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Miko’s coffee carves a path of warmth down to her stomach. A sigh billows out into the freezing air of the starry night. Miko lifts her gaze from the weed-cracked sidewalk and gritty pavement of the convenience store parking lot, emerald eyes gazing inscrutably at the blanket of the cosmos stretching out far above her.
Wreathed in a trail of burning gas and fluorescent light, a comet hangs, colossal and ethereal, like a guillotine over the people of the world. Miko lifts the can of warm coffee to her lips once more, then grimaces.
“This tastes awful,” the pink-haired woman mutters, pulling a notepad from the small purse she keeps on her. Clumsy, glove-clad hands shake lightly as she draws a line through an item on a list titled “Pre-Comet Bucket List (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧”. It is a relatively brief list, all things considered. Hot springs vacation, eat a spoonful of wasabi, fry a spider, play that one eroge she had kept on her wishlist for 2 years without actually buying it. Mundane things, like Miko was trying her best to fit the entirety of a life slow lived on the dotted lines of an 8-by-6-inch notepad. Miko’s pen, drying up and nearly out of ink, leaves an uneven dash across ‘drink black coffee.’ She places the notepad back in her purse and walks towards the trash bin in the corner of the parking lot. The mostly full can falls to the bottom of the bin with a dull thump. Miko wonders, off-handedly, if the coffee will at least make the trash smell a little better.
“I wouldn’t really count on it,” a voice breaks through the dead of the empty night, startling Miko (‘Nyeh-!’) from her reverie. Belatedly, she realizes she had said that aloud. She turns her head towards the disembodied voice and finds that her mouth feels dry for reasons other than the freezing night and shitty coffee.
Leaning against the wall of the gas station stands a woman. Her hair is a beautiful forget-me-not blue, a small side ponytail tied with a deep blue ribbon sticking out from the side of her head, topped by a gray hat with... a crown on it? Miko’s eyes rake over the rest of the woman’s slender features, plaid gray blazer tucked into a similarly colored skirt. A small flush rises to Miko’s cheeks as she briefly eyes the woman’s exposed legs, but she rips her eyes from the sight when a pair of sky-blue eyes meet Miko's own deep green, and the mystery woman raises a single, perfect eyebrow imperiously at her.
“Wow,” the woman says, and Miko has to do everything in her power to fight the heat rising to her cheeks at being found out. “I was honestly expecting a different reaction from getting called out for thinking aloud, but I guess checking me out is flattering if nothing else.” The woman smirks, and Miko rises to the provocation, indignation winning over reasonable thought. Miko raises a gloved finger accusingly at the stranger.
“Hey! What’s the big deal, belittling random people on the street? I will have you know I was just minding my own business before you decided to be rude, miss uh... uh. What’s your name?” Miko’s finger falters in the air, accusations falling flat as she realizes that 1) maybe she had been in the wrong for kinda, sorta, definitely leering at the strange woman, and 2) she doesn’t even know the name of the person she’s accusing.
The woman laughs, and Miko can’t shake the way it burrows its way into her head, warming her like sunlight in the middle of the night. The stranger shakes her head, and looks at her in a way that Miko can only approximate as being... fond, perhaps?
“Hoshimachi Suisei at your service, miss pervert,” the woman – Hoshimachi Suisei, Miko quickly amends in her head – says. Miko huffs, indignant. “Sakura Miko,” she says shortly. She may be upset, but she has the right to keep her pride and common decency. Suisei tilts her head, examining Miko, whose breath hitches at the sharp attention she is suddenly being pinned with.
“You know,” Suisei drawls, “I find it kind of impressive that you managed to not only not defend yourself from my original accusation, but also didn’t deny being a pervert, and instead turned this whole situation into a frankly appalling pickup line.” Miko buries her head in her hands, digging the heels into her eyes and letting out a groan. Of course, she had to jinx it with all that talk of decency and pride.
“Okay, look, you kinda caught me off-guard alright. I wasn’t exactly expecting someone to listen to me accidentally spew my thoughts out loud,” Miko says, willing her voice to carry as much honesty as she can muster. “Besides, you’re pretty, and I mean that honestly, not as like, harassment, so can we just let bygones be bygones?” Miko finishes, looking anywhere but at Suisei’s face, listening as the woman lets out a loud hum in the silence left behind by Miko’s apology.
“Could've gone without the weird flirting, but you were pretty genuine,” Suisei critiques, less like Miko had just apologized and more like she was leaving a restaurant review. The blue-haired woman flashes Miko a cheery thumbs up. “Six out of ten!”
Miko sighs once again, much to the other woman’s audible amusement. Once her laughter has died down, Suisei points to the empty stretch of wall close to her, and Miko, face aflame, walks forward and settles against it, closer, but still a respectable distance from Suisei.
The two women are content to stand in silence, staring at the faraway stars littering the night sky. Staring at the silent moon shining its gentle light upon the city. Staring at the fluorescent lights of the looming comet, carving a blue-green path across the dark. Occasionally, Miko glances at Suisei, but the other woman’s gaze is fixed firmly on the comet overhead. They stay like this for what might have been a minute, or ten, or an hour. Miko, strangely enough, is content either way.
“Sakura-san,” Suisei breathes, and Miko’s name sounds positively tantalizing coming from her. “What do you think? Of the comet, I mean. Of what... of what’s going to happen, in a few months?”
Miko glances at Suisei. The way the stars seem to find themselves reflected in her eyes, the way she stands, so at home, in the gentle light of moonbeams and the burning coma of the comet hanging above them. Miko shifts her gaze back, as if looking at Suisei for too long is dangerous, the corona of a solar eclipse. She measures her words carefully. Not many people like talking about the comet hurtling towards the Earth, or its implications, but Miko is... well, she is a weirdo with a bucket list that has a kaomoji in the title.
“The comet... is part of my life,” Miko starts. “I’m 26 years old, and our little friend up there has been visible in the sky, hurtling towards us at 3,218 kilometers per hour for 38 years.”
“Nerd,” Suisei interrupts, but her voice has no bite. Miko pointedly ignores her anyways.
“I’ve lived my whole life under threat of it but... I find it reassuring. To know when my life will end. To be rid of one of life’s many uncertainties.” Miko stares down at her hands, rubbing the gloves together and wondering idly if Suisei’s hands are cold, in those fingerless half-gloves. Wonders what it would feel like to link their hands together.
“I don’t want to die or anything, but... I guess I just mean that I don’t know what life is like without it there, so I can’t really complain can I?” Miko says, a weak laugh escaping her. “I have a bucket list of things I would probably never get around to doing cause I’m lazy, and a deadline, pun intended, for when to get everything done. That clear of a direction in life... is comforting, in a way.”
Suisei is quiet beside her, but when Miko turns to look at her, she finds those starry eyes trained on her, unblinking, shocked almost. Miko flounders for a second, thinking that maybe she’s being too dark, or weird, or stupid or any number of other things, but suddenly a laugh falls from Suisei’s lips, and things seem right in the world once more. Suisei laughs, and laughs, and laughs some more, but as her giggles die down and her gaze turns softer, Miko finds that she doesn’t mind being the butt end of this particular joke.
“Mhm,” Suisei hums to herself. “You’re definitely a weirdo.” Miko sighs for the umpteenth time that night, but is interrupted by Suisei once again.
“But you’re a weirdo in a good way. In the way that all the most interesting of people are,” she says, and kicks off the dilapidated wall of the gas station. The way she moves seems ethereal to Miko, ebbing and flowing, something supernatural. Suisei’s skirt flutters in an invisible wind as she turns her back on Miko, who, for a second, grows desperate at the thought that this might be the last time she ever sees this woman again.
“Um!” she exclaims, and Suisei turns to her, gentle smile gracing her face, eyebrow raised in an unspoken question. “My friends... my friends usually call me Mikocchi. If we meet again... feel free to call me that instead.”
Suisei blinks, and Miko swears a small dusting of pink scatters across her cheeks before an impish smile adorns her face.
“Well then, I feel it’s only right I should tell you that my friends call me Sui-chan,” Suisei says, and Miko’s heart skips a beat at the familiarity of it all, at how natural it feels to live and breathe in this moment, here with Suisei. The other girl is about to turn the corner to the other side of the convenience store when she turns to give Miko a parting wave.
“I don’t think we’re there yet though, so you can just call me Suisei, Mi-ko-cchi,” Suisei says, dragging the syllables of Miko’s nickname out in such a way that a shiver runs down her spine. That, or she is a lot colder than she thought she was. Maybe throwing the coffee away was a bad idea. Regardless, Suisei’s footsteps echo out into the night, and are eventually swept away by a gale of wind that forces Miko to draw the frayed edges of her well-used sweater tighter around her. Eventually, Miko decides that no, staying in a dark corner behind a gas station in the middle of the night is not a good idea, and she punches the address to her apartment into her phone, letting out a small groan at the blue text estimating a travel time of 25 minutes by foot.
As Miko follows the route back to her apartment, the encounter with Suisei stands out like a beacon in the landscape of her mind. Everywhere she looks, every thought she has is accompanied, lit up by the gentle light of Suisei in her memories. The phone in her hand chimes another instruction, and Miko almost slams into a pole, absentminded as she is, before turning down the fork in the sidewalk towards her apartment.
When Miko falls asleep later that night, swaddled in blankets, her dreams are suffused with the fluorescent lights of the comet overhead, and the warm smile of the comet she had found for herself down here on Earth.
Miko does not see Suisei for a while after that. The encounter with the woman stands out in stark relief among her memories, a flicker of spontaneity in a sea of mundanity, albeit one of Miko’s own making.
‘Go fishing’
‘Solo camping’
‘Midnight beach walk’
Her list grows shorter every day. But she’s started keeping a routine.
She'll cross out an item off her list and visit a convenience store on the way back to her apartment. She is not so naïve as to think that going back to the same spot like some forlorn maiden will guarantee another encounter with Suisei, so she simply keeps with the spirit of the memory. She’ll stop at some random, dilapidated gas station, buy a can of shitty coffee (‘Try decaff,’ ‘Try mocha,’ ‘Straight espresso’), and lean against the wall of the store, staring at the sky. It’s a peaceful little habit, one that she has begun to enjoy beyond the memory of Suisei.
Miko stares at the sky at night and mourns a little, at the fact that something so beautiful is heralding her and everyone else’s end. Mourns that life cannot be allowed to accept this blessing without giving itself in return, or something like that. Miko doesn’t really know, she’s not a philosopher.
Miko throws another empty can of coffee away (‘Throw a paper airplane off a building.’ ‘Try macchiato.’) and pulls out her list once more. Crosses her new achievements out, and ponders, for a moment, whether she should add something new. Starlight, moonbeams and flaming comas light the sky.
‘Meet Suisei again’ is scrawled in tentative strokes at the very back of Miko’s list.
“What’s up, Mikocchi?” a voice calls from the bench outside the grocery mart. Miko turns her head so fast she almost gives herself whiplash.
Suisei is standing there, perched on the bars of the bike parking, evening sun reflecting off the unfairly stylish pair of glasses she was currently peering over the top of to look at Miko. The pink-haired woman blinks wordlessly at Suisei. Her grip on the bag of groceries shifts, the crackling of the plastic mixing with the everyday sounds of life in the city, cars and bikes and the muffled beep of the cash registers in the store behind her.
Then, Miko walks in the total opposite direction of Suisei.
“Wha-hey, Mikocchi --” Suisei calls, and if Miko had not been so focused on escaping from her embarrassment she would be positively thrilled that Suisei was still calling her by her nickname, 2 months after they had met. ‘Seriously,’ the thought filters through her mind. ‘I add wanting to see her into the list and I meet her the next day? Cruel, ye old gods! Cruel!’
Unfortunately for Miko, she seems to have been so distraught by her own thoughts that she totally missed Suisei catching up to her, and nearly jumps a foot in the air when she stops just short of crashing into the woman in front of her, stumbling back as bright orange fills her downturned vision, much, much too close for her delicate heart.
“Geez, I take time out of my suuuper busy schedule to see you, and this is how you repay me? I was right to say you can’t call me Sui-chan yet, meanie Mikocchi,” Suisei says, accusing finger pointed straight at Miko’s flushed face. Miko sighs, and she’d be lying if she said she didn’t miss the feeling of being on the back foot against Suisei.
“It’s your fault for ambushing me like that, Hoshimachi!” Miko whines, using the other woman’s last name like an insult, but not putting any actual bite into it. She hopes the other woman understands (Hoshimachi is such a beautiful name, too).
Suisei hums, walking away from Miko, who is left to chase after her in what must be the most ironic turn of events she has ever experienced.
“Okay, okay look, I’m sorry! I just uh... I was thinking about other things, and you surprised me, okay?” Miko says, reaching a hand out to the other woman, who deftly twirls out of the way of Miko’s grip, settling into step beside her. Suisei side-eyes her.
“And?”
Miko’s throat bobs.
“I’m sorry, Suisei.”
Suisei smiles. “Good,” she says, and the two continue their walk in that same companionable silence Miko remembers from the night at the gas station. Miko takes advantage of this lull in the conversation to properly take in Suisei’s new appearance.
Black and white blouse with short, lace sleeves. Similarly monochrome skirt, fastened to her waist with a ruffled white belt with a blue clasp. Striking orange leggings, with a garter belt on her left leg. A thick, navy-blue jacket draped carelessly, but still oh-so stylishly around her arms. In short-
“Mh. Suisei is cute today too,” Miko mutters, and the other woman laughs, playful, and maybe even a little embarrassed. Miko giggles and accepts her small victory, but suddenly realizes that she doesn’t know where they’re going, and Suisei probably doesn’t either. An idea strikes her, as she remembers the building she threw that paper airplane from.
“Hey, Suisei,” Miko says. The other woman turns to her, questioning. “Let me show you something.”
“Never, and I mean ever, let me let you convince me that going up 15 floors by stairs is a good idea again,” Suisei pants, sprawled across the floor of the abandoned office building roof the two women had been scaling for the last 10 minutes.
“This implies I get to see you again,” Miko says, hands perched on her knees, panting just as hard from the exhaustion. “So I’ll take that deal, Hoshimachi. Pleasure doing business with you.” Suisei groans.
“Incorrigible flirt as always, Mikocchi. God forbid you ever conduct your “business” with anyone else. I would fear for their marriage prospects.”
Miko laughs, straightening up. She takes shaky steps towards Suisei, offering a helping hand, but Suisei just shakes her head, takes a deep breath, and lifts herself up, then wipes the grit off her hands on the edges of her jacket. Her gaze flits, quickly, to Miko’s outstretched hand, then flickers away to the edge of the roof.
The view is phenomenal.
The entire city sprawls beneath them, thousands of lives carrying on and on while Miko and Suisei watch from afar. Suisei steps up to the sturdy metal railing built onto the edge of the roof, and stands there, bathed in the golden light of sundown. Miko, to her side, is awed. Not just by the familiar sight of this specific sundown, of the office building windows filling the air with a harsh, but comforting glare, not by the deep shadows cast onto the streets by the forest of concrete rising above them, and not even by the fact that from here she can see the tiny, crumpled paper airplane she had written a silly little wish into and thrown to the mercy of the winds, to land on the roof of a nondescript coffee shop just across the street.
Miko stands, awed, by Suisei. Fingers clasped lightly on the railing, hair swaying slowly in the wind, mouth agape at the sight in front of and below and around her. Miko sees, in the darkening sky right beyond Suisei, wisps of the comet in the sky, and finds the juxtaposition of everything in front of her beautiful. Like Suisei was meant to stand in the light of a warm sundown. Like she was meant to find a home shining bright in front of a falling star. Miko’s chest seizes with an indescribable feeling.
“Mikocchi, this is incredible!” Suisei says, turning towards her with bright eyes and a brighter smile. “How did you even find this place?” Miko flushes.
“Well, you know how I told you I have a list of things to do before the comet hits?” Miko asks, and feels a warm trill run up her spine when Suisei nods. “Well, one of the items on the list was to throw a paper airplane off roof, so I tried to find the tallest building I could reasonably get on the roof of and... well, here we are,” Miko ends awkwardly, gesturing at the railing with an arm. Suisei’s eyes narrow.
“...I’m almost scared to know what’s on the rest of your little bucket list. What kind of weirdo even does something like this?” Suisei asks, accusatory, and teasing, and soft in that way that Miko was never able to understand the last time they met too. “Actually, do you have it on you? I wanna see now.” Miko almost acquiesces, thinking of the notepad tucked safely in her purse, but suddenly remembers what she had added to the very back, just last night.
‘Meet Suisei again.’
“Um! S-sorry, I don’t really have it on me right now, uh, but next time! Next time I can show you,” Miko says, palms out, placating, at the disappointed look on Suisei’s face. The other woman simply sighs, and leans forward, resting her head on her hand, elbows on the railing, looking out over the city once more.
Miko lets out a breath she doesn't remember holding, and tentatively matches Suisei's pose on the railing, staring off into the distance, thinking about so many things and nothing at all. Mostly about Suisei, if she allows herself to be honest. Miko looks at the other woman again, at the way her hair swings out behind her like a comet trail, at the way her eyes shine behind the glare of her glasses. Miko wants, desperately, to keep Suisei here.
“What about you,” Miko forces out through the lump in her throat. “What have you been up to, or plan on doing, or... any of that stuff, y’know?”
Miko is sure she couldn’t have worded that any worse, but Suisei’s only response is her continued silence. Miko just waits. She knows some people have trouble talking about this kind of thing. Suisei could be one of them. But Miko is patient, she has learned, for Suisei. Patient enough to wait months on bated breath, clinging to the barest thread of a promise that she would meet Suisei again. Twilight creeps into the city, the clouds in the sky lathered in purple hues.
“I’ve been... travelling. For an awfully long time,” Suisei says. There is a weight to her words that speaks of... age, strangely enough. “I’ve spent my entire life with one destination in mind, and now I... I’m almost there.”
Suisei raises a hand towards the sky, peering at the small specks of light starting to peek past the veil of artificial light through the space in her fingers. Miko stares, awestruck.
“Is it worth it?” she asks.
Suisei startles, looking at Miko, who herself is surprised she had let the question slip. But she digs her heels in, looks Suisei in her eyes. Asks again.
“Is your journey worth it? Will you be happy once you get there, wherever it is?”
Suisei stares at Miko, and there is a storm brewing in her eyes. The wind whips past them with a deafening whistle, the two women holding eye contact. Emerald green and starry blue.
“I don’t think I want to reach my destination,” Suisei breathes. And despite the words, a smile spreads across her lips, soft and true. “But I think I’ve quite enjoyed the journey, Mikocchi. I think... it’s quite possibly the best thing I could have done with my life.”
Miko smiles. There is an itch, a pull to cover Suisei’s hands in her own. To comfort her, to let her know that she is proud, that she is happy for the other woman’s happiness. Miko settles for reaching into her bag and pulling out a pen and two hastily ripped pages from her notepad. Suspicion flits through Suisei’s eyes, probably because Miko had just said she didn’t have her notepad on her a scant 2 minutes earlier, but before she is forced to admit to her embarrassing little secret, the pink-haired woman shoves her hand out.
“Here,” Miko says, holding a piece of paper out to Suisei, who stares at it, dumbfounded. Miko hastily puts it down on the railing between them, and finds it a miracle a stray gust of wind doesn’t blow it away as she kneels onto the ground, quickly scribbling something into the lines of her own paper, then holding the pen out to Suisei as well. “Write a wish on the paper. I can turn around if you want!”
Suisei nods, and Miko turns her head, pen still outstretched, until she feels the weight of it leave her fingertips. Waits, anxious, as Suisei writes her wish. The pen is summarily deposited on top of her head, but Miko is too nervous to even feel insulted by the fact, simply scooping the pen back into her purse and turning back around.
“Any chance you’ll tell me your wish?” Miko asks, impish. Suisei thins her lips.
“Mm. I don’t think I should be telling random perverts the secrets of my maidenly heart, Mikocchi.”
“Rude. True, but rude,” Miko says, and begins folding her note. “Well in that case, just start folding it up into a paper airplane.” Suisei’s eyes gleam, realizing what Miko is suggesting. Miko simply focuses on her note, tongue sticking out from her mouth as she agonizes over every little fold in the paper. Once her crumpled, but serviceable paper airplane is complete, she lifts her gaze to Suisei, and is not even surprised to see a pristinely folded paper airplane resting on the railing between them.
“Now, close your eyes, and I’ll close mine, and think really hard about your wish, then we’ll count down from three, and throw it!” Miko says excitedly. Suisei nods, eyelids fluttering closed as Miko’s own vision goes dark.
“I’m ready,” Suisei breathes softly, just a few seconds later.
“Three,” Miko says.
“Two,” follows Suisei.
“One,” they both say at the same time.
And with a rush of wind, the airplanes set off on their voyage into the unknown.
“So Mikocchi,” Suisei says, once they have exited the building, and are preparing to head their separate ways. “Any chance you’ll tell me your wish instead?”
Miko humphs. “Sorry, Hoshimachi, but I’m not that cheap a girl! You won’t get a peep from me about today’s wish.” Miko crosses her arms and tilts her head away with a pout that draws a peal of laughter from Suisei. The two stand there, at the entrance of the building, basking in the afterglow of the moment shared on the roof.
“I didn’t know throwing wishes in paper airplanes was even a tradition here,” Suisei speaks softly. Miko giggles.
“It’s not,” she says, and Suisei’s questioning gaze prompts another giggle. “I thought of it on the spot when I went and threw my first airplane. Now I shared it with you! Our own little tradition. Isn’t that even better than some old superstition everyone follows?” Miko finishes, smile pulling at her cheeks so hard it almost hurts. Miko is sure she sees the blush rising to Suisei’s cheeks this time.
“I guess so,” she mutters. She spares a glance at Miko and seems to consider something. Another lull falls into place between them.
“You can call me Sui-chan, if you want.”
The words are like honey in Miko’s ears. Her cheeks grow warm in the waning cold of early spring as a laugh escapes her. Miko decides to continue in the day’s habit of pushing irony down her throat and skips away from Suisei with a bounce in her step. The other woman simply stands there, fond smile fixed on her face.
“And what’s so funny about that, huh Mikocchi. I'm letting you be part of a very exclusive club you know?”
Miko stops at the street corner and turns to Suisei with a smug smile. “Nothing,” Miko sing-songs. “Just thinking that you might just be my personal shooting star. After all, you just made my first wish come true, Sui-chan.” Miko has but a scant second to marvel at the beautiful blush that adorns Suisei’s face before she dashes off with a cackle, leaving the other woman behind.
Twilight fades into night, and Miko once more makes her way back to her apartment under the light of the stars, moon, and comet overhead.
‘Revenge,’ Miko thinks to herself with glee-
“-has never felt better,” Suisei mutters, hand over her heart, eyes fixed on the street corner Miko had just disappeared behind.
A gust of wind, like a sigh, and Suisei is gone too.
Miko rides the high of her encounter with Suisei for months. She is giddy, and absentminded, and giggly, and if you were to ask anyone else who knew her, absolutely infatuated.
Miko vehemently denies all accusations to the latter. Her notepad burns a hole in her purse.
‘Read a dictionary.’ (Failed, but Miko tried, so she marks it off the list anyways.)
‘Hike up a mountain.’
‘Record a song cover.’
Sheet after sheet of paper. Moment after moment, cross after cross. Coffee by coffee, convenience store by convenience store, paper airplanes, and flowers, and comets, and stars, and sundowns and midnights.
She is running out of time, Miko realizes one day. It’s not something momentous, it doesn’t burst her world open or crumble her psyche or send her into delirium. Miko just... lives through it. If she is ever sad or afraid, she steps onto the balcony of her apartment and looks skyward at her constant companion, writhed in neon blue and blinding white. Gray blending into the midnight, orange shining in the sundown, blue, blue, blue in the corners of her eyes and her mind.
Miko crosses ‘Fall in love’ off her list. Under it, she adds ‘do something about it.’
Miko should be surprised. Sure, Suisei was kinda mysterious, and Miko had internally waxed poetic about the woman seeming ethereal and supernatural in the past, but this was pushing it a little too far.
Despite this, the fact that Suisei was perched on the railing of her apartment balcony — and Miko genuinely has no idea how she got there in the first place — is not surprising to her. It’s calming, in a way. Miko’s heart hammers in her ears.
“You should’ve just told me if you wanted to come in here however you pleased, y’know. I would’ve given you the spare key,” Miko says. Suisei turns to her, smile in place, and Miko reaffirms in her head that there is very little Miko would not give Suisei if she asked. Her eyes rake over Suisei’s new outfit. Dark blue sailor uniform, the color of a starless night, accented with bright pops of metallic blue. A subdued, gray-blue sweater rests lightly over Suisei’s shoulders, and little star accessories dot the ensemble like a real night sky. Resting on the crook of her elbow, Miko spots a white hoodie with cat ear accessories on the top. The thought of Suisei in it nearly sends her into cardiac arrest.
Suisei, attentive as ever, catches Miko in the act of looking her over. A smirk slithers across her lips, soft, teasing. Not so different than when they first met, but impossibly more affectionate.
“Cute today too?” she asks, murmuring quietly into the silence of the night. Miko is almost taken aback by the quality of Suisei’s voice. There is none of their usual banter, no real bite, not even faux vanity. She thinks this is the first time Suisei has sounded something like... conversational. Honest.
Miko pulls a small stool from the corner of the balcony, and sets it down by the railing, right next to Suisei. She rests her arms on the veranda, and lays her cheek on them, turning her head towards Suisei, who stares at Miko with bright eyes.
“More than ever,” Miko says. Their eyes meet, and there is a fragile moment where it's just her and Suisei, eyes locked, illuminated by the moonlight. Her pajamas feel scruffy against her cheek, and she feels the way the wind tousles her unkempt hair with complete clarity. Suisei stares at Miko like she’s something beautiful, and Miko stares right back. Love, love, love throbs in her blood, all the way to her fingertips. Love, love, love, climbing up from her chest, resting on the tip of her tongue.
“What are you, Suisei?”
Doubt, fear, hope, clouding her mind.
Love, love, love, the desire for love burning in her heart, burning away hesitation, burning away 5 months of worry and suspicion. Love, heralding understanding.
Suisei does not question Miko, does not question how she has arrived at her conclusions. Suisei simply turns her head, and stares at the comet hurtling from the sky. Reaches a hand up, and Miko sees, faintly, the wisps of blue-white streaming from Suisei’s fingertips. It’s like Miko is watching the coma of the comet above her form in the palm of Suisei’s hands, solid into vapor into solid again.
(3 more months.)
“I’m what I’ve always said I am. I’m Suisei. I’m the comet that’s going to kill everyone on Earth in 3 months.”
Suisei turns to Miko with a sad smile. It crushes Miko’s heart, to see Suisei’s grief so clearly on display.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Mikocchi”
Wind whips through the balcony. There are a million things racing across Miko’s head, a million questions and a million doubts. How is this happening? Why is it happening?
Why did Suisei choose Miko?
All of it fades into the white noise of her mind as she reaches a hand out towards Suisei. Her fingers brush against the wispy edges of the woman in front of her, warm and cold, as if she was at once the icy core and superheated sublimate of the comet. Miko’s hand lands in the phantom of Suisei’s, and she rests it there wordlessly, vapor molding and coiling around her palm. Emerald green meets starry blue under the cover of midnight once more.
“I think you’re mistaken, Sui-chan,” Miko says reverently. “After all, you’ve been here with me all this time, haven’t you?”
Suisei’s eyes widen a fraction. Would-be tears glimmer in would-be eyes. Miko smiles at the sight. Smiles at the fact that Suisei is a simile of life, but that she doesn’t live like it. She feels and fears, she cries, she hopes, she wishes on paper airplanes and orange sunsets just like Miko does.
“God, you’re cheesy,” Suisei chokes out. “I’m here trying to be all serious, and mysterious, and threatening, but I guess it was no match for the experience you’ve gained from that pile of otome games in your living room. I like it though. Eight out of ten.”
Miko chuckles. The silence between them is peaceful. It stretches for a few minutes, both women content to bask in the feeling of freedom that has overtaken them. Like the world is right, just for this moment. Like they are known by each other, and that makes all the difference.
“Why did you choose to... appear, I guess, for me?” Miko asks.
Suisei laughs earnestly at the question, and Miko is no longer ashamed to admit she likes the way it nestles in her ears. Suisei stares at where the image of her hand coalesces with Miko’s with a kind of wonder. Like she can’t believe it’s happening.
“You were a weirdo,” Suisei says, and Miko rolls her eyes, because of course Suisei would start her answer like that. “I saw so many people across the years cope in different ways. Some people with apathy, some with rage, many with sadness, many with fear. But very few with the weird sort of... acceptance that you did. You keep a bucket list with a kaomoji in the title, for God’s sake,” Suisei finishes, laughter shaking her shoulders, visage of a gray sweater sliding down her arms. “I was curious about you. About how you could live your life under the threat of literal extinction but be happy with nothing more than a list and the drive to do everything in it.”
Miko sighs. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’ve just kinda always been like that. Always been weird. Always been a little too comfortable with the whole comet extinction thing.”
“I know,” Suisei says with a smile. “But I think that’s admirable. No drama, no fuss, no muss, just my dumb little Mikocchi, head in the clouds now and forever.”
Miko’s heart flutters uncomfortably in her ribcage when Suisei calls her hers. She is hyperaware of the way Suisei’s hand keeps winding around her own, slipping between knuckles and in and out of the gaps of her fingers.
“Did you know that technically, every single thing in our solar system has a little piece of a dead star in it?” Miko blurts. Suisei’s face flashes with confusion, and Miko flounders, waving her hands in front of her, abandoning the embrace of Suisei’s not-quite-touch.
“Sorry, um, what I mean is... it’s kind of a weird way of thinking about it, but... Everything we know came about because a really long time ago, a star exploded, and all the debris eventually turned into the planet, and the people, and... and us. Even you.” Miko finishes lamely. “It's probably so far removed from how life actually works that I’m just straight up lying to you but... but maybe we can make it mean something to us. It can be like our own little bridge between worlds. It can be the reason why you’ve always felt like a friend to me, from all the way in the sky.”
‘It can be the reason I love you,’ Miko wants to say. She holds back the words by the barest of threads, swallows them down and stamps them to dust. Not yet. It’s not right. This moment is for Suisei, not Miko.
Suisei stares up at... herself? She stares at the comet in the sky and hums, low in her throat, and Miko observes the bob of her throat, the dip of her neck into the collar of her shirt. Beautiful, beautiful. The midnight breeze is clouding her thoughts more than she expected.
A gentle smile crosses Suisei’s face. “You like making up little traditions don’t you, Mikocchi?”
The question is followed by Suisei miming the action of throwing a paper airplane. Miko sees a smattering of vapor travel in smooth waves across the night from Suisei’s hand. Like a paper airplane, Miko realizes. Suisei twirls her fingers, leading the gas in a dance to some unknown song. The shining motes trace the contours of air currents, they travel across and between the railings, they frame Miko’s face in a gentle caress, before launching into the sky, far, far away from either of them.
“I like that a lot. I like the idea of something that’s totally unique to two people. Something that’s totally unique to us.”
Gray, orange, black. Coffee and paper airplanes, scruffy pajamas and rivers of light drifting in the wind. Ratings out of ten and nicknames and soft utterances of ‘cute today too.’ Miko wonders if Suisei realizes just how much Miko has experienced with only her. She wonders if Suisei realizes that Miko had already been determined to give Suisei every little bit of her for months, build any useless habit for her and with her, endure any number of jokes at her expense for her.
Coffee cans strewn about her desk, stored in her pantry, waiting in the disposal bin on the first floor of her apartment building. All for her, always for her. Miko curses her friends for being right. For how right they’ve been about her for months. For how blind she was to it. For how stupid she was to not embrace it, this blooming bud in her chest.
“We can make more,” Miko says. She stands, raising a hand alongside Suisei’s. “We have... about 3 months left until the comet — until you arrive. Who says we can’t make the most of it? Do dumb shit, cool shit, cheesy shit.” Miko looks at Suisei, determined. “Who's to say what we are and aren’t allowed to be happy about? We’ll finally be properly together in 3 months, after all. Who says we can’t celebrate every moment of the countdown? In fact, we can even start now.”
Miko pushes back from the railing, and rearranges the scant furniture scattered across the balcony into the corners of it, leaving a small, open area in the middle. Suisei stares, gentle amusement dancing across her features. Miko finishes, and turns quickly to Suisei, slightly flushed, breaths uneven.
“Do you want to dance, Suisei?”
Miko reaches a hand out towards Suisei, who stares, still just as amused. Slowly, she drags her legs over the veranda, and walks to the center of the room, just in front of Miko. The star-eyed woman slowly snakes one hand around Miko’s waist and lets another rest flat on the one Miko has stretched before her. Miko follows Suisei’s hand to the side, emulating the other woman dragging it up to the proper stance for a waltz. Miko’s other hand hovers uncertainly behind Suisei’s neck.
“I really hope you weren’t planning on being the lead here, Mikocchi,” Suisei says, smirking. “But lucky for you, I am a very talented dancer. Just close your eyes and follow my lead.”
Any normal person might have been apprehensive about letting a cloud of stardust and vapor lead them in a dance, but Miko simply lets her eyes drift closed, and follows the gentle tugs of warmth and cold that wrap around her. A pinprick of warmth on her legs, leading her left, a pulse of cold drumming against her palm in a steady rhythm that Miko can almost imagine is Suisei’s heartbeat.
Miko and Suisei sway back and forth to a beat only Suisei knows across the dingy expanse of Miko’s small balcony, and it is magical in all its simplicity. Suisei has always been simple to her. As the comet in the sky, as the girl in the dark, as the wish on a plane, as the girl in her arms. So many and yet so few memories that make up so little of her life and so much of her happiness.
Suisei and Miko waltz under the watchful gaze of a new moon night, and Miko opens her eyes to see Suisei staring right back at her like Miko is the star in the sky, like she is harbinger of death and life and cold and warmth instead Suisei herself.
Miko closes her eyes once more and lets the night, and Suisei, carry her away.
Miko wakes up in the mid-morning, and is met with a cloud of blue obscuring her vision. Miko wakes up to a bubble of Suisei spread all around her, a little observatory all for them.
Miko’s hand trails through the constellations of all Suisei is.
“What do you want to do today?” a whisper of a voice sounds in Miko’s ear.
“Anything, as long as it’s with you,” comes her reply.
Miko’s neighbors watch as the neon blue aurora that had coated her balcony vanishes into the morning air.
20 minutes later, Miko and Suisei walk out of the complex, hand in hand, to some nondescript café across the street from a tall building in the midday sun.
The following 3 months pass by Miko in a blur of blue-white and new experiences.
Miko and Suisei become inseparable. Gone are the months of waiting, the lonely nights spent staring at some stand-in for comfort. Gone is the pervasive feeling of incompleteness that used to fester in Miko’s mind. Every day is simply her and Suisei and her stupid, weird list.
‘Visit an abandoned amusement park.’
‘Fly a kite and let it go.’
‘Live, laugh, love.’ (Miko writes this, snorting with laughter, as Suisei watches her add onto the list over her shoulder. The other woman rolls her eyes, walking away, and only when she is out of the room does Miko cross it out at once.)
‘Introduce Suisei to her friends,’ comes and goes. Flare and Noel, hands clasped together, squeal in delight when they catch Miko and Suisei exiting a movie theatre, loudly complaining about the shitty B-list movie they had gone to watch. Miko and Suisei run away — at Miko’s behest — but Miko gets two messages from the not-so-newlyweds wishing her congratulations. Miko doesn’t deign them with a response until a month after the encounter. A simple ‘thank you.’
(Flare and Noel share a look over their pressed-together phone screens, and smile. They understand).
Suisei is much more relaxed about being herself now. Namely, she will randomly disappear in a cloud of shining blue and flit across the room while Miko stares in awed silence. She’ll go to clothing stores with Miko, stare at the clothes, and the smoky borders of her will shift and change into new outfits as she twirls, skirts billowing and hair flying everywhere, and it is once again blue, blue, blue everywhere Miko looks.
‘Sing a duet.’
‘Ride a swan boat.’
‘Disc golf competition.’
(Suisei wins. Miko knows she cheated but couldn’t care less.)
Miko writes in entry after entry for two people. Miko’s always lived her life for herself, but in this new age of her and Suisei she is indulging in the feeling that filling that empty space next to her heart brings. She watches, mesmerized, as Suisei belts a note in the darkened room of the karaoke place, as the moon reflects off the ripples of the swan boat onto Suisei’s profile, bathing her in alabaster, as Suisei’s disc falls into the metal net with a faint clank and the woman turns to Miko, elated and smug and beautiful.
‘Cook a feast.’
‘Cycle the Shimanami Kaido.’
‘Spend the whole day in bed.’
Miko sometimes catches Suisei, staring into nothingness, and feels the weight of her grief as her own. Feels the guilt of the path she can never veer off of. Miko always sits next to her and offers her the comfort of a shoulder to cry on, even if she never takes it. Miko simply sits next to Suisei, and her presence is like a balm, a reminder that someone loves her, the true her, that she is not hated for her existence.
‘Thank you,’ Suisei always says, once she’s feeling better.
‘Thank you,’ Miko replies without fail, and Suisei never asks what for.
The day before the comet hits, Miko is down to two pieces of paper on her notepad. In large, blocky writing, Miko writes ‘Tell Suisei you love her’ on the second to last page and throws the two final pieces of paper off her balcony. The wind rips at the flimsy glue holding them together, and Miko watches as they drift off in blue-studded wind.
Miko’s alarm blares by her bedside, a recording of Suisei screaming at her to wake up she had begged for just 2 months ago sounding on repeat in the dim of the pre-dawn dark. Miko groggily reaches towards the bedside table, snatching her phone with numb fingers, and presses the button on the screen to turn off the alarm.
Miko’s room is pitch-black in the absence of her phone’s light. The pink-haired woman blinks, staring at the shadowy outlines of her ceiling as her vision adjusts to the dark. The feeling of plush pillows and silky blankets nearly lulls her back to sleep, before the same blaring alarm sounds off from right in front of her, phone clenched loosely in her sleepy hands. The second alarm does its job wonderfully, startling Miko from her half-asleep state.
Miko stands, letting the blankets she dragged up with her fall on the floor as she smacks her lips around the dry taste left in her mouth. Staggered steps drag her to the bathroom, where she squeezes a dollop of minty toothpaste onto her toothbrush. Instinct carries her through the next few minutes as Miko brushes her teeth, eyelids heavy, head lolling to the side before snapping back up every now and again. Miko brushes her tongue, and the uncomfortable feeling of the brush tickling at the back of her throat drags a gag out of her. Blegh. At least she’s well and truly awake now.
Once Miko is done rinsing her mouth out, she reaches towards the brush on the edge of her sink, and slowly starts dragging it through the knots in her hair, soft mumbles of ‘ouch, ouch’ interrupting the otherwise silent morning. Once the pink rat’s nest is tamed into something smoother, Miko grabs her two cat bell earrings, tying her hair up in tell-tale ponytails before moving back into the room.
Miko picks out a white button-up shirt, slipping it on over her shoulders, clumsily messing with the buttons until each one is in place, then ties a red ribbon adorned with a bell under the raised collar of the shirt, tying it into a crisp knot before pulling the collar back down. Miko then dons her corset, tightening the strings with a huff of exertion.
Miko loops the top of her red plaid skirt around her waist, clipping the latch into place with a satisfying ‘click’. Lastly, Miko drags a pair of warm, thigh-length socks up her legs, not bothering with anything more complicated. She has somewhere to be, and as her third and final alarm reminds her, she’s running a little late.
Miko grabs a cold-cut sandwich she’d bought from the store for this exact moment out of the fridge, ripping the packaging open as she grabs her sweater from a hook by the door. Miko pauses, just for a moment, and looks behind her.
Her apartment looks the same as it always has. There isn’t much furniture, and nothing truly fancy beyond her respectable entertainment systems. Magazines litter the small coffee table in the middle of her room, alongside a few scattered manga volumes. Last night's dirty dishes are in the sink, waiting for their usual morning clean. It is quiet in a way that Miko can’t recall ever feeling before. The finality of it reminds her of moving out of her room at her parents’ house. No longer a ‘see you later,’ but a firm ‘goodbye.’
Miko closes the door behind her, and throws the key on the floor, kicking it with a scuff of her shoe as she makes her way towards the stairs.
Suisei is waiting for her.
Miko makes it to the gas station where Suisei and her first met barely 10 minutes before dawn. She takes in the way the weeds have grown deeper into the concrete, the way the tree roots along the edges of the parking lot have begun lifting and cracking the asphalt. The doors to the store are boarded shut, and no light shines out through the windows. Shut down, it seems. Understandably so. By some miracle, however, the vending machine right outside the station shines with a flickering defiance. A crack spiderwebs from the bottom of the glass casing, but the buttons are still intact. Blocky letters scroll along, naming prices and products.
Miko pulls out her coin purse, finding and slotting 200 yen in and selecting the option for a canned black coffee. The machine whirrs and hums, before the ‘clack-clunk’ of a can hitting the bottom meets Miko’s ears. Miko slips her hand past the metal opening and drags it out, popping the tab before bringing it to her lips.
The taste is just as awful as she remembers it, bitter beyond reason and teetering on the edge of hot and lukewarm. Miko walks towards the trash can standing silent, courageous vigil at the corner of the parking lot, and throws the near-full can of coffee in, hearing it drop to the bottom.
“Hoping it’ll make the trash smell better?” Suisei says, and Miko turns towards her with a smile.
“Nah. Just putting the stupid thing right where it belongs,” Miko replies.
Suisei, who had been leaning against the dilapidated wall of the gas station, pushes herself off the concrete and makes her way towards Miko. Her outfit, design-wise, is the same as the night they first met, but in a blinding, brilliant white with pops of fluorescent blue-green that Miko sees shifting through colors in the dark. Suisei herself seems pale, not in an unhealthy way, but simply... bright. Miko looks up, and sees the change reflected in the sky.
The comet, a leviathan of ice and gas, is advancing slowly but surely upon the world. The burning gas and melting ice shave off into the atmosphere turning the faraway, cold blues into beaming, lustrous white. Chunks of the comet break off every now and again, finding homes in the ground beneath and littering the air with the sound of faraway impacts. The sun starts to rise behind it. A new dawn rises, and the comet is its chariot.
Suisei stops right next to her, and Miko feels the tell-tale whisper of touch against her hand, warmer than usual but still just as easy to identify. Miko tightens her grip, and the white fireflies of stardust fly in between the tiny cracks of her grip.
“You’re beautiful today, you know?” Miko says, eyes not moving from the comet. Suisei giggles, unusually demure. She’s used to Miko being flirty and cheesy towards her, but not towards her real form, high in the sky. It’s comforting to know this is the same weird Mikocchi she has known for the last 10 months. And how short that time seems, now that they’re standing here at the end of everything.
“Thank you,” Suisei says, and they lapse back into silence.
Miko and Suisei stand in the midst of the apocalypse, hands clasped together in their best attempt at a firm grip.
“Hey, Sui-chan" Miko says, her voice firm.
“What is it, Mikocchi?”
Miko’s mouth opens, a stutter of breath caught in her throat. She pushes past it.
“I love you.” she says, and it is the fulfillment of a wish written in big blocky strokes on the second-to-last page of an 8-by-6-inch notepad. It is the utterance of so much more than Miko can say with words. It is the closing of a circle, here on the sidewalk of this shitty gas station where it all began. Miko stares at the chariot in the sky with defiant eyes.
Warmth suffuses her, and it takes Miko a moment to realize that it is Suisei, enveloping Miko in a cocoon of white, sliding across her hands, and cheeks, and she swears she feels the phantom of pressure against her lips, for but the briefest of moments.
“I know,” Suisei’s voice speaks. “I love you too, Mikocchi. More than you will ever know.”
Miko drags a hand through the light around her, marveling at being at the core of her own little comet. Marveling at the depth of the love Suisei has offered her, to become a microcosmic version of the true her above them. Miko’s eyes burn with tears.
“In this world,” Miko says shakily. “Everything can trace its way back to the debris of a dying star.”
“It’s probably a delusion so far removed from reality that we’re lying to ourselves saying it,” Suisei’s voice replies, all around Miko. “But just maybe, it can mean that when this world ends, we’ll find our way back to each other in some distant future. Somewhere, somehow, we’ll be together again.”
Miko holds her hands close to her chest. Her heart beats to the same rhythm as the slow pulse of Suisei drifting around her. “It doesn’t matter if we’re lying to ourselves. These words can be our promise. A belief unique to the two of us, something that only we will share, and nobody else,” Miko breathes. Her breaths calm and her eyes dry in the whipping of the wind. A burning mass breaks off from the main body of the comet, hurtling on a collision path with Miko.
“Three,” Miko says.
“Two,” Suisei answers.
“One,” they both say at the same time.
Dawn rises on a new day, and the Earth embraces the comet like a lover reunited.
Somewhere, in what were once the ruins of a sprawling city, the wind blows across ash-ridden dunes and crumbling buildings.
Tucked under a long-fallen beam of metal, a pristine, beautifully folded paper airplane rests, immovable. Tentative strokes spell the sentence ‘Meet Mikocchi again.’
Its shoddy companion is nowhere to be found, likely ripped apart in the gales and shockwaves following the impact of the comet. The airplane sits, alone, a testament to wishes unfulfilled.
A small, 8-by-6-inch page of a notepad catches on a jagged piece of rock beside the airplane, the very back of what might once have been a list, what may have once been nothing more than buried hope and dreams unrealized.
‘Meet Suisei again,’ the page at the back of Miko’s “Pre-Comet Bucket List (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧” reads.
Blue-pink motes dance on a phantom wind like a sigh under the awning of a gas station.
Like the stroke of pen against paper in sunset.
Like a waltz in silence under the watch of night.
Like ‘I love you’ uttered in radiant dawn.
Blue-pink winds spiral into the unknown, together.