps it’s from personal bias, but I definitely see her listen to this. Hm, what else is there? C’est l’amour – the more I think about it, the more she becomes such a romantic. Oh, she does not seem the type at all–” her annoyance got the better of her concern, she had to stop before insults slip out.
Himeko never truly understood the irrational irateness she has for the Hunter. Kafka had never done anything to harm them, her… yet. Nothing offensive… yet. Maybe it was the yet of things that keeps Himeko on edge. Kafka speaks as if the future was certain, with so much trust in the maniac who is said to foretell events every second, extending to manipulation. script by script, until they achieve the desired outcome.
Himeko loathes that arrogance. Destiny’s Slave? she almost scoffed.
“She used to be nice,” Stelle’s big eyes looked up at her, sensing hostility. “She’s still nice. Really nice.”
Himeko took another sip of bitterness, half-convinced. “To you , I believe that.”
Stelle pouted, but only for a split-second, and gave her a few glances back-and-forth.
“She used to sing me to sleep… the La Vie en Rose . I memorized every word.” Despite the dim lights, Himeko can clearly see the rise of redness on her cheeks, and how the tension on her throat kept pulling at her tongue. “It’s not her personal favorite, but she said it was her favorite when she’s with me. It was a song for me.”
Himeko stayed still, inviting her to speak more.
“I liked it,” her breath hitched, voice frayed with longing. “She even learned to play it on the violin. Because if she said if she kept singing it every night, I might get tired of her voice, and stop listening–” a sobbed escaped, but Stelle was too good at keeping it together with a painful bite on her lower lip. “But that’s not true… I always listen.”
Tears directly dripped from her waterline to the cardboards of the records, and Stelle quickly dodged her eyes.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“It’s okay.”
Stelle frowned, a few beats of stillness before she spoke again.
“Then what do those things mean, Himeko, if not niceness?”
She almost looked like an abandoned pup, living in a cardboard box, sheltered from a stormy night under the roof of a door. Her position was intentional, someone had left her there. So when the door opens, the receiver will feel the need to adopt it. The receiver was Himeko, and that certain someone was jumping from planet to planet, hunting stellarons.
Stelle’s eyes glistened with yearn. Desperate, regretful yearn. The young girl did not know how to say what she felt right now, nor what she felt for Kafka.
Himeko had suffered through the practice of goodbyes and farewells that she could be granted an unofficial degree. She knows it so well, that even a glance at the pain of a stranger would remind her of the ache, what more if it reflected on a person she took under her wing?
“I do not know.” She spared her a lonely truth. “Some people… are just confusing.”
I miss her , was written in bold capital letters on the young lady’s face, shaped in her fidgeting, laced in her voice. She had missed her all along, perhaps. The promise of beginning her adventure was addicting, distracting, satiating her crave, but the promise of Kafka was more than just a romance dawn. She was an eternal thrill, comfort, danger, love – all together. She was everything, her everything. The only golden thread in her tapestry of grand destiny.
Why else was Stelle sleeping so peacefully beside the jukebox as her favorite music played?
Like a child enveloped in a velvet embrace.
And how it fueled Himeko’s dormant anger for the Hunter.
“Why don’t you invite her on the Express the next time you meet? Or if you have her number, you can text her now.” The insides of her mouth turned acid. Himeko couldn’t believe she extended that privilege to her. Kafka had already been in the train by a hologram, who knows how many times she may have done that to do some snooping around with whatever it is she wants.
“Are- are you sure?” The way Stelle lit up like a supernova was enough to dissolve the bitter taste in her mouth.
“Yes, but tell me every time she’ll visit, through hologram or in person. That’s my condition.”
“She… may not accept.”
“I doubt that,” truly she does. “She already invited herself once. Besides, she did say to invite her in person to discuss matters.”
“I meant…” her thought trailed away. “That sounds like unfinished business with you , though,” Stelle said, as a matter-of-fact.
Himeko sighed. “Everyone wins here then. You get to see her, she gets to see you, and finish her business with me.”
Stelle watched her with a certain mushiness and a candied smile. “I feel a lot better now,” she said, quite languid.
“And a lot sleepier,” Himeko gently laughed. “Come now, I’ll put you to bed– and, no, don’t drink the rest of your coffee. Wouldn’t want you picking up a bad habit of mine.”
Stelle stood after her. “I don’t mind staying up all night with Himeko,” she chuckled. “It’s just as warm.”
“Oh you,” Himeko laughed, more heartily this time. She got dewy-eyed at the confession, and suddenly, there’s a deluge of emotions that threatens her mature facade. Stelle had pressed on the small, fragile crack on her seemingly solid wall that holds everything up together. She doesn’t exactly know how that happened.
Himeko doesn’t mind staying up either, in all honesty, if it meant the young one would feel a little better. But, as a woman of science, Himeko knows how important sleep is for someone as vibrant and sprightly as Stelle.
Himeko extended her hand. “Let me borrow your phone. I’ll give you a copy of the albums.”
“A- a copy? You have one?”
“Yes, I’ll rip one from a disc. You need to sleep properly for all the energy you spend outside. And not sneak in the parlor car. Pom-pom doesn’t want their circadian rhythm disrupted, you know.”
“... A circa what?”
“Oh, Stelle, I’ll explain another time–” before she turned around, Stelle leaped and held her with determined arms, burrowing her forehead into the navigator’s shoulder, cradling her back.
“Thank you, Himeko,” she tightened her grip, her whisper blowing through her robe, “really.”
And Himeko returned the caress on top of her fluffy head. “You’re always welcome.”
By the time she returned to her room, languor finally visited her. The light of her desk garnered her attention back to her currently spiteful passion. The provoking smile from the Hunter’s wanted poster seemed to lure her into another obsessive episode, but Himeko was exhausted.
The coffee she drank with Stelle was empty. That was her fourth cup. And she learned more about Kafka than all her sleepless nights combined.
She flipped off the lights and laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling that gave her a glimpse of the galaxies outside. Himeko realized she no longer needed to look at outside sources.
Not one speck of stardust in the universe knows a damn thing about Kafka, but there was a single star who knew. The only star that orbited Kafka’s pull.
And she was right here in the Express, her primary source.