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It was the 12th of February, and everyone and their hamster was buzzing about Valentine's Day. Wishing their crush would ask them out- trying to buy chocolates or prepare gifts for each other.
But Marie and the President were standing at the rooftop. Marie said she needed "a break" from everyone else. Ironically- the rooftop was where all the couples came to hang out the most, so they wondered what Marie was attempting to achieve by doing that.
She hadn't talked to Prez at all since she'd been invited to come here. The two of them had just been standing at the railing- watching the school without a word to each other. Marie turned to Prez every now and then to say something, but closed her mouth and looked away. Prez simply waited to listen to her, but as she was saying nothing- the two were looking to see if they could spot any of their other friends down below.
--There was Gin. His yellow cap made him impossible to miss.
Once Prez had spotted Gin, they finally turned to Marie. Were the two of them really looking at the same thing? It seemed like Marie was looking off to nowhere-in-particular, as if she was thinking about sometimes. Was she thinking about what she was about to say?
Her hands were trembling against the numbness of the railings, and Prez had a feeling it wasn't from the cold.
"Hey, President. How would you feel about a rooftop confession?”
The President shrugged- but then suddenly realised. Was Marie suddenly confessing to them?
Marie sensed that they had noticed, “I see. It was a silly question anyway.”
She tried to laugh- but couldn’t get herself to, so it sounded like a cough instead, “I’m sorry. I was just thinking… It’s Valentine’s Day soon, isn’t it? And I think the idea of a date is fun but– I’ve never fallen in love. Maybe it’s because Wicked swore herself off love for our entire life. Or maybe because all my memories of being loved were fake so I don’t know what it’s like. But I’m not Wicked anymore, I want to give love a chance.”
The more she talked the more she seemed to regret it. She dug her fingers into her own hands, and her face was going completely red. Her eyes quickly darted away from the President.
“I’ll go out with you,” The President said- and Marie immediately snapped to look at them.
“You don’t have to!” Marie blushed, “I shouldn’t just be using you as an experiment, and my heart won’t be broken if you decline-”
X suddenly popped out of the President’s chest upon hearing her, and flew to the other side of Marie, “Well, we can’t let you ask Kobato next-!”
Marie began to laugh for real, and suddenly Prez softened their gaze.
“I want to go out with you, Marie. I want you to be my Valentine”. Prez confessed. Their face seemed so serious even Marie couldn’t just go back to making excuses. Marie couldn’t bring herself to say anything. She was simply a shoujo manga-level blushing mess. Didn’t she remember herself being more composed than this? More able to talk to the President naturally? Instead of having any sort of words stuck in her throat?
Or was this the “love” thing that all her romance novels talked about. Describing things like a sudden change in character, strange feeling in the stomach, excessive nervousness. It felt much more like a disease than a miracle.
But if her novels were truly correct, it’d all be worth it in the end. She’d fall in love with someone. And she’d live happily ever after.
She took Prez’s other hand and nodded whilst breaking out into a smile, “Okay! Thank you.”
***
That night, Prez messaged Marie through WIRE to set up plans for the date.
“Should we ask if any of the other Go-Home Club members are planning to go on a date too? It’d be nice to bring them along.” they messaged. Soon, Marie responded.
“It’d be nice. Niko and Kiriko are going out together, I think.”
“They are? Good for them.”
“Kobato’s still going around asking everyone around. All the girls have rejected him at least twice.”
“Poor guy lol. Hope things work out for him.”
“Anyway, is Okitama Planetarium okay for a date?”
“Even after what happened with MU-kun last time?”
“It was a fun memory we shared. Maybe it’d be nice to go out on a date there when we don’t need to fight any musicians.”
Prez laughed reading Marie’s text, and sent one of MU-kun’s WIRE stickers to tease her.
“So it’s set.” Prez confirmed, “We’ll go there after school on the 14th.”
Once they got the heads-up from Marie- they began scrolling a bit through Gossiper to see what was going on. Apparently #QP was expecting to see people’s CVs to apply to be her boyfriend. Surely she didn’t seriously expect to get any applications that way?
***
Valentine’s Day had arrived, and it was a frenzy of chocolates being given to everyone in the school. Kobato got up on his desk and cheered in victory when he had received one bag of chocolates– only for that pride to get crushed when he read the note.
“I expect a higher return on White Day. –Cocoa”
Noticing the whole class had taken to Kobato’s defeat, he cleared his throat and simply announced, “Well one set of chocolates from a cutie is better than none! Next year I’ll be swarming in confessions, mark my words!”
His other classmates didn’t know how to tell him that Cocoa had been handing out chocolates to all the boys in the school, but they had a hunch it wouldn’t even change anything.
Marie handed the President a small box filled with a variety of different cheap chocolates, and a singular rose handed with it.
“All the chocolates were selling out so fast because of Valentine’s Day”, she apologised, “I couldn’t get you too much, but it’s the best I could get.”
X popped out of the president’s chest- nearly giving Marie a heart attack, “Ooh, I want chocolates too!”
“I’m sorry,” Marie apologised, “I don’t have any for you separately. You’d have to ask the President if they’re willing to share any.”
X tries to tilt their head up to reach Prez’ face- hoping she could get a threatening look across. Frustrated, they pushed X's head back into her chest as she protested and Marie continued to stare, horrified.
Gin handed Kobato some consolation chocolates as a friend, knowing Kobato wouldn't have recieved any on his own. Kobato puffed up with pride- insisting he didn't need them as he'd actually recieved some from Cocoa. Gin rolled his eyes, and tried to take the chocolates away.
"Oi! I never meant I didn't want 'em" Kobato scoffed, "Now I get chocolates from two cuties."
"Who's the other from?" Gin sighed.
"#QP- Cocoa apparently. Turns out even after our battle at the school festivals she still can't resist my charms."
Gin sighed at Kobato's hopeless optimism as Cocoa came up to the pair.
"Speak of the devil..." Gin muttered to himself.
Cocoa seemed irritated. And had to take a bit to swallow her pride and compose herself before asking, "Listen, Kobato. I know the school festival kind of-- worked out terribly. But I know you don't have a date today. So I'm willing to put it aside for a sec to help you out."
“The hell you want from me trying to ‘help me out’?” Kobato scoffed.
“I’m just saying- neither of us have dates and it’s kind-of the last minute so… let’s help each other out, y’know?”
“What about your precious ‘honeybunny’?”
“My honeybunny is dating your Mari-Mari! Come on, I’m not gonna beg you. The offer’s on the table, and considering I did give you those chocolates…”
Kobato thought to himself for a second. The last thing he wanted was to be single on Valentine’s Day. But here Cocoa was, acting as if he needed to grovel to her. Self-centred as ever, and yet he understood they were both pretty desperate.
“‘Kay, fine.” Kobato huffed, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
Cocoa blushed and giggled at the compliment, and Kobato tried to swallow his irritation. Gin simply sighed and looked away from the dysfunctional couple and called Marie and the President over.
Marie and the President came over to the trio.
“Woah, you’re dating Marie?” Gin exclaimed. Prez nodded, and Marie blushed.
“We wanted to go on a date to the Okitama Planetarium after school. It was gonna be a double date with Niko and Kiriko. But you’re welcome to come too! After all, the more the merrier,” She invited.
It would be convenient to have more people come along. Then, Marie could observe how they acted. Learn what it was like to love another person. Have a baseline for what it’s like to be a normal person.
"Sure, whatever." Cocoa accepted.
"Triple date a-GO-!!" X cheered.
***
After school, the three couples were walking to Okitama Planetarium. Marie and the President were narrowly avoiding each other's hands and not talking to each other the whole way. Occasionally, they swapped glances at one another, but nothing else.
It would have been awkward if X wasn't asking questions the whole time.
"Why do you humans have a whole day to give each other chocolates and flowers, when you can do that every day?" X chirped.
"You're just saying that because you want chocolates each day- do you even eat!?" Kiriko sighed.
"I don't have to. But I like to."
"I guess we'll get you chocolates every day then."
"Oi! We're not spoiling the bratty virtuadoll!" Kobato snapped.
Marie let out a slight giggle, and asked a question of her own, "So, X- how much do you virtuadolls understand love?"
X thought for a bit and answered, "I don't understand it besides the fact it's human bogus. Mom probably understands it really well because they keep making her sing about it. Songs like Distorted Happiness--"
“O-kay, guess X isn’t the right person- uh, virtuadoll to gain love advice from.” Marie interrupted.
“This is a learning experience for me! I normally don’t care about your human celebrations, but I get chocolate in this one.” X smirked.
The group arrived at the planetarium, which seemed to be incredibly crowded from all of MU-kun’s fangirls being taken there on dates. Outside the venue itself, the gift shop had a sign which read “Get a little something for your cosmi-cutie.” Cocoa buried her head in second-hand embarrassment, while Kobato nearly passed out laughing.
“Niko finally gets to understand what you keep talking about in the WIRE chat!” Niko giggled as she skipped into the planetarium, “WOW, all this art is CRAZY soulless!”
Kobato pointed to a canvas filled with blobs vaguely resembling MU-kun, “Look, it’s just as cute as you!”
“You dare mock me-!?” Cocoa hissed, “This one’s like you-”
She snapped as she pointed to a painting of a cartoon dog- to Kobato’s horror.
“She’s right!” Niko beamed, “It’s ABSOLUTELY Coo-bato-like!~”
Kiriko and Niko laughed as Marie and Prez tried to figure out MU-kun’s million galaxy paintings. All in the same pastel colour palette, looking like the background to an inspirational poster.
“I know we all poke fun at MU-kun and call his art mediocre,” Marie mused, “But it’s not bad. The colours are really nice in this one. What does the description of this one say..?”
Prez took a picture of the description and ran it through a translator, but it just rendered in complete gibberish.
“No wonder Gin was so annoyed. He was probably able to read these, and noticed it was just nonsense.” Marie laughed.
The group continued wandering through the exhibit- making jokes and laughing the whole time. Even though Niko wasn’t there during the battle with MU-kun, she’d caught on with the jokes.
“We should go to the cafe next~” Cocoa suggested. “I bet the drinks there are more artistic than any of the artworks here.”
Prez handed Marie the rose she had given them at school- which Marie had just noticed they’d been holding the whole time.
"You really kept it-?" She smiled, and Prez nodded.
"Hold on, I'll go order for you," they said.
Prez went to the counter to order for themselves and Marie. Marie just noticed they hadn't asked what she wanted, but decided not to stop them. Surely the President had good enough intuition to order for her.
She didn't know what to do while waiting, so she reserved a seat for the group and twirled the flower around in her hands. Even though Prez had it for hours, it was still in surprisingly good condition.
Marie had lots of experiences going to cafes with her friends. And this was, essentially the same. Her friends were there. The President was there. But this time they weren’t her friend. They were her “date”. And even now, Marie wasn’t able to determine what that was meant to mean to her. The only difference between now and every day with them was that this time, Marie felt a tight feeling in her throat. Guilt? Uncertainty?
Her nose felt awfully itchy, and as she scratched it, she noticed there was snot coming out. Her vision was blurring too, and her eyes were flaring up. She knew she shouldn’t be rubbing them- but she couldn’t help it.
Marie knew pain involved some sort of feeling in your stomach, but should you be feeling it in your mouth? And was it meant to be itchy?
“Woah- Marie, you alright-?” Kiriko noticed, handing Marie another napkin.
“I’m fine,” Marie assured, “Just unexpectedly got a little sick. It’ll be alright though.”
“You have a pollen allergy or something-? You’re not anaphylactic, right?” Cocoa asked, and suddenly things began to fall into place. What Marie wasn’t experiencing wasn’t love, but an allergic reaction.
Prez came back with Marie’s drink, but nearly dropped it at the right of Marie rubbing at her red face- and definitely not from blushing.
“Wah! Seems Marie’s allergic to love!” Niko chirped, as Kiriko took Marie’s rose and threw it in a nearby trashcan.
“There’s a pharmacy a small walk from here.” Cocoa instructed, “It’s only a small allergic reaction, so Marie will be fine, but we might want to pick up some allergy meds.”
Prez nodded, and Marie got up from her seat.
“Should we stay here, or do you want us all to go together?” Kiriko asked.
“It’d make Marie feel bad if we stopped having fun because of her, right?” Niko said, concerned.
“Niko’s right. We’ll only be gone for about 20 minutes anyway.” Marie assured.
“I wouldn’t worry too much about Mari-Mari.” Kobato huffed, “She’ll live, and I ain’t sacrificing my date for her.”
Kiriko sighed, and said goodbye to Marie and Prez as they left the planetarium and made their way to the pharmacy.
—
“I didn’t know you could have allergic reactions in Redo,” Marie mused- partially to herself, but Prez was hearing her speak out loud, “Doktor’s bug was intentionally to weed us out, but what about this?”
Prez shrugged, “Maybe it’s a technical error?”
“You know, I get sick like this a lot in spring. Not as bad as today, for some reason. But I never thought I was allergic to pollen.”
“Is that why you dislike spring?”
“I’m not sure.”
Marie’s smile dropped, and she continued to speak, “There’s a lot of things I’m not sure about. Knowing my memories were erased, and only regaining bits and pieces. A part of me feels like I have the right to know about Wicked’s past, but I know her memories were sealed to protect me. Sometimes I wonder how much of Wicked is still left in me. I think she disliked hospitals as much as I did. And spring…”
“...And love?”
Marie didn’t know what to say after that. She turned away from Prez, and attempted to force out the deepest parts of her heart, “I was scared I wouldn’t be able to love because of her. I thought that if I went on this date with you, and if we did everything right the way normal couples did, my heart would change. But we went on this date, and you were perfect the whole time! But I still don’t know how to fall in love.”
The President tried to take Marie’s hand, but she pushed it away, and quickly apologised- and the second of silence that followed felt like an eternity.
“What’s wrong with that?” Prez asked, “So what if you can’t fall in love, there are a lot of better things you can do.”
"H-huh-?"
"You don't need to fall in love to be happy."
Marie didn't know how to argue back, "I mean- I'm happy now but, I have to experience love, don't I? Isn't that how to be normal?"
"Do you need to be normal?"
Marie shook her head.
"You're my dearest friend, Marie. And I don't want you to force yourself into something that doesn't make you happy."
"--!!"
"You have all the time in the world to figure yourself out. To work out your relationship with love. And even if you choose to reject it in the end, that's still okay."
Marie's eyes suddenly got wet again, "Gosh, President... we really need to make it to the pharmacist."
***
Prez purchased some allergy medications and handed a pill to Marie. Before she could pop it in her mouth, Prez handed her a coffee cup.
"Oh, the latte from the cafe!" She exclaimed, "So you did remember to get something from there.
***
Prez and Marie finally got back to the planetarium, whre Niko, Kiriko, Cocoa and Kobato were waiting for them at the gift shop.
Cocoa held up a plushie of the cartoon dog from earlier.p Holding it up to her face, she bashfully blinked at Kobato. Kobato hissed at the mockery.
Niko grabbed a puppet and placed it on her hand, "I am the Niko-Niko alien- here to destroy all of Redo-!" She immediately turned to Kiriko, "Such a blindingly pretty idol must be DESTROYED for everyone's safety!"
X stared at a poster with all the planets drawn on it- except the depictions were highly inaccurate, and were in cute pastel colours.
"Which planet are we on?" She asked, frustrated. Prez pointed to Earth on the poster, which was lilac with teal oversimplified countries drawn on it- and Australia being replaced with a star, "Although it doesn't really look like that."
"The boring one..?" X huffed, pointing to another poster with a smiley-faced sun, "Why can't we live on this one?"
Cocoa noticed Kobato had already got to the desk to buy something. She didn't expect anyone to actually buy anything, but when he came back with a "You're a cosmicutie" gift card, she was ready to just slap him.
Niko bought a bunch of pencil toppers with planets and stars and astronauts- since they were all cheap and were cute enough for her to immediately want them in her grasp.
Eventually the group had left the gift shop, and the sun was beginning to set outside. But it wasn't one of those beautiful, romantic sunsets. It was one of those murky, foggy ones where you felt like your brightness was just a bit too low.
"Did you buy anything from the gift shop?" Marie asked. Prez took out a pen from their bag and handed it to Marie. At first she wondered why the shop was selling those, but then she looked at the packaging.
"Astronaut pen- since regular pens don't work when there's no gravity-? I don't think I'll be going to space anytime soon, but it's a sweet gift."
"That's stupid" X grumbled, "If pens don't work there, why can't they use pencils?"
The group eventually dispersed, and used the X Express to get home. Everyone left at their stops, and then the President and Marie were the last ones left.
They sat in silence for a bit as a train continued to go through Redo.
"Thank you," Marie smiled, after thinking for a bit, "For today."
"It's nothing," Prez replied, "You said you wanted to have fun. Now that you did, I'm happy."
"You're right. Even though all the novels were telling me I had to have a lover- and even though Valentine’s Day is all about that, you helped me realise that it's ok for me to reject that. That's... what I really wanted to thank you for.
Prez smiled back.
The train continued to move, and while X was awfully bored about the lack of train conversation, it didn't matter too much to Prez and Marie.
Marie's heart was beginning to feel lighter, and this time she understood why.
Because she'd experienced something more beautiful than love. ■