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sonofgodzillaTitle: Even if I can’t fly, I can still walk
Universe: AKB48
Prompt: Power Rangers Dino Fury: S28E03 - Lost Signal
Character(s): Kashiwagi Yuki/Mukaichi Mion
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Again, she caught sight of her reflection, the peak of her baseball cap, the N interwoven with the Y. If she were to write fanfiction about Mion, where would she start?
Length: 1094 words
Author's Notes: I sort of made Yukirin a dork. More of a dork, I mean. Many thanks to Misa-chan for translation of the lyrics to Tsubasa wa Iranai. also: external link.
Even if I can’t fly, I can still walk
She glanced down instinctively and then forced herself to slide the weight of the phone back into the pocket of her bomber jacket, a slip of glass and metal, the feel of plastic. She waited a moment as the train passed through a tunnel and came out the other side, the gentle sway of movement, her fingers about the rung of plastic overhead. There wasn’t going to be a message, she knew there wasn’t going to be a message, but she pulled the phone out of her pocket again and looked at the black screen, nonetheless.
Nothing.
Kashiwagi Yuki slid the phone back into the pocket, and looked out towards the window, a row of houses, a passing station, a river under the bridge, children moving slowly along the path.
The brim of cap hat was low, the name of a foreign city above the peak, her hair pushed back from her forehead beneath it in the way they styled it for TV nowadays, the way they styled her nowadays as if she was any more adult than she had been back then.
What Yuihan had said had made her uncomfortable. She hadn’t been asked back for the anniversary celebration, maybe they thought she was too recently graduated, that she wouldn’t have done it. She would have, she didn’t know how many times she had to hint at that in interviews and on TV. In the promotion for a Disney movie, she had done some voice work on, she had told them that she wanted to switch bodies with Akimoto. Funny, everyone had agreed, and she smiled, and she had waited for them to ask what she would do about Akimoto’s wife, but they hadn’t.
Yuihan had not been asked back for the anniversary either.
Takai Mamiko was always spoken of as if she had been pure and naïve, as if she had rushed into marriage. She thought of Yuihan turning the ring on her finger, sitting next to her at the bar, and she was momentarily annoyed, not because she felt jealous but because she secretly felt that giving up being an idol for marriage was a poor choice.
She didn’t want to admit that.
Her fingers pulled the phone from her pocket, and she gazed down in accusation at the black screen before stuffing it back in the pocket.
Last night, for the first in a long time, she had dreamt of Mion.
She looked away from her reflection, feeling her cheeks warm. There had never been anything between her and Mion, there was seven years and twelve generations between them, and she had forgotten entirely the feeling she had during the filming of the drama for Tsubasa wa Iranai, so it had made no sense to suddenly have a dream about kissing Mion all these years later, and yet regardless, that was what had happened. She had woken up with surprise and a quickened heartbeat, her fingers touching her lips, her hair considerably less styled than it was for any recent television appearance.
She had looked away and almost ten years had passed since they had filmed that scene. Why was she thinking of Mion now?
Reaching for her phone, she stopped herself, one hand about her own wrist as if the arm did not belong to her. Since graduation, she had found herself fixating on small details surrounding the group she had left, acting like she had been when younger, when she had obsessed over Morning Musume, posting on old bulletin boards without realising that the girl who always tried to one-up her in every thread was Sashihara, printing out her own fanzines dedicated to Nacchi and Gomaki, writing ill-advised fanfiction.
In the early hours of the first day of the year, with the bitter wind stirring the streets and Milky clinging to her arm, she had turned red in the face as alcohol had convinced her it was a good idea to confess her past to Goto Maki, still dressed in the tartan red suit she had worn during their Kohaku performance. Goto had taken it well, she thought afterwards, better than she would have if someone had made such a confession to her.
On the second day of the year, Miyamoto Karin had emailed her and asked if she could read it. She had done her best to make excuses.
Again, she caught sight of her reflection, the peak of her baseball cap, the N interwoven with the Y.
If she were to write fanfiction about Mion, where would she start?
She thought suddenly of the creak of uncomfortable plastic, their nervous laughter in-between takes, trying to look appealing as the eye of the camera’s gaze had drifted across them as if evaluating them, judging them, measuring their worth. She had been sitting nowhere near Mion during the group shots for the media senbatsu, but she had been painfully conscious of the bodies of the younger members dressed in those outfits, in the shape of her own body, the weight of her age.
Teacher Teacher had felt less like working as an idol and more like acting out a play for Akimoto as he signed off on anything that might have come across as a little transgressive. It had been childish, silly even, and part of it had been an attempt to match the sensuality exuded by the marketing of rival Korean groups during that time.
A memory surfaced, Mion and Sakura laughed together as they both tried to keep their balance on heels, the plastic of their outfits protesting with every movement. Sakura had been so disarming them, so girlish. She wondered if Mion felt betrayed once the other girl started playing her part seriously, the slick production of Korean record companies making her seem somehow unreal, a fever dream that even Akimoto could not have caught.
Loyalty isn’t always rewarded, she thought sadly, and despite herself, she pulled her phone out of her pocket again, the dark screen looking back at her.
Maybe there was no reception, she thought wistfully, struggling to justify the absence of a message; maybe she had lost the signal—maybe...
Maybe she needed to stop expecting people to read her mind.
She stared down at her phone and slowly made to return it to her pocket, but for a sudden tensing over the glass and metal, a vibration between her fingers, a flash of light.
On the screen, she saw a name, Miion, and beneath it, the message:
‘Yukirin, last night I had a strange dream about you! (｡•̀ᴗ-)’
Universe: AKB48
Prompt: Power Rangers Dino Fury: S28E03 - Lost Signal
Character(s): Kashiwagi Yuki/Mukaichi Mion
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: Again, she caught sight of her reflection, the peak of her baseball cap, the N interwoven with the Y. If she were to write fanfiction about Mion, where would she start?
Length: 1094 words
Author's Notes: I sort of made Yukirin a dork. More of a dork, I mean. Many thanks to Misa-chan for translation of the lyrics to Tsubasa wa Iranai. also: external link.
Even if I can’t fly, I can still walk
She glanced down instinctively and then forced herself to slide the weight of the phone back into the pocket of her bomber jacket, a slip of glass and metal, the feel of plastic. She waited a moment as the train passed through a tunnel and came out the other side, the gentle sway of movement, her fingers about the rung of plastic overhead. There wasn’t going to be a message, she knew there wasn’t going to be a message, but she pulled the phone out of her pocket again and looked at the black screen, nonetheless.
Nothing.
Kashiwagi Yuki slid the phone back into the pocket, and looked out towards the window, a row of houses, a passing station, a river under the bridge, children moving slowly along the path.
The brim of cap hat was low, the name of a foreign city above the peak, her hair pushed back from her forehead beneath it in the way they styled it for TV nowadays, the way they styled her nowadays as if she was any more adult than she had been back then.
What Yuihan had said had made her uncomfortable. She hadn’t been asked back for the anniversary celebration, maybe they thought she was too recently graduated, that she wouldn’t have done it. She would have, she didn’t know how many times she had to hint at that in interviews and on TV. In the promotion for a Disney movie, she had done some voice work on, she had told them that she wanted to switch bodies with Akimoto. Funny, everyone had agreed, and she smiled, and she had waited for them to ask what she would do about Akimoto’s wife, but they hadn’t.
Yuihan had not been asked back for the anniversary either.
Takai Mamiko was always spoken of as if she had been pure and naïve, as if she had rushed into marriage. She thought of Yuihan turning the ring on her finger, sitting next to her at the bar, and she was momentarily annoyed, not because she felt jealous but because she secretly felt that giving up being an idol for marriage was a poor choice.
She didn’t want to admit that.
Her fingers pulled the phone from her pocket, and she gazed down in accusation at the black screen before stuffing it back in the pocket.
Last night, for the first in a long time, she had dreamt of Mion.
She looked away from her reflection, feeling her cheeks warm. There had never been anything between her and Mion, there was seven years and twelve generations between them, and she had forgotten entirely the feeling she had during the filming of the drama for Tsubasa wa Iranai, so it had made no sense to suddenly have a dream about kissing Mion all these years later, and yet regardless, that was what had happened. She had woken up with surprise and a quickened heartbeat, her fingers touching her lips, her hair considerably less styled than it was for any recent television appearance.
She had looked away and almost ten years had passed since they had filmed that scene. Why was she thinking of Mion now?
Reaching for her phone, she stopped herself, one hand about her own wrist as if the arm did not belong to her. Since graduation, she had found herself fixating on small details surrounding the group she had left, acting like she had been when younger, when she had obsessed over Morning Musume, posting on old bulletin boards without realising that the girl who always tried to one-up her in every thread was Sashihara, printing out her own fanzines dedicated to Nacchi and Gomaki, writing ill-advised fanfiction.
In the early hours of the first day of the year, with the bitter wind stirring the streets and Milky clinging to her arm, she had turned red in the face as alcohol had convinced her it was a good idea to confess her past to Goto Maki, still dressed in the tartan red suit she had worn during their Kohaku performance. Goto had taken it well, she thought afterwards, better than she would have if someone had made such a confession to her.
On the second day of the year, Miyamoto Karin had emailed her and asked if she could read it. She had done her best to make excuses.
Again, she caught sight of her reflection, the peak of her baseball cap, the N interwoven with the Y.
If she were to write fanfiction about Mion, where would she start?
She thought suddenly of the creak of uncomfortable plastic, their nervous laughter in-between takes, trying to look appealing as the eye of the camera’s gaze had drifted across them as if evaluating them, judging them, measuring their worth. She had been sitting nowhere near Mion during the group shots for the media senbatsu, but she had been painfully conscious of the bodies of the younger members dressed in those outfits, in the shape of her own body, the weight of her age.
Teacher Teacher had felt less like working as an idol and more like acting out a play for Akimoto as he signed off on anything that might have come across as a little transgressive. It had been childish, silly even, and part of it had been an attempt to match the sensuality exuded by the marketing of rival Korean groups during that time.
A memory surfaced, Mion and Sakura laughed together as they both tried to keep their balance on heels, the plastic of their outfits protesting with every movement. Sakura had been so disarming them, so girlish. She wondered if Mion felt betrayed once the other girl started playing her part seriously, the slick production of Korean record companies making her seem somehow unreal, a fever dream that even Akimoto could not have caught.
Loyalty isn’t always rewarded, she thought sadly, and despite herself, she pulled her phone out of her pocket again, the dark screen looking back at her.
Maybe there was no reception, she thought wistfully, struggling to justify the absence of a message; maybe she had lost the signal—maybe...
Maybe she needed to stop expecting people to read her mind.
She stared down at her phone and slowly made to return it to her pocket, but for a sudden tensing over the glass and metal, a vibration between her fingers, a flash of light.
On the screen, she saw a name, Miion, and beneath it, the message:
‘Yukirin, last night I had a strange dream about you! (｡•̀ᴗ-)’
