Chapter Text
Opening
Ichika stares out the train window, as the scenery passes by. Saki's parents sit across from her in the booth. They were whispering to each other earlier, but Ichika didn't need to overhear to know they were talking about Saki. Ordinarily, they would all visit at the end of the month, but they're here early because the doctors say Saki might not be able to accept visitors then. Saki's brother is sitting beside Ichika, bearing over a notebook furiously working and reworking the newest iteration of Prince Pegasus and The Queen of the Stars, or whatever the title is these days.
The scenery flashes by in silence. Ichika is a little relieved that Saki had stopped asking about Shiho and Honami. Ichika never has anything new to share and she never knows what to say. Not about them, and not to them either. They pass each other in the halls, but if they say anything at all it's never more than a quick hello. They used to be so close, barely even three years ago, in elementary school... They were such different personalities, but with Saki holding them together it was like they were unstoppable. They had readily agreed the day Ichika asked if they could try performing Miku songs together as a band, and the starry sky on the walk home after their first practice was so beautiful. Honami had read that it was the night the Leonid meteor shower would streak across the sky, and had asked if they could stargaze...
"Hoshino!" The loud voice of Saki's brother takes her out of her thoughts. "When the Royal Advisor makes his move against the Queen of the Stars, I need a way for her to get away. I might have written myself into a corner! The Royal Advisor bided his time until Prince Pegasus was off-world slaying the Star Devourer, to rally his armada from the worlds he's been deceiving, and I want Prince Pegasus to find the Queen safe and sound in the rubble of the palace, so they can confront him together! But... I'm at a loss for how she gets away here..."
Ichika thinks it over some. "What if the Queen had another brother, her twin from birth, staying always by her side but nobody knows because he's posing as her retainer? When he looks up in the sky and sees the fleet of ships coming for the palace, he'll disguise himself as the Queen and she'll disguise herself as him. The Royal Advisor will think he won, but really the Queen's twin had saved her life, as his final act." It isn't exactly original, but Ichika is pretty sure Saki isn't familiar with the Evillous Chronicles.
"Hmm! Yes! Yes this can work!" Saki's brother gets a familiar fire in his eye, when Saki's mom interjects.
She asks, "Are you sure that's appropriate? Maybe you should stay away from topics of death in such a serious way. I'm sure there's a way for Prince Pegasus to reach her in time."
"Perhaps! But--" Saki's brother falters. "Prince Pegasus can't always be there for his little sister... Sometimes she'll be in danger when he isn't around. Hoshino's idea means the Queen was never really alone, and that her brother would gladly take her place if it meant she could be safe..."
The air in the booth gets almost unbearably heavy. Saki's mom nods, as Ichika fixes her gaze back outside the window.
•••
Saki's brother hasn't said a word since leaving Saki's hospital room. Ichika is going over in her head what sorts of things she and Saki could talk about as her Miku's Greatest Hits playlist -- more than a thousand songs strong -- plays in her headphones. She puts them away though, when she sees Saki's parents leave the hospital room. Saki's mom gives Ichika a small smile; it's her turn now.
Ichika walks past them as they go to sit, and gasps, standing just inside the doorway to Saki's room. She's so pale... She's sitting up in the hospital bed, angled upward to support her, but she looks exhausted, her hair falling limply down her shoulders, draped in a hospital gown which looks almost too big for her now.
"...Hi, Icchan...! I look great, don't I?" Saki offers her a smile, weak but bright still.
Ichika goes over to her side and takes her hand. Saki's hands are usually hot to the touch, but today they're the same temperature. "--Saki! How are you feeling?"
Saki looks up in her eyes, "Better now. Thanks for...coming on such short notice."
"Of course." Ichika sits down on the chair beside the hospital bed, Saki's hand resting on top of her own between them. "...It isn't like I really have a lot going on. I look forward to these visits all month... I couldn't believe the hospital won't let you have visitors next week, but..." Ichika thinks she can believe it now. She's never seen Saki like this.
Saki interrupts her, "I've got a lot of fun stuff going on here~ Everybody wants some of my time, but I always make sure to find time in my busy schedule for you! Because, I look forward to these visits too... Thank you, for still coming to see me, Icchan..."
Ichika and Saki make smalltalk, Ichika telling her about little things which happened during the past three weeks. Ichika keeps a list on a notes file in her phone so she doesn't run out of things to talk about and memorizes it the best she can on the train ride over.
Saki says, "That's so sad about Miku Expo 2020... I bet next year's will be super special! If I do really well on my recovery, we may even be able to go together."
Ichika blinks. "Really? I would love that. It's really crowded there... We'll have to go during the first day."
"It's a date...!" Saki winks at her, but without her usual energy Ichika almost misses it. "You said a lot of artists released songs for her the day the Expo was supposed to be? Can we listen to one together?"
"Yeah! There were two really amazing ones. I'll show you them both!" They share a pair of earbuds as Ichika plays the music videos over the hospital wifi, which seems more agreeable today. Ichika can tell out of the corner of her eye that Saki isn't watching the videos but looking at her, but Ichika pretends not to notice. She never knows what to do in situations like these.
They talk about the songs and about the stories the artists had entrusted to Miku. The conversation drifts to high school; Ichika and Saki are about to be Miku's same age soon.
Saki looks away, "Yeah I was really worried but I passed the entrance exam...!"
"--You did? It was super hard. What a relief..."
"Yep! I'm officially enrolled at Miya Girls with you Honachan and Shiichan." Saki takes her hand back. "...I'm going to miss a whole lot of high school 'firsts' though. There are so many things I want to do... See all the new rides at PXL, go out for bubble tea, perform at the school festival... I'd have to relearn how to play the keyboard, but you said Honachan's in marching band right?"
"I think she is. And Shiho is always carrying her bass guitar, so she definitely still plays. I'll be relearning right beside you though. We might have the same last day we played..."
Saki smiles, "Then we'll have a lot of catching up to do~" The atmosphere feels a little brighter, and Saki asks, "Hey Icchan, I was thinking... When I come back to school it may even be my senior year... It'd be so embarrassing, I think, to still not have kissed anyone. You haven't either, right?"
"I don't think it's that weird. But, you have kissed someone before. Remember when we were playing truth or dare in your room that night?"
Saki laughs weakly. "That's right! It was my turn and I asked Honachan who her favorite out of us was. I thought I really got her, so the dare was for her to kiss me... But, that was in a game, so it doesn't count." Saki looks at Ichika, and something stops Ichika. "Do you think it would be fun, Icchan? Or do you think it'd be kind of weird?"
"No we could."
Saki moves to the edge of the hospital bed and Ichika moves the chair closer. The kiss is just a little awkward and Ichika is shocked by how cold Saki's lips are, but Saki holds the kiss longer than she expected, before finally parting.
Ichika looks down at her hands. "Wow..." She looks up again, "Saki, your lips are really--" She freezes. Saki is crying.
"--No..." Saki says. "This is all wrong--! A first kiss is supposed to be really magical but-- this just felt like a kiss goodbye...!" The tears are streaming down her face.
Ichika stammers, "I'm sorry... We can try agai--"
"--What's wrong with me?! I just want to be a normal girl... I want to go to school and spend my time with my friends and make memories but my youth is spent, here--! Wasting away while... While...!"
Ichika doesn't know what to say, so she just holds Saki's hand as she lets her cry.
•••
Ichika comes home from school and sets her things down by her desk. Tomorrow is the day she would ordinarily have visited Saki if they didn't need to visit her early. When Saki said she wanted to perform at the school festival, Ichika didn't have the heart to tell her that Saki and herself not having played an instrument in three years wasn't their biggest obstacle...
Ichika caught Honami's eye today, as Honami had been walking through the courtyard carrying her sketchbook for art, but when Ichika waved, she just hurried off to class... And on her way home, she ran into Shiho but could hardly get a word in before she told her she has somewhere she needed to be. If only she were more like Miku... Miku can always express herself and reach through to people. People all over the world entrust her with their precious messages and innermost feelings. She would know what to do here...
Ichika sits at her desk and boots up the Hatsune Miku voicebank she had once saved up months of her allowance for and finally bought not long after she and her friends had agreed to start a band together. By the time Ichika was only just learning the basics of tuning, however, Saki's condition worsened and she needed to move away to a hospital with specialists who could treat her. The band fell apart almost immediately, only having learned a single song together, and making music in any way had suddenly felt as far out of reach as Saki was...
Ichika stares at the New Song screen, a blank canvas she doesn't know how to use staring back at her, Untitled written up at the top of the window. Ichika creates a microphone input and asks, "Hey, Miku... You know those friends I was in a band with... One of them wants to perform in the school festival someday, when she recovers, but she doesn't know that the rest of us haven't spoken in years... She's already having to miss out on so much... I don't want to tell her she can't do this too... What do I do?"
Ichika stares at the sound waves of the audio file as she considers how Hatsune Miku might respond to what she said. She arranges the syllables of her answer, imagining her cadence. She plays it back to herself, hearing it all in Miku's voice.
<Are you really sure, that your other friends don't feel the same way you do?>
"I don't know... I'm sure that what we had back then was something truly special to them... I don't think that they've forgotten those feelings."
<Then, you should reach out to them. Music helps people remember their true feelings. It sounds like you each still know what those true feelings are, even after all of these years.>
"I know you're right... It's just, if it were you Miku, you could reach them. But I'm not you... Shiho hates me and Honami has other friends now... And me, I don't know how to talk to either of them anymore."
<I believe in you, Ichika.>
Ichika plays the line over again. Miku believes in her, because of course she does, but...
Ichika goes into Appends and changes to Hatsune Miku's 'Dark' Append. It's Yowane Haku now, the unofficial patron saint of all those lonely would-be Producers who can't compose anything they feel is worthy of Hatsune Miku...
Haku: <It can't hurt to try. It has to be you Ichika, because you're their friend. And you want to help them to find their true feelings again.>
"I am their friend... Or, I hope I am. I'll do it. I'll try, for Saki."
Miku: <Good luck, Ichika! I'm looking forward to hearing the good news.>
Ichika saves the file to a folder full of these little conversations, and stares over at the guitar case by her bed, gathering dust for years. To open it up again and play... To make music again like they used to... To be friends like they used to... She wants that, more than anything. Ichika sits on her bed and sets the guitar case across her lap, unzipping it and setting the case aside, holding the finished wood of the guitar, still as shiny and beautiful as her memories. She eyes the strings, afraid to touch them, but she needs to believe that it's possible for Shiho and Honami to still want to play music with her. She needs to believe that... For Miku. For Saki.
There's a knock at her door. It's Mom, and she looks really scared... She's clutching her phone in both hands, as she says, "The Tenmas just called, Ichika... I'm so sorry--! Saki... She's passed away."
1. The Fourth Childhood Friend
"Ichika..." Mom is at the door. "It's time to go to school..."
"I'm up." Ichika sits up. She can't remember Saturday or Sunday much. Only that she tended to cry when she was alone.
Mom closes the door as Ichika gets changed into her school uniform. She looks at the guitar case beside her bed. It won't be used ever again...
"Have a good day at school dear..." Mom gives her a hug.
"--Mom! Yes, I will."
Ichika shuts the front door, and starts down the sidewalk. Her feet feel heavy. What is she still doing here, in a world without Saki? In a world that left Saki behind... For more than a year now, it was like she existed only in Ichika's memories. And now...
The walk signal's on. She can cross now. She needs to move her feet... She needs...
Ichika takes out her headphones and pushes Shuffle. Rolling Girl plays, and she closes her eyes as she takes a deep breath. Miku is singing about getting back up and trying again, facing the world...
It's okay if she just waits for the next walk signal. Time is moving so fast, but that doesn't mean she has to. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to be still, for just a moment. Miku gets back up, again and again, and faces the new day. The crowd around her moves across Scramble Crossing, and Ichika moves with them.
Her playlist takes Miku into a completely different mood and style. She's somebody else entirely. No matter what message people want to entrust her with, whatever melody they provide for her to sing to, she does it, because she can do anything... Ichika on the other hand, is struggling to face her ordinary day. The world without Saki... is exactly the same, for all of these people around her. Ichika thinks about the kiss...and how cold Saki's lips had been. Saki knew that was the last time they would see each other. What would Saki want for her to feel right now?
The song in her headphones changes again, and Ichika remembers she had preordered a new Miku song, Loveit by PinocchioP. It had been added to her library yesterday while she...
The silence between pausing the song and finding the new purchase in her library is unbearable.
She plays the song... Miku sings of an overpowering and self-destructive love for someone, who she keeps coming back to for more despite knowing she should stay away. It closes with Miku wondering if she should really stop it at all, if she's happy here. The song has motifs of Miku as a helpless bunny rabbit in a world of danger.
Ichika knows it's a more mature song, but she can't stop thinking of Saki, and hears the words applied to her... In the hospital, Saki was completely helpless and Ichika came back to her again and again. Shiho and Honami had quickly stopped visiting, but why should Saki have to fight to keep them if she still has Ichika... A frequent motif is the rabbit looking up at the moon, no longer seeing itself reflected anymore... The dream they all formed beneath the starry sky that night, it had faded away; Saki wouldn't be able to see it in the night sky anymore... The final section of verse is Miku reflecting that while she can no longer say that she's happy to be alive, that she's okay with being a helpless rabbit for the rest of her life if only it means getting to stay beside her lover... Saki had kissed her, a first-kiss which she had known in her heart was really a kiss goodbye... which she couldn't escape as being a kiss goodbye...
Ichika is going to cry if she keeps listening to this song on loop. She'll be late to school... She has to keep moving forward. For Miku and for Saki. She'll listen to this song later.
<Add To Playlist: Miku's Greatest Hits (1024 songs)>
<Playlist Full>
Huh? That can... happen?
Ichika would have to remove a song... Her mind, still on Saki, still on her absence, drifts to Needle, a song Ichika is afraid she'll never be able to listen to again without falling apart. It was the song that she, Saki, Honami, and Shiho practiced to death. The only song they'd ever ended up learning. Saki will never get better... Saki will never play at the school festival. And... Ichika will never play the guitar again...
<Remove From Playlist: Needle YES/NO>
She has to move on. She has to move forward. She has to go to school. She has to live.
<NO>
But, like Miku in the song, she's too weak to do what she knows she ought to... Or maybe... could this be Miku telling her, that it's okay, to hold on to Saki? At least just for now?
•••
"H-Honami!" Ichika runs over to her outside the school gates.
Honami turns to her. "...Oh hello, Ichi--" Honami stops when their eyes meet, and looks away in shame. "I'm sorry, my class is over this way..."
"Wait Honami, there's something I need to..." Ichika chases after her, but Honami joins up with someone from her class. Ichika doesn't want to break up their conversation. Certainly not with bad news...
•••
"Uh, hey Hoshino," one of Ichika's classmates leans over to ask after she sits down for class. "...Are you feeling alright?"
"--Huh?" The answer is no, but... "I'm feeling alright. Thank you."
The girl laughs. "I can never tell with you! You got that loner vibe, you know?"
"I... what? I do?" More students are filing in and Ichika remembers with a start she didn't do the homework assigned over the weekend. "Sorry, but did you do the math homework? ...I forgot."
"What, really? Uhh sorry, I don't want to get in trouble for you..."
Ichika can't really blame her. She's not sure anyone in her class would be willing to take any kind of risk for her... "That's alright. I might be able to finish it before math."
Ichika digs through her school bag and finds Shiho staring at her from out the window. She stops. "--Shiho!" Ichika gets up and leaves the room. Could there be...a reason she was staring? Shiho's sister and Saki's brother used to be close, after all. "Hello... Um...Do you already--?" She can't finish the sentence.
Shiho stares at her, waiting. "...I have to get to class."
"R-Right."
Ichika sits back down and checks her phone. It's still three minutes until the bell.
The same classmate crosses her arms. "Yikes. Talk about attitude. That Hinomori was ice-cold to you. I can't stand her."
"...she isn't..." Ichika looks to where Shiho had been standing. "she isn't cold at all..." But, does Ichika really believe it?
"Sorry, I didn't catch that, it's so noisy."
"O-Oh, it was nothing."
Ichika tries to hide the math homework she's hurrying to finish beside her notebooks for class. The teacher is introducing a new transfer student right now, and she's grateful for the chance to work on her homework.
"You can take a seat next to Hoshino. Is that alright, or are you too busy, to welcome our new student?" The teacher asks pointedly, to snide laughs from Ichika's classmates. The transfer student looks humiliated, but moves to take a seat next to her.
Ichika sheepishly puts her math homework away. "I'm Hoshino Ichika. Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise!" Ichika chances a glance at the board, where the student's name is still written.
The first lesson is starting, and Ichika wishes she had something to do... She had liked the math homework distracting her. She at least wishes she could listen to her music... Her thoughts drift back to the sight of Saki on that hospital bed. So frail and pallid, hair falling limply around her face... So Saki didn't believe it, when she said there was a chance she would come back to school... As if she could just come in one day, a new transfer student... She would joke about how she'd been enrolled here for years actually. She would pretend she was meeting Ichika for the first time, a big grin on her face.
That's never-- going to happen, anymore. It was never going to...
Maybe it's for the best... Because, if Saki did come back to school, she would want to start making up for lost time and enjoy her new lease on life to the fullest, and to her that means reuniting with Honami and Shiho. But, she wouldn't even be able to mention their names without people giving her sorry looks... Because, that's something even more impossible than Saki returning to school... Their childhood bond is just another thing that Ichika is in denial over having lost.
Is she... crying? Luckily, nobody noticed. Nobody pays her any mind at all...