Work Text:
24:59
Mafuyu stares at the small white numbers on the bottom corner of her computer screen, daring them to take any longer than they already are.
1:00
Her eyes dart back up to the screen. The soft, dark shades of Nightcord stare back at her.
She’s still the only one online.
She can hear Kanade pacing the hallway outside, left and right, left and right. She’s muttering to herself, but the words get lost to the wooden door.
Mafuyu leads her gaze to the user list on the right hand side of her screen. Enanan and Amia’s profiles sit there silently, as if mocking her. Mafuyu’s hand tightens around the mouse.
Their last conversation blinks up at her, short enough to fit into the monitor display without being cut off.
Enanan
I’m sorry
K.
enanan?
Yuki
Where have you been.
Enanan
it all went wrong
im sorry
i cant tell you
K.
What do you mean?
Enanan
i cant
Mizuki’s gone
K.
what?
Enanan
she ran
i couldnt catch her
sekai i think
i dont know
I cant find her anywhere
Yuki
What happened?
Enanan
im sorry
K.
ena
ena pick up please
please tell me mizuki is okay
Yuki
Ena. What happened.
@enanan
@amia.edits
Hello?
Mafuyu hasn’t been able to chase away the cold block of ice that seems to have settled in her chest ever since. No amount of n25’s songs, no volume of Mochizuki-san’s soup, no number of calls from her father can force it out of the nest it’s made of her ribcage.
I have something I need to tell you, Mizuki had said as she bid them farewell at the school festival, before she went to the rooftop with Ena. I can’t tell you, Ena types, even the words on the screen leeching panic, horror, as if they have a voice of their own. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happened.
But why? What could have gone so poorly that Mizuki has run- has disappeared? Mafuyu hardly believes that Ena could have done something so disastrous as to chase Mizuki away permanently like that, but she can’t write the idea off completely — not with how guilt-laden Ena’s messages had felt.
Mafuyu presses her lips together. She doesn’t want to think about, can’t think about that time months ago when she’d entered the SEKAI with no intention of ever coming back. She’s lucky, infinitely so, that Kanade and the others had found her in time. If they hadn’t she would have been lost to the endless reaches of the SEKAI forever, unfindable, untouchable.
A grey sky, blank and featureless. Jagged shapes jutting out of the ground, sharp and unrelenting; bent, rusted metal poles coming from nowhere and going nowhere at all. An unending lake, with waves that rise and crash like mountains far in the distance, desperate to eat anyone whole. Len almost fell in once, and for a second it looked like the grey water would lurch up and swallow him.
Mafuyu thinks about the survival rate of shipwrecks. Mafuyu thinks about wounds contaminated with tetanus from rusty metal. Mafuyu thinks about vital arteries. Mafuyu thinks about the bottle of pills on Kanade’s bedside table.
Where is Mizuki?
Mafuyu stands up so fast that the swivel chair clatters against itself. Kanade is at the other end of the hall when Mafuyu opens the door, and she nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound of the latch. She looks like she’s about to say something, but Mafuyu doesn't wait. She turns on her heel and walks down the stairs.
“Mafuyu?”
If she stops now, this coldness will eat her whole, from her heart to her lungs to her limbs. She circles the kitchen, pulling a pair of reusable bags from a bottom cabinet. Kanade follows her down the stairs, trailing like a ghost. Mafuyu can feel her eyes on the back of her neck as she rounds on the front door. Even the brief pause she takes to tie her shoes feels agonizing.
“Where are you going?”
It’s the panic in Kanade’s voice that slows Mafuyu down, her fingers going limp on the laces. She glances up. Kanade is standing on the final stair, her eyes sharp and focused despite the heavy bags beneath them. Her knuckles are white with how hard she’s clutching the bannister.
“To try and help Mizuki.” She pauses. “I have to do it alone. I’m sorry.”
“But- it’s 25:00. We need to meet.”
Mafuyu doesn't say anything. Nightcord has been dead silent for three days now.
A moment passes, and Kanade deflates. Her grip goes slack and she nods once, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Okay. Good luck.”
She looks so small there, standing in one of her father’s old hoodies, dwarfed completely by the house. Mafuyu lingers.
“Will you be okay? I can call Mochizuki-san-“
“No,” Kanade says hurriedly. “It’s 1 in the morning. We’d wake her up.”
”She’d come.”
“She would,” Kanade mumbles. She seems to think about it for a second, but shakes her head again. “I’ll be okay. I should get to work, anyways.”
Work. For a song that will save Mizuki.
How will they compose a song when they don’t even know what the problem is?
“Okay,” Mafuyu says anyway. She takes her jacket off the stand, tosses it over her shoulders. The chill in her ribs drips its cold, frozen water down into her gut. “I’ll be back soon.”
There’s a 24/7 convenience store only a four minute walk from Kanade’s house. Mafuyu knows this because Kanade has been a frequenter for almost three years now, and so Mafuyu has become a frequenter for the past few months. The bright white fluorescent lights are a jarring coming in from the dark midnight. Mafuyu pauses for a second to let her eyes adjust. The door makes a dull buzzing sound as it swings open. The tired-looking employee behind the counter doesn’t even look up from their phone.
Two bags of chips, regular and barbecue.
A chocolate bar.
Two sodas. Mafuyu doesn’t look at the label, but she chooses the pinkest ones.
A bag of cheesecake bites, chocolate-caramel flavour.
The last egg salad sandwich in the fridge.
Strawberry pocky sticks.
Mafuyu dumps her haul onto the counter. She might have made conversation with the cashier; she can’t remember. She doesn’t look at the number on the register before swiping her card.
The night air is a pleasant respite from the convenience store. Mafuyu takes a second to breathe it in, before awkwardly shuffling her bags to one hand and taking out her phone. There’s one more stop she needs to make.
The nearest fast food place still open is a brisk fifteen minutes away, but the time passes all too fast. The smell of grease is an assault to the senses.
“Large fries.” She mutters at the register, “and dipping sauces…” she tries to scan the menu, only now realizing she’d forgotten to grab her glasses on the way out, “…whatever you grab first. Three of them.”
The box of fries goes on top of the pocky box, which is on top of the chocolate bar, which is on top of the egg salad sandwich, which is all squished in beside one of the chip bags.
Mafuyu ducks into an alley. Realistically, she has the time to walk back to Kanade’s house — 20 minutes isn't so bad. But the chill in her chest won’t let up. She sucks in a breath, and the fall air seems warm to her frigid lungs. She needs to do something. She needs this ice gone. She needs… Mizuki needs…
SEKAI looks exactly the same. Mafuyu blinks away the shards of light that dance in her eyes and casts a glance around the landscape. Nothing new. Nothing missing. There’s a small pile of folded blankets tucked away under a jagged outcropping, provided by Ena because she claimed it was ‘frigid in here all the time!’ A small plastic bag sits beside the blankets, full of discarded candy wrappers all neatly packed away. Kanade and Mizuki brought a haul for the Kagamines only a week or so ago, Mafuyu remembers. They must be through them already.
At the thought of the twins, Mafuyu raises her head and scans the horizon for any sign of the VIRTUAL SINGERS. She knows better than to expect that Mizuki will appear, bright and warm as ever, pink hair bouncing as she rushes forward to envelop Mafuyu in a hug. Still, her chest feels even colder as her search comes up empty. No one is here.
Mafuyu needs to move, so she picks a random direction and starts walking. The weight of the bags is starting to pull on her arms, but she shuffles that sensation to the back of her mind. She needs to find… something. Anything. To point her in the right direction. Mizuki doesn’t like her fries too hot, so Mafuyu’s not too concerned about them cooling down; but the sandwich and the sodas might not stand being outside a fridge for too long.
After a minute, Mafuyu exhales softly and shuts her eyes. The landscape of the SEKAI is dangerous, but no inhibitions cross her mind. She lets it all melt away, focuses on the block of ice in her chest, like shards piercing each of her veins, growing closer to her heart. She needs it gone. She needs it melted. She needs to log onto nightcord and hear the sound of Amia and Enanan bickering again. She needs that bright, happy “Yuki!” And the dozens of questions about the lyrics she’s writing. She needs…
Something innate tells Mafuyu to open her eyes again, so she does. It’s impossible to designate landmarks in the endlessly repeating expanse; Mafuyu has no concept of how long she’s been walking, or how far she’s gotten. The only thing that’s changed is a figure, lingering behind one of the metal outcroppings.
Mafuyu watches her for a second. She’s stock still, her dress softly billowing in the gentle breeze. She almost looks like she’s asleep on her feet, but Mafuyu knows that she doesn’t sleep, not like Miku and the twins.
“MEIKO.”
MEIKO’s shoulders stiffen, and Mafuyu can almost feel the tension reflected in her own back. She rolls her shoulders awkwardly, and waits for MEIKO to turn around.
MEIKO peers over her shoulder, turning just enough for Mafuyu to catch a glimpse of her face. Her eyes are red-rimmed.
“What do you want?”
Mafuyu almost flinches. MEIKO’s voice is so glitched, her words are almost completely drowned out into static. She’s never heard any of the VIRTUAL SINGERS sound like that before. Mafuyu has the mind to ask why, but when words pass her lips, the only sentence they form is “Where is she?”
MEIKO looks away quickly, wrapping her arms around herself. Mafuyu watches as her fingers squeeze into the bone-white flesh of her bicep.
“I don’t know.”
Silence falls, but MEIKO isn’t done speaking. Mafuyu waits.
“…No one has been able to find her. We’ve all been looking, but… we don’t know how far the SEKAI goes. We don’t know how deep she could have gone.”
Mafuyu exhales softly through her nose. The fabric handles of the bags are digging into her fingers.
“How do I find her?”
“I don’t know.”
This time, Mafuyu does flinch. The static is so sharp it feels like pins into her ears, and she has to keep herself from stumbling back. For a split second, MEIKO looks remorseful, before she quickly turns around again.
“It’s your SEKAI,” her words have no bite. She just sounds tired. “Figure it out.”
MEIKO takes a few steps forward, and disappears into the fog.
“Real helpful, MEIKO,” mutters an imaginary Ena that lives inside Mafuyu’s head. “She’s just scared,” Kanade’s voice chimes in. Mafuyu wonders what Mizuki would say.
And it’s not even that MEIKO hasn’t been helpful. Quite the opposite, really. Mafuyu’s surprised she didn’t think of it before.
Mizuki is lost in the depths of the SEKAI, but unlike when she, Ena, and Kanade were trying to find Mafuyu, Mafuyu has an advantage here. It is her SEKAI; not Mizuki’s. Mizuki is a guest here. Not an unwelcome one, but a guest nonetheless. She can’t hide away in the recesses of Mafuyu’s mind without Mafuyu being able to find her.
Bring me to Mizuki.
Mafuyu squeezes her eyes tight. When she opens them, she’s still in the same place.
Hmm. She probably should have expected it would be more difficult than that.
What would Miku say?
She’d say that the SEKAI is made of Mafuyu’s feelings, even the ones she can’t quite reach. She’d say the key to this is somewhere deep within Mafuyu’s mind, and Mafuyu just needs to find it.
Mafuyu pinches her eyes shut and she forces a hand into that pit of ice in the middle of her chest, reaching further and further, even as her joints freeze up and the tips of her fingers blacken with frostbite. She pries into those little cracks, and she forces them open, until she brushes up against something… warm.
…
There’s a collection of objects that Mafuyu keeps in a little basket tucked under her bed, that she only pulls out when her chest feels particularly hollow. Tucked into the pages of a storybook is a pencil portrait of her signed by Ena Shinonome, folded up next to some pressed cherry blossoms and USB keys that hold the intricacies of n25’s discography. There’s more in there, so much more that Mafuyu has considered on more than one occasion that she might need to procure a second basket, but she knows that if she shuffles past the pictures of her and Otori from the sports festival, she’ll find a small purple scrunchie tucked away.
“Mafuyu, where did you put that hair tie I gave you?” Mizuki had asked one day, on a rare occasion that she’d actually decided to go to school, and stopped by Kanade’s place on the way back, “the one my sister made! Don’t tell me you’ve lost it…”
“Of course I haven’t,” Mafuyu muttered from her desk, nodding towards the vanity, “it’s over there, under my sweater.”
Mizuki let out a little “a-ha!” When she found it, and suddenly Mafuyu was being dragged out of her chair, away from the vitally important statistics homework she’d been trying to sort through.
“Mizuki, what are you-“
“I’m doing your hair, silly! Come on, you’ve been studying for, like, three hours straight, and K’s asleep, and I’m sooo bored. Let me have this. Pleeeeaaase?”
”Fine,” Mafuyu muttered, more because she knew that Mizuki would be unsufferable to deal with if she didn’t let this happen than out of any desire to have her hair done. Mizuki hummed happily, and pulled Mafuyu onto the bed in front of her, gently carding her hands through her hair.
Mafuyu had expected there to be chatter, but Mizuki fell almost eerily quiet as she split Mafuyu’s hair into sections, so Mafuyu didn’t speak either. The blanket of silence that enveloped them felt warm and almost sacred, as if this was a ritual the two of them had quietly entered. Mafuyu closed her eyes and focused on the feeling of fingers brushing against her scalp. When she was little, Mafuyu’s mother used to brush her hair too. It started out gentle and loving, like this, but when Mafuyu got into elementary school and her hair got curlier, more difficult to tame, she remembers needing to grit her teeth against the yanking at her scalp. Still, it had felt like a loss when her mother had passed the brush to Mafuyu and said “you’re old enough to do it on your own, now.”
Mizuki’s fingers dropped from Mafuyu’s scalp to the back of her neck, her long nails gently scraping against the skin. There’s gentle tugging on Mafuyu’s scalp, but it’s nice. Caring. Like Mizuki is taking her time, making sure every little piece is in place.
“There you go,” Mizuki’s energy comes back all at once as she grabs Mafuyu’s shoulders and turns her towards the mirror, “see! Nothing beats dressing up cute when you’re feeling down.”
She’s pulled all of Mafuyu’s hair into a loose fishtail braid that rests gently on her shoulder. Mafuyu runs a hand over the little bumps, revelling at how they all folded into each other. It’s wrapped at the end with a dark purple scrunchie, the soft velvet catching the gentle glow of the overhead lamp.
Eventually Mizuki left, and away that little scrunchie went into the basket, tucked underneath the bed. Mafuyu doesn’t really know why she put it there, but every time she takes it out and runs her fingers over the velvet she thinks about Mizuki’s hands carefully braiding her hair, and she feels full.
…
When Mafuyu opens her eyes, it’s to an endless body of water, roiling with white-capped waves out in the distance. Mafuyu exhales slowly. She’s never seen the lake so tumultuous. The last time it was even close to this was before she spoke to her father, almost two weeks ago now.
There’s a figure curled up on a small solitary platform some ways into the lake. Without her glasses, Mafuyu can only barely make out a smudge of pink hair, bright against the pale grey of the horizon.
“Mizuki.”
There’s no response. She doesn't even see the pinkish-grey blob flinch. But it surely isn't Luka, and who else could it be?
Mafuyu takes a few steps forward. Then, she steps into the lake.
Her foot hits something solid. Mafuyu’s eyes flit down for only a second, just enough to see the small platform, just the right size for her foot, sitting just above the lapping water. Mafuyu takes another set forward. A cobblestone trail of little white platforms, each rising to meet her footsteps, clink like glass under the sole of her shoe.
They stop only a step away from Mizuki, a foot or so of water dividing them. Mafuyu could reach out and touch her. She doesn’t.
She’s not in that yellow Kamiyama t-shirt anymore, instead wearing something that looks like a work uniform. Something that might be relief finds a small home in Mafuyu’s veins. At the very least, she’s left to go to work.
Mizuki’s hair is down, a curtain of pink hanging flatly over her shoulders. She’s stopped curling it.
“Mizuki.”
This time, she does move. Her shoulders curl in on each other, her back hunching as if she’s trying to crawl away from Mafuyu’s voice.
“Are you here to kick me out?”
Mizuki’s voice roils like the waves that crash in the lake miles away, and Mafuyu distantly wonders how sailors feel when they know their ship is going under.
“No.” She wills her voice to cut through the churning storm.
“Oh.” Mizuki doesn’t sound relieved.
Their conversation fades into the tumult. Mafuyu shifts. She’s unfamiliar with this feeling — the feeling of not knowing what to do. Usually, she just says whatever’s on her mind. But nothing summons itself. It’s as if every word has been frozen into that block of ice in her chest.
In searching for a response, her mind reminds her of the bags in her hands — of why she’s here in the first place. She shuffles her weight awkwardly, and then in the absence of words, Mafuyu kneels down and places the bags on Mizuki’s platform. When Mizuki doesn’t react, Mafuyu gently pushes the bags forwards until they bump into her.
Mizuki looks over her shoulder. When she spots the bags, something complicated passes over her face. It’s not unlike the look that Kanade gets as they’re walking away from the hospital after visiting her father. Or maybe the sinking feeling that Mafuyu gets in her stomach when she remembers how her father would hold her hand during thunderstorms.
”Why did you do this?” Mizuki whispers, and suddenly her voice seems much closer, much smaller. The waves fade into the distance.
Mafuyu blinks. She isn’t sure how to answer that question.
“I wanted to, I think,” is what she settles on. Mizuki won’t meet her eyes, but she exhales sharply; a humourless laugh.
Silence.
“You can go now,” Mizuki says after almost a minute. There’s something familiar in her voice. Banefully, Mafuyu thinks she must have packed her own heart into the freezer before she left, because she can’t seem to explain otherwise why her heart, still pumping blood, feels like it’s been dunked into an ice bath. Even that gentle warmth from before has disappeared, swallowed up by the foreboding chill. Mafuyu shifts her weight from foot to foot.
“Kanade’s worried about you. Ena, too. So… come back soon.”
Mizuki scoffs, but it sounds more like a sob. ”Don't say that when you don’t mean it.”
Mafuyu blinks. “Why wouldn’t I mean it?”
“I know you just pity me.” Mizuki’s voice is dry; flat.
“Pity you…?” Mafuyu repeats, “Why would I…”
“I don’t-! Stop pretending that everything’s normal!” Mizuki snaps suddenly, and the thrashing of the waves seems to go silent against the turmoil of her voice, “stop pretending like you don’t know! Stop — stop bringing me food, and treating me all the same out of some — some obligation, and babying me like nothing’s changed, like you don’t — you don’t-!” Her gaze finally finds Mafuyu’s and she falters. Her eyes go just a fraction wider. Mafuyu thinks they look eerily dry.
”…You do know… don’t you?”
Mafuyu tilts her head.
“Ena… implied something happened at the festival. She hasn’t told us what. I just… figured. That you would be here.”
Mizuki’s face goes blank. “She didn’t tell you?”
Mafuyu shakes her head.
A million emotions seem to cross Mizuki’s face at once. Mafuyu isn’t familiar with any of them. Before she can try to discern anything, Mizuki turns back around and buries her face in her knees.
She looks so small here, dwarfed by the endless lake. It doesn’t beget her. Mafuyu has heard stories of the lakes in North America, about how they’re inland oceans, how they swallow ships whole and they never resurface. The SEKAI would never get that out of control… would it?
It wouldn’t, Mafuyu tells herself, but she thinks of how it seemed so gaping only a year ago, when she’d begged it to let her disappear and never be found again. But this is different. It has to be. Miku and Kanade say that Mafuyu didn’t really want to disappear back then, and Mafuyu is near certain she doesn’t want Mizuki to disappear now. It’s the only thing she’s been certain of for a long time. So Mizuki won’t disappear; not into SEKAI, at least. As unlikely as it may seem, she’s… safe, here. She has to be.
“Everyone needs to run away sometimes,” Mafuyu mutters, “so… you’re allowed to run to SEKAI, Mizuki. It’ll be here for you.”
“Okay,” Mizuki says, voice quiet.
“But I think,” Mafuyu mutters, her voice steady, “that sometimes it’s worth it to stop running.”
Mizuki is quiet. Mafuyu thinks of her father’s hands, warm as they clasp over her own. Of the flash of fear on Rin’s face when she heard the thunder outside. Of bunnies dancing on the pages of children’s books. Of a purple scrunchie stashed under her bed.
“You need to come back, Mizuki,” Mafuyu says. Her mouth feels dry. “I… want you to.”
“Yeah?” Mizuki mutters, but her voice is cold, disbelieving. Mafuyu swallows thickly. Her frozen heart is balancing precariously over the pit in her gut, large and yawning and threatening to swallow everything whole. The lake is eerily still.
“Everything’s been so cold, nowadays,” Mafuyu whispers. She doesn’t know who she’s speaking to; herself, Mizuki, or the yawning lake itself.
Mizuki might scoff, or she might sigh, or it might be a sob. Mafuyu can’t tell.
“Mizuki. When you’re tired of running…” for some reason, Mafuyu’s lip is trembling. She has to fight to get it back under control. “Come back.”
Mizuki sighs.
“You’re asking me to come back because… I make you feel warm?” She chuckles humorlessly, but there’s something almost like hope beneath it. “Isn’t that really selfish, Mafuyu?”
“Maybe,” Mafuyu agrees, “but it’s the truth. I won’t take it back. Ena loves you. So does Kanade. And I think I do too. So… come back.”
The words hang in the silent air between them. The last time SEKAI was this quiet was when it was just Mafuyu and Miku. Since then, there’s always been some sort of sound in the distance — singing, or the lapping of waves, or bickering. Anything at all. But now, it’s dead quiet. She can hear each breath Mizuki takes.
“Go away, Mafuyu,” Mizuki mutters, voice thick. It seems to echo across the empty landscape. “I don’t want to talk.”
Mafuyu stares at Mizuki’s back. She can almost see the ridges of her spine beneath her shirt.
“…Alright,” Mafuyu mutters after a beat. She stands, feeling her knees click underneath her.
“I’m sorry, Mizuki,” Mafuyu mutters, letting the waves carry the words away.
“Don’t say that,” Mizuki whispers, so quiet that Mafuyu has to strain to hear her, “you’re everything.”
Mafuyu doesn’t know what to say. So instead, she fishes her phone out of her pocket, thumb hovering over the pause button.
She doesn’t want to leave. But Kanade will be worried, and Mizuki… doesn’t want this. Not right now.
There’s an itch at the back of Mafuyu’s mind. Without really understanding why, she turns around and glances over her shoulder.
There’s a smudge on the horizon, too small to be a spire from the SEKAI. Mafuyu squints. Whatever it is, it’s slightly red, and it’s watching her… no, no it isn’t. It isn’t watching Mafuyu. It’s watching Mizuki.
Whatever — whoever it is doesn't move under Mafuyu’s stare. Mafuyu wonders if they even know she’s here; or if the only thing they can see right now is Mizuki.
For some strange reason, she feels that the hole in her gut is a little less all-consuming.
Mafuyu turns back to Mizuki. She’s on edge, back all tensed up. Waiting for Mafuyu to leave. Mafuyu opens her mouth, but the word goodbye gets stuck in her throat.
“…I’ll see you later, Mizuki,” she says instead, and though it feels unfamiliar in her mouth, it’s safer. Mafuyu plants her thumb on her phone, and in a shattering of pinks, purples, and browns, she’s swept out of SEKAI.