Chapter Text
She was in the middle of a blue world.
As far as the eye could see, a sheet of water reached into the distance, and the Moon majestically glistened on its surface.
The moon looks beautiful tonight.
As the girl thought that looking at the seemingly endless ocean, she glanced at her watch. 2:50 am. In just a few hours the ship she and her superior boarded would arrive at LeMU and their job would finally begin in earnest. Yet here she was, standing alone on the deck in the dead of night, looking out at the ocean and stars instead of getting rest that she’d need for the day to come.
It wasn’t stress, that’s for sure. She’d been on dozens of missions before and ended up in similar situations to this one every single time. No, it was something else. It was only at times like this where she had an opportunity to be truly alone. The quiet sound of waves below her as the ship went on, the cool, yet pleasant temperature, the soft light of the moon and billions upon billions of stars in the night sky - they made her feel at peace. They made her think if that’s something she would finally be able to experience soon.
There was a reason she took part in all the dangerous assignments. The top brass may have recognized her skills, sure, but most people weren’t too keen on being told to go into a death trap, much less doing so of their own will. And yet, it was precisely why she asked for them every single time. At first, it was probably a desire for revenge driving her, maybe a sense of duty to make sure no one could be hurt like her ever again.
But as time went on, that prospect looked less and less realistic. No matter how many times she’d pull off some incredible feat and set back some absurd plan by years, it never felt like it amounted to anything. There’d be some panic about it internally for a bit (and the requisite boring celebration at HQ as well), but soon after that the world would just keep on going, as if nothing had ever happened. Back to the same cacophony of empty, meaningless noise as always.
And she hated it. Every single waking moment a reminder that she’s all alone in the world, no matter how much she wishes it wasn’t so. That people are content with ignoring the world around them as long as doing so means they won’t be inconvenienced. Even in the organization she knew she was an outcast, a freak. That’s probably why outside of her superiors people wouldn’t generally talk to her. Maybe that was for the best. As long as she kept to herself, she wouldn’t be dragging others into her issues and she’d be able to focus on the task at hand. And if she got lucky, maybe this would be the day she would at last know peace.
A gentle breeze blew through her hair. She checked her watch again. 3:17 am. She should probably go back to her cabin, or else Phia will get angry once she has to wake her up. Tomorrow will be a busy day.
Just a moment longer. The moon really does look beautiful tonight.
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“…”
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
“…”
Beep. Beep. Be-
“Ughhhhhh, shaddup already!” mumbled You from underneath her pillow. It was 7 am and she desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Frankly, it’s inhumane that people would consider getting up so early acceptable in the first place!
It’s not like I got to sleep all that much in recent months anyway, she thought, slowly dragging herself out of the comfy, yet treacherous confines of her bed. People definitely were not overselling how much time and care babies required. If anything, they were underselling it! Who would have thought that working at LeMU would be the most sleep she’d get in months?
She thought about You again, and imagined Takeshi trying his best to calm her down from her usual fussy outbursts with Mom trying to help as well.
“Hehe. Wait for me just a bit longer, everyone. I’m almost at the bottom of this, I just know it.”
By the time she got dressed and ready to leave her room it was almost 7:30. She still had some time to grab breakfast but she’d have to be quick about it. With no time to waste, she grabbed her pendant and left the room.
As she was making her way through the numerous employee-only corridors of Insel Null, she saw the sun shining bright on the artificial island, a wonderful, cloudless day.Though she wouldn’t get to experience it herself for most of her temporary employment, seeing as she’d be spending most of it submerged deep inside the ocean, simply seeing the clear weather outside lifted her spirits up. Though it worked like that on all people, right? Nice weather gets people excited to live to their fullest, while bad weather makes people feel worse or something like that. She heard it somewhere. Probably. Maybe.
Entering the cafeteria, she spotted several of her coworkers already eating at their tables. As much as she would have liked to take the time to savor her breakfast pastry (she had no idea that bread this good could ever exist, much less in the middle of the ocean) as she usually did, today she could not afford that luxury.
As she was getting her food, You exchanged some greetings with the staff members she knew. She wasn’t really friends with any of them yet, but it was nice to have someone to talk to at work nonetheless. It made the more boring days pass by quicker at the very least. LeMU was a massive park, sure, but from an employee perspective there was only so much to it before the different attractions started melding together into similar types of tasks to perform. Explain this here. Play that video there. Say hi to the Cosmic Whale. At some point everything felt too same-y to enjoy. I guess that’s why people wouldn’t stay here for too long. That, and the prices of the LeMU hotel were out of this world. The first time she saw how much they charged for a single night, her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets!
Right, back to breakfast. Not much time left, after all. Despite the pain it brought her, she had to limit herself to only a minute to eat her chocolate pastry (so good!~). She took one last sip of her fake orange juice and got up. It was time to head to the elevator.
One of the nice things about being an employee was the staff elevator. Not only did she not have to stand in line like all the visitors, it was also much, much more quiet. Every staff member was used to the pressurization procedure, after all, so the whole experience was very calm, with people taking the time to talk about various things to pass the time.
The few times she was assigned to guide groups into the park were always extremely tiring, however. Since most people have never been submerged deep underwater, they’re not used to needing to slowly reach the target pressure and tend to get a bit loud as a result. Even more so for children, many of which tend to start crying as soon as their ears pop for the first time.
You wondered if her daughter would cry if she came here too. She was a bit of a crybaby after all. It would probably be better to go together once she was a bit older, then. For a young girl getting to go to a park like this would be a wonderful childhood experience, that’s for sure. She would show the two of them the whole park and use her employee pass to let them skip all the queues, like the awesome mom she was. They could go ride the gondola a bunch, or go on the Cosmic Whale or-
“Ah.”
Right.
She got so lost in her dreaming that she forgot she’d never get to do that after all. Her ever so slight issue that was the reason she was here in the first place reared its ugly head once more.
“...heh.”
For now, though, it didn’t matter. You decided to not let fate ruin her day like that, and allowed herself to dream, even if just for a bit longer.