Chapter Text
"You know, it's unfair you get to see Mama everyday on set and I don't!"
Aqua raises his eyebrows at her over the rim of his magazine, exasperation already settling into the lines of his face. "Ruby, what are you talking about?"
She huffs, pouting as she places her hands on her hips. "I mean, that I look exactly like Mama, don't I? I can't exactly look at myself in the mirror! Vanity isn't a good quality in idols, you know?"
"Says you?" Aqua snorts, returning to his magazine. "Weren't you the one going on about how cute you looked in the mirror two days ago?"
"Hey! I have Mama's genes you know? I can't not be cute!" She grins brightly, pulling out the wig she'd snuck away from set. "Buuut that means so do you! We're twins, onii-chan."
After far too long pause, Aqua finally puts down his magazine, shoulders tensing. "Fraternal," he corrects, eyes narrowing. "Not identical."
Yeah. She knows that. But still...
"So? Even as a guy, you definitely got more of Mama's genes than his. She's just that powerful. Meaning if you had longer hair..." Ruby shoves the wig at him, watching his face carefully.
"Ruby, I'm no—"
"C'mon sensei, pleaaase? You always listen what I want, you know."
Sensei's words die in his throat, as he eyes the wig. Ruby stares at him, heart thumping in her chest watching as he deliberates, eyes like Mama's, like hers (not like the ones she remembers him having. Does she like these eyes better or the ones he used to have? Sensei never looked at her with anything but care. Aqua's eyes have looked at her with so many emotions, some she likes, some she'd like to bury. Siblings shouldn't look at each other with anger. Or fear. What does he have to fear from her? Sensei especially shouldn't look at her like that. She can't handle it if he ended up disliking her.
She still can't truly believe his assertion that she was right.)
"Fine," he sighs. "But just this once, alright?"
"Yes! You're the best, Sensei!"
He grumbles, but places a hand out for the wig. She cheers as she swings around to let him put it on, humming to herself. Ruby rocks on the heels of her feet, slowing down a little as her eyes land on the 15YL script she'd just abandoned.
If she closes her eyes, she can still remember Mama's death, written as crisply as possible. They weren't filming that scene for a good while— they hadn't even gotten to B-Komachi's first generation yet.
But when she saw those words...the jealous twinge in her chest at the knowledge Aqua knew what Mama's last moments were like, got to be with her when she didn't, when she didn't get to be with anyone she loved, just grew and...
Maybe it was petty. But if he could see Mama in her again, she wanted to see Mama in him again.
"So?" Aqua's voice calls out from behind her and she swings around so fast she nearly trips over her feet.
It's her turn for her words to die in her throat. Ruby stares at Mama staring back at her. Even as Sensei is frowning, its so close to how Mama would pout playfully on television screens and as she booped her nose as a baby. Mama's dark hair falls perfectly over his shoulders and she's...she's jealous of how well her bangs frame his face.
That's right. Hadn't Aqua's hair always been curlier than hers? Wasn't that why he'd cut his hair into that horrid cut all the way back when?
Before she knows it, she's right before him, his dark eyes widening at her proximity.
"Act like her," she says and doesn't care that her voice is simultaneously weak and demanding.
"Ru—"
"Sensei. Please. You can do it, can't you? I just want to—" —see her again. Be in her arms again. Hear Mama say that she loved her again, unconditional and deep. She would've never hurt her.
He swallows as Ruby leans over him, backing slightly into the couch. The house is silent, apart from them.
"...Ruby," he says and she doesn't know how he does it. Despite the depth of his voice, there's a certain melodic quality to how it comes out, cheerful with a twinge of something else. How was he able to mimic her so well, when Ruby struggled in front of a mirror for days?
Would she have struggled like this if she was with Ai when she died, like Aqua was?
"Ruby...I miss you," Ai-Aq-Sensei says, and she starts sniffling. "You missed me a lot too, didn't you?"
"I did— of course I did!" Her eyes are burning. It's Ai and it's not. She wants her and she can never have her back. "Why did you leave!"
Who is she screaming at? Her mother, who was taken away from her so early. Sensei, who she had no idea was dead.
Or, Aqua, her brother, who sometimes looked like a ghost himself.
"I know, I'm sorry," her head snaps up to see apologetic dark eyes, and before she knows it, she's rising above the mimicry before her, hands pinning him in front of her. Butterfly to corkboard. Beauty frozen in time.
"Tell me you—" The words tear themselves out of her throat, desperate, whimpering.
Those eyes freeze beneath her gaze and she wonders what emotion on her face makes him look like that. Is she desperate? Is she hungry, like she always has been? Begging, eating the love she's given?
Ruby has a sliver of the light Ai shined with caged in her hands.
There are no words spoken for so long, Rubys heart feels like it'll fall out of her chest in hurt. It's not supposed to be like this. Ai would tell her. Sensei would tell her. Did Aqua not—
"I love you," Ai-Aq-Sensei says and the relief that shudders through her sends her collapsing into him, pinning him to the sofa with her body. Tears drip down her cheeks as she lifts herself up, grinning at him.
She wants this. She wants to go back to those days. To the time when the light caged in between her hands, her body and the fabric of the couch shined brighter than the evening star, when it was safe and happy and she was so loved she choked on it as she shoved it all into her mouth, seeping into every corner of her body like nutrients. Those days where she was secure in Sensei's care. When she was secure in Ai's. Did Ai look at Aqua like this, when she died? Is this look what Ai would've given her?
She leans closer. Who is it, begging for it? Sarina or Ruby?
Or perhaps they're the same. Their hurts are the same. She just buried that part of herself.
Closer. She needs to feel it. Gorge herself on it again, to soothe the ache that stabbed itself into her heart.
"-op, stop, Ruby, please—"
Small, pleading words, that melodic tone dropped are what shatter the illusion. Inches away from Aqua's lips, his eyes blown wide in an emotion she cannot bring herself to name in horror of herself, Ai's hair splayed wide as it frames his face, his hands now suddenly on her shoulders when had they got there trying to push her away—
...What had she been about to do?
The relief is drowned out by unadulterated terror.
At herself.
"Onii-chan," she chokes out, still above him. Frozen. She hates that she hates him for breaking that illusion. For what she refuses to call discomfort, maybe even fear in his eyes. "I—"
"Please...get off," Aqua's voice dies out at the end, something in his eyes shattering at the same time something in her shatters too.
Ruby does more than just leap off. Without sparing him another glance, she runs.
She's so so cold.