As the artificial lighting dimmed to orange, a chorus of voices hawking their goods filled the air as they tried to entice all kinds of men and women from the busy crowd.
The evening liveliness at Table of Johor was unlike anything Terra had ever experienced before, but it felt isolating, as if she was sitting with a different family. Unlike at Idaho or Fuyō, she had no friends or enemies here, with one notable exception. She could wander off without anyone giving her an earful about it, but on the other hand, there wasn’t anyone who would care enough to come looking for her, either.
The feeling was pleasant; a breath of fresh, clean air. The feeling was unsettling; floating without a tether in outer space. Terra was deep in that odd sensation as she walked among strangers.
“Te—Terra-sa—Over he—!”
Terra heard fragmented shouting from behind and turned around. A figure in a green beret was waving an arm as it bounced in the stream of people flowing left to right.
The moment she laid eyes on that person, Terra found her bearings. She shoved past two or three people as she rushed over to Diode, apologizing as she went.
Diode desperately held onto a round table in a corner of the crowded beer garden. She glared out at her surroundings, reminding Terra of a small animal guarding its territory. The location had been suggested to them by one of the clan’s tourism AIs and it perfectly fit Terra’s request for a welcoming spot to meet up and dine together. Her errands dragged on though, and worse, she had gotten lost and ended up being late. Which is to say, she was unsurprised by the narrow blue eyes scowling at her as she got closer.
“You finally made it. Don’t ever walk past me when I’m right in front of you again. I even kept calling your minicell.”
“Ahaha... sorry, there were a lot of people.”
“When else are you supposed to put that size of yours to use? I’m a speck, so you’d better put more effort into finding me,” Diode huffed, then turned away.
Hm...? Terra took a closer look at her. She wouldn’t describe Diode as the friendliest person to begin with, but her language felt more barbed than usual. On closer inspection, Terra noticed a faint blush on her cheeks, normally so pale they seemed transparent.
She took a chair from the opposite side of the table and dragged it over to Diode’s side before she sat down.
“Feeling lonely, by any chance?”
Diode scowled so deeply that her brows had two furrows, then looked away again. Terra steeled herself and leaned against her.
“I know I was~!”
“Sto—you’re crushing me! Knock it off and let’s eat already!”
“‘Kay!” Terra gave her a big nod.
Diode wasn’t great with places like these, so as usual, Terra put in orders for both of them. Once it was all printed, portioned out, and toasted to, Terra felt the beer-like she was drinking relax her instead of getting her worked up.
She took big gulps, then exhaled with, “...Phew!”
“Are you tired?”
“Nope, I’m good.” She nudged Diode on the elbow. “I was just thinking about us getting to see each other normally like this again.”
“...Yeah.” Diode gently returned the nudge. “I’m glad.”
Terra grew more cheerful and made breezy conversation as she snacked on jerky-like and fried shrimp-like.
“How did it go today, Die-san? I know you said there weren’t any issues, but they didn’t twist your arm into doing something annoying or anything, did they?”
“Not really. If you ignore how Circs are automatically rude by default, I was treated normally.”
“Automatically rude...?”
“I meant that as a positive. They treated me so well in spite of that I could hardly believe it.”
“Ah, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Anyway, how was your day? Did you get told off for arriving late?”
“Not at all! The opposite, really—the researcher wanted to hear all my stories and asked me questions, so I spent the whooole time talking about nishikigoi fishing!! The Trades haven’t ever caught one before, so he said even if it was on the small side, it was an achievement on our part—ah, I mean the 1800 tonne catch we picked up, they brought it back with us—and since it was their first time seeing the real thing they were overjoyed!”
“You said we were picking it up to give back to Meika, though.”
“Guh... I did, but it’s not like we can at this point... Ah, right, the dissection. Were you okay with it?”
“Dissection? Oh, I received your message about that, right. I don’t mind.”
“Got it, I’ll give them the OK, then. We’ll get updates if they happen to discover something. I really hope they do, it would be nice to use that knowledge next time.”
“Next time...? You mean next time we go nishikigoi fishing? Um...” Diode tilted her head, put her cup of ginger ale aside, and tapped Terra’s wrist. “Excuse me.”
“Yeah?”
“May I have that?”
“Huh?”
Terra put her mostly empty beer mug on the table. Diode snatched it and finished chugging in one go, then started coughing.
Diode, naturally, had choked, so Terra nervously rubbed her back, “D-Die-san?! What’s wrong?!”
“I’m fine... I just felt the mood to drink a little,” she replied, raising her hands to swat Terra away. “I finally understood why they suddenly pushed us to go nishikigoi fishing back at Fuyō.”
“...? What do you mean, ‘finally’? It was a contest, wasn’t it?”
“Partly, but they were also sizing you up.”
“Sizing me up?”
“Your ability to decomp. They wanted to see what you are able to achieve when you decompress at full power.”
“...” The mood, up until then buoyant, suddenly grew heavy and capsized. Giving Diode a serious look, Terra asked, “What’s this about?”
That was when Terra finally learned about the menacing scheme the Gendō clan was putting into action.
“This Commodore Helm... it’s operated through decomping?”
“It’s something that Nurude can use to control every Circ ship at his discretion. I bet you’re thinking, ‘wooooow that sounds really fun, I wonder what he’ll do with that!’, aren’t you?”
“Why would I think that?” It was Terra’s turn to frown. “That doesn’t really... sound like any fun at all to me.”
“That’s because it’s not, and it makes me so sick I could puke on the ceiling,” Diode replied, before looking around the table and apologizing. Terra waved her hand to say it was fine.
“He wouldn’t be looking for something that gave him that kind of control if he had good intentions, right?” After asking, Terra looked off into space, then corrected herself. “Or I should say, he’s following the script of a person who’s totally convinced they’re acting for the greater good.”
“There’s a script like that?”
“The villains in B-type action Contents are dead set on following it.”
“Heh...” Diode scowled at the splash of beer remaining. “That’s gotta be it then, sure,” she said, then tipped the mug back. “That generally fits with the details of my kidnapping, the overall mood back there, and the things I heard. And of course the Gendō are ready to treat the Bow Awow as an adversarial organization. They’re working on something terrible and making enemies out of everyone. Why...?”
“Die-san...”
It’s a shame your hometown turned out this way—but before Terra could voice that thought, Diode started shouting.
“We were so close to putting all our damn worries behind us, and right at this crucial moment that freaking arrogant, clingy, freak shit soggy-ass bitch’s family had to ambush us and drag us both into a goddamn supermassive black-hole of trouble!”
Everything in a ten-meter radius, friendly chat and heated arguments alike, fell completely silent.
“Die-san, calm down please... Sorry everyone, it’s nothing, sorry!” As she apologized to the surroundings, she gently swapped out the mug in Diode’s hands for the ginger ale. “Here, have another mug! Drink up and forget all about it!”
Diode drank it in one gulp, and her long eyelashes fluttered as she blinked. Looking at Terra, she asked, “Was I too loud just now?”
“Not really, but was there anything else you had to say?”
Diode thought for a bit and her speech returned to normal. “Uhh... Right, so Pri-san and the others are trying to put a stop to it.”
“Ah, come to think of it...” Terra said, suddenly remembering something. “Does that mean your father is helping her, since she was meeting with him?”
“Yeah, seems like it, but they didn’t tell me anything beyond that. He’s currently an active spy, so...”
“It’s still a relief knowing that, though. It means he’s not going along with the Gendō scheme.”
“Is it? Because it means my narrow-minded father might be treated like a traitor and get arrested.”
“Sorryyyy!”
“It’s not that big of a deal if he gets caught. It is him we’re talking about, so I’m sure he’ll find an escape in pretty short order.” Diode paused for a moment. “It sucks to be at the mercy of Meika and her cronies. More importantly though, the situation over there being like that made life complicated for you too, huh...”
“What?”
“You ended up leaving the escape ship behind, remember?”
“Ah... right.”
They remained quiet after Terra’s weak response. She seemed to be avoiding Diode’s eyes.
Diode stared at her profile, munching on snacks, then out of nowhere said, “Why don’t we break up?”
“Wh-where is that coming from?!”
“Well, it’s because you’re acting like you want to live here.”
“And why’s that a reason to break up?”
Diode, mindful of their surroundings, lowered her voice and bluntly said their plans seemed to be different. “If you’re going to make me say it, your wanting to live here has been my biggest worry since Pri-san rescued us. I’ve been scared ever since she said we could. Haven’t you been thinking that even though you didn’t fit in with the Endeavour or Gendō clans, it might not be so bad here?”
“I...”
“You weren’t?”
Terra looked down and gave Diode a small nod. “I was... just a little.”
“Why?”
“Why...? Because we can fish together here. Pri-san told us we could go fishing as two women, didn’t she?”
“She did, and that was the bare minimum she could offer us. But, Terra-san–” Diode stacked the clean plates on a corner of the table and sloppily placed her next order. “You said you wanted to go to the GI, didn’t you? That you looked forward to seeing all the new creatures, landscapes, jobs and food there, right?”
The table printer began to make noise and printed something that looked like meatball-likes that were filled using a tool Terra didn’t recognize.
“And instead of that, this is what you want?” She yanked the half-finished plate of meatball-likes out of the printer and shoved it in front of Terra. “Are these meat-like ball-likes good enough to want to live at a dreamless, hopeless place like Fat Beach Ball while the goons on the Council of Elders cling to their positions? Are they, Terra-san?!”
“Wait, Die-san, please listen, I only said that living here is maybe not so bad, not that I wanted to live here no matter what!”
Terra tried desperately to calm her down, but Diode was haphazardly trying to enter an order for her next drink. She then turned towards Terra and stared her down.
“What made you consider even for a second that it might not be so bad here? Letting us fish together was all she had to offer. Did she guarantee anything beyond that? What are you going to do if they say that we’re required to attend marriage hunting parties from now on if we want to work the boat together?”
“Marr—We could do everything in our power to refuse–”
“That’s not how it works,” Diode said, firmly squeezing down on Terra’s wrist. “That’s not how it works. You do understand that, don’t you? That’s not the type of thing they just let slide if only you would ask them to look the other way. I don’t wanna be having this conversation with you, this... argh, screw this!”
Diode let go of Terra faster than Terra could catch her hand. At a glance, the transparent, amber liquid she had just finished printing didn’t seem to be the kind that could be downed in one gulp. Diode grabbed the glass and brought it to her grimacing lips.
“Die-san!” Without waiting, Terra snatched the glass before Diode could get the liquid in her mouth.
Still, she was too late. The unpleasant liquid spilled onto Diode’s chest, drenching her stylish jacket. The air filled with the smell of alcohol.
“Um, I’m sorry, I’ll get you cleaned up right away.” Terra hurriedly wiped the liquid away with a sponge and punched a command into the printer for another.
“That’s enough—I’m done here.” Diode said, swinging one arm. “I’m going back to our room.”
“But that’s...! Wait, please let me make it up to you. If I’m in the wrong, I’ll reflect on it, but just what are you so angry abo–”
“It’s already soaked into my skirt.” Diode stood and stared at Terra with hollow eyes.
Terra quickly realized what was happening and firmly caught her companion’s wrist. “Don’t go.”
“Hey...”
“No! You’ll disappear if I let go.”
“...”
“You’re thinking about running off somewhere like a back alley or storehouse. I can tell. You’re not doing that. We’re not at Idaho. We might—never mind, don’t move!”
We might never see each other again if we get separated—The thought was so scary Terra couldn’t bring herself to voice it, but she spoke forcefully, hammering the printer service button until enough sponges to leave the surrounding tables sparkling clean came pouring out. Diode was held in place as Terra scrubbed her down with the pile of white sponges.
“We can dry it off since it’s just clothes, and if it still bothers you, you can just take it off and throw it away. It won’t kill you if you’re still a bit sticky.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Please, I’m begging you...!” Terra bowed her head and held Diode tight with both hands.
At first, Diode stood there, extremely annoyed with soft, sticky cotton clinging to her, but suddenly noticed that no one in their surroundings was paying them any attention. She let out a huge sigh and started to squirm.
“Terra-san, um, let go.”
“No, please!”
“Listen to me. I’ll sit down.”
Terra looked up at her. Diode coldly brushed her away and took a seat.
Looking off to the side, she said, “I’m sorry. I overreacted.”
“What? Oh, okay...”
“I haven’t told you everything yet, now that I’ve thought about it more calmly. I’m sorry I lost my cool before I did—but can I just ask one thing?”
“Yeah... you can.” If anything, Terra thought she was the one who overreacted. She gave Diode a nod, disoriented by how quickly the girl had calmed down.
Diode looked up, then away, as if she were looking for the right words to say. “Did you forget that I wanted to pilot at another planet in the first place?”
“Huh? Ahh! That?”
Diode hadn’t expected Terra to be as surprised as she was, so she responded with surprise of her own.
“‘That’?”
“No, I remember, I remember! But, like, we’re still inexperienced nishikigoi fishers, right? That made me realize there are still things we don’t know about the skies of FBB, and it started feeling like we were at a whole new planet...”
“It might feel like that to you, but it doesn’t really feel like that to me.”
“Y-you don’t say.”
Now that she mentioned it, she did say she could fly with an error margin of less than a meter. All I did was wilt back and blame myself.
“That’s right... You are always looking to the future, looking at what’s to come and making moves towards your next goal. I was the only one who felt like we had run into a wall and stopped looking ahead.” Terra suddenly felt her cheeks warming as she spoke. “But since I assumed you felt the same way, I ended up wanting to settle for this... How embarrassing... wow...”
“Well, that’s inevitable once you get old.”
“Old?! Who are you calling old?!”
“You said it yourself.”
“...!!! I only said I was older though!!”
“Okay, since you’re the older one, hurry up and use the wisdom of age to decide whether we live here or not, and what we should and shouldn’t do about our ship.”
“Come on, meet me in the middle here. That’s the kind of thing we should decide together...”
“If it’s meat you’re after, there’s some right here.” Diode smirked as she slid the half-printed plate of meatball-likes in front of Terra. “Now, about breaking up–”
Just then, a group of men happened to sit down at the adjacent table and cast curious glances at the two. Diode immediately got the sense they were about to get hit on, so she signaled to Terra and stood up. Terra hurried after her.
“...Is running away our only choice?”
“Speaking from experience, it’s the only thing guaranteed to work.”
“We are two girls, so I guess that might happen no matter the situation.”
“The way it was going back there, there’s no ‘might’ about it—so, what will we do?”
“About...?”
“Now that we’ve confirmed that sort of thing happens here, too.”
Diode stopped at the check-out gate and turned around. Terra fully understood now. Since Diode had experience with getting hit on, she must have developed a sharp sense for when it would happen. Maybe it was part of the burden she was carrying.
“Yeah... let’s look for another settlement.”
“Okay.”
“Ah, but how about we go shopping before we head back? And we also didn’t really eat much, so...”
“Okay,” Diode responded with a smile, then held her minicell up to the gate.