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Thinking about the last three or four months of Ecolo's life made their head spin.
It was all the rapid change taking place at once; it certainly wasn't an unwelcome change, no. It was just a lot to take in. They'd suddenly gone from a hikikomori trapped inside their own home, invisible to the world, to attending a school in-person again, having real-life friends for the first time since they were a little kid, and getting some actual support for the truckload of health issues that had been plaguing them for a long while now.
Well, mostly mental health. But being able to hear the words "I'm sorry, but feeling like nothing about you or around is real, not recognizing yourself in the mirror, and becoming distressed to the point of not being in control of your body and blacking out is not normal or healthy." was cathartic in a really, really weird way.
It wasn't like everything was magically fixed, of course. A lot of things were still really difficult. Still struggling with the self-loathing that had bred itself into them over the course of their life, still having to cope with conditions that made it hard to appear as a mostly-normal human and function as a student. In the meantime, though, they had support from their friends to keep them on track, and they were trying their best. Just being out of that horrible place was already helping a lot.
Obviously, though, half a decade of trauma doesn't simply vanish in the span of a few months.
Someone had eventually popped the "what are you doing over winter break?" question.
And Ecolo had absolutely no idea what they were doing over winter break.
Here was the current situation, in their eyes: finals would end around the middle of December, and then start again at the beginning of January. That left about two or three weeks of no school, probably to the relief of a lot of students who wanted to binge Netflix shows or play video games or whatever it is that people with normal home lives and schedules do. But no school meant no access to the dorms, or dining hall, or any part of the campus.
They began to quietly panic as they realized that they were more or less going to be homeless over break. They didn't have any money to afford a place to stay for that long, they certainly didn't have the confidence and skills to get by without one, and going home sounded like a great way to get abducted for real by creepy scientists. Simply put, there were no available options for them on their own. End of the line.
The sudden stress that came over them did not go unnoticed by any of their friends, who were all currently feeling a little frazzled by finals, too, but Ecolo had been approaching the exams with absolute confidence. When they suddenly weren't able to hold themself together anymore- quite literally- the people closest to them knew something was wrong.
"Why don't you spend winter break with us in Suzuran?" Ringo suggested.
Ecolo looked up at Ringo, they were sitting in her lap and letting her hold their paws, allowing her to comfort them after they'd more or less had a breakdown when their stress came to a peak. Her smile was bright and reassuring.
"Are you sure that's okay?" They didn't want to come off as desperate, but some of that emotion still leaked through.
"I don't think my parents would feel alright knowing that one of my friends was going to be outright homeless for any period of time, especially in the winter." She told them, her practical sense kicking in.
"I don't want-"
"If you're going to say you don't want to impose, you're not imposing on anyone." Ringo hugged them gently like they were some kind of oversized plush toy. "I'll call my mom tomorrow about it, we'll figure something out. It's only for a few weeks, anyways. I'm sure they'd be happy to have you."
And of course the nagging guilt that they didn't deserve Ringo's kindness was picking at their mind, that they should just let themself wander again without any help, but they had been trying to squash that line of thought whenever it popped up. She, among others, had made it clear that she didn't think of them as some horrible abomination or monster, just a confused young adult like the rest of them with some unusual afflictions that didn't make them lesser than anyone else. It was hard to always keep that in mind and convince themself it was the case, but they were trying.
They sort of just internally sighed and let Ringo try and cuddle the rest of the anxiety out of them.
"Okay, Maguro is officially banned from choosing the music."
"Why?!★" Maguro protested as he sat behind the driver's wheel of Ringo's car, he'd agreed to cover the first part of the driving, and Ringo the second. They were currently cruising down a long countryside highway.
"I'm not going to sit here and listen to fuckin', the Reese's Puffs and Mario Kart mashup, or Sonic YTPMVs for this entire six hour car ride." Ringo began to reach for a cable. "We're putting on actual music."
Maguro was unable to intervene with both of his hands on the steering wheel and his attention on the road. "Don't you dare touch that aux cable-!★"
"Fuck you, it's mine now." Ringo laughed. "We're listening to Perfume and there's nothing you can do about it."
Maguro grumbled and turned his attention back to the boring road as Ringo ripped the aux cable out of his phone and plugged it into hers, then started scrolling through her own music library. Some poppy-sounding electronic music began to play, and the vocals kicked in soon afterward.
"He only does that to annoy you." Ecolo pointed out from the backseat, with a window to one side and a pile of the trio's collective belongings to the other, holding their heavy backpack on their lap. They actually felt pretty thrilled in the moment, they certainly didn't remember the last time they'd been on a road trip, if ever.
"Then consider me successfully annoyed." Ringo sighed and leaned back in her car seat.
“Hey, Hedgehog Stew and Win The Race are total bops. Immaculate editing.★” Maguro took a hand off the wheel for a split second to make a chef’s kiss motion. "And Ecolo likes them too, that's all I'm saying."
"Do you seriously like those stupid-"
"Yes!" They smiled.
"Why?"
"It's funny!"
They had all managed to make it through finals just fine, getting by with A's, B's, and the occasional C. Ecolo and Ringo had gotten the highest grades in Astronomy and Physics respectively, prompting Klug to grumble about them being overachievers, ironically for him, which they both laughed about later. Well, neither of them wanted Klug to dislike them, and Amitie assured them that that wasn't the case, but sometimes they weren't so sure.
"I think his Starbucks job stresses him out a lot…" Amitie had explained with an awkward laugh. Ringo, earlier, had recalled a story which Tee had told her while they were hanging out in the Physics lounge about his friend, Ess, and Klug getting into a very heated shouting match over coffee during midterms. The school's Starbucks really was the most cursed place on the entire campus, and that was including the humanities building haunted by those twin ghosts that liked to pull pranks on terrified undergrad freshmen.
"We should stop and eat somewhere around the halfway point.★" Maguro suggested.
"Something healthy." Ringo said.
"Nah, we're going to McDonald's.★"
"That's the opposite of healthy! I re-"
"Ecolo, be the tiebreaker.★" Maguro interrupted Ringo.
"McDonald's." Ecolo agreed. Maguro had dragged them to McDonald’s a few times over the course of the term, and they didn’t have any protests about going to one. The ice cream there was good (when the machine actually worked).
"Fuck you guys. You know the beef patties are basically halfway filler, right? Those things have the nutritional value of a wet sock."
"First off; bold of you to assume I'm getting a burger and not going to town on some McNuggies, second off, I'm pretty sure nutritional value doesn't apply to Ecolo, third off, they have salads and shit so why are you even worried? They have packs of apple slices. Does someone need their appy slicies, Ringo?★"
Ringo smacked Maguro on the arm.
"I'll crash this car, I'm a lunatic. I'll do it.★" Maguro jokingly threatened.
"And you'll pay for the insurance, dipshit."
Both Maguro and Ringo laughed, and Ecolo cracked a smile.
"I hope Ris is driving safely." Ringo wished.
"He's Ris, so he's not driving safely.★" Maguro responded. "Wouldn't be surprised if he's somewhere ahead of us on this highway swerving around traffic because he's got some chemical sample in his car's trunk that he needs to check on in two hours or less and he doesn't want to take any breaks. Either that or he finally figured out how to make his car use liquid oxygen as fuel and is doing like, 180 kilometers per hour now, and the cops can't catch him.★"
There was another small beat of silence.
"Hey, you remember being a kid and trying to read books or see your Gameboy screen with the streetlights during road trips?★" Maguro suddenly brought up.
"Yeah. Not like I brought anything with me to read, though.” Ringo leaned back in her seat. “You could use the old map light if you need it later."
Maguro had successfully baited her into saying what he wanted her to say. "The crime-fighting vehicle is an important part of the superhero patrol. Ours is equipped with-★"
Ecolo interrupted with, "The map light!"
"Convenient and essential-★"
"The map light!" They giggled as they repeated themself in the same cadence.
"Oh, and look!★"
"The map light!"
"Show him th-★"
"I'm so sick of you." Ringo sighed.
As Maguro and Ringo continued to bicker and banter with each other, Ecolo stared out the window at the rolling pastures and the gently sloping mountains in the distance. Occasionally, the car would pass through or by little towns, and pastures and grain fields covered the land between them. Ringo noticed them staring and excitedly began to explain the agricultural history of the area and Suzuran, while Maguro complained about the lack of fishing. Ringo aggressively reminded him that they'd get on the oceanside highway at some point regardless.
Ecolo wasn't really thinking about what either Ringo or Maguro were saying; they were zoning out and wondering which, if any, of these middle-of-nowhere towns that dotted the country were their hometown.
During that huge argument between their parents and those scientist people they'd brought, they'd sort of… blacked out.
And after an unknown amount of time had passed- it could have been a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, as far as they knew- Ecolo had woken up in the middle of a pasture, staring at the constellation Cygnus directly overhead. Kind of like a UFO abduction, but in reverse, and much shittier. They just allowed themself to lie there for a little while, trying to recall anything that had happened after they finally got the courage to run, but nothing came up.
Well, Cygnus positioned at the sky's zenith meant it was still August, at least. Being a space-obsessed weirdo was doing them some favors for once! Combined with the lack of a moon… yeah, it couldn't have been more than a few days, though the precise timing was anyone's guess. That left Ecolo with just two problems, assuming they hadn't gone and broken a bunch of things while they were unconscious, and weren’t being actively hunted down by the cops.
Problem One: They had absolutely no idea where they were, and no way to figure out where they were at the moment.
Problem Two: As soon as they tried to sit up and got a good look at their hands, they realized that they were goopy, though still human shaped and not the blobby paws of their… ground state, dark as the sky with tiny cyan stars speckled across them, and emitting a faint blue glow that the spectacle of the Milky Way hanging above couldn't possibly be casting. They raised one hand to their face, and the rapid movement left a trail of small, dark bubbles in its wake, floating in the air. They were stuck somewhere in-between.
Problem Two was the kind of shit that their nightmares had been about for years now, literally, they'd had nightmares exactly like this where they were stuck in one of their less human-looking forms outside of home, and someone came across them and then had them shipped off to a shady facility. Ecolo tried to muster up the energy to look passably human, but it just wasn't there, and a sense of panic began to creep up on them. Their fluffy outfit hid a lot, but it couldn’t hide everything.
Wait- they hadn't drifted off while they were blacked out. They still had their backpack full of stuff on, including their laptop, what few belongings they had that were worth bringing, and, to their relief; money they'd managed to scrounge together that was supposed to be for the bus trip up to the college. Thank you, blacked-out Ecolo, for not leaving this behind! They told themself, allowing at least one silly thought in these dire straits.
They slowly stood up, feeling somewhat unstable, but their mind was present enough to keep their bearings straight. As long as they could just get a map to know where to go, and avoid any contact…
They took a deep breath of the fresh night air and allowed themself a moment to quietly watch the wind whip through the grass of the pasture before they started moving. Despite being stranded extremely far from home, their old life, all they'd known for so long- and knowing they could never go back again- the hope inside them blazed brightly, like a star in the void.
By the time they’d finally turned onto the ocean highway, the sun was starting to sink below the horizon. Ringo, now in the driver’s seat, took the opportunity to pull the car over onto a viewpoint and get out for a moment so everyone could stretch their legs. They’d just gone in the drive-through when they stopped for food and ate while parked in the lot. Maguro was a little sleepy, but the caffeine in Ringo’s iced tea seemed to be keeping her awake for the remainder of the drive.
“Man, I missed that smell.★” Maguro took several deep breaths of the salty ocean air and the coniferous trees surrounding them as he rested his forearms on the wall surrounding the viewpoint, and Ringo nodded in agreement, shivering a little from the cold breeze biting at the back of her neck.
“That’s the scent of the sea, alright.” She sighed. “I don’t think it hit me just how homesick I felt until now…”
Even with the sun setting behind them, Ecolo still stared out at the vast ocean in shock and awe. They sat on top of her car, wearing their backpack, the longer locks of seafoam green hair that hadn’t been trapped under their hat flitting around in the breeze. Ringo leaned against the driver’s side door, watching the ocean for a while.
“This is the first time you’ve seen it, isn’t it?” She said after a long silence.
Without speaking, Ecolo nodded.
"Dude, where the fuck have you been?!★" Maguro's voice blared through their headphones. "You've been offline for days!★" His tone was cheery and playful, but Ecolo could hear the undercurrent of distress in it.
"I'm sorry!" They apologized, even as they crouched on the roof of a building in a little town with their ancient, beat-up laptop perched on their knees, mooching off of the wi-fi signal there. They just wanted to quickly check in with the only people that seemed to give half a shit about their wellbeing anymore before they got moving again. "You're not mad, right?"
"No, I was just really worried. We pinged you to play in our sandbox session a few nights ago and you never responded, and ever since then… yeah.★" There was some empathetic chatter and agreement from the other participants of the Discord call. Now Ecolo was a little sad about missing the hangout, they had made some fun new SWEPs that they'd wanted to show off, and digging through the weird crap that people uploaded to the workshop never got old, but they reminded themself that they had something more important to focus on. "What's up? You're doing okay, right?★"
"Yeah, I'm okay. The trip has just been… um, kinda messy. I couldn't get a signal until now." They were so glad that their voice was still able to carry over in Discord, even when they were in their current state- and they were thankful that no one in the group ever turned on their cameras during voice calls, though even if they did they'd all understand Ecolo's discomfort with doing so. They'd even put a piece of opaque tape over their camera to relieve their mild paranoia.
"Are your parents giving you trouble again?!★" Maguro groaned, the poor quality of the connection making his voice cut out a few times. "Trouble" didn't even begin to describe it, Ecolo thought to themself.
"Yeah, it's, uh- " Ecolo re-checked the date listed on their computer, they already had earlier, but it confirmed that a couple days had passed since the argument, which threw a wrench in their original schedule. "I'm gonna be late moving into the dorm, I think. I'm sorry."
"No, it's cool! I haven’t actually left yet, Ringo and I are supposed to go the day after tomorrow, and it’s like a six hour car trip or something. Do you have an idea when you’ll be there?★"
"Not really." According to the map that they managed to obtain from an unoccupied information kiosk, they were still three hundred kilometers away from the town of Arca, and at least a hundred from the nearest major city that would have a bus to get them there- meaning they'd have to cover those hundred kilometers on their own, while trying to avoid people as much as they could. They had managed to get their hands on something with glucose in it- then again, that involved reluctantly breaking into an empty mart and then just leaving the money they owed on the counter, which was probably going to result in some very bizarre-looking security footage (they got out of that town quickly after that)- but they wanted to save that for the bus ride so they'd have enough energy to maintain appearances. No idea how much time all of that would take, but they were guessing it'd be an upper limit of four or five days.
"Okay, well, just stay in touch, okay? It was scary to see you vanish like that.★" Ecolo understood why- they had been a constant presence in that group for several years now, given that they had nothing else to do aside from online classes. They could be up and active at literally any time of the day, especially considering their frequent bouts of insomnia. They'd never just vanished for such a long time before, and Maguro knew more about their parental situation than anyone else there. He'd probably reasonably feared that they'd taken away Ecolo's means of communication, right before they were finally going to meet in person. “Love ya, bud.★”
“You too.”
"Now kiss!" One of the chat regulars joked.
"I'll kiss all of my homies. C'mere, Chrome, you want a smooch? A kissaroo from me to you?★" Maguro started making kissing noises into the mic, and the rest of the chat laughed.
“Hey, we made it without dying!★” Maguro cheered.
“I feel like I’m dying.” Ringo grumbled as she shut the ignition off.
Night had fallen hard by the time the car finally pulled into Suzuran, limiting the view of the city. They had skirted around the main downtown area with skyscrapers, Ringo claiming that she didn’t want to get slowed down by late-night traffic, instead aiming in a wide arc for the other side of the bay- where the old shopping district was, where Ringo and Maguro both lived. Apparently, they were literally only a street’s length apart, with the produce store on one block corner, and the fishery on the other. Ecolo couldn’t really stop themself from staring at the lily-shaped street lamps and the big, decorative arch that marked the limits of the shopping district. More than a few people walking around waved brightly at Ringo and Maguro as she drove carefully through the streets, navigating her way to her home.
Almost immediately upon pulling in, parking, and stepping out of the car, Ringo’s parents came rushing out of the front of the shop, trapping their daughter in a tight hug. An elderly woman remained at the entrance of the shop, giving a knowing smile towards Ringo. Once Maguro stepped out, the parents gave him a hug and a proud smile, too.
Ecolo, almost hoping that they wouldn’t be noticed, slipped their backpack on and quietly opened the car door. That sensation of drifting out of everything started creeping up on them again, and they closed their eyes, trying to focus. They just had to hold it together.
“Oh, Mom and Dad- this is Ecolo. That new friend I’ve been telling you about…” They heard Ringo introduce them, but the staticky feeling was getting bad enough that most of their mental attention was currently being dedicated to trying to ground themself, and they tuned out the rest of what Ringo said. They just gave a brief nod in her parents’ direction, feeling guilty about maybe coming off as rude, but they really didn’t want their first physical impression to be collapsing into a puddle of dissociative anxiety.
Thank god that either Ringo briefed her parents on the dumpster fire that was their mental health, or that they were picking up on their tension, because they heard her mom say “You kids are probably tired from all that driving, huh? Ringo, why don’t you show Ecolo where the guest room is, and your father and I will help bring all the stuff inside and get Maguro to his place?”
“Yeah, that’s perfect. Thank you so much, Mom.” Ringo grabbed Ecolo’s hand and gently tugged them towards the entrance of the store, stopping for a moment to give her elderly grandmother a hug, who smiled at Ecolo with a friendly warmth. She led them behind the store counter and up a set of stairs.
“Are you alright?” She gently asked once they reached the top.
“I’m- I-” They stuttered, and then they felt themself slip a little, their hand turning into the night sky in Ringo’s hand. She looked a tiny bit alarmed before her expression relaxed. “...Not right now. But I’ll be okay.”
Ringo squeezed their hand in reassurance, and led them further into the warmly-lit house above the store.
So, as it turned out, showing up somewhere out of the blue and claiming to be a particular person with no identification to speak of could get you into a lot of trouble.
Ecolo was also reasonably sure that they were one disapproving look from a stranger away from having a full-blown breakdown as they sat, clinging to their backpack in their lap like their last anchor at sea in the campus security office, trying their damndest to keep their shit together when a man walked into the room.
They didn’t even notice him at first, actually. They were too busy spacing out badly enough that the outside world more or less stopped existing as they coiled around their own psyche telling themself just keep it together over and over again until the mantra became a droning buzz.
“Ecolo?”
They accidentally let out a mortifyingly high-pitched squeak as the voice startled them back into reality. The man had knelt down to match their eye level where they were sitting, doing his best to appear friendly and unintimidating with a gentle smile on his face.
Hey, this guy didn’t deadname them, though! That was nice! That had happened a few times while they were getting questioned by the security staff, and it definitely didn’t help the feelings of clipping out their own body. Then they got a closer look at him; tan skin, golden eyes, silverish hair and an almost stereotypically awful college professor outfit, right down to the suspenders and bowtie.
“I’m Ex Magellan, head of the Physics Department.” He introduced himself, holding out his hand to shake, and Ecolo watched their body automatically respond to said handshake in kind with a nonchalance that would probably disturb anyone else. “Just “Ex” is fine. Would you mind coming with me? You aren’t in trouble. I assure you.”
Did Ecolo actually believe him? They weren’t entirely sure, but he’d been the nicest person to talk to them so far. They blankly stood up, shouldered their backpack again, and wandered after him as he led them out of the office and down a hall. As they walked, though, they couldn’t help but notice he was watching the way that they walked out of the corner of his eye with a look of slight intrigue on his face, and their chest- where hidden under layers of clothes, that blue sparkly core-thing that felt most like “them” rested- started to ache again. They weren’t going to get out of this any easy way.
The professor led them into a small, isolated meeting room with a view outside, and Ecolo internally debated on whether or not they should just make a run for it through the glass as the door closed behind them.
“Why don’t you take a seat? Would you like any coffee?” Ex asked as he took a seat on one side of the table. Ecolo shook their head as they nervously scooted into an empty seat, still clinging to their backpack, and he hummed. Why did he offer coffee when there’s none here?, they quietly wondered to themself.
He then snapped his fingers, and a french roast coffee pot and an empty mug with a “#4 Dad” decal appeared before him. Ecolo stared pointedly as Ex poured a large quantity of black coffee into the mug before taking a long sip.
“How has your day been?” He asked, and Ecolo would have loved to respond with “Total shit.”, but they managed to restrain themself and instead replied quietly with, “Okay.”
Ex seemed to conclude that the small talk approach wasn’t going to go anywhere, and he decided to cut straight to the point as he opened a laptop. “We’ve looked through our accepted applicants for this year, and there is a- and forgive me, based on my conversation with security I don’t believe you use this name anymore, so I won’t either, but there is someone with your birth name registered as a freshman with us. Last name Laplace, first initial [ ]?"
“Yep.” It was a little easier to focus and feel real in this quiet room, away from other prying eyes, and Ex gave them a strangely comforting feeling despite the situation they were in.
“But you have no form of identification on you. And let me just check again- no birth certificate, no government-issued ID… no passport?”
“I’ve never traveled.”
“Driver’s license?”
“Can’t drive.” Ecolo sheepishly admitted.
“Not even a credit card? Or an old school ID?”
“I don’t have- well, I did high school online. I don’t know what happened to my middle school ID, but I don’t even look like that anymore.” They averted their eyes from Ex’s gaze.
“That’s correct.” Ex remarked, looking at his own laptop. “The last existing public record of you lists you as being thirteen years old, and I agree, this child looks nothing like you.” He turned the screen towards them, and they cringed a little internally; he was showing an online upload of a yearbook from their old middle school, turned to a particular page. They immediately took notice of one particular kid, an androgynous girl with short, thick, unkempt blond-white hair, gray eyes with dark pupils, coated in freckles, stuck in a stuffy-looking uniform and smiling mischievously at the camera. They just barely recognized her, like a faint memory of a relative met only once or twice. Under that picture-
[ ] Laplace
"This is the last public record of this child’s existence. No mentions of them anywhere else. Except-” Ex switched to his next tab, and Ecolo’s heart felt like it plunged through the fucking floor.
A missing person’s report for the same name, filed just over a week prior. No photo provided. The physical description was vague at best, but it matched them. It described “her” as having suddenly run away from home- and there was a reward for information, promising enough money to make them shift uncomfortably in their chair.
Ex met their eyes again as they stared at him in desperate panic.
“There is a five-year gap between that yearbook and this report. For five years, you have not existed in the public eye, in any records to be found whatsoever. As far as the world cares, you vanished when you were thirteen, and only reappeared now, looking nothing like you did before.”
“Ecolo Laplace- what happened to that child? What happened to you?”
Ringo’s family was distressingly nice to Ecolo. They weren’t sure how to react to any of it.
But they noticed that both parents and the grandmother skipped all of the usual get-to-know-you pleasantries; like asking where they were from, what they’d done in their life, how their family was, stuff like that. They quietly wondered how much Ringo had told her parents about them and their very messy familial situation. Not that they felt bothered or betrayed or anything like that, just sort of… embarrassed. But also-
“You have brothers?” They said with surprise, despite staring said brothers directly in the face.
“Yes.” Ringo grumbled with irritation as two similar-looking tall boys stood behind her, the blond one holding her hostage in a hug that left her legs dangling off the ground. “Yu, knock it off.”
“But we missed our baby sister! You didn’t even tell us that you finally got a date.” The other boy teased, this one with dark auburn hair.
“We’re not da-” She cut herself off, and huffed. “It’s not really dating, per se. And he’s just staying for winter break, don’t be weird about it.”
“Sure, and when I see you two playing tongue guitar while you think no one’s looking, I’ll start playing Careless Whisp-” Yu crowed, and Ringo took it upon herself to shock him hard enough that he finally dropped her, and Ecolo did their best to stifle a laugh. “OW! You little shit!”
“Ringo, don’t shock your brothers!” Her mom Anzu called from the kitchen. “Not unless we need a defibrillator.”
“They’re picking on me in front of Ecolo!” She shouted back as she hid behind Ecolo, using them as a meat shield against the older twins. Anzu laughed.
Yu’s hair stood directly on end as he shook the static out of his arms. “Can’t help myself. It’s my legal obligation to embarrass Ringo at every opportunity I get.” He then did a short bow to a bewildered Ecolo, and his twin followed suit. “Yuzuki Ando.”
“Hotaka Ando. Pleasure to meet you.” The other boy introduced himself. Ecolo awkwardly bowed back.
“Hey, do you dye your hair? That color’s crazy vibrant.” Yu- no, Yuzuki- remarked, and Ecolo noticed that even though his hair was golden blond, his roots were the same brown as Hotaka’s. “What dye brand do you use?”
“Uhh…” Ecolo trailed off. “It’s just like this.”
Yuzuki’s eyes widened. “Damn, I’m jealous. Ringo stole all the good hair genes in our family. And the magic genes.” Anzu came out of the kitchen to give her sons a hug, even while Ringo still glared in Yuzuki’s direction and all he had to offer back was a knowing smile.
“How has business been at the grain company?” Anzu asked.
“Just fine. I’m pretty sick of looking at Excel spreadsheets, though. Two weeks of holiday is more than welcome.” Yuzuki laughed, and Hotaka nodded in agreement while smiling. “We should be getting our profit bonuses soon, though. And speaking of that…”
As the twins pulled Anzu into a conversation about profits, Ringo dragged Ecolo away down the hall, holding hands, but not before Yuzuki could whistle in her direction and she could flip the bird in response.
“I’m gonna kill him.” She grumbled as they both ducked into her room and she tossed herself on her bed. Free from the vicinity of uninformed eyes, Ecolo let themself float off the ground and sighed in relief as Ringo spoke up again. “Yeah, I didn’t think to tell you, sorry. They’re usually away most of the year, but I didn’t realize they were gonna come and visit so soon.” Ringo frowned at their sudden quietness. “What’s up with you?”
“I think I’m just surprised?” They twirled a lock of hair around their finger as they thought. “I mean, I just never really think about siblings. Or people having siblings.”
“Only child?” Ringo asked, and they nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. I mean… they drive me up the wall every chance they get, but they definitely made sure I wasn’t lonely as a kid. I think Hotaka knocked some guy’s front teeth out for harassing me once in middle school.” She giggled. “Got in a whole world of trouble for that…” Then, she frowned. “...You didn’t get bullied, did you?”
“Um…” They tried to think back. A lot of stuff from elementary and middle school was pretty hazy, but they did remember…
“Less that I got bullied, and more that people just… acted like I wasn’t there.”
The fact that they were able to keep it together was frankly, kind of an achievement on their end. Congratulations on putting off your mental breakdown!
It still left them between a rock and a hard place, though. Ex didn’t seem to have malicious intent, but they had no idea what his goal was here. It was very likely that they had to trust him whether they liked it or not, because he was pinpointing their past with precision, only unable to uncover the gigantic gap that existed between five years ago and now. But could they really trust him? Could they really tell him what had happened to them, what their life had been like up until now?
“It’s okay.” Ex’s expression softened. “Whatever personal details you disclose can be kept confidentially with administration- we're only trying to verify that you really are who you say you are. Nothing more.” Strangely enough, Ex didn’t give Ecolo the “run for your life” signals that they were anticipating. But they were still hesitant to tell him anything substantial, especially given the reward on the missing report. Anything you say could be used against you. And money was a very tempting force.
“I lived at home for all of high school.” Ecolo explained. “I never left the house, didn’t have any friends, I was kinda just a classic shut-in. I didn’t want to leave. So yeah, no jobs or after-school activities or anything.”
“Yet you traveled hundreds of kilometers alone after running away and being reported missing, just to reach this town, to presumably attend college by yourself, despite “not wanting to leave home”?” Ex raised an eyebrow, and Ecolo immediately knew that he was seeing through their bullshit. “Being an agoraphobe takes years to overcome, not days. Perhaps it was not that you didn’t want to leave your home, but you couldn't leave?”
Okay, yeah, they had to tell him whether they wanted to or not. “Yes.” They guiltily confessed.
“May I ask why?” Ecolo fell silent for several seconds after that question, wondering if it was okay to tell him. They'd never told anyone else about this, after all.
“I got into an accident when I was younger.” They said, “Where I…”
…Funnily enough, they couldn’t remember the accident itself, but they were told that they "fell off" of something, maybe a building, while behaving carelessly. They vaguely remembered what happened before, and absolutely remembered what happened after, but not anything in-between. No pertinent recollection, like someone had taken the tape of memory of that moment and hopelessly scrambled the magnetic signal within until it gave off nothing more than junk static. And no one ever told them how a fall injury could have caused-
“…I fell off of something tall and got hurt.” They put it simply, after trailing off for a while, realizing they'd zoned out while thinking about the gap in their memory. “I wasn’t allowed to leave after that.”
“Placing a teenager under house arrest over a simple accident seems quite extreme.” Ex remarked, and when he put it that way, Ecolo had to agree with him. “What about your magic?”
Their chest trembled again. “I-what?”
“Sorry, but you’re not fooling me. I can tell from your aura alone that you have some of the most potent, powerful magic I’ve ever seen.” Ex remarked. “It’s practically suffocating me over here.” He chuckled, leaning back in his chair a little. “I’m honestly a little shocked that you’re not in the Magical Studies program- you’re an astrophysics major, correct? Or perhaps your antigravity abilities are what generated your interest in astrophysics?”
“H-How can you-??”
“The way you walk.” Ex explained, saving Ecolo from trying to choke out the words. “You have an unusual gait that suggests to me that gravity isn’t a very effective force on your body, almost like you’re pushing yourself towards the ground but it’s not quite enough. Plus, the backpack. I assume that’s the only thing keeping you down here talking to me right now.”
Fucking physics professors.
Well, he'd caught them red-handed, Ecolo couldn’t exactly make any convincing argument against that. They glanced at the door, then at the window, checking that no one else was looking before they took their hat off. All of the soft cyan hair that was normally trapped underneath started floating around them, like they were submerged in water. Ex did not seem surprised in the slightest.
"Good job," They sarcastically said, trying to not get choked up. "You found the monster that [ ] became." The name hurt to say, but they felt like they deserved it for failing to keep their secrets, gripping their hat tightly in their hand. "You win. Are you going to send me home, or are you gonna hand me over to the government?"
Ex's face dropped into an absolutely horrified expression. "W-what? No! No, not at all, you're not a monster, you're fae-!"
What?
"I don't… really… know what that is." They softly admitted. Ex's expression, in response, slipped from horror to an emotion that Ecolo couldn't even describe.
"You… don't know about the fae…"
Ecolo knew about magic. Some people had it, some people didn't. They faintly recalled being at the doctor as a child, listening while the physician told their parents they had a lot of magical potential and it could cause some issues in the future, and their parents fretting in response. But magic was, like… it was something that meant some people could have careers as sorcerers, not something that would turn people into gravity-defying, shapeshifting-
"They're magical entities that seem to come from another plane of existence and can appear anywhere from human to totally nonhuman. They've had a long history of intermingling with humans, kept mostly secret until the introduction of global communication. While many humans are capable of minor magical feats, a small percentage of the global population possesses fae heritage that gives them stronger powers. A lot of the research is still ongoing…" Ex kept the exposition brief, then looked pointedly at Ecolo. “I’d assume you have a fae somewhere in your immediate family, given that powerful magic usually arises from immediacy in the bloodline; and a natural aptitude for magic, but that’s really… extremely strange to me that you wouldn’t know any of that to begin with.”
That answered a small handful of questions and created many, many more new ones. There was a word for… this? What they were? Maybe. And it was normal, or at least, it was a recognized phenomenon?
"From what I understand, that "accident" of yours likely awakened your latent magical powers, and you were forbidden from leaving home afterwards. That area of the country is notorious for being pretty conservative. Even still, it's not like magic is totally unknown around that area, putting a kid under house arrest for showing a lot of potential and getting in an accident doesn't make a lick of sense…" Ex sighed. "And you only just now got the courage to leave and come to Arca, but you didn't bring anything identifying with you. Normally in these situations, we contact the student's parents and ask them to provide identifying documentation…"
The moment he said parents was the moment that Ecolo began to tune out the rest of his words, everything he said afterwards became listless background noise as their thoughts started to move at a million miles per hour. If he got into touch with their parents while they were missing, almost certainly they were going to force them to come home, to go with those scientists who they said would "help" them, even though Ecolo's gut instinct told them that they wanted nothing more than to pick them apart and see what made them tick. They were going to lose everything they'd fought for all because they hadn't known they would need an ID to get into the college, and that was frankly really really stupid of Ecolo on their part, of course they'd need identification, yet their practical sensibility had more or less vanished over the years, and, and-
“I- I can’t see them again. Please,” They begged Ex, as they stood up without thinking, a hand on the desk. “Don’t make me go back.”
Ex stared at them in shock as they stared back desperately, floating off the ground, their skin dissolving into dark liquid until it comprised anything exposed and left behind voids in the shape of a person.
Almost immediately, Ecolo realized that they’d not only accidentally lost their fully human appearance, but that what they were doing now could be taken as a threat, and they grabbed at their own chest in terror. Oh, they had fucked up so badly.
"I'm sor-!"
Ex put his hands on their shoulders, cutting them off, and he looked them square in the eyes. Every single racing, panicked thought in their head came to a screeching halt when it suddenly registered to them that they’d completely forgotten what the pressure of human touch felt like.
"Ecolo." Ex spoke softly, like he was coaxing a scared cat to come out of hiding. "It's going to be okay. We're not going to send you home. Breathe."
He gently pushed them back down into the chair and handed them the backpack that had fallen to the floor. They grabbed onto it tightly and buried their face in the fabric of their hoodie, trying to soothe themself.
"To tell you the truth, the school security asked me specifically to investigate this situation. We certainly don't get students with immense magical power that claim to be currently missing people turning up at our doorstep every day." Ex chuckled to himself, taking another sip of coffee as he leaned on the desk. "I'm a father myself, you know. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I sent a kid back to a home like that. Well- you're legally an adult, but you know what I mean." He hummed thoughtfully, before speaking while indicating to them. “This is why you weren’t allowed out, I presume?”
Ecolo nodded, with tears welling in their eyes, trying to focus on the present again. Ex seemed deeply frustrated for a moment as he stared at the wall behind them.
“Parents don’t get to choose who their children will become. Trying to mold them into a desired shape is foolish, and just brings them pain in the end.” He shook his head. “Anyways… the school has a wealth of resources for magic users and fae. Financial aid, disability aids, health and counseling. Arca is famous for a very magically diverse student body and excellent thaumaturgy programs, and the current dean has heavily emphasized that, so trust me when I say that you're not alone whatsoever. There’s help available.”
They nodded again, quickly this time.
“You’re a good kid. I can tell that much.” He smiled warmly at them. “I wouldn’t worry about the documentation for now; you’re properly enrolled, after all, and I'm certain that you're who you claim to be. We’ll get all that sorted out on our end. then you’ll get your student I.D. Sounds good?”
“Yeah.” Ecolo softly said. They found it in themself to look Ex in the eye for a moment, giving him a grateful nod. “Thanks.”
“It’s my job. Don’t mention it. Once you’re ready, just talk to the security staff again, and they’ll show you which dorm is yours.” He said as he stood, dismissing the laptop and coffee pot and bringing the mug with him to the door, then exited the room, allowing Ecolo to have some time to gather their composure again. As he roamed the labyrinthe halls of the administrative complex to report his findings to the right people, he nearly walked directly into a tall woman with thick, curly purple hair and an elegant blue outfit.
“How did it go?” Professor Accord quietly asked with a smile.
“Have you ever heard the saying “truth is stranger than fiction”?” Ex remarked in response, stopping to talk, and Accord tilted her head ever-so-serenely. “I can’t even tell what kind of fae they could be, and they’ve got an unbelievable amount of magic power, to boot. Haven’t felt anything like that since those Nadja twins enrolled here and turned out to be direct descendants of the Ecliptic. I don’t get the impression that they intend any harm, though, but the poor kid really needs some counseling.” He finished off the rest of his coffee; he was going to need the caffeine.
“Mmm. I suppose that’s what the Student Health Center is for.”
“You’re not concerned about their magical potential at all?” Ex raised an eyebrow.
Accord giggled, her cat puppet tucked in the crook of her arm. “Trust me, Doctor Magellan, when I say that we’ve got quite the interesting pool of freshmen coming in this year. Let me tell you about a new thaumaturgy student I had a meeting with the other day, who dreams of being a wonderful sorceress…”
“I think you might be a little too good at this.”
Maguro shifted and tapped the control sticks and buttons of the UFO catcher as he laughed maniacally. “Me? Too good at something? Nahhh. Totally not up to my neck in crap I’ve won from the catchers here already.★”
Ecolo looked at the backpack he had set on the floor, already stuffed to the gills with plushies and keychains and trinkets that he’d snagged from other machines. They’d made the mistake of remarking about the contents of the various machines in Suzuran’s big downtown arcade being pretty cute, and with a declaration of “Watch this.★”, it had all been a downward spiral into plushie hell from there as Maguro made a point of fishing anything that caught Ecolo’s eye out of the catchers for them to keep. He seemed to be having the time of his life showing off his skill to them, at least, which they noted as they watched other people try and fail to earn anything out of the catchers, then turn to gawk at Maguro’s talent.
Was this supposed to be a date? Maybe. Maguro hadn’t said anything about it. Either way, they were still having a lot of fun.
"And you beat the snot out of me in Strive earlier. It's not fair." They whined.
"Hey, your Jack-O is kinda nutty already. Some more combo practice, and you could be really scary with her.★" Maguro hit the large green button with great confidence.
The claw dragged a little space-esque gradient fluffy thing across the chasm of plushies before dropping the prize into a hole on the side, making a soft thunk as it hit the bottom. “Another successful hole-in-one.★” Maguro said, grinning as Ecolo knelt down to grab the plush toy out of the chute. They picked it up and looked at its happy little face, with blue cheeks and simple eyes.
“What is this, actually?”
“It’s a Gen 7 Pokemon called Cosmog. Reminds me of you.★” He chuckled, and they cracked a smile and blushed in response. That was probably being a little generous, this plushie was really cute. “Are you ready to call it a night? I gave myself a limit of thirty dollars and that’s all out now.★”
“Yeah, I think so.” The excitement of the day had worn them down, and sleep sounded really tempting. They beamed happily at the plushie.
“Alright, sick. The bus comes every half hour, so we might be waiting a while. Or we could get Ringo to pick us up, but she probably doesn’t wanna use gas for that.★” Maguro zipped up the bag as best as he could, considering it was crammed full of stuff, letting Ecolo carry that one plushie that had no way of fitting inside. They both began walking towards the entrance of the arcade, but something suddenly occurred to Maguro.
“Oh, hang on, I gotta use the bathroom really quick. Wait here.★” Maguro took a sharp turn to a hallway on the right, ducking into the men’s bathroom.
With nothing to really entertain themself with, Ecolo held onto the little plushie and let their gaze wander to the movement of a TV screen stationed by the bathroom hallway. They were out pretty late, all things considered, and the evening news had passed a while ago. Now, there was just an interview of some kind being broadcasted, nothing interesting, and their attention began to wander elsewhere-
Hold on.
They did a double-take towards one of the people on the screen, the interviewee. If the video quality had been worse, and if the camera hadn’t been focused on her, they wouldn’t have even noticed, but they recognized the dark, dull clothes she was wearing. They’d seen them dozens of times. In growing horror, they analyzed her other features- that platinum blond, almost white hair, pale skin, the look of exhaustion in her gray eyes. They were so focused on her that they barely noticed the subtitles of what she was saying, but once the words began to register to them, they started feeling sick, wounds they’d tried to bury ripping open again.
[Well, these last few years have been very hard.] The subtitles read, and the blond woman on the screen looked both sad and frustrated. [I’ve practically turned the world upside-down looking for some kind of treatment or cure, but nothing. And it just horrified me to know that my sweet little [ ] suffered all that time with that- body, and those strange powers. She just kept getting worse, more antisocial, even though she knew we were working so hard to help her, she started talking to these other kids online and getting all these strange ideas. And then she ran away, literally just vanished before our eyes three months ago. We do know where she is, and we’ve tried to convince her to come home, but…]
Their core spun violently and thrummed within them, threatening to twist and tear their body apart on the spot. Even now they could feel the energy burning inside, literally raising the heat of their surroundings, as their entire being screamed at them to run, run far away, until nothing could find them ever again. But they couldn’t even move- they were entranced. Their mind was sinking through the floor.
[It’s almost like, all those years ago, the child that I loved was taken from me and replaced with something… wrong.]
Someone’s hand grabbed theirs, someone said their name. They looked at a boy with soft purple hair that covered his eyes, and they didn’t recognize him.
“Hey, uh, can I talk to you about something real quick?”
Ecolo was more than happy to take a break from mind-numbing calculus differentials, and they turned to face Maguro from their desk. “What’s up, Mags?”
“I just… want to get something off my chest, I guess.” Maguro awkwardly scratched the back of his neck as he sat on the edge of his bed, and Ecolo suddenly realized how weird he was acting, kind of shrinking into himself, his cheeks were tinted pink, and the sparkle that his voice always had was absent. They were completely baffled as to what any of this meant, or what he was going to say, and they squinted as they spoke.
"I-um- are you… okay?"
“God, okay, I just need to spit it out." Maguro took a deep breath, gripping at his chest. "I’ve been crushing on you pretty hard. For… a really long time. And I know you probably don't feel the same way, and I don't want this to fuck up our friendship, but I had to say it or else I felt like I was gonna explode.”
Ecolo blinked.
The GMod group had been joking for months that Maguro had "a thing" for Ecolo. They didn't really know what exactly that meant, and they had a lot of other things to worry about, so they just ignored it and eventually forgot about it entirely. They were friends, close friends, were you not supposed to tell your friends that you loved them, or that you wanted to spend time with them…?
It was at this moment that the realization finally whacked Ecolo upside the head; that Maguro was coming on a little stronger than what was likely normal for a close friend. But-
"Why?"
Now it was Maguro's turn to go speechless, and he sputtered for a few seconds, trying to gather his words again.
"W-what do you mean, why?!"
"Why do you like me that way?" Maybe asking questions about why someone was attracted to someone else wasn't exactly the best idea, they realized a little bit too late, but they genuinely had no idea why Maguro would have a crush on them. After all…
“I mean, shit, dude. I’d been crushing on you since we started spending a lot of time playing together, and like, the more time I spent with you, the worse it got. And then I met you in person and you’re pretty as hell, and my dumb bisexual ass is like “damn, this isn’t fair”. Like I know you don’t swing that way- or any way, but I just- I dunno. I couldn’t keep going without saying something.” He mumbled, fidgeting with his hands.
“But…” Ecolo’s voice quieted. “You know I don't actually look like-”
"That? But that's how you want to look, right?"
"...Yeah. But it's like- it's still a fake appearance. And under that…"
Maguro sighed. “Look. If the fae stuff had negatively affected my feelings like, at all, I wouldn’t be having this conversation. And it’s not just how you look, it’s, like… everything about you. I could make a whole list, but I doubt you want me to sit here and embarrass you for five minutes straight. Or five minutes gay.” Ecolo cracked a smile, feeling a little better, and Maguro grinned at his own joke, face flushed red, before continuing.
“And I mean, it’s not like I’m not used to magic. Most of our friends have magic, some great-grandma of mine was a sea siren and people’s brains get thrown into a tailspin if they look into my eyes, Amitie’s got angel wings and Sig’s got a giant demon claw for an arm, and god only knows what Risukuma really is. Like, I know the sticks you came from all have a huge issue with magic or some shit, but that’s not what everywhere else is like, I promise.” He sighed again, massaging his eyes as he leaned over on his bed. “I’m sorry, I just…”
Ecolo frowned, not sure how to comfort Maguro or alleviate his stress, given that they were the object of the affection he was currently stressing over in the first place. But it was- well, he was right, they didn’t really swing any way. Zero interest in anything to do with intimacy; the entire concept of maintaining a serious relationship sounded exhausting. Who would want to have to constantly talk to the same person, say that they loved them, go on dates and all of these other weird little things that just didn’t seem to hold any real significance or meaning? So much work, and from what they could tell, people got dumped in the end most of the time. “Love”, or at least the popular definition of love, just seemed to hurt anyone who looked for it.
Yet… they felt like they still wanted something. That awful night a few weeks prior, the only reason they’d been able to get any sleep at all was because Ringo had been with them. She made them feel safe, like she was going to do whatever she could to make sure they would be safe, no matter how they appeared to her. She consistently made them feel like they belonged somewhere for once.
And Maguro gave them that same feeling; he accepted everything about them without a second thought, even the things that they themself still weren’t able to truly get past. They smoothly slid out of their chair, then kicked off of it for momentum, floating over to Maguro’s side.
“I like you.” They started. “Not in the same way you like me, but I like you.”
“Like the way you like Ringo.” Maguro said, leaning his head on one of his hands.
“Yeah.” Ecolo nodded. "I feel happy when I'm with you…" It felt a little stupid to describe it as simply as that, but they didn't have a graceful way with words or anything. "I feel safe, I guess, around both of you."
Maguro looked up at them, and they smiled back, letting themself sink slightly closer to him.
"Honestly… that's probably all I could really ask for. For someone I love to feel safe around me." Maguro blushed, but he was grinning. "Thanks, Eco. That makes me feel a lot better.★"
Ecolo reached out to give him a hug, and Maguro accepted, pulling them closer and burying his face into their jacket. They didn't realize how nice he smelled until then; like salt, but fresh salt, like open air.
“Amitie’s polyamory is a bad influence on us.★” He chuckled as he let go.
Ecolo laughed in a mixture of amusement and confusion while they floated in front of him. “I'm sorry, what?!”
“Bro, have you not seen her? She’s already got a boyfriend and I’ve literally watched her flirt with multiple other people, including Ringo- fuck, I’m pretty sure she’s flirted with you before.★” Ecolo was more or less oblivious to this type of thing until someone had to literally spell it out for them. “She’s like a reverse Cupid where she just makes everyone fall in love with her instead of with each other. Is college just about dying during exams and getting into relationships with all of your friends? ‘Cus it feels that way.★” He scooted back onto his bed and swiped his phone open. "God, I'm tired.★"
"Then go to sleep!"
"It's not even midnight yet, though.★" He started rapidly typing on his phone.
"And that's why you have a caffeine problem." They smugly responded.
"Damn. You got me there. Alright, I'll go to bed.★" Maguro smirked. "Thanks. I'm just… relieved that I could get that off my mind.★" He laid down on his pillow and sighed. “Boyfriend, best friend, whatever- I’m just happy you’re with me.★”
A voice kept pounding in their cotton-stuffed head, muted and warbling as it hammered at their drifting consciousness, yelling the same word over and over again.
“Ecolo! Eco, please- wake up! Please!”
Right, that was their name. Not [ ], not anymore. Someone was trying to talk to them- even shaking their body around to get their attention. Their eyes flicked open.
It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the huge blue nebula surrounding them, and they wondered if they were in a dream. It was all so surreal and weird, they felt empty and hazy, like someone had cranked their typical mental floatiness up to the maximum. They just stared forward blankly, and as they considered what any of this meant, their eyes adjusted again to see the big thing in front of them partially blocking their vision. Even though the dim light didn’t make it easy to see details, they recognized it.
“Mags?” They softly said.
Maguro sharply inhaled, his fingers digging into their shoulders. “You’re awake! Shit. Are you okay? You-you, you were watching that blond lady on the screen, and you just…” For some bizarre reason, he seemed really tall, even though he was definitely the shorter one of the two.
They’d blacked out again- their consciousness had checked out when they became too overwhelmed by their own emotions, after seeing-
“That was my mom.” Not even an “I think”. That had been her.
All of the color in Maguro’s face drained out at once. “Fuck me.” He mumbled. “Seriously? That was-” Ecolo nodded, and then Maguro looked like he was going to start seeing red, before shaking his head, trying to get himself to relax, loosening his death grip.
“Maguro, you-” Ecolo raised their hands up, ready to comfort him, and then they realized they were having trouble seeing their own body in front of the darkness of space, and their chest tightened again, making them shiver in fear. They glanced down to see their core exposed, spinning and sparking violently, and they felt sickly cold.
The reality of the situation hit them all at once- where were they? No way that this was literally outer space, but then where-? Had they stranded themself here with poor Maguro in tow?!
They recalled seeing her visage on that screen, the pity-garnering sadness on her face, and realized that she stopped loving them once they became something that she could no longer acknowledge as her own child.
There wasn’t anywhere that they could go to escape the flood of emotions that hit them this time; fear, grief, anger, loneliness, feelings that felt like they were stolen from other people in a body that felt borrowed, yet were wholly their own. With nowhere to run or hide and nothing to fight, nothing they could do to cope with it anymore, they let the flow drown them. As they finally cried in front of someone else for the first time in years, their sobs being swallowed up by the huge void, Maguro pulled them into a tight hug, taking deep breaths as he did so. Even that wasn't able to completely quell the rush of emotion and memory, everything that they'd been holding back.
Their perception of time was poor at best; they had no idea how long they floated there, crying until they practically had a splitting headache. The pressure of Maguro’s touch squished into their arms; they barely registered the sensation.
"Just let it out." He quietly said. "It's gonna be okay."
A million different what-ifs came bursting out all at once, practically incomprehensible. What if we can't get out of here? What if they come for me again? What if I end up hurting you? What if they hurt you? What if it's not going to be okay? How was he so confident in knowing that things were going to end up okay for them when there wasn't even anyone who could love them anymore?
"Hey." He tilted their head up with a hand to look them in the eyes. "Ringo loves you. Amitie, Tee, Ris, Ally and Rafi, they all love you. Our online friends love you. I love you. Okay? Everything is going to be okay." He patted them on the back, still embracing them tightly.
I’m scared. They felt lost somewhere in the back of their mind.
Maguro put his hand on their core, not even flinching from the bursts of light emanating from it. “It’s okay to be scared. Be here with me.”
Somehow, that action alone jolted Ecolo forward, back into a moment that felt solid and real, and they gasped. It felt like they’d finally woken up fully into the present, completely aware of everything around them, and their spiraling came to a grinding halt. They blinked, a little bewildered. Maguro smiled back at them, and they noticed his face was streaked with tears.
“...What’d you just do?”
“No clue.” He moved his hand away. “How’re you feeling?”
“Here. And sad.” The sudden jolt of awareness was dissipating now, but it was leaving them back at their usual only slightly out-of-it baseline mood and not with the feeling of falling out of the world. The sadness ached, but it didn’t hurt to feel.
Maguro nodded, then the corner of his mouth twitched. “I can't believe your mom tried to get you abducted twice and then had the audacity to go on television and call it "convincing". Jesus.” He shook his head. “I didn't know how bad it really was. I’m so sorry."
"That… wha-?"
"I saw it, just for a second earlier. I think you were thinking about it. When you finally left them a few months ago, I'm guessing?"
"You did?!" They cringed, hard, they hated projecting their thoughts like that onto other people. "I'm-"
"Shh. Relax. I'm not mad." He said, holding them close. "Well, not at you. " He narrowed his barely-visible eyes in no particular direction. "There's a white woman I'd love to start a fistfight with right now." Ecolo let out a tiny laugh at the idea of Maguro and their mom- no, she wasn't really their mom, and their dad wasn't their dad, not if neither would acknowledge their real self as their child. But they imagined Maguro trying to start a fight with both of them in some abandoned parking lot, and it was at least a little funny. Maguro smiled with relief.
"I think you'd win."
"Fuck yeah I would, if it's for the sake of my sort-of boyfriend. Bet I could win against your dad, too. And if Ringo was there? We'd smoke 'em." He grinned. They were almost surprised at how casually he'd declared their sort-of relationship status, but they didn't mind it.
"How do you put up with this zero-gravity shit all of the time?" Maguro asked after a moment of quiet, loosening the hug. "I can't tell which way's up and which way's down. It's really weird."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just disoriented." He admitted. "Man, no salary in the world would ever make me want to be an astronaut. I'll stay put on Earth, thank you." Maguro looked off into the distance. “The view’s pretty, though. Do you think this is your, like, "safe" space? Maybe a bit literal on the space part." He laughed a little, trying to be the emotional anchor for Ecolo.
"Maybe…" There was a good chance he was right; they didn't feel scared of this place at all. The sight of the stellar cloud interspersed with stars was a bizarrely comforting one, even though they didn’t recognize this particular nebula at all. Did they come here every time they blacked out?
“Hold on. I’m gonna try and…” Maguro let the hug go, just holding their hand now. Ecolo closed their eyes to focus as best they could now that they were calm, letting their magic flood their system and rework it into a different, but still familiar shape, the matter of their body being redistributed. When they opened and closed their free hand a few times, and it felt like a hand and not a weird paw, they sighed in relief and looked back at Maguro’s weirdly mischievous smile.
"Like the frog becoming the prince.★" He gave them a sharp grin. "Except you go from being adorable to pretty.★"
"Have you always been this flirty?!" Ecolo stammered. Their face might as well have been a space heater from how hot their cheeks felt. How oblivious were they to not notice him crushing on them before he admitted it himself?
"When I want to be. And when there's no one around to judge me for it.” Somehow his grin managed to stretch further. “Plus the pink stuff in your eyes makes heart shapes when I do it and it's cute.★"
Their core flickered inside them. "Wait, you're kidding, right?"
"You wish I was kidding.★" And with that, their body temperature felt like it skyrocketed out of embarrassment. Now they wondered how many times they’d done that without even realizing when they were around either Ringo or Maguro, and felt a bit mortified. "You ready to get out of here?★"
"I-I don't think I know how."
"Yeah, you do.★" He smiled at them reassuringly. "If you've gotten in here before, then you've gotten out. You just gotta have faith in yourself.★"
Have faith in themself… okay. This place felt like it was "lower" than before, somehow. So if they just went "up"-
The first thing they definitely heard was the sound of boxes falling and Maguro hacking and coughing from somewhere below. The second thing they heard was him saying " Ow. Jesus. Ugh, does anyone ever dust in here?", and then he sneezed loudly, twice in a row, echoing around the space. There was light coming from somewhere but it was too dark to see anything.
After that, they heard multiple footsteps going down some stairs, then someone loudly kicking a door open, and then the lights properly came on, illuminating the clouds of billowing dust in the room.
Ringo, in her pajamas and with her hair down, had a deadly glare on her face that immediately vanished once she saw exactly who was making a racket in what appeared to be one of the storage rooms for the greengrocer. "Maguro, Ecolo; what the fuck?"
"I-" Maguro sneezed again, violently, then held up a finger in protest. "I swear I can explain."
"One of you better explain." She snapped, a little spooked from the sudden intrusion. Both of her parents curiously poked their heads past the door and stared at the two of them in awe and confusion.
"How'd they even get back there?" Anzu mumbled.
"Shit happened.” Maguro began, a little frantically. “We saw Ecolo's mom-"
"WHAT?" Ringo shrieked, the curls in her hair momentarily straightening out from shock.
"Not in person, on some fuckin' TV talk show complaining about how hard her life is or whatever because her kid didn’t turn out the way she wanted." Maguro clarified. "Either way, it was enough to-"
"I'm sorry." Ecolo quickly spoke up, holding onto a shelf above him.
"Stop apologizing for being traumatized." Maguro bluntly said. "Anyways, it triggered him and he did that teleporting thing that you told us about."
"Oh, no…" Anzu clutched at her apron as she walked into the storeroom and surveyed the minor damage. "You're both okay, right?"
"I'm okay." Maguro reassured her, pulling himself up onto his feet and massaging his back. "Sorry, I'll clean up the boxes.★"
"Please, don’t worry about it. I'm just glad you two are safe." Anzu picked up one box of bags of dry grain and shoved it back in place, before she sneezed as well. "It might do us some good to properly vacuum in here sometime, anyways…" She looked up at Ecolo, who was still holding onto the shelf pole, and seemed disoriented for a second. "You're not, um… stuck up there, are you?"
"N-no, I'm just…" Anzu offered her hand, and they grabbed it and let her pull them back down towards the ground. Ringo immediately hugged them once they got in range, and they hugged back.
“Everything okay?” She murmured.
“Yeah. I’m… tired.” They hadn’t felt this exhausted in a long time.
“Why don’t you get some rest, honey? It’s late.” Anzu suggested, and the pet name startled them for a moment. Eyes wide, they nodded in agreement. They just… after all of that, they needed today to be done, more than anything. And teleportation incidents, or incidents where they otherwise tapped into power they didn’t usually use, always seemed to sap all of the energy right out of them, too. Anzu smiled and ruffled their hair, and their eyes continued to stay wide and startled.
“I think we might have a new honorary kid in our family.” They heard her quietly tease her husband, as Ringo led both Maguro and Ecolo out of the storeroom and back up the stairs she’d come down from. All three of them felt pretty out of it from the events that had just transpired.
“Hey, you dropped this.★” Maguro handed Ecolo the little space-thing plushie again as they crossed the threshold into the room they were borrowing.
“Oh…” They took it from him and inspected it for damage. It was a little dusty, but otherwise fine. “Sorry.” They cuddled it a little as they curled up, floating in place.
“It’s okay. There was a lot going on, it happens.★”
“Good god, Maguro, how much crap did you earn from the claw machines this time?” Ringo dropped his backpack on the edge of the bed and kneeled down, sifting through it in disbelief.
“I was on a mission to get Ecolo as many plushies as possible. Thirty bucks well spent.★”
“Where’s he supposed to put all of these?”
“On his bed? Duh.★”
Ringo gave him some sort of look, and then she started removing the plushies and piling all of them up by the pillows. Now freed from the confines of the backpack, Ecolo realized just how many of them there were, and how many of them were little space-themed things.
“Is all of this Tanabata overstock or something?” Ringo wondered out loud.
“I was just going for everything he liked.★”
Ringo sighed. “Right. Space science majors.” She frowned, a worried look overtaking her face. “Hey… if you don’t mind telling me. Did… something happen, between seeing your mom and showing up here? I know you’ve said you don’t usually remember…”
“Um… it turns out that when I black out like that, I don’t just teleport…”
She cocked her head. “Huh? Like… you go into a pocket dimension?”
“Yeah. I guess it’s, uh… my subconscious trying to protect me… or something.” Ringo nodded while listening, her eyes wide with intrigue.
“If Maguro was with you… you must have already talked through it, then.” She concluded.
“Mhm, he helped calm me down.”
"I may or may not have said and done some really gay things.★" Maguro admitted. Ecolo's face went red again, and they quickly turned away. Ringo squinted at him.
Maguro grinned. "Hey, you said you didn't mind.★"
"Did you make sure that he didn't mind?" She asked.
"Wait, do you two have an agreement about hitting on me?!" Ecolo sputtered, slightly in disbelief. The drowsiness starting to overtake them made the entire thing that much more surreal.
"Oho! The plot thickens.★"
"Only because Maguro can't help himself-"
"I'm sorry, who exactly did I find cuddling with each other in my dorm room back in the third week of the semester?★"
"We were not cuddling! Fuck you."
"Yes, you were!★"
"Stop talking." Ecolo said, the playful bickering getting a little too loud and their exhaustion now making them a touch irritable, and Ringo and Maguro both immediately shut up. “It’s okay. I wasn’t uncomfortable.”
Ringo sighed. “Okay, good, that’s what I was worried about. Mr. Smooth Criminal over here takes it a little too far at times.”
“It’s not my fault that everyone is pretty~★”
“Being bisexual only goes so far as an excuse, mister.”
“Homophobe.★” Maguro said.
“Every single person in this room is queer in some way, shape, or form. Shaddap.” Ringo finished collecting the plushies in one pile, then sat down on the bed, yawning. Ecolo took their boots, hat and jacket off and dropped them on the floor, leaving them with just a soft long-sleeved shirt, pants, and socks. “Ecolo, feel free to kick us out whenever.”
“No, it’s-” They stifled a yawn of their own as they landed in the bed and curled up in the heavy covers, their head in the plushie pile. “It’s okay…” Actually, they didn’t really want either Ringo or Maguro to leave, at least not until they were falling asleep. They didn’t feel like being alone with their thoughts. Ringo sighed again, then reached over to brush some trapped hair away from their face before running her fingers through the thick cyan mess.
“I’m so glad I met you.” She quietly said. Maguro, leaning on the edge of the bed, nodded in turn, smiling brightly. Though they were fading fast, they listened as Ringo and Maguro began to idly chatter again, talking about them before the conversation naturally drifted elsewhere.
It put them to sleep quickly, in a house that felt more like a home than home ever had, with people whose love came forth freely and without any stipulations.
A time and space to call home, they briefly thought before they slipped out of waking.