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Mikuru skewered a piece of meat onto her fork with conviction, and Anna glanced up at the grating screech of steel against ceramic.
“Kawaii Kouhai…” Mikuru muttered, her jaw clamping down hard as teeth shredded through the morsel she’d shoveled into her mouth. “Who does she think she is?” her brow gave an offhand twitch, a sense of somber frustration hanging thick in the air rather than any trace of genuine anger.
Equally troubled, Anna pursed her lips together as she returned to absentmindedly pushing a piece of broccoli back and forth, like a pendulum sweeping across her plate.
“… We’ll get to the bottom of all this. I don’t know how, or when, but I know we will…” Anna finally spoke, quiet yet firm and unwavering. She glanced back towards Mikuru, meeting her pensive gaze. “I know you don’t want to give up on Luluka-san either… You really looked up to her, right?”
Mikuru averted her eyes to the smeared, indiscernible slop she’d reduced her own plate to without realizing.
“I was enamored with the idea of her, Anna. I didn’t even know her real name until today.”
Anna opened her mouth again to speak, before reluctantly closing it as her face fell. The mechanical ticks of the old clock that sat in the next room seemed to echo through clearly enough that they could hear its gears grinding. They were interrupted only by the quiet clink of Mikuru’s fork as she finally set it down gingerly, before leaning forward on her elbows and bridging her fingers beneath her chin in thought.
“But even so…” she gazed wistfully into the distance. “… You’re right. I don’t want to give up.”
A bright grin bubbled up on Anna’s face as her eyes sparkled with a glint of relief. “Mikuru…!”
The corners of Mikuru’s lips curled up as she turned to face Anna, her soft smile quickly accentuated by playfully furrowed brows as her eyes flicked down to Anna’s plate. “Make sure you eat your vegetables,” she nodded towards the largely untouched hill of lush, leafy greens. “They’re good brain food, you know!”
Anna jolted slightly, her frame stiffening before she let out a defeated sigh, finally piercing through the stem of the broccoli she’d been playing with. “I know, I am!”
Mikuru watched fondly as Anna chomped down with vigor, bravely chewing through poorly concealed displeasure. Even when it came to the most mundane of things, she was simply incapable of masking her true feelings.
With that, Mikuru took hold of her own fork once more, gently scooping up a muddied clump of meat, rice, and vegetables as the air steadied to a somewhat peaceful stillness.
****
Long after Anna and Jett had retreated to their own rooms for the night, Mikuru still sat wide awake. She held the photograph gingerly between her fingers, the dim desk lamp bathing its glossy surface in a warm, quiet light. Her touch hesitantly ghosted over it, unable to bring herself to look away from Luluka’s smiling face. In this freeze frame of her condemned past, Mikuru searched aimlessly for just how long she’d suffered in silence. It was a prodigy’s performance of purity among flower petals, white and feathery like angel wings.
Naturally, the enlightenment she yearned for wouldn’t be bestowed upon her, for all that sat behind this Luluka’s eyes was a rigid, blank paper backing and the polished wooden desk that Mikuru hovered over restlessly.
The photo slipped from her loosening grip, drifting down gracefully before sliding off until its corner nestled beneath a high stack of unkempt, thick folders. Even its behavior felt artificial, crafted; as though it had been embedded with its subject matters own habits.
As Mikuru stared out at the leaves rustling in the howling twilight breeze, she was left alone to grapple with the bleak truth of the world she’d so eagerly thrust herself into; beyond tales of hard-boiled triumph that once allured her so and childhood roleplays carried out with a smudged magnifying glass.
****
“She’s been looking at that photo for quite a while, I think she might have a little crush on you!” Mashutan hummed mischievously, giving a wag of her eyebrows.
Luluka continued lapping up her ice cream, a double cone of rich cotton candy swirl. The crystalline popping candy that littered its surface like jewels embedded in soil twinkled in the moonlight as she studied Mikuru’s troubled expression from below.
“… She’ll get nowhere chasing ghosts.”
Mashutan slowly craned her neck back, studying her partner’s bitter expression. Anything she had to say to that, Luluka surely didn’t want to hear. Mashutan held her tongue, and what quietly lingered behind her closed muzzle was replaced by the quiet cries of cicadas echoing from the distance.
This was how Moria Luluka greeted Summer 1999. She wouldn’t have had it any other way.