Interdimensional Karaoke [Extravaganza 2019]
Feb 27, 2019 13:34:47 GMT
Post by Manchee on Feb 27, 2019 13:34:47 GMT
This is an Extravaganza piece for bay based on the prompt of Juniper, Fennel, and Burnet having a ladies night out. It was one of the prompts that struck me from the very beginning, but it took a bit of time for me to get behind an idea that I really enjoyed. I’ll admit this was a bit of an out-there way of approaching it, but I had a lot of fun trying to make this! The titles of each part contain links to listen to the music featured in this piece. I hope you enjoy!
The lights dim, but only for a second. Then they fill the room with hues of blue and purple. It’s just enough to outline everything: the bar, the small crowd filling the place, the stage. Among the colors, a white light turns on and backlights a person standing on stage.
Her frame is slender, only made wider by the curtain of hair draping her back. The music begins with an array of chimes and then the melody and beat soon follow. As it all begins, her hair begins to twist around itself like it has a mind of its own - or maybe she is somehow doing it without looking like she’s moving her hands - until it is braided and falling down across her chest. By the time the spotlight grows to reveal her identity, she is unrecognizable, even to her friends: where there was previously a long coat and slacks is now a scarlet crop top and sleek jeans.
There is twenty seconds of music before the first lyrics, and during this time she sways and bobs in time with the beat, eyes closed and mind lost in the feeling of the melody. In the mood lighting she looks like a tall, purple-haired being emerging from the extraterrestrial ether.
It’s a damn good way to start her performance. And then, clear and soft, her voice joins the music.
“They wrote a song about us… It’s called something like ‘Stardust.’”
Directly across the room sit two women, best friends of the one singing on stage, sipping colorful drinks out of intricately-shaped glasses.
“Ugh, why does she always pick the most melodramatic songs?” one of them groans quietly. She sinks back into her chair and sucks down half of her Triple Gambit.
“Burnie,” the other hisses. “We all have our own tastes.”
“I just wish V’s weren’t so boring. If you’re gonna do Robyn, do something like ‘Konichiwa Bitches,’ you know? Make it exciting-”
“Can’t deny that she can sing, though.”
And it’s true. The song has a slow start, but all the right notes are hit and then it picks up leading into the chorus.
“I still play. It. An-y-waaaay,” she sings, eyes still closed. In the beat before the next line, she spins around and lets her hair twirl through the hair. A few more spotlights turn on and slowly glide around the room as the blue and purple hues begin to fade in and out of various hues. Melodrama or not, the performance being created is an art.
“Because it’s in the music… Yeah, we were dancing to it… I’m right back in that moment.”
As she sings her body keeps in time with the beat and she allows herself to remain lost in the music.
“And it makes. Me. Want. To. Cryyyyyyy.”
Fighting back a sigh, Burnet leans over to her friend and says under her breath, “This song makes me want to cry, Aurea.”
“Shhh.”
“Think some male strippers would make it better?”
Juniper stiffens and whips her head to look Burnet in the eye. If only she could use her glare to keep Burnet under control. Before she can even voice her opposition, a squad of police offers brushes past their table, bumping it and making the straws in their drinks sway. If this was any other karaoke bar, Juniper might be a little on-edge at the sight of police showing up, but seeing the way their uniforms hugged their bodies a little too tightly and how exaggerated their muscles were seemingly bursting at the seams made her roll her eyes. Once Burnet got an idea there really wasn’t any stopping her from making it happen.
The song moves into its next verse and the “police” jump up on stage and begin a choreographed dance number that goes totally unnoticed by Fennel. She sings the next few lines in her dreamy state and the dancers move around her perfectly, even starting to match the way she bobs around stage.
“See?” Burnet whispers. “Much more entertaining.”
Juniper is about to chastise her for the dancers, but then they start to throw their jackets to the ground and lift their skin-tight t-shirts and her attention drifts. At the sound of the jackets hitting the stage, Fennel opens her eyes and Burnet has to hold herself back from bursting out laughing at how much they bulge at the sight of her accompanying performers. Without missing a note, she continues into the second chorus but shoots a death glare at her friends. Juniper give her the best apologetic face she can muster, but they both know that they just have to go with it.
There is a gift held by people like Burnet who can force their friends into crazy, embarrassing situations entirely out of love and always be forgiven for it. For a moment, Fennel looks uncomfortable as more and more clothes start peeling away from the hunky men beside her, but now that the song is in full swing and knowing she can’t stop this from happening, she embraces it and lets her hair out of its braid so it can swing wildly as she continues to nail her song. Juniper can’t help but laugh at the sight of her friend letting herself get into it. Leave it to Burnet to make the most of the moment.
A memory of a similar night out in college comes to the surface of Juniper’s mind. The bar was much more normal, albeit entirely disgusting, and squeezed between two of the off-campus housing units on Main Street in Castelia. Not the best one in the city, but they could sneak in while they were still underage and manage to squeeze a few drinks out of the guys who thought they might get something in return for their generosity. They got so drunk that night she’d almost forgotten about it entirely.
“I’m sooooo over this dream studies course,” Fennel said as they waved their way past the usual bouncer who didn’t catch their fake IDs one night and never asked for them again.
“Well, it’s halfway over now, at least.”
“Yeah and I did so bad on that midterm that I’m going to be stuck with Dr. Tamarin next semester, too.”
It was a Friday night and being the last day of midterms for most students, the place was packed with everyone who thought that they deserved to get absolutely wasted. Juniper played her usual role of pushing her way through the throng of people with Fennel close behind squeezing through people as they moved aside for her friend.
“Are there no other sections being offered?”
“Not next term. The department is already down a professor, and no one else likes teaching the intro courses because of all the people just taking it for their general studies requirement.”
They make it to the bad and manage to find two seats relatively close to the middle, which is the prime spot to be noticed by guys who might try to offer two geeky women a free drink. Fennel finishes her rant about the students who don’t take the class seriously enough as they settling onto the wooden stools.
“Like that girl over there.” She nods in the direction behind Juniper. “She hardly pays attention, and when she does talk she’s always challenging whatever our professor is lecturing.”
Trying not to make it obvious that she’s looking around, Juniper shoots a glance sideways and sees a woman around their age with a platinum pixie cut and piercings around her nose and eyebrows. Figures. Who else would bother Fennel enough to make her rant this long?
“Is she right?” Juniper asks.
“I- what?”
“When she challenges your professor,” she clarifies, “Is what she’s saying correct?”
Fennel doesn’t even have to verbalize her answer - by the way she stammers around her response, Juniper knows enough.
“Just because she might look a little scary doesn’t mean you need to be against her.”
“What! Who said I was against her?”
“Oh? So you don’t have anything against her just because of how she looks?”
“Absolutely not!”
Juniper nods, frowning and mulling over a thought. The bartender walks by them to grab a bottle off the top shelf and Juniper stops her.
“Excuse me,” she calls out, and when the bartender turns she says, “Could you ask that girl down there if she would like us to buy her a drink?”
All color drained from Fennel’s face in the two minutes it took for the bartender to deliver the drink they had been making, send Juniper’s offer to the woman at the other end of the bar, and return with a message that she would gladly accept a storm uppercut. Even though it was a bit pricey for Juniper’s student lab assistant income, she nodded and told the bartender to go ahead and make it. If it would lead to Fennel having to interact with someone different for a change, it was worth it.
While Juniper pulled out a few bills from her pocket and waited for the bartender to finish pouring the drink and take them, she mulled over a thought that made her more interested in this woman who was charging her an hour and a half’s wages on one drink: what was with her dramatic appearance? If there’s anything Juniper can say she knows confidently it’s where things originate from. A storm uppercut is made with two shots of Trion, a brand of whiskey made in the mountains above Driftveil and notorious for only being popular among those from the north. Assuming this woman hailed from somewhere around there, what was she doing down in Castelia looking like she was used as a human pin cushion?
If Juniper had to guess, it probably had to do with something along the lines of more progressive views than her parents. Views that run deep and have certainly caused many heated arguments. And eventually she became old enough to enroll and be independent, and where in Unova can a disobedient daughter run to piss off her parents? University of Castelia, right in the heart of the city and in walking distance of enough shops that will cut your hair short enough and stick the right amount of needles in your skin to really show your parents that they don’t own you anymore.
It was a thought that Juniper let run wild in her mind until she came to conclusions that were much more ridiculous once she learned the truth over more drinks as the night would go on. After the first was delivered, it was just a matter of minutes before the woman was tapping on Juniper’s shoulder and making Fennel clutch her raspberry spritzer like a tranquill on a sewaddle.
“I didn’t think you would actually do it,” she said, handing Juniper cash to repay her for the drink.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” Juniper protested. Even as she tried to push the money back, she couldn’t help but think of the extra shift she would need to pick up to feel better about spending extra money.
“Honestly, it’s a really nice gesture, but I’m, uh, not really interested in girls.”
Now it was time for Juniper to tense up and lock her drink in a death grip. She could hear Fennel stifle a snicker behind her back and immediately hoped that this woman didn’t think they were making fun of her.
“I know I look a bit rough, but I’m pretty confident in who I am,” she continued and started to turn to walk away.
“No! I didn’t mean it like that,” Juniper said, relieved to see her turning back. “I, uh, thought you looked lonely. Wasn’t sure if you wanted to join us for our night out.”
She must have played it off well enough because that was enough to get the woman who she and Fennel would forever call Burnie to sit with them for the rest of the evening. The amount of free drinks from desperate men made them all cheerfully drunk, and by the time the night was over something was solidified within them that wasn’t going to break easily. Maybe it was how quickly Fennel bonded with her over their shared interest in dream studies or the fact that they all let loose and sang their hearts out to No Doubt without any shame.
It was the first time that Juniper saw Fennel actually let her hair fly, both figuratively and literally. How could she forget that? It was the following Monday when she happened to notice that Burnet was in the same section of avian biology, and for some reason she replaced that memory as their first meeting of each other. In all their years of higher education and countless nights going out and making it a tradition to do karaoke every chance they got, she somehow lost where it all came from.
The freshness of the memory is enough to look across the table at Burnet and smile with the warmth of every tepig she’s ever handed out to new trainers. And while her friend enjoys seeing the shenanigans happening on stage up until the final moments of the song, Juniper watches her with pride - this insanely smart woman who ended up specializing in inter-dimensional studies and found a way to not only use that knowledge to further research into Ultra Beasts, but to also forge a way for the three of them to travel through personal portals to this made-up karaoke bar in between plains of existence where they can control nearly everything like goddesses of the universe.
In Juniper’s opinion, if Burnet cared enough about recognition, she’d outclass her husband any day for the title of Pokémon Professor.
As the deep bass voice ends Fennel’s song, she lets herself be lifted into the air by her backup dancers made up of nothing but muscles and a tiny bit of cloth between their legs. Her face glistens with sweat and she feels blood rush to it as she is put down. The men walk off stage and disappear just as quickly as they were conjured up. Fennel remains on stage for another beat, taking in the moment that would never happen at a real karaoke bar, before stepping down and walking through the crowd of shadows and faceless beings.
When she gets back to the table, Burnet and Juniper are giving her a standing ovation. Burnet looks more impressed with herself for sending the strippers on stage than of the performance. Regardless, she bows with a flourish and scoops up her drink.
“I’ve been waiting to do that song for months!”
“You were great,” Juniper tells her. The warm smile on her face is hard to doubt.
Fennel takes a few sips from her toxapex twist and relishes at the warmth spreading over her chest as the tequila makes its way to her stomach. As always, Juniper is still making no ground on her first drink while Burnet has almost cleared her second already. And here she is with her tequila-plus-a-mixer, because why should any of them pretend to be someone they’re not after all these years? People get older, but they don’t have to change in some areas. For Fennel, the consistency of her friends makes her feel more at ease.
She smacks her lips and asks, “So who’s next?”
Juniper gives her a knowing smile, because leave it to her to have no clue what she’ll be singing after so many years of going out to karaoke. Even Burnet has a good collection of classics to fall back on when she can’t be bothered to come up with something new. But out here in this dimension far away from home where nearly anything is possible, Juniper refuses to not put every thought into choosing the perfect song for the moment.
“Looks like that’ll be me!” Burnet cheers, downing the rest of her drink and slamming the glass on the table. In a commotion of chair scraping against the wooden floor (it is wood, right?), she hops up and half-jogs to the stage. There isn’t much competition here for getting to the mic fast enough.
There is a minute between when she climbs up on stage and gets ready to sing when she shakes out her limbs and rolls her head from side to side. It’s her classic tell that she’s about to sing something bold and probably very loud. Both of her friends sit up in their chairs with excitement. Burnet can be a pain to them, sure, but they’re nothing if not supportive of her love for belting out her feelings on stage.
She takes a deep breath and approaches the mic, and the song is set in motion. Immediately, the lights dim. A soothing strum of a guitar fills the room. The calmness of it is backed by a strength that puts chills on her arms. It plays for twenty seconds before a spotlight shines on Burnet and her voice begins to join to the music.
“I… listened so well… and did everything… like you said.”
It’s a slow start to a song, especially for Burnet. In her skin-tight clothes and wild bleached hair, seeing Burnet tap into such a soft emotion to back her words is captivating. It sends chills up Fennel’s arms.
“I… behaved so good… and sat silently… like you said.”
In an instant, she is transported back to Castelia. The mousy, highly introverted part of her that she’s worked so tirelessly to get rid of rises to the surface, assuming control of her present self. It knows these feelings coming out of Burnet. It understands them wholeheartedly.
“I. Want. You. To give meeeee one more chance.”
Being used. Made to feel like you aren’t worth anything.
“I. Want. You. To give it to meeeeeeee.”
But still deserving of love. Of a life.
“GIVE IT- TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE IF YOU WAAAAAAAAANT TO MAKE ME HAAPPPYYYYYYYYYY LIKE YOU SAIIIIDDDDDDDD AYYYYYYY!!!!!!”
The explosion of vocals leaves Juniper and Fennel in stunned silence. They’ve seen Burnet belt out some power ballads before, but nothing like this.
“What is this song?” Juniper whispers to Fennel, who shakes her head and shrugs, unable to take her eyes off of the stage.
The spotlight has broken apart and shifted to an array of red lights that circle around Burnet as she goes quiet and the guitars strum and reverberate through the bar. She takes the mic off of the stand and paces the stage in long, slow strides.
Fennel sits stiffly in her chair, eyes watery and glued on her friend, because her own unfortunate moments have found their way to the front of her mind and remind her of all the heartache she went through during her last year of university. After nearly failing one of her core classes the previous semester and almost not surviving the rumors that she had tried to sleep with the dean to improve her grade, the worst was only just beginning. Surely, she’s in a much better place now than she was years ago, but the things that have happened to her are never fully gone, not really. They sit in the dark, shadowy recesses of her memory, ready for any opportune moment to remind her of the hurt.
And she still doesn’t forgive herself for it. But what could she do? Even with her friends by her side through it all, she was desperate to feel wanted and like she belonged somewhere with someone. The idea that someone would create a fake dating profile and lie to her just to post about it online never even crossed her mind. And why would it? The internet was still so new and the words “online” and “dating” were never even used together yet. So a person claiming to be from a stone’s throw outside her hometown who thought she was the most captivating student in all of Unova was hard to pass up.
It was the only time she ever lied to her friends. She may not have thought someone could lie to her online about their feelings towards her, but she had enough of a brain to know that meeting up with someone she met through a machine wasn’t a socially acceptable idea at the time. Having two best friends that would look out for her no matter what meant that she would never be allowed to meet her secret suitor if they knew the truth.
“What are you getting all dressed up for?” Juniper asked playfully the night of the date, not knowing there was any date at all. With her back turned to her best friend, Fennel cursed at herself for taking so long to get ready. She had hoped to be out of the apartment before Juniper got back from her evening seminar.
“Dinner with my parents,” she quickly lied and looked through a box of earrings for the silver moons her mother sent her for her birthday last year.
“Oh, nice!” said Juniper. As she crossed the room and locked herself in the bathroom, Fennel gave herself props for coming up with a cover-up so quickly. She’d have to find a way to make sure Juniper never mentioned this specific night to her parents, but that was something to worry about later. Right now she did her best to go into hyper-speed and leave before Juniper could find any cracks in her story.
The sound of the shower turning on let her heave a sigh of relief. It was probably good to still get out of there as quickly as possible since she was running late and still had to hail a cab and get to Gym Street. Once she managed to pluck a pair of earrings from the mess of others without stabbing herself, she hustled around to put the final touches on her makeup and outfit. Five minutes later and she was slamming the front door shut.
“I… took my finger… and I placed it… in your hand.”
Getting to the restaurant was surprisingly easy. Her stomach was fluttering with beautifly and butterfree. Daydreams of admitting the date to her friends made her jittery.
“I… filled my cup up… with the liquid… of your glass.”
By the time she was back in a cab half an hour later, makeup smudged and tears spilling from her eyes, it made her sick knowing that she would have to explain what happened.
“I. Want. You. To give meeeeee one more chance.”
“It was… all a… lie so they could take… p-p-pictures of me… sitting there like an idiot.”
“I. Want. You to give it to meeeeeeeeee.”
“And plates of food kept be-being… brought over and I had to… to pay for it all.”
“GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E IF YOU WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT TO MAKE ME HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYY Y LIKE YOUUU SAIIIIDDDDD.”
It wasn’t a surprise that her friends comforted her. And she knows now that nothing was her fault. People are going to be vile and pick apart those that are weaker just because they can. Survival of the fittest is never going to go away.
“OH GIVE IT - TO MEEEEEEEEEE - IF YOU WAAAAAA AA NT - TO MAKE ME HAPPYYYYY - LIKE YOUUU SAAID.”
At the time she was powerless to do anything about it. She’d been publicly embarrassed and didn’t have the presence to right someone else’s wrong. But that didn’t mean her friends were just going to sit by and accept it.
It was actually Burnet who managed to figure out who set the whole thing up. Unknown to Fennel, Burnet and Juniper secretly logged into her dating profile and through means that she never asked Burnet about, the person was tracked down. If Burnet had had her way, the person might not have made it out of college alive. And it certainly wouldn’t have been as satisfying of a punishment. Not only did Juniper secure them an additional two years of classes and racking up debt, but she lovingly robbed them of their Flickbuster membership card so the three of them could rent out over thirty movies and never return them.
Fennel could have done without any of the revenge. Just having the support of her friends was enough. But the two months they spent having movie nights in their apartment every single week brought her so much joy. They weren’t even good movies, either. You’d think that if the plan was to never return them, you might pick out movies you actually want. But no, Juniper was too focused on getting in and getting out that they ended up with sequels instead of originals, Kalosian films with no subtitles, and even a bootlegged copy of Titanic.
To say that it changed her life might be dramatic, but who knows where she would be. For that, she will never let either of them out of her life.
By the last chorus, Fennel and Juniper are holding hands across the table and singing along with Burnet.
“GIVE IT
TO MEEEEEEEEEEE
IF YOU WAAAAAAAAAAANT
TO MAKE
ME HAAAAPPYPYYYYYYYY
LIKE YOUUUUUU
SSAAAAAAAAAAID.”
After Burnet finishes the final line and the guitar ends, she jumps into the crowd to surf her way back to the table; how she has the confidence that the shadowy people-shaped mass will carry her, Juniper and Fennel have no idea.
Wiping the tears from her face, Fennel says, “Burnie, that was amazing.”
Burnet gives them an exaggerated bow and waves behind them like she’s taking praise from admiring fans. It’s only for a minute, though, and then she kindly accepts the compliment. The three of them start to speak at length about the people who have hurt them and the times they have been there for each other, which quickly turns into a drinking game involving mirror shots (aptly named for their shiny, metallic color) when their horrible experience tops someone else’s.
“I feel like... I’m going to get back to my lab and be sick all night long,” Fennel says after the sixth shot. “These taste is so bad.”
"Come again?" Burnet asks and Fennel sticks out her tongue at being made fun of for her slurring.
“Wasn’t it your idea to do mirror shots instead of mud shots?” asks Juniper, wincing at the acidic feeling on her tongue.
“True, but you can’t have a drinking game related to bad memories without a bit of punishment.”
Burnet nods and says, “Cheers to that. Mud shots would have been like drinking chocolate instead of corroding metal.”
They sit in silence and let their stomachs settle. Thankfully, the alcohol isn’t real in this dimension, but the way it burns their insides feels very real. In between moments where Fennel absentmindedly picks at her fingernails while thinking of that last semester of school and Burnet twists her wedding ring around her finger, Juniper looks each of them over and finds herself overcome with the realization at how much time has passed over the years. They began as infants in higher education and managed to get through it together and go on to get further degrees in their fields. None of them ended up living in the same towns as each other, but they all found their own laboratories one way or another and have supported each other the whole way through.
And she knows what song she’s going to sing. Without a word, she stands and walks up to the stage. A stool is already in front of the microphone for her and she can smell old teakwood in the air. If she loses her mind as she ages, she hopes Burnet can set her up with her own personal dimension so she can peacefully conjure up all of her favorite things and deteriorate in peace. Not the most positive of thoughts, but she’d choose an inter-dimensional dream realm over a nursing home any day.
She approaches the mic and the music begins. Through the crowd she can see her friends’ puzzled faces as they try to guess the song before she starts singing. If the roles were reversed, she probably wouldn’t be able to pick it out right away either - if it were the original, absolutely, but she prefers this version ever if it isn’t as popular.
“I took my love and I took it down,” she sings. “I climbed a mountain and I turned around.”
It doesn’t take more than those two lines for Fennel to make the connection and lean over to whisper it to Burnet. They both can’t help but smile.
“And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills.”
And they’re all back in the ’89 Sporta driving down Highway S17. Juniper is driving because Fennel can’t merge to save her life and Burnet will cut someone off and give them the finger for it if they honk at her. It’s their final getaway as three unmarried women, a trip they planned for over a year as soon as Burnet called to tell them that Kukui proposed. Since it cost her a disgusting amount to fly in from Alola, they decided that driving up the regionside to see some dragons in Opelucid would be the most cost-effective experience.
“I hope you two are flying to Alola for a roadtrip before each of your weddings,” Burnet tells them after they’ve passed Driftveil. Both of them know she’s trying not to think of the broken relationship with her parents.
“Are there any places to actually take a roadtrip?” Fennel asks.
“Of course! Akala is great during the summer, and you two would love Poni Island.”
“And the water in between them won’t get in the way?”
“Not with that attitude.”
They passed the time talking about different landmarks across the islands. They had only ever seen pictures, which made it hard to differentiate which island had the big mountain and which was the one where people threw that one pokémon into the ocean. The first time they heard about that they were horrified, but Burnet didn’t seem to have a problem jokingly referring to them as “Pyeetkumuku.”
When Driftveil is finally just a blip in the rearview mirror, the mood shifts back to unruly freedom. They find that they have a lot more to catch up on than they realized. Periodic phone calls and texts haven’t seemed to convey everything going on in their lives, and it doesn’t only extend to Burnet being out of the loop: Juniper and Fennel are surprised to hear about the status of each other’s love lives even though they only live two towns apart.
“You were sleeping with him?! But you gave his daughter her first pokémon!”
Juniper blushes and shrugs.
“I mean, he was divorced and it had been months since Marshal was over… I was a little famished.”
“Eww!” Fennel laughs, earning her a playful slap from Burnet in the backseat.
“You’re one to talk,” she says. “How long’s it been since you’ve had a purr in your loin?”
The question itself is enough to make Fennel’s cheeks turn scarlet. She gives herself a moment to compose herself before informing them of that man she’s been seeing.
“His name is Otto, and he works for a firm in Castelia.”
Much to their amazement, she tells them all about meeting during a murder mystery night at the Striaton Gym and their subsequent dates. One particular story of a late night bootycall earns an enthusiastic cheer from Burnet. None of them acknowledge how familiar the conversation feels to their first few times hanging out when they would go out to karaoke to sing about boys who suck or how unfair the world is and then retreat to one of their dorms to drink prosecco and divulge their sultry stories to one another. And none of them have to. The feeling is there, deep in their bones, and it feels good. Now they’re adult women living their best lives and relishing in each other’s successes.
The highway slowly bends along the mountainside and then it turns into a straightaway. Here, the Arc Mountains stretch out in front of them in their full beauty. All three of them have travelled around Unova before and seen the mountains from all sides, but the sight catches them off-guard. A calm silence spreads over them as new emotions rise to the surface. It’s just a mountain range, but it means something in this moment.
Everyone tells you while you’re growing up that you don’t get to be a kid forever. You hear parents say that time is going by so fast, but before you’re in your twenties you have no idea what that actually means because for you each year of school feels like a lifetime, separated by summers that are only a few months but feel twice as long. Birthdays are special occasions and each one feels like a milestone to you. One year is a world of difference between when you were eight instead of nine, even though twenty-eight feels exactly the same as twenty-seven.
But you don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that. It’s going to take time to forget how long a year actually is, and by the time you realize you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be a kid kid again it’s been too many years to be okay with how much older you’ve gotten. It’s not fair to anyone. The only people who understand what it means to value being a kid are the ones that can look back and wish they had more time before the world forced them to grow up. In the grand scheme of things, does it even matter? Everyone is going to continue to age, so why not let yourself be a kid every now and then? It sure as hell makes the roadtrips with your best friends a lot more fun.
If there is anything that the three of them value above all else it is the experiences they’ve shared with each other that let them feel alive. The good, the bad; all of it. Anything that makes them look ahead in excitement or behind them with fear, so long as they weren’t forgetting to enjoy the time slipping by before they could notice.
In the backseat, Burnet unbuckles her seatbelt and leans forward to put a hand on each of her friend’s shoulders.
Before she can talk, Juniper says, “Don’t say it.”
Burnet ignores her.
“I love you two.”
The lights dim, but only for a second. Then they fill the room with hues of blue and purple. It’s just enough to outline everything: the bar, the small crowd filling the place, the stage. Among the colors, a white light turns on and backlights a person standing on stage.
Her frame is slender, only made wider by the curtain of hair draping her back. The music begins with an array of chimes and then the melody and beat soon follow. As it all begins, her hair begins to twist around itself like it has a mind of its own - or maybe she is somehow doing it without looking like she’s moving her hands - until it is braided and falling down across her chest. By the time the spotlight grows to reveal her identity, she is unrecognizable, even to her friends: where there was previously a long coat and slacks is now a scarlet crop top and sleek jeans.
There is twenty seconds of music before the first lyrics, and during this time she sways and bobs in time with the beat, eyes closed and mind lost in the feeling of the melody. In the mood lighting she looks like a tall, purple-haired being emerging from the extraterrestrial ether.
It’s a damn good way to start her performance. And then, clear and soft, her voice joins the music.
“They wrote a song about us… It’s called something like ‘Stardust.’”
Directly across the room sit two women, best friends of the one singing on stage, sipping colorful drinks out of intricately-shaped glasses.
“Ugh, why does she always pick the most melodramatic songs?” one of them groans quietly. She sinks back into her chair and sucks down half of her Triple Gambit.
“Burnie,” the other hisses. “We all have our own tastes.”
“I just wish V’s weren’t so boring. If you’re gonna do Robyn, do something like ‘Konichiwa Bitches,’ you know? Make it exciting-”
“Can’t deny that she can sing, though.”
And it’s true. The song has a slow start, but all the right notes are hit and then it picks up leading into the chorus.
“I still play. It. An-y-waaaay,” she sings, eyes still closed. In the beat before the next line, she spins around and lets her hair twirl through the hair. A few more spotlights turn on and slowly glide around the room as the blue and purple hues begin to fade in and out of various hues. Melodrama or not, the performance being created is an art.
“Because it’s in the music… Yeah, we were dancing to it… I’m right back in that moment.”
As she sings her body keeps in time with the beat and she allows herself to remain lost in the music.
“And it makes. Me. Want. To. Cryyyyyyy.”
Fighting back a sigh, Burnet leans over to her friend and says under her breath, “This song makes me want to cry, Aurea.”
“Shhh.”
“Think some male strippers would make it better?”
Juniper stiffens and whips her head to look Burnet in the eye. If only she could use her glare to keep Burnet under control. Before she can even voice her opposition, a squad of police offers brushes past their table, bumping it and making the straws in their drinks sway. If this was any other karaoke bar, Juniper might be a little on-edge at the sight of police showing up, but seeing the way their uniforms hugged their bodies a little too tightly and how exaggerated their muscles were seemingly bursting at the seams made her roll her eyes. Once Burnet got an idea there really wasn’t any stopping her from making it happen.
The song moves into its next verse and the “police” jump up on stage and begin a choreographed dance number that goes totally unnoticed by Fennel. She sings the next few lines in her dreamy state and the dancers move around her perfectly, even starting to match the way she bobs around stage.
“See?” Burnet whispers. “Much more entertaining.”
Juniper is about to chastise her for the dancers, but then they start to throw their jackets to the ground and lift their skin-tight t-shirts and her attention drifts. At the sound of the jackets hitting the stage, Fennel opens her eyes and Burnet has to hold herself back from bursting out laughing at how much they bulge at the sight of her accompanying performers. Without missing a note, she continues into the second chorus but shoots a death glare at her friends. Juniper give her the best apologetic face she can muster, but they both know that they just have to go with it.
There is a gift held by people like Burnet who can force their friends into crazy, embarrassing situations entirely out of love and always be forgiven for it. For a moment, Fennel looks uncomfortable as more and more clothes start peeling away from the hunky men beside her, but now that the song is in full swing and knowing she can’t stop this from happening, she embraces it and lets her hair out of its braid so it can swing wildly as she continues to nail her song. Juniper can’t help but laugh at the sight of her friend letting herself get into it. Leave it to Burnet to make the most of the moment.
A memory of a similar night out in college comes to the surface of Juniper’s mind. The bar was much more normal, albeit entirely disgusting, and squeezed between two of the off-campus housing units on Main Street in Castelia. Not the best one in the city, but they could sneak in while they were still underage and manage to squeeze a few drinks out of the guys who thought they might get something in return for their generosity. They got so drunk that night she’d almost forgotten about it entirely.
“I’m sooooo over this dream studies course,” Fennel said as they waved their way past the usual bouncer who didn’t catch their fake IDs one night and never asked for them again.
“Well, it’s halfway over now, at least.”
“Yeah and I did so bad on that midterm that I’m going to be stuck with Dr. Tamarin next semester, too.”
It was a Friday night and being the last day of midterms for most students, the place was packed with everyone who thought that they deserved to get absolutely wasted. Juniper played her usual role of pushing her way through the throng of people with Fennel close behind squeezing through people as they moved aside for her friend.
“Are there no other sections being offered?”
“Not next term. The department is already down a professor, and no one else likes teaching the intro courses because of all the people just taking it for their general studies requirement.”
They make it to the bad and manage to find two seats relatively close to the middle, which is the prime spot to be noticed by guys who might try to offer two geeky women a free drink. Fennel finishes her rant about the students who don’t take the class seriously enough as they settling onto the wooden stools.
“Like that girl over there.” She nods in the direction behind Juniper. “She hardly pays attention, and when she does talk she’s always challenging whatever our professor is lecturing.”
Trying not to make it obvious that she’s looking around, Juniper shoots a glance sideways and sees a woman around their age with a platinum pixie cut and piercings around her nose and eyebrows. Figures. Who else would bother Fennel enough to make her rant this long?
“Is she right?” Juniper asks.
“I- what?”
“When she challenges your professor,” she clarifies, “Is what she’s saying correct?”
Fennel doesn’t even have to verbalize her answer - by the way she stammers around her response, Juniper knows enough.
“Just because she might look a little scary doesn’t mean you need to be against her.”
“What! Who said I was against her?”
“Oh? So you don’t have anything against her just because of how she looks?”
“Absolutely not!”
Juniper nods, frowning and mulling over a thought. The bartender walks by them to grab a bottle off the top shelf and Juniper stops her.
“Excuse me,” she calls out, and when the bartender turns she says, “Could you ask that girl down there if she would like us to buy her a drink?”
All color drained from Fennel’s face in the two minutes it took for the bartender to deliver the drink they had been making, send Juniper’s offer to the woman at the other end of the bar, and return with a message that she would gladly accept a storm uppercut. Even though it was a bit pricey for Juniper’s student lab assistant income, she nodded and told the bartender to go ahead and make it. If it would lead to Fennel having to interact with someone different for a change, it was worth it.
While Juniper pulled out a few bills from her pocket and waited for the bartender to finish pouring the drink and take them, she mulled over a thought that made her more interested in this woman who was charging her an hour and a half’s wages on one drink: what was with her dramatic appearance? If there’s anything Juniper can say she knows confidently it’s where things originate from. A storm uppercut is made with two shots of Trion, a brand of whiskey made in the mountains above Driftveil and notorious for only being popular among those from the north. Assuming this woman hailed from somewhere around there, what was she doing down in Castelia looking like she was used as a human pin cushion?
If Juniper had to guess, it probably had to do with something along the lines of more progressive views than her parents. Views that run deep and have certainly caused many heated arguments. And eventually she became old enough to enroll and be independent, and where in Unova can a disobedient daughter run to piss off her parents? University of Castelia, right in the heart of the city and in walking distance of enough shops that will cut your hair short enough and stick the right amount of needles in your skin to really show your parents that they don’t own you anymore.
It was a thought that Juniper let run wild in her mind until she came to conclusions that were much more ridiculous once she learned the truth over more drinks as the night would go on. After the first was delivered, it was just a matter of minutes before the woman was tapping on Juniper’s shoulder and making Fennel clutch her raspberry spritzer like a tranquill on a sewaddle.
“I didn’t think you would actually do it,” she said, handing Juniper cash to repay her for the drink.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” Juniper protested. Even as she tried to push the money back, she couldn’t help but think of the extra shift she would need to pick up to feel better about spending extra money.
“Honestly, it’s a really nice gesture, but I’m, uh, not really interested in girls.”
Now it was time for Juniper to tense up and lock her drink in a death grip. She could hear Fennel stifle a snicker behind her back and immediately hoped that this woman didn’t think they were making fun of her.
“I know I look a bit rough, but I’m pretty confident in who I am,” she continued and started to turn to walk away.
“No! I didn’t mean it like that,” Juniper said, relieved to see her turning back. “I, uh, thought you looked lonely. Wasn’t sure if you wanted to join us for our night out.”
She must have played it off well enough because that was enough to get the woman who she and Fennel would forever call Burnie to sit with them for the rest of the evening. The amount of free drinks from desperate men made them all cheerfully drunk, and by the time the night was over something was solidified within them that wasn’t going to break easily. Maybe it was how quickly Fennel bonded with her over their shared interest in dream studies or the fact that they all let loose and sang their hearts out to No Doubt without any shame.
It was the first time that Juniper saw Fennel actually let her hair fly, both figuratively and literally. How could she forget that? It was the following Monday when she happened to notice that Burnet was in the same section of avian biology, and for some reason she replaced that memory as their first meeting of each other. In all their years of higher education and countless nights going out and making it a tradition to do karaoke every chance they got, she somehow lost where it all came from.
The freshness of the memory is enough to look across the table at Burnet and smile with the warmth of every tepig she’s ever handed out to new trainers. And while her friend enjoys seeing the shenanigans happening on stage up until the final moments of the song, Juniper watches her with pride - this insanely smart woman who ended up specializing in inter-dimensional studies and found a way to not only use that knowledge to further research into Ultra Beasts, but to also forge a way for the three of them to travel through personal portals to this made-up karaoke bar in between plains of existence where they can control nearly everything like goddesses of the universe.
In Juniper’s opinion, if Burnet cared enough about recognition, she’d outclass her husband any day for the title of Pokémon Professor.
Part Two:
Give It To Me
Give It To Me
As the deep bass voice ends Fennel’s song, she lets herself be lifted into the air by her backup dancers made up of nothing but muscles and a tiny bit of cloth between their legs. Her face glistens with sweat and she feels blood rush to it as she is put down. The men walk off stage and disappear just as quickly as they were conjured up. Fennel remains on stage for another beat, taking in the moment that would never happen at a real karaoke bar, before stepping down and walking through the crowd of shadows and faceless beings.
When she gets back to the table, Burnet and Juniper are giving her a standing ovation. Burnet looks more impressed with herself for sending the strippers on stage than of the performance. Regardless, she bows with a flourish and scoops up her drink.
“I’ve been waiting to do that song for months!”
“You were great,” Juniper tells her. The warm smile on her face is hard to doubt.
Fennel takes a few sips from her toxapex twist and relishes at the warmth spreading over her chest as the tequila makes its way to her stomach. As always, Juniper is still making no ground on her first drink while Burnet has almost cleared her second already. And here she is with her tequila-plus-a-mixer, because why should any of them pretend to be someone they’re not after all these years? People get older, but they don’t have to change in some areas. For Fennel, the consistency of her friends makes her feel more at ease.
She smacks her lips and asks, “So who’s next?”
Juniper gives her a knowing smile, because leave it to her to have no clue what she’ll be singing after so many years of going out to karaoke. Even Burnet has a good collection of classics to fall back on when she can’t be bothered to come up with something new. But out here in this dimension far away from home where nearly anything is possible, Juniper refuses to not put every thought into choosing the perfect song for the moment.
“Looks like that’ll be me!” Burnet cheers, downing the rest of her drink and slamming the glass on the table. In a commotion of chair scraping against the wooden floor (it is wood, right?), she hops up and half-jogs to the stage. There isn’t much competition here for getting to the mic fast enough.
There is a minute between when she climbs up on stage and gets ready to sing when she shakes out her limbs and rolls her head from side to side. It’s her classic tell that she’s about to sing something bold and probably very loud. Both of her friends sit up in their chairs with excitement. Burnet can be a pain to them, sure, but they’re nothing if not supportive of her love for belting out her feelings on stage.
She takes a deep breath and approaches the mic, and the song is set in motion. Immediately, the lights dim. A soothing strum of a guitar fills the room. The calmness of it is backed by a strength that puts chills on her arms. It plays for twenty seconds before a spotlight shines on Burnet and her voice begins to join to the music.
“I… listened so well… and did everything… like you said.”
It’s a slow start to a song, especially for Burnet. In her skin-tight clothes and wild bleached hair, seeing Burnet tap into such a soft emotion to back her words is captivating. It sends chills up Fennel’s arms.
“I… behaved so good… and sat silently… like you said.”
In an instant, she is transported back to Castelia. The mousy, highly introverted part of her that she’s worked so tirelessly to get rid of rises to the surface, assuming control of her present self. It knows these feelings coming out of Burnet. It understands them wholeheartedly.
“I. Want. You. To give meeeee one more chance.”
Being used. Made to feel like you aren’t worth anything.
“I. Want. You. To give it to meeeeeeee.”
But still deserving of love. Of a life.
“GIVE IT- TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE IF YOU WAAAAAAAAANT TO MAKE ME HAAPPPYYYYYYYYYY LIKE YOU SAIIIIDDDDDDDD AYYYYYYY!!!!!!”
The explosion of vocals leaves Juniper and Fennel in stunned silence. They’ve seen Burnet belt out some power ballads before, but nothing like this.
“What is this song?” Juniper whispers to Fennel, who shakes her head and shrugs, unable to take her eyes off of the stage.
The spotlight has broken apart and shifted to an array of red lights that circle around Burnet as she goes quiet and the guitars strum and reverberate through the bar. She takes the mic off of the stand and paces the stage in long, slow strides.
Fennel sits stiffly in her chair, eyes watery and glued on her friend, because her own unfortunate moments have found their way to the front of her mind and remind her of all the heartache she went through during her last year of university. After nearly failing one of her core classes the previous semester and almost not surviving the rumors that she had tried to sleep with the dean to improve her grade, the worst was only just beginning. Surely, she’s in a much better place now than she was years ago, but the things that have happened to her are never fully gone, not really. They sit in the dark, shadowy recesses of her memory, ready for any opportune moment to remind her of the hurt.
And she still doesn’t forgive herself for it. But what could she do? Even with her friends by her side through it all, she was desperate to feel wanted and like she belonged somewhere with someone. The idea that someone would create a fake dating profile and lie to her just to post about it online never even crossed her mind. And why would it? The internet was still so new and the words “online” and “dating” were never even used together yet. So a person claiming to be from a stone’s throw outside her hometown who thought she was the most captivating student in all of Unova was hard to pass up.
It was the only time she ever lied to her friends. She may not have thought someone could lie to her online about their feelings towards her, but she had enough of a brain to know that meeting up with someone she met through a machine wasn’t a socially acceptable idea at the time. Having two best friends that would look out for her no matter what meant that she would never be allowed to meet her secret suitor if they knew the truth.
“What are you getting all dressed up for?” Juniper asked playfully the night of the date, not knowing there was any date at all. With her back turned to her best friend, Fennel cursed at herself for taking so long to get ready. She had hoped to be out of the apartment before Juniper got back from her evening seminar.
“Dinner with my parents,” she quickly lied and looked through a box of earrings for the silver moons her mother sent her for her birthday last year.
“Oh, nice!” said Juniper. As she crossed the room and locked herself in the bathroom, Fennel gave herself props for coming up with a cover-up so quickly. She’d have to find a way to make sure Juniper never mentioned this specific night to her parents, but that was something to worry about later. Right now she did her best to go into hyper-speed and leave before Juniper could find any cracks in her story.
The sound of the shower turning on let her heave a sigh of relief. It was probably good to still get out of there as quickly as possible since she was running late and still had to hail a cab and get to Gym Street. Once she managed to pluck a pair of earrings from the mess of others without stabbing herself, she hustled around to put the final touches on her makeup and outfit. Five minutes later and she was slamming the front door shut.
“I… took my finger… and I placed it… in your hand.”
Getting to the restaurant was surprisingly easy. Her stomach was fluttering with beautifly and butterfree. Daydreams of admitting the date to her friends made her jittery.
“I… filled my cup up… with the liquid… of your glass.”
By the time she was back in a cab half an hour later, makeup smudged and tears spilling from her eyes, it made her sick knowing that she would have to explain what happened.
“I. Want. You. To give meeeeee one more chance.”
“It was… all a… lie so they could take… p-p-pictures of me… sitting there like an idiot.”
“I. Want. You to give it to meeeeeeeeee.”
“And plates of food kept be-being… brought over and I had to… to pay for it all.”
“GIVE IT TO MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE E IF YOU WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT TO MAKE ME HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYY Y LIKE YOUUU SAIIIIDDDDD.”
It wasn’t a surprise that her friends comforted her. And she knows now that nothing was her fault. People are going to be vile and pick apart those that are weaker just because they can. Survival of the fittest is never going to go away.
“OH GIVE IT - TO MEEEEEEEEEE - IF YOU WAAAAAA AA NT - TO MAKE ME HAPPYYYYY - LIKE YOUUU SAAID.”
At the time she was powerless to do anything about it. She’d been publicly embarrassed and didn’t have the presence to right someone else’s wrong. But that didn’t mean her friends were just going to sit by and accept it.
It was actually Burnet who managed to figure out who set the whole thing up. Unknown to Fennel, Burnet and Juniper secretly logged into her dating profile and through means that she never asked Burnet about, the person was tracked down. If Burnet had had her way, the person might not have made it out of college alive. And it certainly wouldn’t have been as satisfying of a punishment. Not only did Juniper secure them an additional two years of classes and racking up debt, but she lovingly robbed them of their Flickbuster membership card so the three of them could rent out over thirty movies and never return them.
Fennel could have done without any of the revenge. Just having the support of her friends was enough. But the two months they spent having movie nights in their apartment every single week brought her so much joy. They weren’t even good movies, either. You’d think that if the plan was to never return them, you might pick out movies you actually want. But no, Juniper was too focused on getting in and getting out that they ended up with sequels instead of originals, Kalosian films with no subtitles, and even a bootlegged copy of Titanic.
To say that it changed her life might be dramatic, but who knows where she would be. For that, she will never let either of them out of her life.
By the last chorus, Fennel and Juniper are holding hands across the table and singing along with Burnet.
“GIVE IT
TO MEEEEEEEEEEE
IF YOU WAAAAAAAAAAANT
TO MAKE
ME HAAAAPPYPYYYYYYYY
LIKE YOUUUUUU
SSAAAAAAAAAAID.”
Part Three:
Landslide
Landslide
After Burnet finishes the final line and the guitar ends, she jumps into the crowd to surf her way back to the table; how she has the confidence that the shadowy people-shaped mass will carry her, Juniper and Fennel have no idea.
Wiping the tears from her face, Fennel says, “Burnie, that was amazing.”
Burnet gives them an exaggerated bow and waves behind them like she’s taking praise from admiring fans. It’s only for a minute, though, and then she kindly accepts the compliment. The three of them start to speak at length about the people who have hurt them and the times they have been there for each other, which quickly turns into a drinking game involving mirror shots (aptly named for their shiny, metallic color) when their horrible experience tops someone else’s.
“I feel like... I’m going to get back to my lab and be sick all night long,” Fennel says after the sixth shot. “These taste is so bad.”
"Come again?" Burnet asks and Fennel sticks out her tongue at being made fun of for her slurring.
“Wasn’t it your idea to do mirror shots instead of mud shots?” asks Juniper, wincing at the acidic feeling on her tongue.
“True, but you can’t have a drinking game related to bad memories without a bit of punishment.”
Burnet nods and says, “Cheers to that. Mud shots would have been like drinking chocolate instead of corroding metal.”
They sit in silence and let their stomachs settle. Thankfully, the alcohol isn’t real in this dimension, but the way it burns their insides feels very real. In between moments where Fennel absentmindedly picks at her fingernails while thinking of that last semester of school and Burnet twists her wedding ring around her finger, Juniper looks each of them over and finds herself overcome with the realization at how much time has passed over the years. They began as infants in higher education and managed to get through it together and go on to get further degrees in their fields. None of them ended up living in the same towns as each other, but they all found their own laboratories one way or another and have supported each other the whole way through.
And she knows what song she’s going to sing. Without a word, she stands and walks up to the stage. A stool is already in front of the microphone for her and she can smell old teakwood in the air. If she loses her mind as she ages, she hopes Burnet can set her up with her own personal dimension so she can peacefully conjure up all of her favorite things and deteriorate in peace. Not the most positive of thoughts, but she’d choose an inter-dimensional dream realm over a nursing home any day.
She approaches the mic and the music begins. Through the crowd she can see her friends’ puzzled faces as they try to guess the song before she starts singing. If the roles were reversed, she probably wouldn’t be able to pick it out right away either - if it were the original, absolutely, but she prefers this version ever if it isn’t as popular.
“I took my love and I took it down,” she sings. “I climbed a mountain and I turned around.”
It doesn’t take more than those two lines for Fennel to make the connection and lean over to whisper it to Burnet. They both can’t help but smile.
“And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills.”
“Well the landslide brought me down.”
And they’re all back in the ’89 Sporta driving down Highway S17. Juniper is driving because Fennel can’t merge to save her life and Burnet will cut someone off and give them the finger for it if they honk at her. It’s their final getaway as three unmarried women, a trip they planned for over a year as soon as Burnet called to tell them that Kukui proposed. Since it cost her a disgusting amount to fly in from Alola, they decided that driving up the regionside to see some dragons in Opelucid would be the most cost-effective experience.
“I hope you two are flying to Alola for a roadtrip before each of your weddings,” Burnet tells them after they’ve passed Driftveil. Both of them know she’s trying not to think of the broken relationship with her parents.
“Are there any places to actually take a roadtrip?” Fennel asks.
“Of course! Akala is great during the summer, and you two would love Poni Island.”
“And the water in between them won’t get in the way?”
“Not with that attitude.”
They passed the time talking about different landmarks across the islands. They had only ever seen pictures, which made it hard to differentiate which island had the big mountain and which was the one where people threw that one pokémon into the ocean. The first time they heard about that they were horrified, but Burnet didn’t seem to have a problem jokingly referring to them as “Pyeetkumuku.”
When Driftveil is finally just a blip in the rearview mirror, the mood shifts back to unruly freedom. They find that they have a lot more to catch up on than they realized. Periodic phone calls and texts haven’t seemed to convey everything going on in their lives, and it doesn’t only extend to Burnet being out of the loop: Juniper and Fennel are surprised to hear about the status of each other’s love lives even though they only live two towns apart.
“You were sleeping with him?! But you gave his daughter her first pokémon!”
Juniper blushes and shrugs.
“I mean, he was divorced and it had been months since Marshal was over… I was a little famished.”
“Eww!” Fennel laughs, earning her a playful slap from Burnet in the backseat.
“You’re one to talk,” she says. “How long’s it been since you’ve had a purr in your loin?”
The question itself is enough to make Fennel’s cheeks turn scarlet. She gives herself a moment to compose herself before informing them of that man she’s been seeing.
“His name is Otto, and he works for a firm in Castelia.”
Much to their amazement, she tells them all about meeting during a murder mystery night at the Striaton Gym and their subsequent dates. One particular story of a late night bootycall earns an enthusiastic cheer from Burnet. None of them acknowledge how familiar the conversation feels to their first few times hanging out when they would go out to karaoke to sing about boys who suck or how unfair the world is and then retreat to one of their dorms to drink prosecco and divulge their sultry stories to one another. And none of them have to. The feeling is there, deep in their bones, and it feels good. Now they’re adult women living their best lives and relishing in each other’s successes.
The highway slowly bends along the mountainside and then it turns into a straightaway. Here, the Arc Mountains stretch out in front of them in their full beauty. All three of them have travelled around Unova before and seen the mountains from all sides, but the sight catches them off-guard. A calm silence spreads over them as new emotions rise to the surface. It’s just a mountain range, but it means something in this moment.
“Oh, mirror in the sky: what is love?”
Everyone tells you while you’re growing up that you don’t get to be a kid forever. You hear parents say that time is going by so fast, but before you’re in your twenties you have no idea what that actually means because for you each year of school feels like a lifetime, separated by summers that are only a few months but feel twice as long. Birthdays are special occasions and each one feels like a milestone to you. One year is a world of difference between when you were eight instead of nine, even though twenty-eight feels exactly the same as twenty-seven.
“Can the child within my heart rise above?”
But you don’t know that. You can’t possibly know that. It’s going to take time to forget how long a year actually is, and by the time you realize you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be a kid kid again it’s been too many years to be okay with how much older you’ve gotten. It’s not fair to anyone. The only people who understand what it means to value being a kid are the ones that can look back and wish they had more time before the world forced them to grow up. In the grand scheme of things, does it even matter? Everyone is going to continue to age, so why not let yourself be a kid every now and then? It sure as hell makes the roadtrips with your best friends a lot more fun.
“Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?”
Can I handle the seasons of my life?”
If there is anything that the three of them value above all else it is the experiences they’ve shared with each other that let them feel alive. The good, the bad; all of it. Anything that makes them look ahead in excitement or behind them with fear, so long as they weren’t forgetting to enjoy the time slipping by before they could notice.
“Well I’ve been afraid of changing ‘cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder; children get older
And I’m getting older, too.”
But time makes you bolder; children get older
And I’m getting older, too.”
In the backseat, Burnet unbuckles her seatbelt and leans forward to put a hand on each of her friend’s shoulders.
Before she can talk, Juniper says, “Don’t say it.”
Burnet ignores her.
“I love you two.”
