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“And now… to reveal my latest invention!” Rui announced, speaking deeper for added suspense. NeneRobo stirred, a drumroll sound coming from its speakers
In the middle of the Wonder Stage sat… something, surrounded by red curtains, and two bright spotlights. The rest of the members of WxS stood around the hidden contraption, with varying looks on their faces.
Tsukasa crossed his arms, quizzical, Emu bounced in one spot, excited, while Nene raised an eyebrow in worry.
Rui then pulled on a rope, allowing the curtains to pull apart to reveal…
A miniature rocket?!
“Tada~!” He chirped as he presented the hunk of metal to the group, opening a small door to show the interior, where multiple buttons and lights of various colors filled the small space, while a large, red button sat before a large screen.
Tsukasa stood forward, placing a hand on the cool metal exterior. “Remind me what this is for?” He asked.
“Why, it’s for our newest play of course,” Rui answered, a proud smile on his face. “It’s just like the Jules Verne novel! This rocket here shall make its way straight to the moon! I’ll place a remote-controlled plushie inside and with my control, it will press the launch button and be go hurling into the sky!”
“Really?!” Emu practically squealed in excitement. “How long would it take???”
Rui nods as Nene steps closer to the rocket, ducking her head in to check the inside. “Great question,” Rui says. “It would take about… approximately four days. And, although not necessary, it has enough oxygen to last a trip from the moon and back.”
Just looking at the rocket, Rui was just as impressed as all his troupe members were. After taking all the necessary precautions, adjustments, and calculations… he finally did it. He made a damn rocket. In just a day too. Beat that, NASA. He thought, a smug smirk playing on his lips.
And proud he should be, seeing as he’d most likely be sending yet another plushie to space—Magellan T. Bear be damned.
“It’s not like the plushie needs the air to breathe though, right…?” Nene asked.
“I prepare for everything, dear Nene. Even for plushies with developed respiratory systems. There's even enough food and water in here,” Rui said as he prepared to shut the rocket back up. “Now, could you please step back so I can—”
A bright flash of light caused the two to flinch, as the monitor whirred to life after sensing a presence inside the rocket as Rui began to close the door. Nene let out a sharp yelp as she slipped inside, causing Rui to try to pry the door back. Sensing the danger, Tsukasa and Emu jumped into the action and helped pull the closing door as well. But, even with their combined strength, it proved futile as the rocket automatically sealed itself shut without a hitch.
Rui banged on the door, looking into the small, circular window that allowed him to view Nene’s panicked expression. “It’s fine! As long as you don’t start the rocket, you can open the door!” He shouted, oblivious to how muffled he’d sound to her from the inside, seeing how thick the metal was.
“Um…” Nene listened, but could only make out fragments of his words like a puzzle missing a few pieces. She’d just have to fill in the blanks herself. “Don’t start… How?!” She screamed back.
“Just make sure you press the green button! Don’t press the red button!”
From what she could pick up, Nene repeated the words to herself: Just… press… the… red button…?
“Okay!” She shouted. “Pressing the red button!” With a hesitant hand, she pressed down, preparing for the door to open the moment she did.
“Wait, what?!” Rui pounded his fists even harder than before. “No! The green button! Don’t press the—” The monitor began to display the rocket’s optics, as the thrusters below began to smoke. Soon enough, the rocket had awoken, and in the blink of an eye, it shot into the skies, taking Nene away to the stars.
“…red… button.” Rui muttered, his arms falling limp to his sides.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
“Wah!! What are we gonna do?! Nene’s all the way in space!” Emu paced around the stage as the afternoon seeped in like a spilled drink, beginning to overtake the morning blue to twist into an orange hue.
“No need to panic… I’m able to contact her on my phone through the intercom.” Rui said, more so to reassure himself than the others.
“Can’t you… I don’t know… force the rocket back down?” Tsukasa tried to reason.
As Rui pulled his phone out of his pocket, he shook his head grimly. “To put it simply; the rocket is already on a set path to the moon, constantly predicting its trajectory since the moon is always revolving around the Earth. To force it to change course would confuse the navigation system’s AI.” He pressed some buttons and brought up the rocket’s control panel on an app. “She’s not too far from Earth, it seems. But she’s beginning to exit our atmosphere.”
He called the intercom and put the phone on speaker. “Hello? Nene?”
Nene’s frightened voice exploded through the speakers. “ YOU JUST SENT ME TO SPACE!!! ”
“Um… Yes. I did.” Rui massaged his temple, infuriated with himself for letting this happen. “But, I’ll get you back. Don’t worry.”
“How am I not supposed to worry?!”
“Okay, hold on…” He thought for a second, and, slowly, an idea resurfaced. An insane one… but he had no other choice. “Wait! I got it!”
Handing the phone to Tsukasa, Rui ran off in search of supplies. “Rui!” Tsukasa shouted. “What am I supposed to do here?!”
“Just calm her down while I work on something! I’ll be back in a bit!”
Rui had no idea how he would do it… but he was gonna attempt something no other rocket scientist had done before. One small step for man, one big leap for mankind, as Neil Armstrong said.
And for Rui, he had a whole lot more big leaps he needed to take.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
Looking through the small window, a sea of black permeated the skies instead of the deep blue Nene was used to. From here, she didn’t know how far she was now from Earth, but… she was very far if she had to make any sort of guess. Very, very far.
Everything that seemed minuscule when she was on Earth was even bigger than she ever thought they were before. Sure, she knew they seemed small because of her distance from the other planets and stars, but from here… stars looked like large balls of fire, and she could make out details on other planets in the distance.
It was weird—how calming yet scary it all felt. She was separated from what she knew on Earth, but… she was far away from everything that scared her in the first place. All her fears and worries—they stayed on Earth, while she was all the way in space, where she was only herself. Alone, but safe.
And with zero gravity, her body was so much lighter. She could just float around, and she found entertainment in picking up a discarded plastic wrapper and watching it float in the air.
If she were honest…
She could get used to this.
“Hey, Earth to Nene?” Tsukasa’s voice crackled over the intercom, jolting Nene out of her head. Back on Earth, he was sitting on his bed, his initial worry still lingering. It’s been a little over three days since Nene’s launch, and he’s downloaded the rocket’s app on his phone with help from Rui.
She replied, “Yeah?”
“How close are you to the moon now?”
“Um…” She glances at the monitor. “It says I’m about… a few hours left.”
“Really?! Tell us what it looks like when you get back!” Emu said, moving closer to the phone, and nearly knocking Tsukasa over in the process.
“Wait, what’s Emu doing there? I thought you were calling me from your house?” Nene asked, finger tapping against the control panel.
Tsukasa grunted, gently pushing Emu away with a blush on his face. “Um… she wanted to check up on you too.”
“Sure…” Nene sighed, suspicious. “But… What am I supposed to do when I land on the moon?”
“I think Rui said there’s a space suit for you to wear in one of the compartments?”
Looking through the small interior, she found the space suit in no time. Although it was a few sizes bigger, it did the job at the very least. She moved to look out the window and found the moon, closer than ever when she was on the ground.
She gulped, bracing herself for her incoming landing.
♫彡*:･ﾟ✧
When she finally landed on the moon, Nene found herself mesmerized by the sight that greeted her.
Once the door opened, she stepped out, her body as light as a feather. Even as she walked out of the rocket, it was as if she were swimming in invisible water.
Black waves cloaked the skies, and a dark and drowning tide glittered in twinkling stars. Infinite. She felt so infinite as she gazed deep into the sky. As she drowned herself in the sea of darkness, mesmerized, she remembered something Rui had told her just a few days ago as he taught her how to play chess.
“You know…” he says as he begins with a ‘king’s pawn’ opening. “There are about seventy-two thousand possible positions after two moves.”
“Hm?” Nene hummed, moving her black pawn to meet his. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Nene. Those seventy-two thousand positions become nine million after three moves, then three hundred billion after four moves, and so on and so forth.
It’s said there are about sixty-nine trillion possible games in chess. There is a finite amount of games you can play, but with how many there are, it’s practically infinite.
This game we’re playing right now has most likely been played by somebody before. Or maybe we’re playing a game nobody has done. But honestly…” He sighs, calculating his next move. “It all doesn’t matter. The point is to enjoy the moment and have fun.”
“If you think too much about all the possible openings and moves… you end up driving yourself mad.”
Staring into the vast space, Nene thought the same thing. For now, astrologists have found no end to space. But, maybe it was finite. Maybe there was an end. But for now, viewing all the different stars and planets that littered the void…
…there wasn’t any end. Not anytime soon.
Maybe there was also comfort in knowing life was infinite.
Turning her gaze to Earth, she found an uncanny feeling creeping into her. With how much, well, pretty much everyone, spent time on Earth… she’s never thought about how it would look like, seeing it far away.
She’s seen pictures and art mock-ups… but seeing for herself was surreal, to say the least. When the land she used to stand on turns into simple shapes from afar, it’s hard to even imagine that there are over eight billion people currently residing on such a small planet compared to the entire galaxy.
Craters and mountain ranges surrounded the ground she sat on, and she could feel the rocks on her gloves. Seeing as the surface was covered in dust and rocks, she created a little place to comfortably sit on. From here, she could see the entire Earth, almost like a two-dimensional image.
Releasing a breath and closing her eyes, a calming breeze took her worries away like a washing tide. Life on the moon didn’t seem so bad after all.
That is… until she found another rocket hurdling towards her.
In under a second, she couldn’t let out a scream as it landed right next to her. At first, she thought NASA had already found her and was about to arrest her for some kind of space crime—was it even possible to trespass on the moon?—her nerves began to calm down when she noticed the rocket had been built similarly to hers, although it looked a bit more rushed than how refined hers was in comparison.
Her suspicions were confirmed when the passenger, dressed in a similar space suit, exited through the makeshift door, his lavender hair standing out from all the black and white with ease.
“Nene!” Rui shouted as he ran right up to her, pulling her up and into his arms. He squeezed her tight, afraid that she would float away if he were to let go. Never again. If she were to do so, he’d just find a way back to her, no matter what.
Not even two distant worlds could keep them apart.
“Rui…” Nene released his name like an exhale. “You… how?”
“Simple. I just made another rocket.” He replied.
“That fast?”
“I guess I got used to making them.”
This close, his worried eyes that looked down at her could be mistaken for stars. She could feel his gaze engulf her in his heat, as small twinkles glinted in his irises. “Now,” He said. “Let’s get you back home, shall we?”
As he led back to the rocket, she looked back at the one Rui used to get here. “What about that one…?”
“No worries. It’ll find a way back to us.” He replied, chuckling to himself. “Life’s funny that way, isn’t it?”
As they boarded back on the ship, Nene knew she’d miss the moon and how she felt on it. But, although she’d be heading back to Earth soon, where all her worries would come back to her—she also knew she’d return to her friends and WxS once again.
Life really was funny, huh?
Rui shut the door and went to the control panel, hitting a sequence of buttons that Nene couldn’t wrap her head around. He set the rocket’s path back to Earth and hit the launch button. The rocket began to take flight soon after Rui exclaimed, “Ah, I get it now.”
“Get what?” Nene tilted her head.
“The saying; ‘I love you to the moon and back.’—How it suggests how a person’s love can reach further to the moon and back to Earth.” He smiled as he turned back to Nene, causing her cheeks to glitter in pink. “I always found it a bit hyperbolic… but, here we are.
We’ve made it—to the moon and back.”