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“Yay! Yay! Beach time! Beach time!” 
 
“Yay! Yay! Okinawa sun! Sun!”
 
Popuko and Popuoka chant excitedly with their arms around each other’s shoulders.
 
They can’t contain their excitement! Finally they get to have a fun and exciting day full of swimming, playing volleyball, and eating yummy snow cones with their respective Pipi-beau. They could really use some rest and relaxation after all the crazy things that have been going on, so today was gonna be perfect.
 
Pipimi and Pipihara couldn’t say no to them when they asked. It was rather unfair really, a perfect scheme the two trouble makers had carried out together. They went up to their Pipi-beau and begged them with the saddest puppy dog eyes they could muster. Pipimi and Pipihara were defenseless under those doe eyes and neither of them were strong enough to say no.
 
They gave in, and today it was finally happening! A summer double date! It was gonna be awesome.
 
“Popu-neechan, this is it! We finally get to see the divine view we’ve always been dreaming of!”
 
Popuoka says with a sparkle in his eyes as they grasp each other’s hands.
 
“I know! I know! Today we finally get to see it~” Popuko says, hopping with excitement.
 
They’re both thinking the same thing.
 
“Swimsuit Pipi-beau~” They both say. 
 
They squeal with excitement thinking about it.
 
“What kind of swimsuit will Pipimi-chan choose I wonder?” Popuko daydreams out loud. “A one piece? A bikini? Eee~ I’m gonna die whatever it is!” Popuko blushes, all the wonderful images that come to mind have her absolutely euphoric.
 
“I wonder what kind of swimsuit Pipihara will wear? I’m not as concerned about that part though. He’s gonna be shirtless! That’s all that matters to me! Eee~ I’m gonna die too!”
 
The two of them get themselves utterly swept up in their mutual excitement.
 
“Popu-niichan? How does my swimsuit look? Do you think Pipimi-chan will like it?” She says tugging nervously at the bright summery orange one piece that was covered in cute polka dots and frills.
 
“You look so cute, Popu-neechan~! Pipimi is gonna be head over heels when she sees you! What about me? Do you think Pipihara will like what he sees? Hehe~”
 
“Of course! Your hair looks so cute when it’s down like that!” 
 
Popuoka runs a hand through his shoulder length hair, he hopes Pipihara notices he’s trying something new. Even more, he hopes he’ll like it…
 
Suddenly, two voices call out to them.
 
“Popu-chan!”
 
“Popuoka!”
 
“Pipi-beau!” Popuko and Popuoka turn towards the voices.
 
Their mouths are watering in anticipation at what they're about to see. They cling to each other with excitement and when their Pipi-beau reveal themselves-!
 
…
 
They are wearing heavy, puffy Winter jackets.
 
Popuko and Popuokas’ faces fall.
 
“Are you two ready to head out?” Pipihara asks.
 
He looks a bit… irritated.
 
“Wha…” Popuko shakes off her disappointment and it’s very quickly replaced with confusion. “What are you guys wearing? I thought we were going to the Okinawa Summer beach!”
 
Pipimi and Pipihara share a look.
 
Pipimi sighs. “We tried but unfortunately… the BG sets aren’t ready…”
 
“What?!”
 
“But the Machu Picchu sets are ready finally!” She says trying to sell a positive spin, though she doesn’t look very excited herself. “It’s a bit chilly this time of year, but it should be a nice hike-“
 
“No!” Popuko and Popuoka shout, utterly crushed. 
 
“But-but-but-” But their Summer romance… 
 
They clench their fists.
 
“Screw the sets!” Popuoka shouts.
 
“Yeah, we don’t need sets! Let’s just find the closest beach and go there!” Popuko adds.
 
Pipimi and Pipihara look at them with surprise.
 
“My, you two are strangely adamant about this…” Pipimi comments.
 
“Well… we could try I guess.” Pipihara concedes.
 
Popuko and Popuoka’s faces light back up in an instant. “Really?!”
 
“Yes… but…”
 
“It might not be very pretty without the sets as it is now…” Pipimi warns.
 
“Whatever! Beach time! Beach time!”
 
“Yeah! Beach time! Beach time!”
 
They start chanting again. Pipimi and Pipihara watch them with fond smiles, they look at each other.
 
“Guess we don’t have a choice.” Pipihara sighs and shakes his head.
 
“We never really do when it comes to them do we.”
 
“Heh heh, nope. Alright, let’s get going then!”
 
“YAAAAAAAY!!!”
 
~
 
“No! This sucks! What the fuck?!” Popuoka hugs himself as he shakes.
 
“Popuoka, my dear, it is the middle of Winter right now, what did you expect?”
 
“Noooooo!!” Popuko drops to her knees.
 
The beach is freezing. A thick and dreary fog hangs over the entire area. No one is here, not even the seagulls are present on such a gloomy day. A loud and guttural fog horn blares in the distance.
 
Not exactly the most romantic of settings.
 
“Yeah… this is why we wanted Okinawa Summer sets…”
 
 No… it can’t be all for naught, dammit. Popuko wants to see Pipimi in a swimsuit today and she’s gonna see it if it’s the last thing she does.
 
“This… this is fine!” She declares, putting her hands on her hips confidently.
 
“It is?” Popuoka looks skeptical.
 
“Yes! Don’t give up, brother!” She encourages him, grasping his shoulder and looking at him with determination. “We have a mission today, and we’re going to accomplish it.” She looks at the frigid water. “No matter what it takes.” She finishes gravely.
 
Popuoka swallows thickly. “No matter what it takes…” He trails off nervously. 
 
He shakes his head. No, she’s right. They can’t back down now.
 
“The water… looks fine…” He says with strain.
 
“Huh?” Pipihara voices with confusion.
 
“I said the water looks fine!” He shouts with conviction.
 
And then… he dramatically sheds his shirt. Throwing it off and giving Pipihara a challenging look.
 
Pipihara blinks at him, completely bewildered.
 
“I’m going for a swim!” He flips his hair and gives Pipihara a seductive look. “You should join me.”
 
And then he’s off running toward the water.
 
Pipihara watches him. “Popuoka…” He mutters with a small blush.
 
…
 
“No way!” Pipihara says after a brief pause, shaking his head vehemently.
 
“Popuoka! That’s crazy, you’ll catch a cold! Come back!” Pipimi shouts after him.
 
Popuoka doesn’t listen to them running fulling steam ahead
 
“HAAAAAAAHH-!” He yells, hyping himself up right before he hits the water. He runs onto the small dock perched at the shore, he runs to the end of it and does a cannonball.
 
Pipimi and Pipihara gasp in shock. Popuko just facepalms.
 
“Popu-niichan, you idiot…” She admires his enthusiasm and boldness at least…
 
As soon as Popuoka’s face surfaces…
 
“AAAIIEEEEEEEE! COLD COLD COLD COLD!!!”
 
He’s out of the water as soon as he’s in it. He runs back up to them.
 
“Pipihara!” He whines. 
 
“Ah, there, there. Let me get you a towel.” Pipihara says gently as he takes his hand and leads him around to the back of the car to pop the trunk. 
 
While they're preoccupied with that, Popuko looks ahead of her and sighs. She rubs her arms. No one could feel fiery hot romantic feelings in this environment…
 
Just as she is experiencing that thought. Something warm wraps around her shoulders. 
 
“Hm?”
 
Pipimi drapes her jacket around Popuko’s shoulders. Her arms soon follow and she presses a kiss against her cheek.
 
“You look pretty chilly yourself.” 
 
“Ah… thanks.” She says with a blush. She wants to say something to her, but before she can the warmth of Pipimi’s arms are already gone. She leaves her jacket, but Popuko still feels cold again.
 
“I’ll go set up a spot to sit, you help the boys get everything, okay?” She says as she makes her way down the beach and begins scouting for a spot. Not that any spot would be that great.
 
“Okay…”
 
Popuko sighs.
 
“I’m never gonna see a bikini babe today, am I?” 
 
Right as she comes to this tragic conclusion, the back door of the car swings open.
 
Nyarlathotep hops out. They’re blushing. Oh no. That look can only mean trouble.
 
“Come on, come on~ you look fine! You look great really, nyo ho ho~” They laugh suspiciously as they rub their stubby little tentacles together.
 
“I-I don’t think I can do it.” Cthulhu’s voice comes from the back seat. “Why did you want me to wear this so bad anyway?! It’s-it’s embarrassing…”
 
“No, no! Like I said, you look great! Now come on stop being a pussy! You gotta come out and own it, man.”
 
“I… fine!”
 
Cthulhu exits the car with his arms crossed and an embarrassed blush on his face.
 
Popuko can’t believe her eyes. She doesn’t want to believe her eyes.
 
Cthulhu… is wearing a bikini.
 
He bashfully wraps his arms around himself. Nyarlathotep looks ecstatic.
 
“You… you really like it?” Cthulhu asks shyly with a small hope in his voice.
 
“EEEEEWWW! EW EW EW EW!” Popuko slaps a hand over her eyes and runs away.
 
Really not the “bikini babe” she wanted to see.
 
~
 
“Stop it! Get me-! Get me outta here, you guys! You’ve had your fun, I’m over it. I can’t feel my legs anymore.” Cthulhu whines a few minutes later.
 
“But we’re booooored.” Popuoka whines back as he packs another handful of sand around Cthulhu’s neck. 
 
Popuko and Popuoka had taken to burying him in the sand since… there really wasn’t much else to do here. The net for volleyball had been taken down for the Winter. They had brought a shaved ice machine but this really wasn’t snow cone appropriate weather. 
 
Popuko sits on the ground, her head resting in her hand. She slops another handful of wet sand at him. It hits his face. She’s too bored to find this amusing.
 
She and Popuoka mirror pouts. They look over to their Pipi-beau who are amid a friendly conversation while they lay back on their beach towels. It’s too bad there was no sun out, they would look great with tans, they think.
 
“Pipihara didn’t notice my hair…” Popuoka says with a small pout.
 
“Pipimi-chan, didn’t say anything about my swimsuit either. She just said ‘you look cold too’.”
 
Popuoka scoffs, looking offended for her. “Jeez, those two are clueless.” 
 
“Yeah…”
 
“You guys!” Cthulhu snaps at them, not happy about being ignored. “When The Great Old One asks you to dig him out, then you dig him out!”
 
“Ah.” Popuko holds a finger stopping him, it takes her a moment to continue as she looks on the verge of dozing off out of pure boredom. “But you’re not The Great Old One right now. You’re the sand guardian, guardian of the sand.” 
 
Popuoka sighs, matching her utter lack of enthusiasm. “Poseidon quivers before him.” He completes the reference with a sigh. 
 
Yikes. Yeah, it was a really slow day if they had resorted to referencing Vines. 
 
Just then they hear a voice they don’t recognize.
 
“Quiver before him? I think not!”
 
“Hm?” They look toward the water where the voice had come from.
 
Poseidon peaks over the water, glaring at them. The water bubbles where his mouth is.
 
“Ah, Poseidon these dumb kids didn’t mean it-“
 
“Yeah! The sand guardian says he could kick your ass!” Popuko shouts at the sea god.
 
“The sand guardian says you’re a little punk bitch! He’s seen greater waves at Seaworld!”
 
“You really mean that?!” Poseidon splashes, looking to be boiling the water around him.
 
“No! Posiedon-“
 
“Yeah! He says fuck off!” They shout for the sake of it. Though neither of them are that into the bit.
 
“Is that so?!” Poseidon thunders. The wind starts to whip up, thick dark clouds cover the sky in an instant. 
 
“Ah.” They realize in that moment that angering the god of the ocean while they were at the beach might not have been the wisest decision.
 
“Well then, I shall show you a taste of my true power and then we will see who is quivering before who!”
 
Lightning cracks across the sky, the sea thrashes wildly. The clouds open and an absolute downpour of rain drenches them in an instant. This wakes Popuko and Popuoka up.
 
“Run?” Popuoka asks her as the god thrusts his trident forward.
 
“Yep.”
 
They get up and make a mad dash away from the water.
 
“Wait guys, don’t leave me here!” Cthulhu shrieks from the sand, his head is the only thing above it. 
 
“Oh goddamnit. Can you kids go one day without angering a higher power?” Nyarlathotep asks with exasperation as they rush over to Cthulhu and try to dig him out. They don’t make much progress with their tiny tentacle arms.
 
As soon as they feel the rain, Pipimi and Pipihara huddle under the large beach umbrella, they usher Popuko and Popuoka to join them. Pipimi says something to Popuko but she can’t hear it over the violent hurricane-like winds. Pipimi and Pipihara clutch the umbrella for dear life, desperately trying to keep it over their heads. 
 
And then right when they think they’re about to lose it. Lightning strikes on the beach before them, they yelp falling back.
 
Miraculously, however, the second that lightning strikes, the storm calms in an instant. 
 
They quickly understand why.
 
The lightning had struck Cthulhu and by extension Nyarlathotep. 
 
They all blink at the demons’ smoking bodies.
 
“Well, looks like we’re having calamari tonight.”
 
~
 
“Psst, Popu-niichan. Popu-niichan.”
 
“Quit it. I’m trying to relax.” Popuoka lies on his stomach, his head resting on his hands with a pleasant smile as Pipihara sits behind him and lathers his back with sunscreen. He had been rather confused when Popuoka had asked him to apply it since there was no sun to begin with, but Popuoka had insisted just in case.
 
“Popu-niichan, I think I figured out a way to save our mission.” She whispers loudly next to his face. He frowns.
 
“What?”
 
“Poseidon.”
 
“Huh? I don’t care about seeing Poseidon in a swimsuit.”
 
“No, no. I mean the weather. Poseidon can control the weather, right? If we can get on his good side maybe we can turn this into a sunny, warm day.”
 
Hm… good idea…” 
 
He moans as Pipihara massages his spine. 
 
“Well… have fun trying to figure out how to do that.” He finishes turning away from her.
 
“What?! But I need help!”
 
“Get Pipimi to help.” 
 
She looks over at Pipimi. Pipimi looks up from the book she’s reading once she feels eyes on her.

She smiles softly at Popuko and winks.
 
Popuko looks away with a blush.
 
“I… I’m embarrassed.”
 
“Embarrassed? Then don’t tell her what it’s for. Just tell her you wanna become Poseidon’s bestie.”
 
“Why would I want to?”
 
“I don’t know, you come up with that part. Do I gotta do everything for you?”
 
Popuko glares at him. He wasn’t helping at all and he had the nerve to say that? She angrily throws her hand into the sand and rips up a handful, fully intending to shove it down Popuoka’s shorts.
 
But her eyes meet Pipihara’s. He smiles kindly at her.
 
Tch. She’ll spare him today. She lets the sand fall past her fingers.
 
She slides up next to Pipimi.
 
“Hey, hey, Pipimi-chan.”
 
“Hm?”
 
“Uh…” She's gonna have to make this good. “So, since the demons are dead I think we need a new sidekick. Poseidon seems pretty strong so I think it would be a good idea to make him our ally. He could just shock anyone to death who crosses us which is pretty cool…”
 
“Hmm...” Pipimi contemplates this. “But we can shock our enemies to death already, can’t we?”
 
“Huh?”
 
“Hegemony Dynamic, remember?”
 
Oh duh. Their strongest combo attack where they pierce through their opponent with a deadly punch that sends a thousand powerplants worth of deadly energy coursing through their enemies veins. 
 
“Dammit of course we don’t need any other allies besides ourselves!” She says standing up and looking defeated by this logic.
 
Pipimi blinks in confusion, she hadn’t really been trying to prove her wrong or anything…
 
“Fine, I’ll just figure this out myself! Thanks for nothing, Popu-niichan!”
 
“You’re welcome.” He hums contentedly.
 
Ugh. Brothers.
 
She storms off without explanation.
 
~
 
And when she comes back, she brings a storm with her.
 
“Popu-chan, there you are!” Pipimi says with relief.
 
“I didn’t mean to make you that mad, Popu-neechan. I got scared after you were gone so long.” He says tearfully. 
 
“That’s okay! Because I figured it out!” 
 
Popuko runs back toward where her friends are. Dark clouds and vicious rains follow closely at her heels. Poseidon swims alongside the shore in hot pursuit. Looking just as angry as he was before, this time his anger was directed at her.
 
Popuko holds out a bazooka.
 
“What-what are you doing?! I thought you were gonna make friends with him?!” Popuoka asks with confusion.
 
“Well!” Lightning strikes at her and she rolls out of the way. “Change of plans! I’m not gonna become his friend, I'm gonna kill him!” She clarifies with a smile. She gets on one knee and aims.
 
“Um, why the change of heart, Popuko?” Pipihara asks.
 
She fires the bazooka. The rocket takes off, launching through the air and leaving a trail of smoke in its wake. 
 
It’s a direct hit. It hits Posiedon and explodes upon impact. He screams.
 
“Yes.” Popuko pumps her fist victoriously. She turns around and answers Pipihara’s question. “Poseidon and I got to talking. Real nice guy, he is. One of the things he told me is that he uses his powers to fight off the effects of global warming. He said that if it weren’t for his divine intervention, the earth would be in an eternal summer.”
 
Posiedon continues to scream. Once the smoke clears, they can see he appears to be mortally wounded. 
 
Popuoka thinks he understands.
 
“Wait! So if you kill him then… the weather will change! It’ll become a warm and sunny summer day!” He smiles.
 
“Bingo, bro-bro.” She winks at him.
 
“NOOOOO!” Poseidon goes down, sinking into the ocean with a cry of agony.
 
The change is instant.
 
The fog starts to roll away. The humid air starts to become less frigid and becomes more comfortable and pleasant. 
 
And the clouds… the clouds start to part…
 
“Yes! Summer! Summer! Summer!” 
 
“Summer! Summer! Summer!”
 
Popuko and Popuoka chant once again, as they cheer on the sky. Eager to see that bright summer sun, finally! And when the clouds finally do part, they see-!
 
…
 
Stars.
 
“Oh my, I hadn’t realized it had gotten this late already.” Pipihara comments.
 
“We should probably start packing up and head out then.” Pipimi adds.
 
“Right. Let’s get going, you two!”
 
Popuko and Popuoka wither entirely.
 
~
 
They stay at a nice hotel at least. That’s something. 
 
Popuko and Popuoka were silent the entire car ride there and continue to be silent over dinner and while they get ready to head to bed for the night.
 
“Some beach episode…” Popuoka comments dryly finally breaking the silence.
 
“Maybe we’ll get a better one next season.”
 
“Two beach episodes?”
 
“… Yeah, guess that’s unheard of, huh?”
 
“Yeah…”
 
They sigh heavily.
 
Amidst their despair, two voices call out to them. 
 
“Popu-chan!”
 
“Popuoka!”
 
“Hm? What is it?” 
 
“Hurry and come outside, you two! You’re gonna love this!” Pipimi shouts from the other side of the door.
 
Popuko and Popuoka share a look. They shrug and open the door. 
 
Outside… 
 
There is a pool and a jacuzzi.
 
But there is something that makes Popuko and Popuoka even more excited than that.
 
Pipimi and Pipihara stand before them…
 
Wearing swimsuits.
 
Popuko and Popuoka go starry-eyed.
 
After staring at their Pipi-beau with hushed awe for a long moment, they look at each other.
 
“Popu-neechan…” He starts with a quiet shock.
 
“Yeah…” 
 
“We did it…” He smiles and hugs her. “We did it! We did it! We did it! We’re the best!”
 
“We? When did you help?” She says but she still laughs as he gleefully swings her around.
 
Pipimi and Pipihara watch them with knowing smiles.
 
“It was rather cruel of us to make them wait this long, wasn’t it?” Pipihara asks her quietly.
 
“Really? I wonder…”
 
“Ah, so it is just in your nature to be so cruel. I see.” He jokes.
 
“Hehehee~ but it makes the pay off all the more sweeter, doesn't it?”
 
“Indeed.”
 
Popuko and Popuoka race up to them eagerly, pushing each other playfully as they do.
 
Pipihara offers a hand out to Popuoka. 
 
“I’m going to soak in the hot tub for a bit.” He states before flashing him a seductive look. “You should join me.” He says with a sultry deep voice.
 
Popuko shoves his back, pushing him toward Pipihara with a grin.
 
He smiles up at Pipihara and takes his hand.
 
“I think I will.” 
 
Popuoka gets in after Pipihara and snuggles up against him. Snuggles against his bare chest and it’s absolute heaven to him. He looks up at Pipihara dreamily and… he notices something.
 
“Your hair looks great like that, by the way.”
 
Pipihara had tied his long hair up into a loose and messy low bun. Popuoka thinks it makes him look even more gorgeous.
 
“Thank you. I thought I’d try something different with my hair too, after seeing how good yours looks like that.”
 
Pipihara runs his fingers through Popuoka’s hair as he says this. Popuoka’s heart feels light.
 
He did notice.
 
Pipimi seems to have noticed something about Popuko too.
 
“Pipimi-chan.” Popuko starts as she approaches her. “Your swimsuit… it matches mine!”
 
Pipimi was wearing a blue bikini with the same cute frills and polka dots that were on Popuko’s.
 
“Hee hee~ do you like it?” She asks as she spins cutely.
 
“Yes… yes! Yes! You look beautiful, Pipimi-chan.” 
 
She wraps her arms around her and she can’t believe how lucky she was to score such an absolute babe.
 
“You don’t look half bad yourself, Popu-chan.” She whispers. 
 
Popuko beams at her.
 
Everyone settles in the hot tub with lovely content feelings in their hearts. Nothing could ruin this moment for them all.
 
“Is there room for two more?!”
 
Cthulhu runs up to the jacuzzi with Nyarlathotep on his shoulder.
 
“NOO!” Everyone shouts.
 
But it’s too late, Cthulhu cannonballs in.
 
Okay maybe one thing could ruin this moment.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Science- D
 
History- D
 
Language Arts- D-
 
Math- F
 
P.E. - F (Teacher’s Note: Popuko shows significant promise athletically but is unnecessarily aggressive towards other students. Her lack of sportsmanship is too severe to allow her a pass.)
 
Elective: Art- A+ (Teacher’s Note: Popuko has made incredible strides in progress since her first class and has been consistently engaged in the coursework! Her work and improvement is remarkable, and she should be very proud of herself. Gold star!)
 
Popuko looks over her report card and sighs.
 
The sentiment from her art teacher was nice and all, but succeeding in an elective and failing at literally everything else was not gonna get her anywhere. It certainly wasn’t going to get her to the next grade. She’s been scraping by every year, accomplishing the absolute bare minimum in order to not get held back. 
 
But things were getting so much more complicated lately…
 
She’s been lost about how math works from the beginning, her memory is too terrible to remember any of the specific happenings and names lectured about in her history class, and she’s never had a way with words as is required for her language class. 
 
Though, maybe sleeping through every lesson doesn’t help.
 
Pipimi has the same reassurance for her as she always does. A pat on the head and/or a hug and a “Don’t worry.” with a “You’ll do better on the makeup exams, I’m sure.”
 
She goes to Pipihara for more reassurance and he starts talking nonsense about “studying” and “tutors” and “notes” or some bullshit. As if she has time for that.
 
The Pipi-beau don’t get it. They’re perfect in every way so they don’t understand her struggle. 
 
So, Popuko goes to someone else. She’s sure he of all people will be able to relate to her. He’s just like her, so he must have the same problem. He must be feeling a little nervousness about being held back right now too, same as she is. 
 
And when she enters his room, sure enough he is staring at his report card with a deep frown on his face.
 
“You too, huh?” 
 
He looks up at her with a pout. “Why does this happen every time?” He says as he flops down on his side, burying his face in his pillow with a groan. 
 
Popuko internally sighs a breath of relief. It’s pretty mean of her, but she feels better knowing that she’s not the only one going through this. She approaches his bed and takes a seat next to him. 
 
“There, there.” She says, running a hand over his bouncy pigtails. “Let’s see the damage.”
 
“Hmph.” He hugs the report card to his chest, his face reddens a bit. 
 
“Come on, don’t be embarrassed. It can’t be as bad as mine.”
 
“...” He is quiet for a moment. Eventually, his tenseness eases under the hand that strokes the top of his head. He peeks up at her. “...Really…?”
 
“I mean you’d have to just straight up never turn in work to be worse than mine.”
 
He turns onto his back and looks up at her. “Oh… really…?”
 
She nods.
 
“Well… then…”
 
He sheepishly holds out the paper for her to take. 
 
She takes the page with a sympathetic smile. 
 
Once she looks at it, however, her smile instantly falls.
 
Science- A+
 
History- A+
 
Language Arts- A+
 
Math- B-
 
P.E.- A+ 
 
Elective: Poetry- A+ (Teacher’s Note: Popuoka has made incredible strides in progress since his first class and has been consistently engaged in the coursework! His work and improvement is remarkable, and he should be very proud of himself. Gold star!)
 
“Every semester I’m always one grade short of having straight A’s…” He laments.
 
Is this a joke…?
 
Popuko crinkles the paper with a tight grip. 
 
“Popu-niichan…” She says darkly.
 
“Hm…?” He looks at her, her head hangs low, her bangs hiding her expression.
 
She looks up suddenly with a glare of pure disgust that makes Popuoka flinch.
 
“You’re a disgrace to Popu-kind.”
 
“Eh?!” He sits up, tears already in his eyes. “Popu-neechan, you’re so mean! I didn’t think it was that bad!”
 
“It isn’t! That’s the problem!” She shouts at him as she yanks the pillow off his bed and hits him with it. “You did a great job this semester!”
 
“Why are you attacking me for doing a good job?!” Popuoka whines as he weakly shields himself from her fluffy assault. 
 
She finally stops, throwing the pillow at the ground with an exasperated huff.
 
“Because you’re supposed to suck like the rest of us!” She turns to him, she’s honestly shocked. It’s not right for her to feel betrayed by this but, well! “You’re seriously an honor student?! H-How?! It’s not in your blood!” She shouts at him as she takes his shoulders and jostles him aggressively.
 
“S-Sorry?!?!” He says back with just as much shock and confusion, she shakes him so hard he feels like his brains are being jostled along with him. He puts his hands over the top of hers and pushes them off of him. “Look! I wasn’t always an honor student!” He clarifies quickly, hoping that an explanation will make her look at him less murderously. “But… I don’t really have a choice anymore…”
 
“Huh?” Her glare softens, she tilts her head curiously. “Why don’t you have a choice?”
 
“Well…” He leans back on his hands with a sigh, he eases into his spot getting comfortable before he tells the story. Popuko lowers her hackles, much to his relief, as she crosses her legs and scoots closer to him as she listens to him. 
 
“In elementary school, I always had the lowest mark in my class. Back then, I could’ve cared less about grades. But then…”
 
“I found out after we graduated elementary school, Pipihara was going to enroll in a prestigious all-boys middle school. A fancy, prim and proper school that only accepts the best of the best students…”
 
“The way I was, there was no way I would be able to get in.” He smiles softly as he lays back, folding his hands over his chest. “So, I scrambled to get my act together as much as I could. And after an entire summer of nothing but studying for hours and hours, day in and day out… I somehow.. did it. Can you believe it? Heh, I almost couldn’t.”
 
“The thing is… even though Pipihara wasn’t moving away and I could've easily just visited him after school, even though not much would’ve probably changed… the thought of experiencing school without him felt like the end of the world. Heh heh, that’s probably silly but… school takes up so much time and there’s so many formative moments during that time, within those halls and those classrooms.”
 
“I don’t want to experience a single one of those important moments in life without him, I don’t want to be away from him during the little moments either. I want to experience everything life has to offer by his side. The world seems more colorful and the future more hopeful when he’s with me. When I realized that… I knew that I loved him. And since the world still looks brighter whenever he’s near after all these years, I know I always will…” He smiles serenely for a beat, reflecting outwardly the same serenity he feels in his soul at the comforting thought.
 
After a moment of basking in it, he sits up and claps his hands together.
 
“Sooo, that’s how I sold my soul to become a teacher’s pet. Do you see-...now, Popu-neechan? Popu-neechan…?”
 
When he looks at her, her hands are clasped over her mouth. Her eyes bright and watery with tears.
 
“That’s so… that’s so beautiful, Popu-niichan. That was, like… poetic.” 
 
“E-Eh…?” He rubs the back of his neck bashfully.
 
She throws her arms around him with emotion. “You boys are so sweet! Okay, I forgive you! You’re not disowned anymore, I take it back!”
 
“You had already gone that far?!”
 
~
 
Okay, he’s not disowned and she forgives him or whatever, but she’s still uber jealous that he’s good at everything and he’s a completely shameless show-off about it.
 
“-and that’s my first place trophy from this robotics competition I was in. Ha ha, yeah, I got first in regionals AND nationals. And this is my blue ribbon from the national spelling bee. And this is a placard I got awarded by, like, some academy for one of my essays.”
 
“Wow, this is all so impressive, Popuoka! I’d no idea you were so talented! Aren’t you a smart cookie?” Pipimi says as she pinches his cheek. 
 
Ugh.
 
“Isn’t he?” Pipihara agrees dotingly, pinching his other cheek. “There’s nothing my Popuoka can’t do. You’re such a bright little star, aren’t you, darling~?”
 
God.
 
“Hehe~ Yay! Praise me more! Praise me more!”
 
Really! No shame!
 
Popuko stands back and watches them with her arms crossed and her cheeks puffed up in a pout.
 
Out of all the Popu across the multiverse, why did it have to be Popuoka who turned out to be the golden child?
 
She can’t believe all these trophies and medals belong to him. She had seen them in his room before, but she genuinely thought they were stolen. She thought they were there for the sake of the bit… now it looks like she’s the punchline of this bit…

“-And I guess the final was supposed to be super hard, that’s what everyone else said, but for some reason I just didn’t have any trouble with it at all, ha ha.” 
 
Oh, for fucks sake. Popuko clenches her fist.
 
“We’re all supposed to be studying right now…” She grumbles.
 
“Yeah, you’re supposed to be studying right now! What’s stopping you?!” Cthulhu asks with irritation from the table he was seated at, a heavy pile of books and homework in front of him.
 
She stomps over to him. “Nothing’s stopping

me

, actually! I’m studying and doing all of my homework right this instant and you’re gonna convince my teacher of that by my next class or else.” She threatens, waving the glock that was already in her hand. She’s been holding Cthulhu at gunpoint all afternoon, forcing him with the task of doing her homework for her. 
 
“Yeah, I get it!” Cthulhu waves a dismissive hand at her, very much used to the barrel of Popuko’s gun being held at his temple. He returns to working with a groan.
 
Nyarlathotep, who is perched on top of Cthulhu’s head, just rolls their eyes at Popuko.
 
“Okay, so you’re jealous that Popuoka is better than you at everything-”
 
“I am not-!”
 
“But making us do everything for you is not gonna solve the problem, Popuko. If you wanna get good at this stuff, you have to start practicing it yourself.”
 
“No. Shut up. That’s too much effort.”
 
Nyarlathotep scoffs at her. “Then-“
 
“I don’t care about becoming a nerd ass like him, I have something else in mind… Another way of fighting him…”
 
“Wh-You’re fighting him? Again?” Nyarlathotep is pretty sure Popuoka himself is unaware of this. “Oh good idea, since that went so well for you last time.” 
 
She ignores their comment, the wheels in her head already turning. “I’m going to find his weakness this time.” She murmurs, glaring at his annoyingly cute little beaming face from across the room. “There has to be something he’s not good at and when I find it, I’m gonna use it against him.”
 
“Geez, what’d he ever do to you?”
 
“He literally tried to kill me once, you know this. He owes me a few w’s!”
 
“Fair enough.”
 
She rubs her hands together with an absolutely fiendish smirk on her face. “He’s gonna pay. I’ll make him pay-”
 
“Who’s gonna pay, Popu-neechan?” Popuoka interrupts her by sneaking up behind her, making her jump when he puts his hands on her shoulders. He squishes his cheek against hers. “Ooh, whoever it is, can I help you make him pay?” He says with a giggle.
 
“Oh ho ho, you can certainly help, brother…”
 
“Really?! Tell me how!”
 
“You can help me by… getting back to studying with us.”
 
“Eh? How’s that gonna bring about anyone’s reckoning…?”
 
“Oh, it will.” She smiles darkly. “Trust me.”
 
~
 
“Wow, you’re really a jack of all trades, aren’t you Popuoka?”
 
God fucking dammit.
 
“How…?” Popuko wheezes out defeatedly as her head falls on the table.
 
Popuko knew from his report card that he was good at the main subjects so she had brought up more. Every attempt to introduce him to something different so as to throw him off failed. 
 
He was really just good at everything…
 
At first, she had sprung up from her seat suddenly and declared that they should study violin of all things.
 
Popuoka had masterfully glided the bow across the strings and serenaded them all with an elegant sonata… while Popuko’s violin only screeched pitifully at her rough motions.
 
She had then announced that they should all take up archery and practice with targets immediately.
 
Popuoka’s steady hand and hawk eyes earned him a bullseye every shot… while Popuko missed the target entirely everytime, the only thing she managed to strike was her own wrist with the fine but hard string of the bow due to her improper stance.
 
She told them then that they were going to try ballroom dancing next. Really at this point she should’ve known…
 
But of course Pipihara and Popuoka danced together with complete certainty, like seasoned professionals. Of course they’d glide across the floor with smooth and beautiful precision, moving as one. Popuoka follows Pipihara’s lead as if he could read his mind, arching his back as Pipihara leans over him, knowing just when to spin against the hands on his waist, being lifted and posing in the air with such dramatic grandeur that the breath is knocked out of Popuko the moment she witnesses it. These moves were probably not typical for ballroom dancing specifically, but what does it matter? They are bending the rules but with such magnificent grace that it doesn’t matter, it’s just… better, even more eye-catching and skillful. 
 
And Popuko… all Popuko can do is step on poor Pipimi’s toes as she rigidly holds her. Pipimi smiles at her and tries to reassure her but after every reassurance comes an “Ow!” so Popuko doesn’t really feel any better about it.
 
It was all hopeless. 
 
Popuoka could somehow create the prettiest flower arrangements, he somehow knows how to speak two foreign languages, he can recite so many numbers of pi that Popuko loses count.
 
She is convinced that all the talent of the Popu across the multiverse just went to him and only him. It’s not fair.
 
Hopeless. She’s beat. Again.
 
“Gg, Popuko. I mean really what did you expect. You don’t know how to do any of the stuff you challenged him to.” Nyarlathotep says unhelpfully.
 
“I didn’t think he would either.” She whispers back to them aggressively.
 
“Geez, that fancy school he goes to really did him wonders I guess…” Cthulhu adds, rather in awe of it all.
 
“Huhuhu~” Pipihara giggles with a rare bright smile on his face. “You’re all so lucky you got to see my Popuoka’s limitless talents today. It’s a blessing to witness really.” He says dreamily as he takes Popuoka’s hand and kisses the back of it, planting more kisses up along his arm between his words. When he gets up to his shoulder he places a few pecks to his neck.
 
“Pipihara.” Popuoka giggles. “That’s embarrassing, stop~ hehe~”
 
Usually Popuko thinks they’re cute.
 
Yeah, not today. She grimaces in their direction obviously.
 
“I feel sooo lucky…” Popuko mumbles sarcastically. The boys are too distracted with each other to notice.
 
Pipimi, however, sees the evident disappointment on her face. She strokes Popuko’s back with a sympathetic smile. When Popuko looks at her with what has to be the saddest looking puppy dog eyes, Pipimi’s expression changes. 
 
Pipimi wraps an arm around Popuko’s waist and holds her snug. She smiles at her with a determination now, before she looks toward the boys.
 
“Alright Pipihara, you’ve had your fun flaunting Popuoka’s talent, but now it’s my turn to flaunt Popuko’s.” She says with a matter of fact smile.
 
“Uh-! It is?” Popuko asks with surprise.
 
“Wh-Popuko is good at something?” The genuine shock in Cthulhu’s voice makes her want to punch him.
 
“Wow, this is news to me.” Nyarlathotep adds, making Popuko doubly regret putting down her gun earlier.
 
“Oh?” Pipihara looks at Popuko with an expectant smile.
 
“Popu-neechan, what are you gonna show us?” Popuoka asks her eagerly.
 
“That’s… a good question…” She leans toward Pipimi and whispers in her ear. “Uh, do you just want me to make something up? What talent are we talking about here?”
 
“You don’t need to make anything up, Popu-chan. You have an incredible talent to show them.” Pipimi looks at her like she should know, she doesn’t. Pipimi’s eyes soften. “Your art, honey. You should show them all your wonderful drawings!” She clarifies.
 
“O-Oh-! That’s what you meant… I mean… that’s…” Kind of embarrassing. She’s still a little shy about it despite her improvement. “I don’t know…”
 
“No, you have to show us! I really wanna see your drawings, Popu-neechan!” 
 
“Well…” He has that adorable sparkle in his eye that’s impossible to say no to… “I guess I can show you a sketch.”
 
“Yay!”
 
She retrieves her sketchbook from her book bag, blushing at the way everyone is watching her with anticipation. Popuoka enthusiastically reaches for it but she doesn’t let him take it.
 
“Ah. I said

a

sketch. Just one.”
 
“Ehhh?” Popuoka pouts sadly. 
 
This sketchbook contains some very embarrassing things and there’s no way she would leave it in Popuoka’s hands. She quickly flips past the pages of the countless little doodles of her and Pipimi being lovey dovey. Pipimi puts a hand on the small of her back with a small chuckle as she does causing her blush to deepen.
 
“H-Here.” Once she finds it, she turns it around to show. She looks away because she’s too nervous to see their expressions.
 
Though she’s actually rather proud of this piece all things considered. It’s certainly the best she’s ever made so far.
 
She looks at Pipimi and Pipimi smiles warmly back at her. Popuko smiles too.
 
Besides, the subject of the sketch was gorgeous. She couldn’t go wrong there.
 
“P-Popu-neechan…” Popuoka whispers with hushed awe as he covers his mouth with his hand. His eyes sparkle.
 
“Woah, that’s really good! Like genuinely good!” Cthulhu says. Nyarlathotep agrees with a nod, staring at the drawing in shock.
 
“Oh my. Popuko, that's incredible.” Pipihara adds with an equal amount of impressed awe. He shakes his head. “I’m speechless, truly. It really looks just like her. You captured her essence so well, and you did it beautifully.”
 
Popuko beams. “Aww, thank you, Pipihara! No one knows her better than I do, so of course I was able to capture her essence, hehe~”
 
“That’s right. I’ve never looked better.” Pipimi takes the sketchbook and looks at the drawing of herself again.
 
It gives her butterflies every time she sees it. Seeing herself drawn with so much of Popuko’s effort and of course the love that practically radiated from the image. The love that Popuko felt toward her as she traced the lines of her visage was so evident in the attention to her very detail.
 
The sketch takes up the entire page. It is her full body, standing amidst a rainy day. An umbrella clutched in her hand. A loving look gracing her soft features.
 
Pipimi hugs the sketchbook to her chest. “She’s so wonderfully gifted, isn’t she?”
 
“She is! She is! That’s such a beautiful picture, Popu-neechan! It belongs in, like, an art museum or something!” He clasps her hands, the genuineness in his eyes makes her shy.
 
“Oh heh, you’re just saying that…” 
 
“No, it’s true! I love it so much!”
 
“I agree. It looks very refined. It must have taken you quite a while to develop such skill.” Pipihara says.
 
“Yeah… I’ve been drawing consistently for about maybe two years now.”
 
“Oh really? Only for that long.” He looks taken aback. “Well, that makes it even more impressive then.”
 
“Y-You guys!” She puts her hands on her blushing cheeks, unable to hide her giddiness at such high praise. Being praised by Pipimi was inevitable. However, these boys are the epitome of impressiveness, so it feels like an honor earning their approval.
 
That’s too embarrassing to admit though so she doesn’t.
 
“Really, I bet you’re just saying that, I bet you could-“ She stops. She remembers. “I bet you could draw it too… I bet you could draw it even better, Popu-niichan…”
 
“Hm?”
 
Well, dammit. She’s too stubborn to let this go. She has to know. Popuoka must be exceptional at drawing too just like everything else. This is the first skill she’s felt confident in though. She wonders if she matches his.
 
Yep. She’s not letting this sibling rivalry go.
 
“Popu-niichan, do you draw? You must! Show me your drawings!” She says with determination.
 
“Huh?” Popuoka blinks at her.
 
For some reason out of the corner of her eye she sees Pipihara jolt a bit at her question. Her eyes flit up to Pipihara, he looks uncharacteristically… nervous about something.
 
“Oh well, to tell you the truth, I don’t actually draw all that much. I think it’s fun though!”
 
He had said he didn’t do archery that much either, he had said he wasn’t sure he was any good at it and then he wiped the floor with her. She’s sure he’s just being modest again.
 
“Then-! Uh, draw something right now!” She swipes her sketchbook back from Pipimi and shoves it in his face.
 
“P-Popuoka, you probably don’t feel up to it now, do you?” Pipihara interjects. Something’s… off about him. “You’re probably pretty tired after everything. I’m sorry, Popuko, but m-maybe another ti-“
 
“Don’t worry about me, Pipihara, I'm fine! I wanna try it again, I think I’ll have a good time.”
 
“Oh, lovely… I’m sure you will, darling.”
 
Why does Pipihara look so frazzled about this?
 
“Alright!” Popuoka takes the book and lifts up a pencil. “Take a seat everyone! The master may take a while at work so get cozy.”
 
Everyone takes a seat. Pipihara tensely lowers himself onto the couch. 
 
“Ready to get your ass handed to you again, Popuko?” Nyarlathotep whispers to her with a smirk.
 
“No. No one can beat my drawing of Pipimi.” She replies firmly.
 
“For my subject matter I… choose…just kidding, I already knew from the beginning, it’s you-!” He sits down suddenly on Pipihara’s lap. Pipihara sweats. “Hehe~ now show me that pretty face of yours.” He says as he takes Pipihara’s chin and tilts his head to look at him.
 
“Um, wait a minute, weren’t you supposed to be drawing Pipimi?”
 
“No, he should draw you.” Popuko clarifies. She wants to see something. She wants to see how their drawings of the people they love the most compare.
 
“Oh… splendid-“
 
Popuoka puts a finger to his lips. “Okay now, less talking, more posing.”
 
Pipihara stiffens but shuts his mouth. 
 
Popuko watches Popuoka intently as he starts to draw.
 
~
 
“Finished!” Popuoka declares as he victoriously lifts his drawing above his head. 
 
Popuko jumps to her feet in an instant. Everyone else looks up tiredly, looking immensely bored from the long wait.
 
“Show us, Popu-niichan!” Popuko demands nervously.
 
This was it. The moment of truth.
 
“Here!” 
 
He turns the sketchbook around to show everyone.
 
Everyone stares at the drawing. They blink.
 
Pipihara looks mortified.
 
The Pipihara on the page looks… well, mortifying.
 
They’re speechless, all of them. Popuoka looks at everyone’s faces.
 
“Come on guys. Say something, you’re making me nervous.” 
 
“Oh, I get it!” Cthulhu says. “You drew him in the style of the Bobunemimi universe. Good one, Popuoka! That was intentional right. Ha ha, you’re so funny.”
 
“Wha… Bobubi-what now? I don’t know what that is…”
 
“Oh.”
 
Nyarlathotep covers their mouth, stifling laughs. Cthulhu whispers at them to stop but he has to put a hand over his mouth to hide the laughs that threaten to fall from his mouth too.
 
“Wow… what an interesting… abstract art style you have Popuoka!” Pipimi offers encouragingly, trying to distract him from the snickering demons.
 
Popuko’s lips turn up in an absolutely wicked smile. She did it.
 
“I found it!” She announces victoriously. She walks up to him, laughing maniacally.
 
“Found what?” Popuoka asks, looking very confused at the variety of odd reactions.
 
“I finally found your-” Right as Popuko is about to rub it in his face, her eyes meet Pipihara’s. She double takes. “I found your… I found your…”
 
“Well, what exactly did you find, Popuko? Please enlighten us?” Pipihara asks her, but his dark tone of voice implies something else.
 
He looks at her just as coldly as he had the day they first meant. She knows what that look means.
 
It is a warning.
 
Popuko takes the hint.
 
“I finally found… another great artist… yay…” 
 
Pipihara nods, his expression softening and she sighs a breath of relief.
 
Nyarlathotep hops up to them, bouncing up to Popuoka’s shoulder.
 
“Nyo ho ho~ oh yeah, it’s a great drawing, Popuoka. Really great, heheh! You certainly captured Pipihara’s essence alright. You could cut the air with a jawline that sharp.” They chuckle to themself pointing to the excessively pointy chin that Popuoka had given the drawing. Nyarlathotep continues, ignoring the murder on Pipihara’s face. “Tell me, Popuoka. Is this how you see Pipihara?”
 
Pipihara jolts looking incredibly afraid of what the response to that question will be.
 
“Mmm… no not really.”
 
Pipihara slumps back in his seat looking immensely relieved.
 
“I’m not really good at translating what I see onto paper… I know it’s not very good, guys, you don’t have to lie to me. You don’t have to make them lie to me, Pipihara.”
 
“E-Eh? What ever do you mean…?” Pipihara says, looking away guiltily.
 
“That’s why I really admire your skill, Popu-neechan! I wish I could draw Pipihara as pretty as you draw Pipimi… but I’m so bad at it. I don’t think I’ll be able to..”
 
He looks… pretty disappointed about this. He looks just as disappointed as she had felt earlier when she thought there was nothing she was good at. And he looked like this over one thing, geez the little perfectionist jerk.
 
Popuko sighs, putting her hands on her hips.
 
Well, she guesses she’s gonna have to let it go after all.
 
“Popu-niichan, don’t say that. Everyone can get better art if they just keep at it and practice. And I guess… if you want… I could teach you a couple things to help you get better.” She offers reluctantly.
 
“Really?!” He asks, perking up in an instant.
 
“Yeah, I guess. If only so that I don’t have to look at that mess anymore.” She says yanking her sketchbook out of his hands. 
 
“That would be great, Popu-neechan! Teach me all you know!”
 
~
 
“Goodness, they certainly wore themselves out quickly, didn’t they? I’ve never seen such an intensive art lesson before.” Pipihara laughs as he swaddles a blanket around Popuoka. Popuoka’s head rests on the table, his shoulders steadily rise and fall as he breathes deeply in his sleep. Pipihara wipes away the tears that had collected at the edges of his closed eyes.
 
“I’m sorry.” Pipimi apologizes as she lifts Popuko’s head from the table where she also slept. Popuko groans in her sleep and turns to wrap her arms around Pipimi’s shoulders and bury her face in the crook of her neck. “Popuko is a very intensive teacher. I’m afraid I don’t think she had the patience to teach him properly.” She laughs as she pats her head. 
 
“Oh, that’s quite alright, don’t worry about it. Honestly, Popuoka already takes so many lessons and pushes himself to achieve the best results in them all as it is. I think he’ll be fine if he sits the art classes out.”
 
“You’re probably right. I can imagine he’ll be a bit disappointed though.”
 
“Yes… but I think it’s okay. You know… all those things he showed you, all those skills he’s learned from the school, sure he’s mastered them but they aren’t things he’s particularly passionate about.
However, he does have a passion.
”
 
“Oh?”
 
“Much like the way Popuko is passionate about the things she draws… Popuoka is passionate about the things he writes.”
 
“Really? He’s an author?”
 
“Heheh, that too. For the most part though, he’s a poet.”
 
Pipihara smiles at the way Popuoka’s nose scrunches in his sleep when he rubs his thumb along his cheek.
 
“They have different ways of expressing their feelings, Popuoka and Popuko. But no matter how they choose to express them, I think those feelings get across to us just fine, don’t they?”
 
“Of course.” Pipimi agrees with a warm smile as she cradles Popuko’s head to her neck. 
 
They sit in a content silence for a moment, both of them feeling more than proud of their Popu from the bottom of their hearts. 
 
“Ah, look how late it is.” Pipimi says eventually once she looks out the window and realizes how dark it’s already gotten outside. “We better get going then. Thank you for having us over, Pipihara.”
 
“It is always our pleasure.” He says bowing his head politely.
 
“Come on, you two as well. Let’s get going.” She jostles Cthulhu’s shoulder lightly, rousing him from sleep. Nyarlathotep blinks awake and rubs their eyes, lifting their head from where it was leaning against Cthulhu. “My, you two weren’t part of the lesson, how come you're so tired?”
 
“Were you hearing Popuko?” Cthulhu says with a yawn. “God, it was exhausting just listening to her incessant hounding. Poor Popuoka.”
 
They all get ready to head out, gathering their things together. Pipimi lifts Popuko and carries the sleepy girl on her back. 
 
“Say goodbye, dear.”
 
“Mmm, g’bye.” Popuko slurs tiredly against Pipimi’s shoulder.
 
Pipihara smiles and waves at them as they leave through the front door.
 
He sighs and realizes how tired he is himself. Always a lively day whenever the girls visit. 
 
He looks over at Popuoka and gathers him into his arms as well.
 
He lifts him in a bridal carry slowly and carefully, doing his best to not wake him, keeping the blanket snug around him. He makes his way over to the bed to set him down. 
 
Popuoka hums sleepily and snuggles his face against Piphara’s chest, gripping the front of his shirt. So Pipihara doesn’t let him go, he lays back in his bed and holds him close.
 
Popuoka blinks his eyes open.
 
“Good morning, sunshine.” Pipihara whispers gently as he tucks a stray strand of Popuoka’s hair behind his ear, and caresses his cheek with his fingers. He presses a kiss to his forehead.
 
Popuoka smiles drowsily with an airy giggle. He stretches a bit and rubs his eyes. “Good morning… ah, it doesn’t look like morning though.” He says when he sees the starry skies outside the window. “Did everyone else go home?”
 
Pipihara nods. 
 
He grumbles a bit. “I wanted to learn more about art. Popu-neechan is so scary though…”
 
“She’s certainly very hardcore.” He laughs. “Pipimi said herself that she doesn’t think Popuko is the teacher type so I’m afraid the art lessons appear to be a no go.”
 
“No~” He whines. “I have to get good at art. I have to beat her at that too. I have to win this sibling rivalry…”
 
Pipihara scoffs in surprise. “You little demon. You knew what she was trying to do and you pretended like you didn’t the whole time then?”
 
Popuoka smirks mischievously. “Of course I did. Popuko wears her heart on her sleeve. She’s obvious about everything. Unlike me, I know how to hide my cards.” He says, sticking his nose up proudly. 
 
Pipihara shakes his head. “Goodness, so that’s why you want to learn so bad. And here I thought it was because you actually wanted to learn how to draw me with care.” He says with faux woefulness.
 
“No, no, I want to learn how to do that too, I swear-”
 
“Ha ha ha, oh it’s fine, Popuoka. You’ve created plenty of your own kind of art in my image in your own way, I’m more than thankful for that alone.”
 
Popuoka smiles at the genuine gratefulness in his eyes. He lifts his head up to give him a kiss.
 
“But words alone aren’t enough to describe how handsome you are, hehe~” He says softly against his lips. 
 
Pipihara chuckles with a blush. 
 
“Oh, I think they do the trick actually.”
 
He pulls him into a deeper and lingering kiss, the words he’s come to memorize surfacing to the forefront of his mind.
 
Those words were more than enough, truly.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“HEGEMONY DYNAMIC!!” With a raised fist, he sails through the air, straight toward the towering beast at a blinding speed. He flies right into his chest, but he doesn’t just hit it, he keeps going, he pierces straight through it.  He rips through its mechanical insides with ease. His fist slices through the metal, the gears, all the intricate mechanisms like a knife slicing through warm butter. Electricity sparks all around him, but it can’t touch him. It merely bounces off the much stronger energy he emits. He crashes through and comes out on the other side. He turns in the air to assess the damage, flipping his long golden locks over his shoulder as he does. He sees the sparking, gaping hole that went clear through the beast's back. But then he sees another piece of its metal armor pierced through, then another hole appears in an explosive burst, and then another and another.  To any normal naked eye it would appear as if the mech was self destructing. They moved so fast no eyes could possibly follow them. But he, in his perfect and divinely powerful form could see them. The shooting stars that destroyed it. The sparkling concentrations of pure hegemony that charged through the air. One by one they each render their enemy utterly broken. Then the giant fusion steps forward with thundering footsteps, she reels her fist back. Then throws it forward with so much force it creates a gale wind. When her fist collides with its face, it falls in an instant.  Everyone cheers. He looks down, sees Popuko and the demons running into the castle. They made it, unharmed. They did it. He smiles and hovers over the downed beast's face. Its mouth is hanging open, either in shock or because the fiercely powerful punch it took had broken its jaw. It doesn’t matter, it was finished either way. He looks down at it with a victorious smirk. He reaches inside of his shirt pocket, pulls out a grenade. “Goodnight, King.” “Goodnight, King.” He echoes. He bites the clip of the grenade, with a grandiose and dramatic jerk of his head, he pulls it out, holds it out, drops it. It falls right into the beast’s agape mouth. Everyone cheers twice as loud when the explosion renders its face unrecognizable. The stars race in circles in the sky, whooping and clapping and celebrating their victory. Some embrace each other, crying tears of joy. The side characters congratulate them from the ground.  The feel of victory and relief and complete unity permeates the air. Finally, the terrible king records who had tormented them for years was gone for good.  He smiles to himself with a sigh of relief. He begins to descend the ground, but he doesn’t descend hurriedly. He floats down slowly, savoring the feeling of being together for a bit longer. He wraps his arms around himself, his chest and cheeks warm as the size of the love in his heart has doubled.  “Well done, darling.” “Well done, darling.” He tells him. It’s such a different feeling of wholeness when they’re like this. They already feel complete when they can hold each other in their arms. But this is different, being seen and loved for all they are so completely is the very thing that lets him exist like this. He is the personification of their own love. It’s something he relishes whenever he can. So he holds himself. Runs his hands along his waist, lifts them up to his cheeks, he caresses his own face.  “I love you.” He wants to say, but he doesn’t need to say it out loud. He knows. His feet touch the ground. He joins his hands together, interlocks his fingers. He breathes slowly and deeply, watching the rest of the stars descend just as slowly around him, each of them savoring their togetherness too. He starts to unsynthesize. With a content smile he watches the falling stars as he does, he looks up at the sky. He looks at the sky and right before they separate he sees it. A crack. The calm contentment is gone abruptly. He feels panic seize them both for a split second at the sight before he’s gone. The panic makes them both jolt, makes their separation a lot less gentle than it should have been. “Augh!” Popuoka yelps as he’s thrown to the ground. A spark of their own panic charged energy, surges through him painfully as Pipihara’s warmth leaves him. The abrupt separation leaves his nerves feeling hypersensitive and exposed.  His chin hits the ground hard, he bites his tongue. The pain in his face and coursing through his veins leaves him unable to move for a moment. Every breath hurts for a dizzying moment, he feels nauseous, before the pain leaves as abruptly as it had come. Still feeling disoriented and unstable he tries to rise to his feet. He grits his teeth as he leans on his arm and forces himself to look up. Muted booms accompany the ringing in his ears. The sight before him blearily comes into focus.  Again the sky is being torn in two. Why? Why in this world too? “Pi… Pipi… hara…” He coughs, his throat stinging in protest seemingly not ready for words yet. But he forces himself to stand, his knees shaky.  He stumbles, he expects to feel Pipihara’s steadying hands catching him any second now… but they don’t. He must be down still, he needs to help him. He turns. “Pipihara, I-” He stops. When he turns he sees Pipihara isn’t down, he’s standing up. But something’s wrong. Behind him he hears voices.  “Pipimi-chan! Pipimi-chan, what’s wrong?!” “No! No, no, no, not again! Please no!” “Why?! Why is this happening?!” He doesn’t turn to them. He takes a slow step forward toward Pipihara.  “Pipihara…?” He asks shakily.  He’s standing but his posture is impossibly rigid. He isn’t moving at all.  “Pipimi-chan, wake up!” Pipihara’s face is hidden by his hair. He’s looking up at the sky, looking away from him. There’s screaming and crying all around them now. “Pipihara…” He reaches out to him, tries to pull his hair back to look at him but he can’t, it won’t move.   As terror stings in his chest he hurriedly steps in front of him, looks up at his face. His worst fear is confirmed. Pipihara's eyes are gray, just like the rest of him.  Gray stone. He reaches out with quivering hands.  He feels cold.  Stiff, hard, cold.  When he puts his hands on Pipihara’s chest, that's how he feels. That’s how Popuoka feels now too. He feels as if he had been turned to stone along with him. He hadn’t though. He wishes he had really. Everything is quiet even though it’s not. Even though there is loud panic and chaos around him, it is defeatingly quiet to him. He can’t hear anything. The side of his face is pressed against Pipihara’s chest. He tries to quiet his heavy breathing and choked sobs, he presses face as close against the hard stone as he can. He stops breathing to listen. He listens for a heartbeat, he listens for a heartbeat, he listens for a heartbeat. He doesn’t have a heartbeat. Popuoka feels like he can’t breathe. He reaches up, taking Pipihara’s face. “Pipihara, no. No, come on. I need you right now.” He whispers, barely able to get the words out. He takes Pipihara’s frozen face in his hands. His expression looks neither pained nor eased. He looks surprised. Concerned, as his gaze remains permanently fixed to the sky that grows darker and darker with every passing second.  “Pipihara!” This can’t be happening. He tries to grip the front of his shirt but his fingers can’t gain purchase on the flat stone. He stands on the tips of his toes, tries to pull his face down to look at him, but he can’t reach his mouth, his lips can only brush against his chin. The painfully rough stone of his jawline. He holds him against himself, it feels nothing like him. There’s no warmth.  It was gone just like that.  Even though he had felt it not mere seconds ago. This can’t be real, it really can’t.  He shakes his head. “Please… please move. Please talk to me. Please, please, please.”  Tears drip down his cheeks onto Pipihara’s chest, darkening the color of the stone. He squeezes his eyes shut, whispers pleas that fall on deaf ears. He feels like he can’t move. Then he feels like he has to move, he has to get help. He turns and sees her. His sister was standing behind him looking just as afraid. “Popu-neechan… why is this happening…?” He asks her as if she would know. He knows she doesn’t, she doesn’t answer, she looks too horrified.  No one can help. No one can save him. He can’t save him. He doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to do- He feels arms wrap around his shoulders and pull him close. He clings to her because she’s warm and he’s desperate for that right now. He begs her to bring him back, begs for any kind of reassurance but she doesn’t give him that. She whispers apologies over and over.  “He’s gonna be okay, right? He has to be okay. Tell me it’s gonna be alright, Pipimi.” “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know, I know.” He rests his chin on her shoulder as he cries, he can still see Pipihara just barely through his tears.  Then he sees him getting farther away from him. “We have to go.” No. No, he’s not gonna leave him. He feels himself being pulled away from him.  Without even thinking about it, too hysterical to stop himself, he throws a punch to try and get away. She catches his punch easily, pins his arms to his side in an embrace. “NO!” He screams. She says something to him but he can’t hear her anymore.  Pipihara gets farther away from him. Farther and farther and farther, and he fights. He fights with all his strength to get back to him. But he can’t. “He’s gone. He’s gone, honey. I’m so sorry. We have to go now.” Then he can’t see him at all anymore. He’s gone. He’s gone. … … … … He feels nothing.  It was all so fast. It was all so nauseatingly abrupt and fragmented. He can’t remember what just happened very clearly. His mind had started to slip away in the middle of it. All he knows is that Pipihara’s not here anymore. He’s gone. He blinks at the darkness. Stares at the darkness.  Realizes the darkness is all that there is. He thinks that maybe that wasn’t how it was a moment ago. Weren’t there people here? Weren’t they holding him and shouting at him and sad for him? They aren’t here anymore, those people.  Everyone’s gone now. He’s alone now. His body aches. It’s sore. It’s sore in the kind of way it gets when one lays in the same position for too long. How long had he been laying there? Hours? Days? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if there’s much of a difference in a space that doesn’t really exist at all in the first place, time doesn’t seem to be real here. He moves, after maybe another few hours or another few days of thinking about it. He feels like he can barely keep his eyes open, what’s the point of it anyway? He very nearly lies back down. He is wracked with violent shivers before he can though. It’s not cold here, but he feels so so so cold anyway. He wants warmth, he just wants to feel something again, this is too agonizing to bear alone.  He remembers Pipimi’s warmth, when she held him as he cried. He remembers his sister’s warmth, the feeling of her arm snug around his shoulders.  He needs them. He needs to find them. Every inch of his body stings in protest when he rises to his feet. He feels dehydrated, he feels like he could collapse any second but a terrified adrenaline keeps him going.  “P….Popu-neechan…” He can’t say her name loud enough. He swallows thickly, grimacing at how dry his throat and mouth feel. “Popu-neechan…” He tries again, a bit louder. “Pipimi… Pipimi! Popu-neechan!” Why did they leave? Where did they go? “Cthulhu?!” He tries. “Nyarlathotep?!” They’re gone too.  He looks around frantically. No. Oh god no he’s alone.  Panic flares in his stomach anew. He pants heavily feeling like his chest is about to burst. “Popu-neechan! Pipimi! Come back!” He screams desperately as tears stream down his face. He grips his head, pulling his hair till it stings, for some reason that makes him want to pull it even harder, so he does. “Augh-!” He shouts in both pain and fear. He’s losing it. He’s slipping away even more.  And in the middle of this… He hears someone… He hears someone start to laugh. He stops screaming. With wide eyes he slowly turns toward the voice. There are men lying on the ground behind him. They’re all tied to chairs. A man lies face down, his body already battered, dark bruises and blood already staining his face yet he laughs. He laughs at him. The others despite their wounds of equal severity eventually start to join him in laughter. A chorus of weak but malicious laughs ring through the air. Popuoka can feel his breaths getting even shallower. “Heheh… you… you all really are so pathetic on your own…” Popuoka clenches his fists. His nails dig into his skin, tight and painful. “Every one of you talks so big, you act like you’re forces to be reckoned with, but when it comes down to it… you’re all just codependent little crybabies.” “You’re just an oversensitive emotional teenager who decided to make that everyone else’s problem. Well, I bet you regret making it our problem now, don’t you?” “Hahaha! That’s right. How could we let ourselves ever be scared of you? Alone you’re just a weak little girl.” “Ah, I think that one’s a boy actually.” “Really? I could hardly tell from looking at him.” “Ha ha ha ha!” “Heheheh!” Popuoka feels a painful prick of anxiety and hurt that is all too familiar.  “Shut the fuck up!” He screeches because he can’t take it right now. He can’t take this right now too. They don’t stop laughing. He is about to snap, about to stomp over there and make them stop. One of them has been quiet the whole time though.  “Stop it.” He says suddenly to his comrades. They do stop, they all eye him curiously. “You all sound like school yard bullies, you truly have no pride left, do you.” “What-?” “Besides,” He interrupts. “If you really want to hurt him, all you have to do is tell him the truth.” The man looks up at Popuoka then. With his drooping black eye, he gives him an absolutely chillingly dark look. Popuoka tenses. “It’s your fault, you know.” Popuoka’s heart feels like it stops. “Don’t.” He whispers in warning. “He wouldn’t have died if you hadn’t-” “STOP!” Anything but this. “Your love for him was going to damn him from the beginning. It was always going to hurt him in the end. He would’ve been better off if he had never met you. There’s no one else you can blame-” Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut  “You killed Pipihara.” That’s it. The final straw. He goes from feeling nothing… To feeling everything at once. And those wild clashing emotions completely overtake him, his mind all but disappears. Not a single thought occurs to him as he rushes forward.  Then there’s red. Red, dark, dark red. Snapshots. The smell of iron so potent.  The feeling of something slick in his hands. He’s ripping and ripping and ripping something apart, he doesn’t know what. He sees someone look up at him, he sees the fear and horror in his eyes only for a moment. He pushes his arms out of the way, hears something snap, hears him scream so loud it hurts his ears. Shut up. He ducks his head down, bares his teeth. And he bites. He tastes sweaty flesh, it’s disgusting, so disgusting. So he rips it away and spits it out on the ground.  He bites again. More blood, more disgusting iron tasting liquid. He spits that out too. And he bites again and again and again. It tastes disgusting every time, and it feels disgusting, wet and squishy and bitter bitter bitter. He keeps biting, he has to get rid of it all. All this disgustingness, he has to destroy it all, spit it all out on the ground where it belongs.  “AUGH!” He jerks his head back, his gums and teeth stinging when he bites down on something hard.  He sees bone. Red clumps stick to the yellowed bone, but he grabs the part of it that is exposed and rips it out with a screech.  And there’s more screeching around him. So many voices screaming, and crying, and not shutting up. Why won’t they shut up. All he wants is for them to shut up. So he jumps to his feet, nearly falling in his haste but he doesn’t. He sees a man screaming so he stops him. He takes the jagged, sharp bone he had ripped out of the other man’s body and shoves it in the loud man’s mouth. He chokes on his own blood, he groans and garbles. And that by itself is still too fucking loud and so fucking annoying.  So, he starts to stomp on his chest. He stomps over and over, hoping to crush his ribs and pierce his lungs and stop the noise.  His noise stops. There’s more noise still.  He turns to it. Sees him. Drops to his knees in front of him. Takes his face. Breaks his jaw. That makes him louder, so the next thing he breaks is his neck. That makes him quiet. Next. “Please, please, please, just kill me! Just kill me now! Stop it, stop it–ahhhh, ahhh! JUST KILL ME!” Loud, loud, loud. He hasn’t even touched him and he’s already loud.  He lashes out at him, rakes his nails across his face, it doesn’t do nearly enough damage. So he pins down his neck and scrapes his nails over his face again and again. And why is he even bothering with this, it’s just making him louder. So he chokes him, he’s gasping for air and it's too loud. So he doesn’t bother anymore, he gets it over with. He claws at his neck, rips his jugular open. When he violently rips his skin open, blood sprays from the open wound drenching the front of him, drenching the only other man who’s left too. The other man who is the only one left is very quiet, he isn’t loud. “Killing us won’t bring him back.” Says the man who is about to die. Popuoka wakes up at this.  In an instant, Popuoka can feel every bit of blood coloring his skin red that he won’t be able to wipe away. He can taste the iron and feel the viscera clinging to his gums that he won’t be able to stop tasting. He sees the stains in his clothes that he won’t be able to wash out. He feels all of it. All the disgustingness. Feels it, tastes it, smells it, sees it, can’t get away from it. When did that happen? “Wh… What… did I…?” He hears the man’s words echo in his head again. Killing them won’t bring Pipihara back. Popuoka realizes. The realization is too much for him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

He closes his eyes, sits with a straight but relaxed posture, lets his fingers glide over the piano keys whichever way they want.  He sighs a breath of relief as he absorbs the sounds he’s making down to his very core. He glances at the window, admires the low light of the setting sun that bathes the room in a soft golden light. This is his favorite time of day, it’s beautiful not only because of how it looks but because it is the only time he is allowed to play piano here without having to listen to the unwarranted comments of his teacher and peers. It is a short time, after everyone is gone and before the janitor ushers him out so that he can lock up the school for the day, so he savors the short time he gets to himself and his music everyday. He plays a well known classical piece: Liebesträume by Franz Liszt. There is no sheet music before him to look at, he doesn’t have it memorized either, but that’s okay. He feels it, he feels the music throughout his whole body, that is the important part. And no one is here to stifle him, no one is here to interrupt with their words, with their tired opinions, no one is here. Well… there is someone here in truth. He is pretending that he isn’t here, but Pipihara can feel the intense gaze boring into his back. He smiles lightly at the familiar feeling. Maybe that’s odd, maybe being watched like this would make most uncomfortable. But it doesn’t make him uncomfortable at all, not when he’s the one watching. So he brings his piece to an end suddenly, sooner than expected so that he can turn and return the gaze. When he looks over his shoulder with a kind smile he only sees the other boy’s face for a split second. He sees the boy looking at him with a small smile and a bright blush before his eyes go wide as saucers when their gazes meet and he darts out of view, hiding behind the other side of the wall once he realizes he’s been noticed. Pipihara chuckles. “It’s alright. You don’t have to go. I don’t mind if you listen to me.”  For a moment there is no answer, a silence hangs in the air and Pipihara wonders if he had quietly run away. But then he sees a hand on the doorway. The boy peeks around it shyly, with a guilty frown. “Sorry…” Pipihara shakes his head. “I told you it’s alright.” The boy still pouts in a way that Pipihara finds terribly cute. But as Pipihara eyes him, he notices something.  His hair… is different. It has been cut. Sloppily, hurriedly… seemingly hesitantly as well. Pipihara's eyes soften at the sight. He lifts a hand and ushers him over. “Why don’t you come over here? Play some songs with me.” “Huh?” The boy jolts, taken aback by the request. He grips the doorframe. He looks nervous and skeptical, as if he isn’t taking the offer at face value. As if he can’t believe it, as if it’s a joke. “You take music class as well, don’t you?” He knows he does.  Pipihara has seen this boy around, not very often since he seems to blow off all his other classes. When he does see him around school, he’s always following close behind. At first Pipihara thought it was merely coincidence, they’re in the same grade and the same class, but he started to notice… whenever Pipihara would look at him, he’d look away. Whenever there was a school assembly this boy would stand next to him, though he wouldn’t look at him, wouldn’t speak to him, whenever Pipihara glanced down at him, he could see the way the tips of his ears had colored red. He’s very shy, not very talkative at all… he’s drawn to Pipihara though, Pipihara can tell that much. And Pipihara can say that he’s drawn to him as well, he’s curious about him. Pipihara sees him less lately. One day he had gotten his test back, seen he had gotten an f, and he started crying in front of the whole class. It seems like it really embarrassed him, he doesn’t show up for any of his classes anymore… but he still shows up for music. He cares about music if nothing else, Pipihara cares about music too. “Yeah…” Comes his weary answer. Pipihara continues to beckon him and he walks in slowly as if he were afraid of intruding, as if he would bolt at the drop of a pin. Pipihara gets up out of his seat, the boy stops in his tracks, tenses. Pipihara smiles to himself thinking he acts like a timid little deer. He offers the piano bench to him. “You’re quite a fine pianist yourself. I’d like to hear you play.” “Sure…” He quirks a brow, as if he’s surprised that Pipihara had ever taken notice of him before. He makes his way over to him, sits down stiffly, looks up at Pipihara as if he’s expecting something else. But Pipihara just smiles back at him patiently. “Ah… then…” He turns to the keys eventually. Lifts his hands above them and starts to play. He plays very well. He plays Liebesträume as well. He plays it more accurately, he’s clearly memorized the sheet music. Not just every note but every crescendo and diminuendo and every rest. He plays the piece exactly how it is intended to be played. His technique is flawless. It’s very impressive, he’s very skilled… but he’s tense, he doesn’t appear to be moved by the music he’s playing. As he watches him, Pipihara realizes something. This boy is brimming with untapped potential.  When he finishes the song, he looks to Pipihara. Expecting to hear his thoughts on his playing, expecting to hear either praise or criticism or both. He sweats as he waits for the verdict. He doesn’t get one though. “What’s your name?” Pipihara asks. The boy blinks at him, clearly not expecting to hear that question out of the blue. Oh, um… Popuoka…” “That was very good, Popuoka. Perfect even.” Yes, Popuoka is clearly more than the crybaby delinquent that everyone makes him out to be. Everyone seems to have the impression that he isn’t very smart, that he’s weak willed, but that couldn’t be true. He knows that his character is not nearly so flat as the assumptions everyone makes. There is talent and passion in him… and it is being held back. “That was Liebesträume in its purest form. You followed every bit of direction that appears in the transcription of its original arrangement.” “Yes…?” Popuoka is unsure where he’s going with this. “But is that the Liebesträume that you want to play? Or is that the Liebesträume you play because you think it’s what others want to hear?” Popuoka tilts his head. “I’m not sure what you mean… I just played what we were assigned…” Isn’t Liebesträume the song that it is specifically because of those precise notes and chords? Wouldn’t it become something else if it was changed? It was a song written by someone else, does he really have any right to change it? “Here. Perhaps I can show you what I mean.”  Pipihara sits down next to him then, Popuoka hurriedly tries to get up to give him space, but Pipihara catches his shoulder, gently pushes him to sit back down. “Don’t worry, you’re not in my way.” He assures softly, quietly. He could speak so quietly because of how close he is now, it feels… intimate. It startles Popuoka. “Ah, but, I-ah-!” He moves himself to the farthest end of the bench but he overshoots and nearly falls off it. “Careful.” Pipihara catches him by the waist before he can fall, pulls him closer. They look at each other for a moment… Pipihara’s hand lingers on him longer than it needs to. He laughs then a bit strained, removes his hand, takes his eyes off him. “Ah, right. Now then…” He turns his attention back to the keys. He plays and at first it sounds the same, it is just Liebesträume. But then, the rhythm is different. The volume of Pipihara’s playing swells and slows at certain points and accentuates certain measures in a way that isn’t written in the sheet music. Then the chords are different, not simpler, but different. The melody itself stays nearly the same, but Pipihara takes out notes, adds new ones as he pleases, yet somehow it is still recognizable as Liebesträume and nothing else. The emotion is something else, something else is coming across through this playing but Popuoka can’t say it's unfitting.  Regardless, the purist in him is on edge at this. He wants to argue that this isn’t correct when he’s done playing and he fully intends to. But then Pipihara starts to speak while there’s a lull in the complexity of the song that wasn’t originally there.  “Do you know what the German word Liebesträume translates to, Popuoka?” Popuoka looks at him, sees how relaxed he looks despite how complicated the piece is.  “Um… no… I guess I don’t know.” He smiles. “It means “Dream of Love”. And I am certain that when the original composer was creating this piece, it was made to the tune of his own dream of love. But you know, my dream of love is different than his. I don’t like the idea of coldly copying his most intimate expression in a way that means nothing to me because of emotionless symbols on pages. This is what my dream of love sounds like, it sounds like no one else’s.” Popuoka understands then. As Pipihara’s plays, tilting his head back with closed eyes, his expression changing, his brows furrowing but not in discomfort in concentration and focus. He realizes that this way of playing isn’t inferior in any way. He feels emotion swell in his chest at the sound, he feels tears coming to his eyes, the music moves him now in a way that hadn’t before. The song softly comes to its close. Pipihara looks to him with a soft smile and Popuoka feels a tear slide down his cheek the instant he does. He quickly looks away, quickly wipes it away. “You should find your own dream of love. Not somebody else’s dream, not the dream that you think somebody else wants you to have, or a dream that is stifled to be palatable for everyone. Yours, unabashedly.” A strand of unruly hair falls against Popuoka’s cheek. Popuoka lifts his hand to hurriedly tuck it behind his ear, but Pipihara does it for him. He turns to him, and sees him looking at his hair. His face burns, he knows it looks dumb and weird right now. He tried to cut it short, everyone made fun of him for how he’d worn it before, laughed and told him he looked like a girl. So, in a fit of anger and sadness, he had tried to cut it all off. Something stopped him in the middle though. He couldn’t do it, he doesn’t know why. He saw himself in the mirror, he saw his reflection, but when he saw his short locks… he didn’t see himself anymore, he was looking at a boy, but that boy wasn’t Popuoka. It scared him, he stopped. So his hair fell down his shoulders, uneven, awkward, indecisive about what it was trying to be… just like him. “It’s so difficult, isn’t it?” Pipihara says then. “When people don’t want what’s yours to be yours. Heh, you know what? Our teacher pulled me aside to talk to me the other day. Do you know what she said?” He shakes his head. “She said I was the worst pianist in this class.” “What?! That’s not true!” Popuoka is offended. He had thought that if anything, he deserved to be pulled aside and praised for his creativity and skill. “She said it was due to my inability to play anything properly. My constant deviations from such well known pieces are frowned upon, I’m afraid. She said it was disrespectful to the original musician to alter their pieces, it was like altering the intention, altering their message to fit my own agenda.” Popuoka supposes the thought had occurred to him as well. “But the alternative is altering myself, disrespecting myself for the sake of someone who isn’t here anymore and I can’t do that. And maybe I have no right to assume, but I can’t imagine anyone who dreams of love would want others to censor theirs.” “So, I refuse to abide by her views,” He continues. “I won’t let anyone stifle me. And you shouldn’t let anyone stifle you either, Popuoka. Especially yourself.” He says with a knowing gentleness. Popuoka looks at the keys again. He’s stifled himself for so long, but as he feels the remaining few strands of long hair tickling his neck, he knows he hasn’t stifled himself completely. He doesn’t know how to. As he feels the open air on the other side of his neck, he realizes he doesn’t know how to let himself be completely open either. He’s stuck in the middle, always has been, unable to move. He feels a hand over his though. This hand takes his, moves it for him, sets in on the keys. “I’d like to hear you play it again. But this time I want to hear Popuoka’s Liebesträume.” Pipihara takes his hand away suddenly, his face coloring.  “A-Ah, I’m sorry. Only if you want to. I don’t want to pressure you.” “No, no, it’s-it’s okay.” Popuoka assures him tensely, as a heavy tension settles over them. He plays immediately, to distract himself from the warmth he can still feel on the back of his hand, to take his mind away from the fire he feels stinging in his chest. He can’t do it though. He can’t play it any differently than he had before, he hesitates. He hesitates because he can’t shake the feeling that it wouldn’t sound right if he tried. “I-I can’t-” “You’re thinking too much. Focus on what you can feel.” He realizes what he needs to do at his words. He was trying to distract himself from it, but he should be doing the opposite. He should focus on how the warmth of Pipihara’s hand had felt, the fire in his chest that feels painfully unbearable, he needs to lean into that fire despite the hurt. And as he does, the pain starts to lessen, and he uses the warm feeling left behind to fuel his playing. And what he plays is entirely different, he doesn’t even know what he’s playing anymore, he isn’t thinking, he’s feeling, he’s smiling, he’s crying, he’s enjoying himself, enjoying his own sound, and it’s for the first time.  And he finishes his song. “Popuoka…” Pipihara is overcome. “That was beautiful-” “That wasn’t it.” “Huh?” “That wasn’t Popuoka’s Liebesträume.”  He flashes a smile at Pipihara, and that’s the first time he’s seen it from him he thinks. The sight of it makes Pipihara’s chest feel light.  “Not yet anyway, hehe.” Popuoka says vaguely before getting up. He jogs to the other side of the room, grabs something. When he turns around, he is holding a violin. “Popuoka’s Liebesträume can only be played on this.” “I see.” But there’s something else. One more thing he needs to truly make it Popuoka’s Liebesträume. “Will you play accompanying piano for me, Pipihara?” Pipihara looks a bit taken aback for a moment, then he smiles.  “Of course.” He can’t wait to hear what their duet will sound like. He knows it will be beautiful.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Ah~ What a perfect Sunday today is turning out to be, Popuko thinks to herself. 
 
No school, of course. No responsibilities to worry about. It’s a warm and perfect afternoon, the perfect weather for a modest and sweet date in the park. They can laugh and play to their heart's content, just the two of them. 
 
Popuko’s cheeks hurt from smiling, two of her fingers are gently looped around two of Pipimi’s as they stretch to hold each other’s hands while they sit in their swings side by side. They’re both doubled over as they breathlessly laugh. 
 
“I win!” Popuko declares in between heavy breaths, she raises her arm victoriously, Pipimi’s raising with it as she keeps their hands snuggly intertwined. 
 
“Good job, honey. You’re the jetpack swing racing champion!” Pipimi declares just as victoriously, not bothered in the slightest that she lost. “What would the little champion like for an award?” 
 
“Oh~ You know! Hehehe~” Popuko doesn’t elaborate, instead she twists the chain links of the swing as she turns to face Pipimi. She leans her head forward, closes her eyes and puckers her lips, humming as she waits to feel Pipimi’s kiss. 
 
“Yay! That’s my favorite reward to give! Ehe~” She twists her swing same as Popuko, closing her eyes and humming too as she leans forward to meet Popuko’s lips. “Mwah~ Mwah~ Mmmmmmwah~” She coos cutely as she pecks her puckered lips with her own, holding the third kiss a little longer.
 
Popuko giggles when she pulls away, but she doesn’t stay away for long as she wraps her arms around Popuko’s shoulders and peppers her whole face with chaste little smooches. “Pipimi-chan, hee hee, Pipimi-chan~” She starts, struggling–very happily–to get the words out between the barrage of endless kisses. 
 
“What?” Pipimi whispers, pulling away but staying close as drops her hands to run her fingertips up and down Popuko’s waist. Her lips go to Popuko’s neck as she waits for an answer.
 
Popuko shivers as she feels her breath ghost her throat. “P-Pipimi-chan, is it okay if I ask for another reward?”
 
“Mmm, insatiable, aren’t you?” 
 
And the way she softly speaks those words against her neck and playfully bites at her jawline almost tempts her into changing her request… but her stomach growls in time to stop her.
 
Pipimi looks up at her and chuckles when she hears it, Popuko blushes. “Can… we go get a snack?”
 
“You don’t have to ask twice, I heard you the first time.” She says with a laugh as she glances down at Popuko’s tummy. 
 
Popuko wraps her arms around herself as if to hide it. “Yeah, yeah…” She says, but with a small smile as she gets up.
 
Pipimi gets up too, and Popuko stares openly as she stretches, taking in the divine sight of her in the sweet little sundress she was wearing. Pristine white, frilly and pretty and as angelic looking as she is with her dark hair tied up with her bow in a ponytail. She reaches her hand out to Popuko who eagerly takes it.
 
She notices as they leave the park hand in hand, the rest of the people sigh in relief. 
 
“Pussies…” Popuko comments in their direction at no one in particular.
 
“I know. The jetpack swings are so fun. I can’t imagine why everyone’s so scared of them.”
 
“Right?! It only killed like… a few people. It’s not a big deal, geez.”
 
Pipimi snorts. “Remember when that one kid walked behind it while you were using it, and the flame from one of the rockets lit his hair on fire?”
 
“Ha ha ha! Oh yeah, that was sooo funny!”
 
“I’m so glad they didn’t uninstall them after the mom sued.”
 
“Well, I wonder who we have to thank for that miracle?” Popuko says with a wink as she elbows her lightly in the side.
 
Pipimi rubs the back of her neck modestly. “Oh, it’s no thanks to me. Thank my .45 caliber. The mayor couldn’t say no to her!”
 
They both chuckle at the silly memory as they walk. Popuko lets go of her hand so she can loop their arms together. She leans into her, and sighs dreamily. Shutting her eyes and relishing their closeness, she rubs her cheek against the soft skin of her arm. Pipimi feels soft as satin, the scent of her vanilla perfume hits Popuko’s nose, Pipimi sings a little tune under her breath as they walk, and everything about Pipimi is perfect to Popuko. 
 
Today couldn’t get any better.
 
“♪Hand in hand, hand in hand, run, run, run–♪ Ah, look, Popu-chan. There’s an ice cream truck parked over there.”
 
Popuko’s eyes snap open. Oh, somehow it can get better!
 
“Yes!” She takes Pipimi’s hand and runs to the line, her smile growing at the sound of Pipimi’s light and happy laugh ringing through the air after her. “Score! We’re so lucky–”
 
“HEEEEY!”
 
Popuko stops when a voice calls out behind her. 
 
Who?
 
“Ko-nitch-eewa!”
 
Oh no, that god awful pronunciation can only mean one thing.
 
They both turn toward the voice, Popuko preemptively bracing herself, Pipimi turns with a smile of recognition.
 
“Oh, hello!” Pipimi waves with a smile.
 
Sure enough a bright eyed girl jogs toward them, her blonde ponytail cutely bouncing with every step.
 
“Hi, American Popuko.” Popuko states dryly when she breathlessly stops in front of them, stopping a little too close for comfort. Popuko backs away as much as Pipimi’s hand in hers allows.
 
“Ha ha, I told y’all ya don’t hafta be so formal. You can call me Poppy!” She practically yells in their faces. Christ, Americans have no volume control.
 
“Right…” Whatever- “Ughh…” She tenses with a cringe as Poppy gives her a tight hug. No concept of personal space either.
 
“It’s so good to see ya, sis.”
 
Don’t call me that, Popuko nearly says, but she chokes on her words when Poppy lets go of her to hug Pipimi.
 
“And you~”
 
Poppy lingers in Pipimi’s embrace longer than she did in Popuko’s, far longer than she needs to. Popuko’s eye twitches as she stares at Poppy’s hands that rest on Pipimi’s waist when she pulls away. Popuko’s every nerve screams.
 
“It’s good to see you too, Poppy!” Pipimi says happily. They both smile at each other and chuckle happily and it takes every ounce of Popuko’s self control not to tackle her illegitimate sister to the ground.
 
“Wow, look at you~” Poppy coos as she looks Pipimi up and down in a way that makes Popuko wanna claw her eyes out. “What a pretty little number. Ya look like an angel, dear!” 
 
“Ha ha, thank you! I was wondering if it suited me. I wasn’t sure.”
 
What?! No, fuck! Popuko didn’t say how beautiful she thought she looked out loud, did she? She thought of a million compliments, but she was too shy to voice a single one. Ugh, another annoying thing about Americans is how unabashedly forward they are, they’re not shy, they speak before they think. 
 
And so she let Poppy beat her to the punch…
 
“Of course it suits ya, Pipi-beau!”
 
She did. Not. Just. Say. That.
 
And… no…
 
“Oh, thank you. I’m really happy to hear that…” 
 
Pipimi is… blushing…
 
Popuko feels her blood run cold.
 
“Heh heh, anywho…” Poppy takes her hands off of Pipimi’s waist, fucking finally. “What are you two up to?”
 
“We were just about to get ice cream. Nice talking to you.” Popuko says shortly as she grabs Pipimi’s arm hurriedly and tries to turn-
 
“Oh, me too!”
 
Goddamit.
 
“Augh-!” Popuko shouts in surprise when Poppy inserts herself in between Popuko and her girlfriend and loops her arms around either of theirs. Popuko nearly stumbles when Poppy pulls them forward toward the line.
 
“How lucky am I to run into y’all? We can eat together now!”
 
“Great.” Popuko all but spits.
 
“Great!” Pipimi says at the same time, with much more enthusiasm.
 
Popuko had thought to herself a few moments earlier that today couldn’t get better… she didn’t consider the alternative.
 
Poppy drags them around and loudly tells them and everyone else within a very wide hearing distance about how cool it was that they had matcha flavored ice cream and how she never saw that much at home, and blah blah blah, whatever. Popuko pretty much tunes her out. 
 
Popuko hates this third wheel hillbilly who always demands to be the center of attention when she shows up, and she is an American so of course she should expect as much, but…
 
Popuko looks at Pipimi, Pipimi doesn’t look back at her.
 
Pipimi is nodding along and laughing with bright eyes as she listens to Poppy. 
 
Hanging off of Poppy’s every word.
 
Poppy seems to be so charming to Pipimi, so interesting. A new and exciting person in her life, who’s sweet and easy to get along with and… nothing like Popuko…
 
“I want two scoops!” Popuko declares suddenly. “Rocky road and-”
 
“Um, Popu-chan...” Pipimi’s voice interrupts her suddenly.
 
“Yes, honey?” She asks, desperate for her to reassure her. Desperate for her to offer something nice, like even more scoops.
 
But… when she meets Pipimi’s eyes… Pipimi’s sweating.
 
“Popu-chan… I only had enough money for two cones…” She says glancing down at her own and… Poppy’s. “I-I’m sorry-”
 
“That’s fine!” Popuko says through the grit teeth of an incredibly fake smile. “We have plenty at home, anyway.” 
 
“Mmm, matcha flavor is soooo interesting! Japan is so cool!” Poppy coos happily as she licks at her ice cream. She wraps her free hand around Pipimi’s waist. “Thanks, Pipi-beau! What’s wrong, sis? Ya don’t have any money of your own? Come on, ya gotta work to earn yer treat! Ha ha, I’m kiddin’ I’m kiddin’.”
 
“No, you're right.” Popuko mumbles as something dark and unpleasant stings in her chest. “Winning a jetpack swing race wasn’t good enough, I guess.” She laughs, doing her best to look unbothered.
 
“Jetpack swing race? What on earth is that?”
 
“Oh, what? You don’t have jetpack swings in America? We have them all over Japan.”
 
“Really-?”
 
“No, Popu-chan, don’t try to trick her. That’s mean.”
 
Popuko bites her tongue so hard, it feels close to bleeding.
 
“It’s a special swing that Popuko came up with. It’s really fun!”
 
Popuko looks up at her, sees the apologetic look in her eyes.
 
“Popuko comes up with a lot of fun and wonderful games. There’s nothing better than playing at the park with her.” She says sweetly and genuinely.
 
Aww, well… that makes her feel a little better-
 
“Can I come too?! I wanna learn how to play jetpack swing race! Can I play at the park?!” Poppy asks excitedly.
 
“Sure!” Pipimi answers.
 
Popuko’s heart drops again. That does not make her feel better. 
 
Jetpack swing race was their special game. Only the two of them knew the rules. She didn’t want anyone else to know. They’d come up with the rules together. Together… just them…
 
“Yay! Let’s go!” 
 
And Poppy takes Pipimi’s hand and runs with her.
 
Popuko nearly runs after them, ready to chase her with wild abandon, but she stops…
 
Pipimi’s laughter stops her.
 
“Ha ha ha, Poppy slow down~”
 
Popuko swallows thickly, frozen in place.
 
Pipimi turns to look at her, her face falls.
 
“Popu-chan, aren’t you coming too?” She asks as Poppy continues to pull her away from her. “Popu-chan-”
 
“Nah, I’ll meet you at home!” She answers.
 
She turns on her heel. 
 
She runs the other way.
 
~
 
Ah~ What a perfect Sunday today is turning out to be, Popuoka thinks to himself. 
 
Pipihara’s parents weren’t home, so they got the house all to themselves. No responsibilities to worry about. They get to indulge in a lazy and comfortable afternoon, just the two of them.
 
Popuoka sighs happily as he nuzzles into Pipihara’s chest, tangled up with him on the living room couch. They chat cozily, take sips of the wine that Pipihara had snatched from his parent’s pantry that he assures they won’t notice is gone when they get back. They sleepily blink at the soap opera on the TV, chuckling at the theatrics of it.
 
“So, dramatic. This acting is terrible, no one is so over the top in real life.” Popuoka comments.
 
Pipihara hums in agreement as he lifts the wine glass to his lips. 
 
“Ah, such a divine taste.” Pipihara whispers. “It makes me feel free. But, ah, it blurs my vision.” He takes Popuoka’s chin. “I can’t see your darling face as clearly as I’d like.” He says with genuine, dramatic woe.
 
“Oh, Pipihara~” Popuoka delicately touches the back of his hand to his forehead. “I have every detail of your glorious face *hic* memorized, so I can still see you as clearly as before, beloved.”
 
“Popuoka…” He sighs with a shaky voice.
 
“Shh, close your eyes. See me with your eyes closed, just feel me.” 
 
He pulls him into a deep kiss. A kiss full of the taste of wine, sloppy with lust. As their tongues eagerly push against each other and their hands start to roam across each other’s clothes and soon under them as well, Popuoka thinks to himself that this day couldn’t possibly get any better.
 
BANG! BANG! BANG!
 
They both nearly jump out of their skin when someone suddenly pounds at that door.
 
They look at each other with wide eyes.
 
“Who-?”
 
“Let me in, motherfuckers!”
 
Oh… of course…
 
Popuoka had thought to himself a few moments earlier that today couldn’t get better… he didn’t consider the alternative.
 
Popuoka groans. Of course, she would barge in right when things were getting good. 
 
“Just ignore her till she goes away.” Popuoka says, gripping his boyfriend’s sleeve when he moves to get up.
 
BANG! BANG! BANG!
 
“I know you’re in there!” She shouts through the door.
 
“You think she’ll go away?” Pipihara asks dubiously.
 
BANG! BANG! BANG!
 
“Ugh…” Popuoka lets go of him defeatedly, and slumps weakly on the couch.
 
“Yes, yes, I hear you, Popuko.” Pipihara assures her as he makes his way to the door. He unlocks it for her, and it immediately swings open. “Hello, Po-”
 
“Ugh! This fucking sucks, man!” She shouts as she brushes past him as soon as the door is open.
 
“Nice to see you too…” Pipihara greets with an awkward chuckle.
 
She stomps her way into the center of the living room. She comes to a stop in front of the couch where she crosses her arms and pouts obviously to show her distress to her brother who looks up at her with an unamused half-lidded gaze.
 
“Popu-niichan. Pipihara. I have something to say.”
 
“Hm?” Popuoka slumps against Pipihara when he sits next to him. Pipihara politely folds his hands on his lap and looks up at her. 
 
“We’re listening.” Pipihara tells her.
 
‘Hopefully not for long.’ Popuoka thinks to himself.
 
She paces away, scrubbing a hand through her hair, her frustration evident as she can’t seem to sit still.
 
“Okay, I am at my limit!” 
 
“When aren’t you?” Popuoka comments dryly, failing to keep his snarky comment to himself this time.
 
“No! No! I don’t want to hear it! I’m not in the mood right now!” Popuko stops and puts a hand over her eyes.
 
Popuoka sits up. Her voice was shaky and she looked close to tears, maybe this is serious. Maybe she really needs help.
 
“Oh, Popu-neechan, don’t cry. I’m sorry. What’s wrong?” He asks her softly.
 
She takes in a sharp breath as she throws back her head with shut eyes. She turns to them and holds out her hands.
 
“Okay, hear me out.” She starts. “I need you guys to tell me how…” She rubs her arms, looking a bit nervous to continue. They give her reassuring looks as they wait for her to continue. “Tell me how… I can impress Pipimi.”
 
Popuoka's face drops.
 
Nevermind. She was bothering them for a stupid reason again, just like always.
 
“Seriously, Popu-neechan?” He sighs as he drapes himself over Pipihara’s legs. “Can you not bother the demons about this?”
 
“They would give me stupid answers!”
 
“Well, it’s a stupid question, so that wouldn’t be a problem!”
 
“You, little-!”
 
“Now, now, calm down you two.” Pipihara says gently, continuing quickly before anything can escalate. “Popuko, dear, why do you want to impress Pipimi? She thinks rather highly of you as it is, I don’t believe you have to try very hard to impress her.”
 
“Yeah, she acts like your nobel prize worthy for coming up with games off the top of your head with rules that don’t make any sense.”
 
“Jetpack swing race is a very complicated game! It’s not my fault you’re too dumb to get it!”
 
Pipihara holds up his hands once more and interjects. “What he means is, she’s already impressed with you. What makes you think you need to do anything special?”
 
Popuko heaves a big sigh, her face falling again. Then she puts her hands on her hips and pouts defiantly again.
 
“It’s that fucking country bumpkin.”
 
“Um… what?” Pipihara asks as he and Popuoka share a look.
 
“American Popuko.”
 
“Oh you mean Poppy?” Popuoka asks. “She’s really sweet, I like her. What's your problem with her?”
 
“That! That’s my problem with her! She’s sweet! What the fuck is up with that?!”
 
“Uh…” Popuoka shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know, she’s just nice.”
 
“Yeah! Don’t you think that’s weird! She’s a Popu! We’re all assholes! That’s–like–our defining trait.”
 
“Oh… true.” Popuoka concedes with a nod. “Wait, you’re right. That is really weird. She’s an American too, so she should be the biggest asshole out of all of us.”
 
“You know, there’s another thing about her that strikes me as odd too.” Pipihara adds, putting a hand to his chin as he thinks about it. “There’s another thing that makes her quite an outlier among the rest of us.”
 
“Oh?” Popuoka asks.
 
“She doesn’t have a Pipimi.” He answers.
 
“Oh my god, you’re right. How does that work…? I mean, wasn’t she born from the cycle like the rest of us? Isn’t it, like, impossible for there to be a Popuko without her own Pipimi?”
 
“I don’t know… I’d think so. Maybe there was… a glitch in the cycle. So many of us were being made at once, it seems plausible to me that not every instance of our creation would turn out perfectly. I mean… look at the Bobunemimimmi girls.” Pipihara says under his breath. 
 
“Don’t say that.” Popuoka chastises.
 
“Sorry, I know that was rude.”
 
“No, I mean I’m scared of them, you never know when they’re gonna show up and I’d be afraid of what they’d do to us if they heard that.”
 
“That’s true.” 
 
They all shudder a bit at the thought.
 
“Anyway,” Pipihara continues. “What I’m saying is, the cycle produced some… interesting results at times.”
 
“Like us, the most interesting of all the results.” Popuoka adds with a flamboyant flip of his hair as he smirks confidently.
 
“Heheh, but of course.” Pipihara agrees and Popuko has to squint at all the sparkles she can see radiating around them. “So, an American Popuko who doesn’t act like a Popuko or an American isn’t all that unbelievable.”
 
“Oh, oh ho ho, but that’s where you’re wrong.” Popuko replies. “Actually, she’s acting exactly like an American, you know why? She came into my country uninvited, and acts like what’s mine is hers!”
 
“Oh dear, what did she steal?” Pipihara asks.
 
“Pipimi!”
 
“What?! Oh my god, Pipimi wouldn’t leave you, Popu-neechan!” He’s offended for Pipimi’s sake at the mere suggestion.
 
“Well, she hasn’t stolen her yet, but she sure as hell is trying to! She doesn’t have a Pipimi of her own so she’s trying to snatch mine! She’s all over her, she’s all flirty with her, and Pipimi… Pipimi seems to really like her…”
 
“Not more than you, though! And are you sure Poppy is actually trying to steal her? She just seems like a friendly girl who is nice to everyone. She gives us lots of hugs too, she’s just like that.”
 
Popuko crosses her arms and shakes her head. “I don’t trust her. Don’t trust that at all…” She mutters. “It’s gotta be a facade. I know she’s clingier with my Pipimi more than any other…”
 
“Well… I can imagine she’s pretty lonely without her own Pipimi.” Pipihara says, feeling a sad twinge in his heart at the thought. 
 
The cycle seemed to draw everyone to their partner. They were all made with a natural familiarity and love in their hearts for the ones they were made to be with but… what if one of them had nowhere for that love to go… 
 
“Yeah…” Popuoka agrees sadly.
 
Popuko scoffs, sticking her nose up. “Good. I hope she stays lonely. She’s like a… a little parasite latching onto other Popuko’s Pipimi because she can’t score her own.”
 
“Popu-neechan, you’re so mean!”
 
“It’s what she gets for trying to take something that isn’t hers!”
 
“Popuko, I don’t think she is though.” Pipihara tells her. “And even if she is, I think you can rest assured because I know for a fact that Pipimi would never stoop so low. She would never leave you for someone else, that’s a rather unkind thing to assume of her. Do you think she’s that shallow?”
 
“No! Of course not!”
 
“Then you have nothing to worry about. I know that she’s loyal to you over all else.” He reassures her gently. “No matter how sweet Poppy is, she’ll never compete with the history and years of devotion that you two have nurtured together. I know Pipimi values that for the precious and irreplaceable gift that it is.”
 
Popuko smiles with a blush at his words. “Aw, Pipihara, thank you. Hm... that makes me feel better, I think.”
 
“Good. It’s the truth.”
 
Popuko sighs contentedly. “Alright, I think I’m feeling good enough to go home now.”
 
As she says this she walks… into their kitchen?
 
“Uh, Popu-neechan, that’s not the direction your home is in.”
 
“Oop, my bad. Not yet…”
 
Popuoka scowls and Pipihara smiles with strain as they hear the sound of the fridge being opened and undoubtedly raided.
 
She comes out of the kitchen. She’s holding an entire carton of ice cream and eating out of it with a spoon.
 
“Okay, now I have what I need to feel good enough to go home. Thanks guys.” She flashes them a peace sign as she jogs out the door. 
 
“My rocky road…” Pipihara laments.
 
Popuoka consolingly rubs his back.
 
~
 
Popuko is definitely reassured by Pipihara’s words, and now that her head is cooled and ice cream is in her stomach, she is in a much better mood. 
 
However, she still makes it a point to look perturbed when she gets back. Pouting and sighing and making a show of her exaggerated irritation to catch Pipimi’s attention.
 
“I’m home, I guess. Sigh!”
 
She stares up at the ceiling with puckered lips, her acting not very convincing.
 
“Popu-chan, there you are!” Pipimi replies within moments all but running from the kitchen to embrace her. “Welcome home, beloved.”
 
She kisses her firmly on the lips and Popuko has to fight to keep her pout from melting into a smile. She kisses her over and over and Popuko has to fight to keep down the giggles too.
 
She keeps her cheeks puffed out, making a point to look away. “Hm, someone’s laying it on a little thick…”
 
“Eh? Don’t I kiss you like this everyday?” Pipimi whines.
 
Popuko looks at her and she can’t help but smile then. Pipimi’s little guilty frown is too cute. 
 
“Yeah…” She pecks Pipimi on the cheek. “Ya do.”
 
“I’m sorry about earlier, Popu-chan…”
 
Popuko pets her soft hair. “You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m just a jealous asshole.”
 
“But I promised I would get you ice cream, and then I didn’t…” Pipimi quirks a brow at her. “It’s weird though, I could swear you taste like rocky road.”
 
“Pipihara.” Popuko answers simply with a smirk, knowing she’ll understand.
 
“Ah, he hates it when you do that. His sweets are precious to him.”
 
“Eh, I’ll buy him more.” Popuko says dismissively as she kicks off her shoes and wraps her arm around Pipimi’s waist as she leads them up to the bedroom, she was eager to lie down. She could feel a sugar coma coming on from all that ice cream.
 
“If you can’t buy any for yourself, how are you gonna buy any for him?”
 
“Oh you gonna lecture me like your new best friend Poppy now?”
 
Pipimi rolls her eyes with a smirk. “One, she was joking when she said. Two, you’re still my best friend, that’s never gonna change, by the way.”
 
Popuko opens the door of her bedroom and runs in to flop face first into her cozy bed. She sighs as she nuzzles her face into her pillow.
 
“Oh, don’t be so sure. She’s sooo charming. A real sweet talker. You might get swept off your feet.”
 
She smirks at the way Pipimi sighs. She hears Pipimi walk over to her, feels her lightly pat her bottom, so she turns over.
 
Pipimi rests her hands on Popuko’s pillow on either side of her head. She leans forward, hovering over her and gives her a firm look. “Not happening.” 
 
“‘Course not.”
 
Popuko raises her arms and Pipimi lowers herself into her embrace. Popuko eagerly wraps her arms and her legs around her, enveloping her as completely and closely as she possibly can. 
 
Popuko takes in a deep breath, her heart feels light. She still smells like vanilla.
 
She runs her hand up and down Pipimi’s back, the light fabric of her dress feels pleasant under her palm. She brushes her fingers against the petals of the little flower patterns that were subtly stitched into the fabric. Popuko chuckles lightly at the tickles she feels against her cheek as Pipimi twirls a strand of her hair between her fingers against it. Pipimi becomes a little heavier on top of her, her breathing slower and deeper as she starts to relax. 
 
Eventually, Pipimi lifts herself up a little so that she can switch from resting her head against Popuko’s chest to resting it on the pillow so she can look at her. She yawns as she moves, sleepily nuzzling noses with Popuko. She looks so cute when she’s sleepy, Popuko can’t resist teasing her.
 
“Be honest with me, Pipimi-chan. Do you have a crush on her?”
 
Her serene expression sours. Her eyes don’t open but her brow furrows. “Who?”
 
“Poppy.”
 
“No~” She whines tiredly, pressing her forehead against Popuko’s adamantly.
 
“It’s okay if you do. You can’t help it.”
 
“No, no~” 
 
“Sure… but I think she has a crush on you.”
 
Pipimi shakes her head.
 
“She’s trying to steal you I think.”
 
Pipimi hums.
 
“Did you tell her I’m your favorite?”
 
Pipimi smiles in a way that looks devilish. “Not yet.”
 
“Why not?”
 
“I want her to think she has a chance. I like it when cute girls fight over me~ Hehe~”
 
“You-you little brat!” Popuko whispers in shock which only makes Pipimi giggle more and rock her gently in her arms. Popuko squeezes her, her pout coming back a little more genuinely. “So, you think she’s cute, do you?” Popuko asks with a huff of jealousy.
 
Pipimi opens her eyes at this, lifting herself onto her elbows and tilting her head over Popuko’s as Popuko stares at the ceiling with a grimace.
 
“Hehe~ Not as cute as you when you’re jealous~” 
 
Before Popuko can call the little demon any more names, she kisses her. 
 
~
 
What a perfect Sunday today had turned out to be, Poppy thinks to herself. She always has fun when Pipimi is around. Her heart feels light and everything feels right in the way that it never does whenever she’s not around. She forgets all the years she had gone without a best friend back in America, and Pipimi is so easy to get along with that it makes her feel like they’d always been together. 
 
It’s easy to imagine that she had been with her back then. It feels like she should’ve been, she wonders why she wasn’t.
 
…
 
She was with her today though, and that’s all that matters. 
 
When she had sat on the swing and had been scared of how fast it went, Pipimi had put her hands on her waist and held her steady when she asked her too and it made her heart soar. When she felt she was gaining on Pipimi, she had held back at the last second and let Pipimi win in the end and Pipimi’s smile made her happier than any victory could. When she asks Pipimi what she’d like as a reward, Pipimi politely tells her that she doesn’t need anything, it feels formal and that makes her kind of sad, she feels like Pipimi is holding her at arm's length a bit, and that makes her even sadder and a bit mad. She doesn’t tell Pipimi she feels this way. She doesn’t want to burden her with her negative emotions. 
 
She had fun today, regardless. She hopes Pipimi had just as much fun.
 
She hopes Pipimi’s heart was beating a little faster like hers was. She hopes Pipimi will remember today and treasure the memory that they shared like she will. She hopes that when Pipimi goes home she’ll think about her and get excited at the thought of seeing her again.
 
…
 
Pipimi seemed excited when it was time to go home. She seemed excited about having dinner with Popuko, and going to bed with Popuko, and waking up with Popuko in her arms. Pipimi didn’t tell her these things, but she knows. 
 
…
 
She hopes the next time they spend time together, she’ll have the courage to ask her to come home with her instead. She hopes she’ll say yes.
 
She walks home alone as the sun sets on the perfect day. She wished the sun wouldn’t set, she wished their day together could have gone on forever. But the day ends. It always does. 
 
She didn’t have the courage to ask her if she wanted to come play at the park again tomorrow. She was too afraid of the answer.
 
She wonders when they’ll get to play together again, she hopes it’s soon.
 
~
 
“Th-Thank you so much, Popuko. But it wasn’t necessary, really.”
 
So he says but he is holding the grocery bag open and staring down at the carton of ice cream within it with sparkling eyes.
 
“It’s fine, I owed you.”
 
“Still, thank you for going out of your way to use your allowance on this.”
 
“Ah… I think you should thank your sister for that, she’s the one who insisted.” She says as she rubs the back of her head, leaving out the fact that she had been fully ready to blow her allowance on something else and hadn’t even thought of him until Pipimi reminded her.
 
“Oh, I will th-”
 
“KO-KNEE-CHEEWA—!”
 
Popuko stops, her eyes close and her head preemptively droops in defeat. 
 
“Ah, here comes yankee doodle dandy.” Popuko says under her breath.
 
“Ha ha-oof—!” Pipihara’s nervous chuckle is cut off when Poppy barrels into them both, wrapping them up in a tight and uncomfortable group hug. 
 
“Hi, y’all! I’m back!”
 
“Yaaaaay…” Comes Popuko’s strained, monotone cheer.
 
“Hello, Poppy. It’s been awhile, how’ve you been?”
 
Poppy looks up at Pipihara with wide eyes once she hears his voice. 
 
“What in the-?” Poppy pulls away, and they both sigh a breath of relief when they can breathe again. “You’re not Pipimi!” She exclaims in realization. “Who in the fresh hell are you?”
 
Popuko puts her hands on her hips and glares at her. So impolite.
 
“Oh, you don’t remember me?” He flips his hair over his shoulder, readying his elegant introduction. “I’m Pipihara-”
 
“Don’t care.”
 
Both Popuko and Pipihara’s eyes go wide as saucers. Pipihara looks incredibly off put, not used to his flashy intro being skipped.
 
“Excuse you-!” Popuko shouts angrily for him.
 
“Where’s Pipimi?” Poppy asks, ignoring her.
 
“At home.” She states. She squints. “Why do you care?” 
 
And at this answer, Poppy’s entire demeanor changes. Her bright eyes dull, her sweet and innocent smile morphs into a grimace. She scoffs with a sassy roll of her eyes, already showing a side they’ve never seen of her before.
 
But Popuko senses it right away. Without Pipimi present for her to suck up to, the real her is finally coming out of hiding.
 
“Ha ha ha, she happens to be all I care about actually.”
 
“Oh—!” Popuko points at her accusingly. “Oh ho—I knew it! I fucking knew it!” Popuko almost feels victorious, she grips the front of Pipihara’s shirt and shakes him. “See?! See, Pipihara?! I was fucking right!”
 
“Oh… oh dear…” Pipihara murmurs in bewilderment.
 
“Right about what exactly?” She looks the same as she did the other day, but her posture and expression is so different she nearly looks like another person all together. She jabs her hands in her pockets and shoves past Popuko, Pipihara catching her shoulder before she’s knocked over. They both frown in her direction as they watch her slouch against the wall, and pull a cigarette out of her jacket. “Right about the fact that the rest of you aren’t worth my time?” She smirks as she flicks her lighter to life.
 
“I see how it is. I’m sorry to hear that Poppy, I’d really thought we were friends.” Pipihara says darkly.
 
She shrugs dismissively. “Your mistake.”
 
“I suppose it never occurred to me that we’d never run into her without Pipimi present before.” He says under his breath to Popuko.
 
“So you are the little parasite I thought you were?” Popuko concludes, and she can’t wait to tell Pipimi.
 
“Parasite? Me? It’s all of you who are parasites! Hogging all the Pipimi to yourselves.”
 
Popuko scoffs. “You’re delusional. Do you hear yourself? You really think you can steal her from me? Why don't you go back to Alabama and marry your first cousin like the rest of the people there?” Popuko laughs, she jabs Pipihara’s side trying to get him to laugh with her but he seems too uncomfortable about what this could escalate into.
 
Poppy pushes herself off the wall then and darts toward Popuko with wide and wild golden eyes, and Popuko has seen that look in the mirror a hundred times so it doesn’t scare her in the slightest. She crosses her arms, lets her get up in her grill, without backing away, glaring back at her just as defiantly.
 
“I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you.” Poppy murmurs darkly. “You won’t be after we switch places, after Pipimi realizes she was meant to be with me and drops you, and then you-” she jabs a finger in her shoulder hard enough to leave a sting, “-end up being the one latching on to whatever Pipimi is close to you, hoping that she’s the one who will finally accept you! Except none ever will, you’ll stay alone, you’ll know what it feels like. You’ll know how you made me feel when you took her before I could!”
 
Everyone is frozen. A heavy silence hangs in the air save for the sound of Poppy’s heavy breathing. Pipihara clutches the handles of the grocery bag entirely unsure of how to interject, wondering if he should. Popuko’s expression is flat and blank.
 
Then Popuko finally speaks.
 
“You’re pathetic.”
 
“And you’re hopeless!” Poppy screams back at her immediately. “Your days are numbered! Pipimi is gonna get over you! She’ll realize what a bother it is keeping around someone who can’t control herself.”
 
Now there is no question that he should step in. “Poppy, that’s enough-”
 
But it’s not enough for her.
 
“Pipimi is gonna see how much easier it is to be with someone who is pleasant, someone who knows how to put on her happy face, and keep all those ugly and rude and evil parts of herself hidden away.”
 
Pipihara nearly grabs her by the shoulder and pushes her away but he flinches. Poppy is crying.
 
“Why can’t you just keep it to yourself, Popuko? Why do you let yourself be angry on the outside? I never let her see it. I don’t want her to see it. I don’t want her to know how angry and h-hurt I am every time I see her choose you at the end of the day… No matter how much fun we have together, no matter how much I make her smile… she always chooses you… why…?”
 
“...” Popuko doesn’t say anything, Poppy falls to her knees before her and cries in her hands.
 
“...” Pipihara doesn’t know what to do.
 
…
 
“Poppy…” 
 
Everyone jumps a little at the voice. They all turn to look at who it had come from.
 
Pipimi stands a few feet away, looking at Poppy with a sorrowful frown. “I didn’t know you felt that way…”
 
Poppy gasps, complete panic flashing across her features when she sees her. She quickly scrubs away the tears and jumps to her feet.
 
“P-Pipimi, hi, heh heh…” She gives her and obvious fake smile. “Did… did you hear all that. Gosh, I’m so embarrassed, ha ha. But I-I was just kiddin’, ya know!”
 
But Pipimi isn’t buying it, she shakes her head as she approaches. “No you weren’t.”
 
“I-I-” Poppy looks over everyone’s faces, fresh tears collecting in her eyes as she stutters on her words. “I… I’m sorry!”
 
And she’s gone. She turns on her heel and runs away.
 
Pipimi gives Popuko a look. “Popu-chan, I-”
 
“I know.” Popuko says easily. “Go after her.”
 
Pipimi nods, a small smile of adoration gracing her lips as she looks into Popuko’s trusting eyes.
 
She takes off after her.
 
“...” Pipihara looks between Popuko and his sister’s retreating back.
 
Popuko pats his shoulder. “Welp, better get home before the ice cream melts.”
 
“R-Right…”
 
He can’t help thinking it… this is just like the soap operas…
 
~
 
She finds her in the park, underneath the jungle gym, huddled in on herself.
 
“I’m always gonna be alone, aren’t I?”
 
Pipimi goes under the jungle gym too, she puts a hand to her back. 
 
“Of course not. You’re not even alone in this very moment.”
 
Poppy peeks up at her, Pipimi smiles back, she drops her head back down in her arms and shudders, stifling a sob against the sleeve of her jacket.
 
Pipimi rubs her back.
 
It takes her a few moments. Eventually her gasps start to quiet, she still shakes but less, she lifts her head, her eyes red as she sniffs. 
 
She stares straight ahead. They both do.
 
Then Poppy looks at her. Pipimi returns her gaze.
 
“I love you.” Poppy tells her because she means it.
 
Pipimi smiles. It’s a sad smile. She already knows.
 
“Thank you.” Pipimi says.
 
Poppy’s face contorts again. Pipimi hugs her.
 
“I’m sorry.” Pipimi says.
 
Poppy cries and holds her anyway. This will be the only time she’ll get to know what it feels like to hold her close. She probably shouldn’t be relishing in every detail of how it feels, she knows she’ll miss it when she can't have it anymore. Still she notices that she smells like vanilla. There are flower patterns subtly stitched into her dress that she notices when her finger tips brush over them. She’s not the only one who knows these things, she’ll never be the only one.
 
“It’s you, you know.” Poppy says against her shoulder. “I was looking around. I went to all of them. I was looking for the Pipimi that was mine. I’ve talked to the others, I’ve tried to feel something with them, but none of them make me feel like you do. I know it’s you.”
 
Oh… What a cruel error in the cycle to be a victim of…
 
“I wasn’t trying to steal anyone away from each other. I was just trying to find you. I couldn’t find you at home, so I came here. And I found you, but… you already belonged to someone else. This isn’t fair…” She whispers. “I really am going to be alone forever…”
 
“Poppy, I don’t believe that. That isn’t true.” And she means it. She takes her shoulders and looks at her. “Love is not such a rigid and definitive thing, and so sometimes it can be painful and sometimes things don’t always turn out how you want them too, but let me tell you something Poppy.” She takes her hands and gives her a serious look. “When Popuko and I remade this world, we made it for all of us. We made it so that everyone born from the cycle can be happy, and that means that there is freedom for anyone here to do and be whatever they want. No one has to abide by the rules the cycle confined us to before.”
 
Poppy blinks in shock. Oh yeah, she almost forgot she was talking to a former god.
 
“So, you can find someone to love, whoever you want. Her name might not be Pipimi, but one day she’ll find you and the two of you will make each other very happy.”
 
“Oh, I never thought…” She never thought about trying to find love with anyone other than a Pipimi. 
 
“Soulmates don’t exist.” Pipimi says simply.
 
“What?!” Poppy is shocked at this sudden declaration. “Popuko isn’t your soulmate?!” 
 
Pipimi shakes her head. “Falling in love in itself isn’t a choice in the beginning. But nurturing a love so that it continues to thrive is. Love will fade if you don’t take care of it. Everyday we make the choice to put in the care and effort to take care of each other, listen to each other, figure things out together. It’s a wonderful labor of love that isn’t always easy, but is so worth it in the end. I think that’s more beautiful than a love that is effortless and decided for you from the beginning anyway, don’t you?”
 
“Yeah…” Love that is a choice and not a predetermined rule sounds far more beautiful. Love that is decided by the two people it involves rather than what the universe decided, in spite of what the universe decided even, sounds so much more profound and wonderful.
 
She’s right of course, but…
 
“And Poppy, I understand if it’s difficult for you to get over this. So, I want you to know that we don’t have to stop being friends. I want you to be my friend, I want you to be friends with all of us. And I’m really, really sorry for leading you on, that wasn’t right of me.”
 
She bows her head apologetically.
 
Poppy eyes her.
 
Eventually she sighs. She puts her hand on her shoulder and uprights her.
 
“Yer all so formal over here. You don’t have to be so polite, ya know.” She smiles at her. “We’re friends after all.”
 
“Hehe~ Yeah!”
 
Her laugh still makes her heart flutter. Ah… this still sucks.
 
But… maybe it’s not all bad. 
 
“Alright,” Pipimi gets up and dusts off her dress. She smiles at Poppy and stretches out her hand. “Why don’t we go home and have ice cream with everyone?”
 
“Sounds good to me!” 
 
She takes her hand, Pipimi lets her hold it for a moment, she’s happy for that. 
 
She doesn’t know what comes next. It’s hard for her to imagine looking at Pipimi and not feeling anything but an overwhelming affection and love that overtakes her whole being, she can’t imagine it fading, but who knows… maybe it will, maybe it won’t…
 
She’s still happy. Happy that she’s closer to her now than she was before.
 
She’ll treasure it.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

So much was happening.
 
So much was happening at once.
 
The world was different than what it had once been. Comfort and reassurance had become things hard to come by. People were starting to get scared, so many frightening threats were being thrown around from the last people you would want to hear them from, from people who absolutely had the power to make good on those threats. So many loud promises made to their faces that everything they cared for would be lost, would be taken away, would be destroyed, killed. 
 
Everyone was scared that things would soon take a turn for the worst.
 
But the status quo remained despite the paranoia.
 
Some even laughed it off, shrugged and shook their heads. 
 
“That could never happen to us. Not to us.”
 
Popuko didn’t know if things were about to change or not.
 
She chose not to think about it. In fact, she was a little too distracted to be concerned about these things in the first place. There was something far more important occupying her thoughts. 
 
Her bliss far outweighed her anxieties.
 
Many people in her world were beginning to ask questions that hadn’t been so prevalent at the forefronts of their minds before. Very important questions with very important answers.
 
Questions about importance itself. Questions about what it is that is the most important thing.
 
“What is most important?”
 
Many were uncertain of the answer. Scared of the answer, worried about the answer.
 
But not Popuko. She knew. She knows what everything is.
 
So she’s reassured. She doesn’t worry because the answer is right in front of her. Life has felt so right ever since she found the answer.
 
Everyday she finds the answer.
 
Everyday she holds her hand, everyday she tastes her lips, tells her things she never tells anyone, hears her most precious secrets, talks about important things with her, talks about inconsequential things with her, laughs with her, cries with her, goes to the park with her, goes to school with her, eats her favorite food with her, watches shows and plays games with her, gets angry with her and calms down because of her, gets excited and shares what she loves with her, she protects her, she loves her.
 
She hears her worries, sees the way she’s always strong but lets herself be weak only when they’re alone together because she trusts her so much she feels safe enough to reveal the most vulnerable side of her. Sees parts of her heart that no one else sees, parts of her body that no one else sees. Moves her in a way no one else has, touches her in a way no one else has.
 
Everyday with her.
 
Everyday every answer comes to her.
 
All of these things are the answer. So she isn’t that worried about what asking the question really means.
 
She’s too happy. Popuko is just a little girl. She is only a little girl too. They’re just little girls who make each other happy. Popuko draws pictures of them together, they’re always happy in the pictures. They are a wonderful, simple thing detached from the complex things happening around them.
 
The status quo remains.
 
Until one day it doesn’t. 
 
It disappears in the blink of an eye and the entire world is turned on its head. Things happen that they don’t understand, they don’t have the time to understand. They’re only little girls.
 
What is most important?
 
It’s a terrifying question now.
 
The answer is in danger.

And then.

The answer is gone.

Everything is gone.
 
Everything is in her arms. But everything is gone, broken beyond repair. Hurt beyond healing. 
 
Everything is dead.

From this moment on, it all happens in snapshots, nothing is clear anymore. Every experience, every memory ebbs and flows. Nauseatingly sober, and then numbingly dissociated the next. Nothing is a solid thing, reality is fluid to her then.

There is a boy standing in front of her. She doesn’t want to look up at him, but she doesn’t want to look down at everything bleeding and shattered. 
 
He’s not okay. She can’t think much right now, but one look at him is all it takes to see. 
 
He’s lost everything too.
 
His everything is being carried in his arms. She looks an awful lot like Popuko’s everything. A school uniform, she’s young, too young. Pale skin, raindrops peppered along her fair complexion, pretty and transparent like modest jewels, a fitting accessory on a girl so humble but beautiful. And she was beautiful, so beautiful. Her hair was long, a deep red bow tying it in the back to pull the hair away from the pretty face that should never be hidden, should certainly be admired, adored. The color of her hair is different from her everything, she can’t see if the color of her eyes are different. They’re closed, they aren’t going to open. The stark scarlet pool that drips from her chest and dances in swirls within the puddle of rain on the ground between them is what tells her that.
 
The blood of everything starts to mix with hers.
 
Why couldn’t you protect her? How did it end up like this? Why? Why? Why? How could you let her? 
 
How could you?
 
Is this real?
 
She doesn’t ask him, but she wants to.
 
It all goes dark before she can remember how to speak.

“NO, NO, NO, FUCK YOU! LET HER GO! STOP! GIVE HER BACK! GIVE HER BACK!
 
There is a soldier who isn’t a man, who isn’t a real person taking her away. She fights him, but he’s not real so she can’t win. He has goggles and a mask but not a face, he’s not a person. She punches his arm that’s hard and doesn’t feel like a human’s, she kicks at him, tries to struggle away from him.
 
“I’m trying to help.”
 
No he’s not. The other soldier is dragging her everything away. Dragging her along the ground, her clean hair is muddied, the soft skin of her face scrapes along the wet gravel, he doesn’t bother carrying her gently, her limbs twist around her unnaturally as he yanks her along by her ankle and nothing else, he doesn’t care because he knows she can’t feel it, and to them she’s just another thing to dispose of now, just another ugly accident made as a result of the mess they made, a terrible error that is just an unimportant byproduct that is hardly their concern in the long run. And Popuko sees red, red, red, red, red. Every part of her is screaming. 
 
She’s tries to bite the soldier, tries to rip him apart. She sinks her teeth in as deep as she can, and he flinches with a yelp. He responds by jerking away, then striking her over the head almost hard enough to knock her unconscious. She goes from seeing red to seeing stars and as her head spins and her fighting ceases in an instant as she’s hauled over his shoulder, she can’t see but she can hear. A voice next to her, a whisper barely audible over the steady march of the rain.
 
“Sosogu…Sosogu… no…” 
 
Then the voice of the soldier surfaces among the dark.
 
“Jesus fucking Christ. I’m trying to save your life here, you could be a little more grateful.”
 
Popuko is too disoriented, the sting too overpowering to scream, so she mumbles out the words as best as she can. “Bring…. h-.... her b-” Her eyes can’t focus on anything, there’s only the static of the rain. “......back…”
 
“Who? That girl. She’s gone, kid. She’s dead.”
 
She grits her teeth, uses all her strength to hit him. He doesn’t even seem to feel it. “No… no…. no.” She gasps out as she weakly strikes him over and over. Her tears are so cold, or maybe it’s the rain. “She’s my… my…”
 
“She’s nothing now.”
 
No. She could never be nothing, she’s everything. She isn’t quite sure the soldier said this, reality isn’t a solid thing anymore.
 
Her face is twisted up so tight.
 
She can hardly breath but she tries to say it.
 
“She’s my….. best… fr-.... my best friend… she’s…. she’s… she’s my… everything.
 
~
 
Her throat feels bloody and raw, though enough time has passed that it shouldn’t by now. Has enough time passed? Actually, she’s not sure. She hasn’t slept, or maybe she did. She can’t remember. It doesn’t feel like she did. She’s not screaming and crying anymore, not on the outside anymore, but it is still within her. Ripping apart all that is behind her rib cage, decaying every part of her from the inside out, eating away at her, numbing her. 
 
She is an empty husk being piloted by what, she doesn’t know. There’s nothing left in her, everything is gone.
 
But she stands up and she walks forward, and she dresses herself in armor, and she fills up her supplies, fills up her ammunition, makes sure her weapon is ready. She’s cold, all that she touches is cold. Warmth doesn’t exist anymore, it was taken away from her, taken away from the world. She can’t take it back, so she’s going to take it from them too.
 
She’s going to try, she doesn’t think she is going to try very hard. She doesn’t know what she is doing, she is probably going to get killed pretty quickly.
 
That’s fine, she doesn’t care.
 
Something grips her shoulder. Something stops her in her tracks.
 
She turns and his eyes aren’t as empty as they looked before, there’s a light in them again. A light like hope, and it makes her want to spit in them.
 
“Wait.” He says. His voice is hoarse from screaming too.
 
“Why?” She asks. She can’t imagine why, she can’t imagine why he had changed his mind. Not a long while ago he told her he would go with her too. They had just met, they don’t care about each other, but they were the same, so they came to an agreement together. They had overpowered the soldiers together, they had killed them together, disposed of their bodies just as carelessly as they had disposed of their beloved’s bodies together, stripped them of their equipment with the intention to use it for themselves together, they had rid themselves the chance of survival for the sake of an attempt at revenge that halfheartedly disguised the true purpose of their mission together, their suicide mission together. 
 
He doesn’t answer the question right away, he seems to be looking for a way to explain himself. "I…” His eyes dart, meet Popuko’s and the look in them makes him sigh. “Listen to me, okay? There might be hope for us.”
 
“I don’t fucking care. I don’t care whether we can make it out of this. She’s gone, I don’t care about what happens to me anymore.” It didn’t even feel fair, if she were to get out of this alive while she had to die. 
 
He shakes his head. “No, no, listen to me. I know. I know, but I mean…” He puts a hand over his eyes, rubbing his temples. She watches him and waits for him to continue, ready to shoot down whatever alternative suggestion he offers. “Okay… look… I know how this is gonna sound…”
 
He holds up his hands as if to preemptively stop her from interrupting.
 
“But-but, there might be a way to save them.”
 
Popuko shakes her head, she doesn’t understand. “Save who? I don’t give a shit about anyone else anymore-”
 
“No, I know.” 
 
She stops and eyes him incredulously.
 
“I meant we might be able to save… you know. The girls. Sosogu and… yours…” He says because he didn’t know her name, but he doesn’t need to know, she knows who he’s referring to but she almost can’t believe it.
 
“What…? What are you…? They’re…” She looks up, shaking her head and willing the tears not to come back, doing her best to mask the despair with the anger. “They’re fucking dead.” She says bluntly, fiercely, firmly. “They’re dead, there’s no saving them, there’s only joining them at this point-”
 
“But what if we could bring them back?”
 
She blinks at him.
 
“I’m not in the mood for fucking jokes right now.” She says gravely seriously as she bounds over to him ready to strike him.
 
“I’m not joking.” He says back with just as sober of a delivery.
 
“What…?” She can’t do this right now. “What the fuck are you talking about?! We don’t have the fucking time for this!” She screams threateningly in his face, but the hurt and confusion comes through all too well.
 
“Look!” He shoves a note in her face. “I don’t know who this came from. Someone slid it under the door, but… it says we should look for Gaia, she can grant us a favor and we can ask her to bring them back.”
 
“Wh- Gaia?” She flips the note over in her hand, it says just that. She can’t wrap her head around this. “Gaia, like the goddess? Like the goddess the religious, uneducated freaks preach about? Are you…?” She looks up at him and he nods at her and she can’t believe this. “Are you…? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?!” 
 
“No, I’m not-!” He shouts back at her defensively, she continues before he can explain himself.
 
“You motherfucker! Look, I know that grief is hard to deal with but believing in fairy tales isn’t gonna change the fucking truth! Turning to the fucking-the fucking wizard of Oz isn’t gonna do shit because if you’ll remember, it was a all a dream! Right?! Right?!”
 
He scrubs a frustrated hand over his face. “I know how it sounds-”
 
“I’d like to believe it too, you know. I’d like to believe that there’s a heaven, that both of our most precious friends have souls and they're alive and well and frolicking up in the clouds with a perfect merciful god.” She takes his shoulders with trembling hands and shakes him. “But it’s not real! It’s not real, they’re just gone. They’re just asleep and they’re never gonna wake up. And there’s no afterlife, and we’re never going to see them again… oh… oh f-fuck.. fuck, I’m never gonna see her again…”
 
She falls to her knees, her breathing coming out in irregular harsh pants. She can’t take this, she grips her face hard enough to sting, and the screams are threatening to fall past her lips again, the numbness melting away and burning all her nerves alight again. Her body hurts, her mind hurts, her heart hurts, she wants to get away from herself, away from her thoughts, away from being awake, away from being alive, she doesn't want to know the reality anymore, she doesn’t want to be here anymore.
 
He kneels down in front of her and reaches out to her, she grips his arms tight because it’s the only thing she can hold onto, and she needs to hold onto something, she’s falling, and falling, and this is too terrifying and horrific to comprehend. She can’t see him, she can only see Pipimi’s limp body being dragged away from her.
 
“Hey, hey, I know. I know okay, I… I find it hard to believe too, I don’t believe in anything like that most the time, but…” She doesn’t see the way he looks up, his eyes watery and scared. “But if there’s even the smallest hope that I can see her again. Even if it’s a futile hope, even if it’s all hopeless in the end, even if it was a lie from the start… I have to chase it. I have to fight for that hope with all my power because I love her more than anything. She was my everything.”
 
Popuko’s breathing starts to level, she starts to hear him, actually hear him, listen to him.
 
“And look, I barely know you, but I know she was important to you too, wasn’t she? That girl you were holding, she was your everything too, wasn’t she?”
 
Popuko slowly looks up at him, sees the genuine sympathy and overwhelming hurt in his eyes and her face twists, mirrors his. 
 
She shakes her head.
 
“So, let’s… try. Let’s do anything we can. Let’s grasp at straws if we have to. I love her too much to give up on her, even if that would make more sense. I’m not gonna give up on her, never.”
 
Popuko nods with a little more certainty. She lets him help her to her feet.
 
“Me neither.” She breaths. “I won’t give up on her either. I’ll do whatever it takes to see her again, to tell her how I feel again.”
 
~
 
It’s not a trap somehow.
 
She’d thought that they’d been caught. She’d thought that they’d leave the room and they’d be shot in the head as soon as they did.
 
But they aren’t.
 
They make it out of the room unscathed. And out of the building unscathed and out of the city unscathed and no one ambushes them, somehow.
 
So they go, and they keep going and they don’t look back. They just put one foot in front of the other, they just look ahead, they just keep going.
 
It’s forward, it’s the only way to go. They don’t know where forward will take them in the moment. 
 
But they soon find out…
 
They find out exactly where it will take them, and where it takes them is…
 
Nowhere fast.
 
~
 
A long time passes.
 
They don’t know anything.
 
They don’t know how they got here.
 
But here they are.
 
“Are you kidding me?” 
 
Daichi stares at the back of her head in disbelief. She doesn’t stop, she continues to move forward. They’re both dehydrated, exhausted… lost. Not according to Popuko though, she won’t admit that last one. 
 
She glances back at him.
 
“

Are you kidding me?

” She parrots in a mocking voice with a dumb expression on her face. 
 
Despite the fact that she was making that face to ridicule him, he thinks that expression makes her face look very punchable. More than it already did normally, and it was looking more and more punchable by the day, the many days that had passed. So many days they had lost count by now, though they were too detached to bother counting in the first place. Their journey thus far had been so long and arduous, and most of the time they were despaired and felt like they were running in circles, unable to gain any ground in their search.
 
Finally, they had something, though. Finally, they had some kind of lead. 
 
So, no. Daichi can’t believe that Popuko doesn’t want to follow it.
 
“No, I’m not fucking kidding.” Popuko continues defiantly. “Why would we go to them?”
 
“Why would we go to

them

?” Daichi is the one to parrot her this time, though he is far less mocking and still just as dismayed in his delivery. “Why would we go to the people who worship Gaia, to ask about Gaia? Gee, I don’t fucking know, Popuko! Real fucking mystery!”
 
“Fuck you!” Popuko stops in her tracks at this. Her eyes lighting aflame with rage as she turns on her heel to glare at him, offended by his words. 
 
Always so easy to offend, this one. He’d learned that very quickly. She can dish it out but she can’t take it. 
 
“They’re idiots!” Popuko states. “They don’t know anymore than we do! They just make shit up to make people do whatever they say, come on!” She says it like it should be obvious. 
 
“I… I know it seems like that-”
 
“It

is

like that.”
 
“But maybe there is

some

truth among the lies. They studied Gaia’s texts, like, their whole lives so maybe-”
 
“Uh, you mean the texts that they wrote in the first place. To elevate their worldview as divinely irrefutable so that they could bend people to their will and make them too afraid to practice any autonomy.”
 
Oh, god here she goes again. He’s heard this spiel more times than he can count. It’s so annoying. Annoying because of how preachy it is… but also annoying because it’s a pretty valid counterpoint. 
 
Popuko shakes her head as she glares at him. “They’re stupid. Just a bunch of idiots either too proud or too weak to face the harsh reality of things.”
 
“...”
 
“...”
 
Daichi smiles, his chuckle bitter.
 
“Yeah, so are we.” He tells her.
 
Her face falls, the sorrow on her features for only a split second before her shoulders go stiff, her mouth tensely straightening into a thin line. She closes her eyes and turns away, running her hand through her tangled locks. She crosses her arms, heaving a sigh.
 
“Yeah…” She concludes. “Guess so… So we have to try.”
 
‘We have to try.’ It had become the motto. Trying was the only option. Trying meant their love for the ones lost hadn’t faded. Continuing to try, never giving up, meant that their love for them would never fade. And they cling to that mantra, it’s all they have left. 
 
“We’ll just try.” He says softly, internally sighing in relief. Honestly, a little surprised at how quickly she’d dropped her protests this time. Usually she was impossibly stubborn, Daichi couldn’t say any better for himself, though. Compromise was something they were beginning to slowly accept, accepting while kicking and screaming and throwing around passive aggressive comments at each other, but accepting nonetheless. 
 
They wordlessly move forward. Once again.
 
“Okay, but you’re talking to them, not me.” Popuko starts. “I don’t want to speak to those brain dead assholes. They piss me off.”
 
Daichi rolls his eyes. No self awareness from this girl.
 
“Oh my god, what is your deal? Why do you have such a grudge against those people? What did they ever do to you?”
 
He looks at her and immediately bites his tongue. He realizes from the look on her face that maybe this isn’t coming out of nowhere. She looks down firmly at the ground ahead of her and nowhere else, her jaw clenched.
 
“Nothing, they didn’t do anything to me.” She says shortly.
 
He eyes her as they continue. “Then… why do you hate them so much?” 
 
She laughs, it’s humorless. “Well… you heard me, man. They do some fucked up shit. But ah… you can probably tell… that I wasn’t smart enough to figure out how corrupted they all are. No… I was just repeating what someone else told me about them.”
 
“Who?”
 
Popuko stops, Daichi does too.
 
“...”
 
She’s quiet so long that Daichi thinks for a moment she doesn’t want to elaborate, he nearly assures her that she doesn’t have to.
 
“You-”
 
“Pipimi.”
 
She states.
 
Daichi tenses. 
 
“Pipimi was the smartest person I knew. She was smart enough to figure out the way they operate.”
 
She looks up at him.
 
She smiles.
 
“She hated them. She hated Gaia’s followers… and she hated Gaia too.”
 
~
 
A long time passes.
 
She’s conscious of where she is again. Reality starts to become a little less obscured one day. For the first time in a long time, it becomes more than just a moment of awareness. More than just a split second realization of a wound from a fall or a fight, more than the screech of hunger from her stomach or the ache of a deep cold within her bones, more than an outburst at Daichi who had tried her patience for a second too long.
 
She’s laughing. 
 
It’s been so long.
 
It’s probably the alcohol.
 
It feels okay for a moment though.
 
Daichi had said something to her, it wasn’t supposed to make her laugh, but it did. It was very true what he had said.
 
“Goddamnit,” He had slurred angrily after she stole his drink and chugged it all down before he could take it back in time. He stared down at the foam that clinged to the glass, the only remains of the beer that had been in it a moment before, his cheeks and ears comically red. “Pipimi must have had infinite patience to put up with you.”  
 
She laughed at that.
 
Because he was right, he was so right.
 
“Why are you laughing?” He asks and his high and mighty pout is more exaggerated than it usually is due to his drunkenness. 
 
“Ha ha ha! Ah ha ha…” She continues as she roughly pats his back hard enough to make him grimace and lean away. “Ah… she must’ve been the same then.”
 
“Huh?”
 
“Sosogu. She must have had too much patience for her own good too.”
 
He looks at her, realization dawns on his face.
 
“Oh… ha… ha ha… of course she did. Ha ha… ha ha ha ha!” 
 
They both laugh, loud and merry. Tears roll down their cheeks.
 
The rest of the miserable patrons in the bar at the end of the world grimace in their direction. They’re about to give the two of them hell, about to grab them by their collars and shove them out the door, too determined to wallow in their misery to listen to them. 
 
Daichi and Popuko don’t notice yet.
 
So it feels nice in the moment.
 
~
 
A long time passes.
 
There’s a comfortable place to rest their heads for once. Well, not comfortable per say, but a place that didn’t force one of them to stay awake on lookout. They actually had a roof over their heads for once, an entire room no less. They had bought a night’s stay, bought it with someone else’s money that they swiped from an unsuspecting patron in the lobby, but the staff was none the wiser. Daichi thought it was insane to stay at the same motel where they had just committed a crime within, but Popuko called him a pussy and shrugged him off. He wonders how she hadn’t ended up in prison before everything all went to shit, she fits into this brutal, war-torn world all too easily, it seems downright comfortable for her.
 
The room is cozy, only a couple of cockroaches, the sheets on the bed looked mostly washed, there wasn’t even any blood stains on the carpet. A five star establishment, if you ask him. 
 
There’s a bed. Only one. The heater doesn’t work and it’s the dead of winter. 
 
Daichi begrudgingly suggests that they should share the bed regardless for warmth.
 
Popuko shoves a gun in his face for even thinking about it, and makes him sleep on the floor. With the cockroaches. Maybe he can snuggle them for warmth.
 
He shivers in disgust and fear and… well, cold. It’s so so cold.
 
He isn’t used to this. He isn’t used to being in the company of a girl like this. She’s not like Shizuku who’s all bark and no bite, Popuko is all bark AND all bite. And of course she’s nothing like Sosogu and Korona either. They had all been so accommodating and fond of him, he wasn’t even sure why. Really, he used to say he was downright annoyed with all their doting on him.
 
Now he misses that warmth more than anything. He really took them for granted… all of them… 
 
He should have talked to Korona before he left, should’ve asked for advice, she always had a way of subtly guiding people in the right direction. And Shizuku…. Shizuku… she’s the reason he didn’t. She’s the reason he left without looking back. He didn’t want to tell her, he didn’t want her to know what became of Sosogu. He hopes she’s remained blissfully ignorant at least.
 
He hopes they’re both still alive…
 
He sits up. His back hurts, his head hurts, his mind is getting dangerously close to spiraling. So he sits up, his hands scrubbing his aching eyes.
 
He keeps his hands over his eyes, keeps them closed. 
 
He hears something beside him. He recognizes the sound. The soft rasp of pencil on paper.
 
He opens his eyes and looks over at Popuko who sits up in her bed, the table lamp dimly illuminating her work as she scribbles away in a sketchbook resting in her lap.
 
He pushes himself up by his hands trying to get a peek at what she’s drawing. 
 
She stops. He looks up at her to see her glaring at him. She grips her sketchbook and smacks the top of his head with it. 
 
“Ow!” It didn’t hurt that bad.
 
“Can you fuck off and let me have some me-time for fucking once?”
 
“I let you have “me-time” for hours! I laid in the bathtub for so long, I’m not going back in there, Popuko, it hurts, and I think it gave me a rash-”
 
“Ew! I don’t care! Just leave me alone, just don’t talk to me, okay? Is that too much to ask?”
 
“...”
 
“...”
 
“.....Yes. What are you drawing?” 
 
Popuko scoffs dramatically, throwing her hands up in exasperation. Daichi uses this opportunity to swipe the sketchbook.
 
“Hey!”
 
She snatches it back.
 
He only had it for a split second, but he knew what he saw. 
 
It was her. Pipimi, happy and smiling in a way that he never got to see her.
 
Popuko instantly holds the sketchbook to her chest and looks away from him.
 
Maybe he shouldn’t have done that, but maybe…
 
“Was that… Pipimi-?”
 
“Duh.” She still refuses to look at him.
 
“... You’re really good. Your drawings are really nice, I mean.”
 
Popuko shrugs.
 
“I’m sure Pipimi really liked your drawings too.
 
“...Nah. I never showed her what I drew.” She mumbles.
 
“What? Why not?”
 
“Embarrassing.”
 
“Not even. It’d be embarrassing if they looked bad maybe, but those are really good!”
 
Popuko rolls her eyes, but she eventually shrugs. A bit of a self satisfied look lifts her sullen features into something more light. “Yeah, I know.” She huffs a laugh, actually smiles. That’s better. “Yeah… I never showed her my drawings… but we’d always talk about making our lives into an anime.”
 
“Wow, really? Your lives were that interesting.” Even he didn’t think his life with an idol group was interesting enough for something like that… though he supposes it might’ve appealed to some people.
 
“Well… no, not really. I mean, we thought about an anime where we were the main characters but our setting and circumstances were different. Like if we were… in the yakuza, as a Manzai comedy duo… who-who could turn into giant robots!” She tells him excitedly.
 
He laughs. “What… like, all of that happens in the same anime?”
 
“Yeah, sure why not? We’re the protagonists, we can do whatever we want.”
 
“That sounds… like a very confusing anime to follow.”
 
“It’d be groundbreaking. The best anime of all time…” She says dreamily.
 
It sounds like the worst anime of all time to him, but he won’t shoot her down.
 
“And we even started listing all the voice actors we’d like for the show! Look.” She flips to a page in the back… an absolutely packed page.
 
“Woah… just how many characters are you planning on having in this show…?”
 
“Oh, just the two of us.”
 
“But… huh…? There’s so many on this list and… half of them are men…?” He says in confusion as he recognizes some of the highly prolific names listed, people from very well known shows with very well known roles. He can’t imagine it would be very likely that these seasoned veterans would voice a couple of weird little girls.
 
“Oh yeah, we thought that would be funny. We just picked everyone we liked! We thought we could have different voices every episode.”
 
“That’s crazy! That would be so many episodes!”
 
“Hm, well, we were thinking maybe we’d air it twice so we could have a girl duo voice it the first time and a guy duo the second run.”
 
Daichi puts a hand over his eyes and laughs. What a crazy idea, no way in hell anyone in their right mind would air something like this. “Ha ha ha, are you serious? You know no one would pick that up, right?”
 
“Well, yeah, duh, I’m not stupid! It was basically just a long running in-joke between us. We’d just add more names to the list whenever we came up with any… We knew we’d never be able to make any kind of show like that, but it was fun to talk about. We made so many silly things for it…lots of skits we’d practice, hehe…” She smiles, at a memory, he can tell, it's a small and fond smile. “Pipimi wrote a song for it… she said it would be the credits theme…”
 
Daichi turns to her, he’s never heard that before. Popuko doesn’t open up much about what Pipimi was like. She seems a little less guarded than usual right now, so he feels like he can finally ask questions.
 
“She made music?” He smiles. “Just like Sosogu, huh?”
 
“She knew how to play guitar too.”
 
“Really?!”
 
“Yeah, she started learning because she was really into this one guy’s music. Hell… Hellraiser… uh… Hellboy John or some shit, I don’t know, I think Pipimi was overdoing it. He wasn’t that cool to me… Anyway, Pipimi was a really good songwriter. She made some really weird songs though… like… she made this one song called “Goddamn Bitch in Cat Tights”.”
 
“Ha ha… what the hell?”
 
“Ha ha ha, I don’t know man, she was weird.” The warmth and fondness in her voice that Daichi has never heard from her before makes his heart ache a bit.
 
“I think she just liked to weird people out. Oh, and the music she listened to was just as weird as the music she made, ha ha. She had only one playlist, it was called Whiplash, and guess what was on it.” She asks, now excited and happy with a sparkle in her eye as she talks about her.
 
“What?” He asks with a smile.
 
“It had, I kid you not, classical music and speed metal, and that was it. Ha ha ha, and she would-she would always put it on shuffle in the car, ha ha. Her parents were always so concerned, ha ha ha!” She wheezes as she recounts this.
 
“Wow, she sounds like she was an interesting girl.”
 
Popuko’s laughter starts to quiet down, she takes a deep breath, her cheeks still red from the laughter. “Yeah… she was… she really was…” Her smile is sad now. “Something really special. A treasure…” 
 
She pauses. 
 
“Not all her songs were silly. When we were alone together… she’d play her real songs. The ones she wrote for us, we’d sing them together at the park… they were all so sweet. The lyrics were always about how… we’d always be together…”
 
She looks up at him, still smiling.
 
“Did Sosogu write songs like that for you?”
 
He’s a bit taken aback at the question. He takes a breath, thinks about it.
 
“No.” He answers simply. “She wasn’t really allowed to. Idols are supposed to write songs about being in love with the listener, no one specific. Idols aren’t really supposed to fall in love-”
 
“That’s awful. So unfair.” Popuko asserts.
 
He shrugs with a smirk. “She broke the rules.”
 
“Good.”
 
“Heh heh, oh yeah, she didn’t look it but she was a real rebel.” Now it’s his voice that is warm and fond as he speaks of her. “One day… her manager gave her a firm talking to about it. Her manager told her to stop seeing me.”
 
“What?! That is way out of line.”
 
“Oh, it’s normal in the idol business though. They control idols' lives like that.”
 
Popuko shakes her head, her teeth grit. “That’s so wrong.”
 
“Yeah, I know, but it’s a business that’s stuck in their ways, or it was.” No time for idols in wartimes. “Anyway, she told her that it was too risky for her to be around me so much, the press might see it, and that would ruin her. It would ruin her career, ruin her dreams, she would be kicked out of the idol world… and that, you know, for Sosogu… that would be the end of the world. Being an idol with her friends means so much to her, it’s her passion in life, it’s the most important thing to her… or I thought it was, but… she told me she would never leave me. No matter what happens, she would stay, even if it made everything else around her fall apart.”
 
“Wow…” 
 
“It made me feel… guilty. I told her she’d probably be better off without me, but she wasn’t having any of that, ha ha. No, she told me that I was worth it to her. She even made me promise her that night… that one day we’d get married… and so I did, I promised we would. I promised…” His voice shakes.
 
No, not now.
 
He crosses his arms over his knees and hugs them to his chest.
 
He feels a hand on his shoulder.
 
“And you’ll keep your promise, won’t you?”
 
He looks up at her, sees the earnestness on her face.
 
He nods.
 
~
 
A long time passes.
 
“Maybe if you tell them you can get them Sosogu’s autograph, they’ll spill.”
 
Daichi turns to her. Gives her that tired, unamused frown that seems to be his favorite expression. 
 
“Oh what? Too soon? Come on man, it’s been like half a decade, that’s enough time, we can joke about it-”
 
“Jesus Christ, Popuko.” Daichi mumbles as he shakes his head.
 
“Don’t say the lord's name in vain, Daichi. If Gaia doesn’t do anything for us, we gotta turn to him next, so we gotta stay on his good side.”
 
“Ugh…” He rolls his eyes at her and keeps going.
 
“God, you're so emo! You’re just as bad as when you were a teenager. Look, it’s either that, ooooor guns. We should point guns at them.”
 
“No, Popuko! That won’t make them talk! They made it very clear that they are serious enough to lay down their lives to keep their secrets! And I’m not emo! God!” He says with a dramatic scoff that is just dripping with teen angst so he’s really not making his case. “You’re the one who hasn’t changed since you were a teenager! Still shoving guns in people’s faces to solve your problems, does it ever work?!”
 
“Frequently!”
 
“Ugh!” He throws up his hands, done with it all. “Well, it won’t this time!”
 
“He’s right… it won’t work…”
 
“Thank you! Finally, someone agree-”
 
They both stop dead in their tracks, their eyes going wide.
 
“Who the fuck said that?!” Popuko turns on her heel and points her gun at the dark, empty alley behind them.
 
“Ha ha ha, calm your trigger finger, dear~” 
 
The voice comes behind her, she swivels again, frantically searching for the source of the voice. 
 
“It’s alroight, we don’t bite.”
 
“Ahh-!” Popuko nearly trips over her own feet when she turns again, her breathing getting increasingly frantic. “Ah, what the fuck? What the fuck? City witches? Is that what this is? What the fuck?!”
 
“No, wait.” Daichi says as he holds out his arm and lowers her weapon, he squints, wracking his brain. “I… recognize these voices.” 
 
“Long time no see, Daichi~”
 
And then out of the shadows…
 
Three figures appear.
 
A small girl with long red pigtails in a black lolita dress holding a yellow teddy bear with an eyepatch. A girl with short white hair and bright red eyes wearing tall leather heels. A tall and intimidating woman struts confidently ahead of them all, an untrustworthy smirk elegantly gracing her painted lips.
 
Popuko immediately looks less intimidated but doesn’t lower her hackles.
 
“Ugh, who are these subculture bitches?” She spits through grit teeth.
 
“We are…” The girl with white hair starts dramatically, slowly bringing back her hand as if she were winding up for something.
 
“Devil Volcano!” She states dramatically with a pose…
 
None of the other girls pose with her.
 
“Megumi, neither of us are going t’ pose with you. Give it up.” The small girl tells her bluntly.
 
“Eh?!” Megumi looks embarrassed. “Come on guys, it’ll look cool if we do it together.”
 
“Girls!” Their leader grabs their attention immediately, both of them standing up straight and stiff at her voice. “Have a little more manners in front of our old friend, hm~”
 
“D-Devil Volcano?!” Popuko shouts with shock.
 
“You know them too?” Daichi asks.
 
“Uh… kinda… um, Pipimi… really liked them…”
 
“Huh, I thought you guys hated subculture girls-”
 
“Anyway! What-what are you doing here?” Popuko asks quickly so she doesn’t have to address Daichi’s comment.
 
“Oh, we just wanted to help Daichi~ We know you could use a hand right about now, hehe~”
 
Daichi grimaces. “Oh, you just want to “help” do you, Erika? Well, the last time you “helped” you nearly forced Dropstars to disband. So, forgive me, but I’m a bit reluctant to accept your offer.”
 
“Oh, wa’er under the bridge, Daichi.” The small girl smiles, it looks entirely menacing coupled with her empty eyes.
 
“Really!” Megumi offers enthusiastically, though she sweats as she nervously rubs her hands together. “We are so so sorry about what happened to sweet Sosogu! Oh, we feel awful. We want to do anything we can to help!”
 
Megumi seems genuine at least. Daichi still eyes them all skeptically, he looks to Popuko who just shrugs back at him.
 
“And how are you going to do that?” He asks.
 
“Oh, nothing major~ We’d just like to give you some advice~” Erika coos sweetly, but then…
 
“And that advice is…” Her smile falls completely. She steps forwards, walks until she’s close enough to look down at them both.
 
“Give up your search for Gaia.” She says bluntly, coldly.
 
“How… how did you even know we were looking for her?” Daichi whispers back in disbelief. 
 
“Your friend told me.” 
 
Who? He didn’t tell anyone back home where he was going or what he was doing. How could any of his friends know?
 
But she doesn’t give him the time to ask that.
 
“This is a gravely serious matter, and I don’t think you two fully realize the ramifications of what you’re about to do.” 
 
Popuko scoffs, unintimidated. “Oh, and you do? What, are you guys part of Gaia’s fanclub cult too-?”
 
“No.” The little girl behind her answers quickly with a dark glare. 
 
“No, no, not Gaia! Gaia’s scary!” Megumi declares with a shiver.
 
Popuko is surprised at this answer.
 
“She’s right. Gaia is scary~” Erika coos as she rests one hand on the side of Daichi’s face, and uses her other hand to twirl a lock of Popuko’s hair between her fingers. 
 
They both shiver uncomfortably at her touch.
 
“Aww, you poor babies~” She murmurs woefully. “You just want to see your princesses again, but Gaia won’t let you. No, not without a catch. She is not the merciful goddess the ones afraid of her claim her to be, but we’re not afraid of her. We don’t serve the oppressive bright light, we serve the obscured quiet dark, we know her true nature. She is like a genie in a bottle, as long as you don’t rub the lamp you won’t be forced into her trickery disguised as charity.”
 
She speaks softly, but once she’s finished her hands snake around to the back of their heads. They yelp when she grips their hair tight and forces them closer, they can feel her breath when she speaks.
 
“So don’t rub the lamp, children. It could cost us all.”
 
She lets go just as harshly and backs away.
 
Popuko doesn’t let her walk away.
 
She grips her wrist.
 
“Hey! What do we do then, huh? What, do you serve some kinda demon? Is that who we need to go to instead?”
 
Erika looks down at her wrist in Popuko’s grasp with a small grimace, as if her hand was dirty. She yanks her hand away, then smirks.
 
“Oh, he wouldn’t bother helping you~”
 
“The demon we serve doesn’t concern himself with the plight of mor’als.”
 
“He’s too busy! Uh, I think. Doing uh, uh, what does he do? I’m not sure exactly, but there’s probably lots of important things he attends to at the bottom of the ocean that we don’t know about!”
 
“Indeed.” Erika agrees. “Cthulhu is a noble demon who keeps to his own devices. Unless, the balance of the universe is offset. Then he appears.”
 
“Oh that’s right!” Megumi concludes. She tiptoes up to Erika and whispers in her ear. “Right, he appears and then, uh… then what does he do-?”
 
“Megumi.” Erika whispers shortly under her breath.
 
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just forgot.”
 
“I don’t know, Megumi. He just appears-”
 
Popuko is losing her patience.
 
“Well, he sounds lame and useless as fuck.” She announces.
 
They all glare at her.
 
“Watch your tongue, you twit. The Great Old One deserves respect-”
 
“I don’t care! Tell us what we’re supposed to do then! If we shouldn’t go to Gaia, then who do we go to-”
 
“No one.” Erika states.
 
“Erika.” Daichi warns. Warns her more so because he’s afraid of how Popuko could be set off by what she’s about to say.
 
Popuko’s glare is murderous, but Erika’s glare is just as firm.
 
“You will go to no one. You will give up and finally accept the truth.”
 
“Don’t.”
 
“They’re gone.”
 
“Stop.”
 
“You can’t bring them back. It is impossible to reverse death, no matter what you believe in. You're going to have to come to terms with it sooner or later, you can’t keep running away.”
 
“We aren’t running away!” This time it is Daichi who shouts.
 
“Oh really? Then why didn’t you tell anyone? Why haven’t you spoken to your friends and family all these years? Things have stabilized, the city is no longer a warzone. Everyone is back home, you could go back. Explain yourself. But you haven’t. You haven’t because you’ll come home empty handed with no excuse for how much grief you caused your loved ones in your absence-”
 
“That’s enough! I’ve heard enough! Fuck you, Erika! Fuck your advice too! We’re going to meet Gaia if it’s the last thing we fucking do! Let’s go, Popuko!”
 
Daichi grips Popuko’s wrist, turns on his heel, and quickly walks away dragging her along with him. 
 
“Oh, oh goodness, Erika, I told you to be more gentle!” Megumi whines behind them. 
 
“No, they didn’t need any sugar coating. They’re adults now, they need t’ face the facts.”
 
Popuko looks up at him. His grip is so tight it starts to hurt, his jaw clenched and angry. Geez… so defensive… he makes it more obvious than even she does.
 
“I’m sorry, Daichi.” Comes Erika’s condescending voice to add insult to injury as they retreat. “I hope you understand one day.”
 
~
 
“Okay, the gun idea. I like the gun idea. We go to the cultists and if they don’t talk at gunpoint then we shoot one of them to motivate the others to spill-”
 
“Daichi! Daichi, Jesus Christ. Okay, I know I’m one to talk, but you need to calm the fuck down!”
 
He lets her go, finally. She rubs her wrist as he turns on his heel and gives her a look she thinks looks borderline crazed. 
 
“But we’re so close now! We’re finally in reach of an answer! And we’re not crazy!” He laughs and it sounds too close to crying. “Devil Volcano wouldn’t try to deter us if she wasn’t real! She’s real!”
 
“Ah… sure…” She doesn’t see how some goth wannabes who worship some lame demon to be counterculture was any more of a confirmation than any other of the insane drivel from the weirdos they’ve talked to on this search. 
 
“Now is the moment of truth! We can’t squander it-”
 
“But-But we told you that wouldn’t work…”
 
Daichi goes stiff at the voice that speaks behind him. 
 
“Oh my god, they followed us…?” What was their problem?
 
“Fuck off!” Daichi shouts. “I told you, you’re not stopping us-!”
 
Suddenly from the shadows of the alley, Megumi faceplants into the light. 
 
“Pfft, ah–” She spits sputters on the face full of gravel she’d gotten and hurriedly rights herself. “No, no, it’s just me! It’s just, Megumi! The cutest girl in Devil Volcano!” She declares with a shaky pose once she’s back on her feet. 
 
“...”
 
“...”
 
“Ah–!” The high heel she’s balancing on rolls when she loses her balance and she falls down again.
 
“Megumi, go home.” Daichi tells her tiredly.
 
“No! Wait, wait! Ugh, I’m sorry!” She shouts while she clumsily scrambles to her feet again. “I’m really sorry for how the other girls acted!”
 
“Okay, I forgive you. Bye-”
 
“Wait! Wait-” She runs over to them, tripping over her chunky heels but keeping herself upright. She grips their sleeves breathlessly to stop them. “Wait. I-” She’s sweating, she repeatedly glances over her shoulder nervously. “I… I also want to help you…” She says quietly.
 
Daichi opens his mouth to protest but she doesn’t let him.
 
“Not like how Erika wanted to help, I mean… I actually want to help you.” She takes each of their hands. “I want to help you meet Gaia.” She gives them both an earnest look.
 
Daichi and Popuko glance at each other dubiously.
 
“Why…?” Popuko asks with a suspicious squint. 
 
“Well, I…” Megumi looks at Daichi. “I talked to her, Daichi. I talked to Shizuku.”
 
Daichi looks near panicked at the mention of her name, he even tries to pull away from her grasp. “No, Megumi, I don’t wanna know-” He doesn’t want to know what her opinion of him is now, even worse than before surely. The thought of that alights a grief in him that stings in his chest so familiarly. 
 
“No, no, it’s okay, Daichi.” She holds his hand firm though he refuses to look at her. “I know you miss her. You miss all your friends and your parents, you wish you could see them again.”
 
“Stop.” He says, low and warning. “You don’t understand.” Of course he misses them. But he can’t go back, they’d all…
 
“They don’t hate you.”
 
They must.
 
“None of them hate you. Not your parents, not Korona.”
 
How could they not?
 
“Not Shizuku either.”
 
She should hate him. He deserves it, from her most of all.
 
“They all miss you, and if you went home they’d all be happy to see you. But they know what you’re doing, they know that you’re doing this for her.”
 
“Wh… what…?” They know? How? He’s confused. Thinking about them makes his heart ache. He tries not to cry at it all, he feels Popuko’s hand on his shoulder and he looks up at the gray lifeless skies so the tears won’t spill.
 
“They’re all rooting for you. They’re all looking forward to when you return home, both you and Sosogu.”
 
He can’t take this. He drops his head into his hand to cover his eyes. 
 
Megumi looks to Popuko then.
 
“And you… I don’t know you, but I’m sure all your friends are waiting-”
 
“No.” Popuko states bluntly. She continues with a smile. “I didn’t have any other friends. She was all I had. She was…”
 
Everything.
 
Megumi understands, she knows who she’s referring to, she knows what she means.
 
Megumi smiles back at her. Popuko’s smile isn’t sad, so Megumi’s isn’t either.
 
“I know how you can see Gaia.” She assures them suddenly.
 
They both look up at her with wide eyes.
 
“You do…?” She asks in disbelief.
 
“Yes. I have a friend who can guide you there. He’s reliable, big and strong. He always knows the way.”
 
She turns and points at a mountain in the distance.
 
“You’ll find him at the top of the summit. From there he’ll transport you to the sacred grounds where Gaia resides.”
 
“He can do that?!” 
 
Someone who can just take them to her just like that. They can’t believe what they’re hearing, it can’t really be that simple can it?
 
“Wh… Do we have to pay him or something?”
 
“Oh, definitely.”
 
“Shit.” Popuko hisses, becoming very aware of the lightness of her empty pockets as she’s sure Daichi is too. 
 
“But don’t worry!” Megumi assures them cheerily. “It’s on me.”
 
She hands them… a small bag, but it seems fairly heavy. Seems like a lot of coin, but when they open it and look inside…
 
“What the fuck is this? These are… dog treats???”
 
~
 
“Oh? Looks like she threw something else in here. What’s this piece of paper?” There’s a little folded note wrapped up neatly inside the bag next to the dog treats.
 
“Hah… ah… hah… I don’t care…” Daichi groans breathlessly as he walks past her lethargically. “This is stupid… hah… this is fucking stupid, Popuko! Let’s go baaaack, ugh… this mountain is too steep. She… hah… agh… she had to be fucking high! What the fuck was she talking about…? It can’t be real-”
 
“Ohhhh, shit!” Popuko yells, interrupting the spiel she hadn’t been listening to. “Daichi, look!”
 
“Wuh-What…?” He leans on a rock so he doesn’t keel over. His half lidded glossy eyes fail to fall on the paper that Popuko had shoved in his face.
 
“Look, look! She gave us their autographs, ha ha! Oh, Pipimi-chan is going to love me for this!” She squeals delightedly.  
 
“Ugh, Megumi…” He groans. What is her deal?
 
“Yup, it says Megumi Kurotaki, Erika Tokoyami, and… woah, what the fuck? The little British girl is named... Onyx Blackpearl Ashgrey? Pfft, fuck kinda name is that?! Ha ha!” 
 
“Whatever…” He doesn’t care. He’s too sweaty and out of breath to care he just wants to lie down.
 
“Aw! She wrote a little note too. “Be sure to come to our next show with your girlfriend! We’ll give you discounted tickets if you promise to never go to a Dropstars concert (we might put a curse on you if you break that promise though XP)” Aw hell yeah, now that’s a deal!”
 
“I swear to god, if this is all just a stunt to promote their fucking nationwide tour or some shit-”
 
“Oh, I doubt it. She’s just nice, I think. She seemed sincere.”
 
“And she seemed like a fucking mental case too.”
 
“No, come on, Daichi. We’re almost there! She doesn’t seem cruel enough to lie to us about this.”
 
“

This

isn’t possible!

This

isn’t something that could just exist, Popuko! I don’t believe it, this is–”
 
A sound interrupts him. A sound echoing up above from the heights of the impending summit.
 
“Bark! Bark!”
 
They both freeze.
 
Popuko gasps. “This is it!” She squeals with delight. “Come on, Daichi! We made it!”
 
She runs ahead before he can say anything. He blinks up in disbelief in the direction of where the noise had come from. 
 
How even…?
 
He watches Popuko’s rapidly retreating back. “Wait!” He calls after her.
 
She yells something back but she’s too far ahead for him to hear it, she’s waiting for no one. He sees her disappear as she eagerly climbs over the last boulder.
 
“Ugh…” When he finally reaches it, his aching arms sting in protest as he clumsily tries to scale it.
 
“Ahhh–!”
 
He flinches when he hears Popuko scream.
 
“Stop, stop, no!” She continues to scream, sounding desperate.
 
“Popuko!” He scrambles over the boulder in a panic. He claws and flails his way up it, cursing the fact that he hadn’t anticipated that this was a trap all along. “Popuko!” Once he’s over it he makes a mad dash for her…
 
But once he sees her he stops dead in his tracks.
 
“Ah~ Hee hee hee, stop it! Ah, that tickles! Down, down, ehehe!”
 
“Woof, woof!”
 
Daichi slowly raises his hands to his head. He can’t believe what he’s seeing.
 
“No fucking way… she wasn’t lying…”
 
It sounded insane and out of nowhere when she’d said it. When she told them a fluffy white Samoyed dog… that also happened to be about ten feet tall… would transport them to Gaia, she’d sounded out of her mind, but…
 
Here it is. Excitedly licking at Popuko’s face and yipping cutely is a giant puppy, ten times the size of any dog he’s ever seen in his life. It can’t be natural… it must be a legendary creature. So this is it… it’s real. It might really take them to Gaia.
 
“Oh~ You smell the treats, boy? You want some treats~?” Popuko coos, when the puppy stops to sniff at the bag in her hand. 
 
He barks loud in confirmation, the sound loud enough to make their ears ring. His tail wags a million miles a minute, it’s big enough it could probably kill a man if he were hit by a tail that size swinging that fast.
 
“Here you go~” Popuko opens the bag. The puppy sits down politely, clearly well trained as he waits to be fed. He gently laps up the bone shaped treats when Popuko holds them out to him in her hand. “All gone! Was… that enough for you? Can you take us to Gaia?”
 
The doggie’s cute floppy ears perk up at the name Gaia, clearly in recognition. He stands up.
 
“Awoooooooo—!”
 
He howls up at the sky and when he does…
 
The clouds part, the sun comes out, but… the sun looks more white and… green… than usual. To make the sight more stunning still, despite the sun being brighter and more visible than ever… 
 
There are two stars next to it shining just as brightly. 
 
The clouds being lifted reveals that the summit they thought they had reached is not the summit at all. The mountain climbs much farther up, it appears to reach all the way up to the sun itself, spanning thousands of miles ahead of them.
 
They both stare at the otherworldly sight with mouths agape.
 
“Daichi, I think we finally made it.” She whispers in awe as tears collect in her eyes. “We made it.” She repeats with hope. “We made it! We made it! Ha ha ha!” She grips his shoulders and jumps up and down as she laughs and smiles and cries.
 
“Yes! Yes! Wooooooooooooo! Yeah, we made it! Ha ha haaaa—!” He cheers with her. And he starts to sob because he didn’t think this would ever happen. He thought he’d just been running away before, just been too broken and too stupid and too hopeless to move on, but no. 
 
No, that dedication, and love, and endless devotion to his everything was finally going to pay off. It was worth holding on to that crazy dream.
 
The dog woofs excitedly and runs circles around them as they celebrate. Then the pup stops before them, lowers itself, and waits.
 
It pants, ready to go as it waits for them to hop on its back.
 
“Well…” Popuko smiles at Daichi. She clasps his hand. “It’s been a real one, bro.” She wipes away the tear that slides down her face. “You ready to go home?”
 
He nods with emotion, he knows his voice would crack if he spoke. 
 
Popuko climbs onto the dog’s back and Daich follows suit. It feels so odd. Their fingers tangle into the soft white fur, it feels like a living blanket beneath them, warm and reassuring. They hold on tight as the puppy bounds forward toward the light.
 
All their questions were answered now, except for one. The most important one.
 
It was a lot to ask. 
 
They hope that it won’t be too much for a goddess to handle though.
 
To them it seems like a lot to ask, but maybe it’ll be nothing for her. 
 
Maybe… but to them it’ll be everything.