[ The only message Lune received from Kimiko during the blackout had been a cryptic single line: Go there if you need to.
But go fucking where, was the issue. Lune had tried messaging her friend off-and-on, but nothing made it through; and then it’s been a little over a week of sleep deprivation, moving between makeshift crisis centers, trying to help maintain order in chaotic districts. How quickly it all fell apart, the moment people lost sight of the social contract. Lune had stood in the hospital room of the very woman who kept it all running, and had the distinct impression that it was all far more fragile than she’d ever known.
Even after the power comes back on, her telephone still doesn’t work quite right. She keeps trying to message Kimiko and it doesn’t go through; nothing else comes back.
Go there if you need to.
So, after a couple days of this aggravation, and after sorting out her own room and retrieving her now-dented car from where it had been stuck (although thankfully not wrecked) in the Pavilion— Lune just drives over to Kimiko’s place.
First she knocks politely on the door, then pounds on it with a fist, more insistent. Waits, head cocked, listening for any sound of the other woman or her roommates inside. The door hasn’t been broken down, so their home seems intact. They’re all tough and capable. They’re fine. It’s probably fine.
After a few minutes of bobbing on her heels, impatient, fretful, Lune settles down in the hallway to wait for the other woman to (presumably, hopefully) return from errands or emergencies or work or whatever else has been occupying any of them now that the power’s back. She sits on the floor with her head tipped back against the wall, long legs outstretched, then eventually tucked under herself when the first annoyed neighbour has to walk past her.
She tries to read (you should always keep a book in your bag), but her attention span drifts and she finds herself going over the same sentence over and over. In the end, she gives up and simply waits in an anxious half-doze. By any pragmatic measure, it’s a waste of her time — she has better things to do, she could’ve simply slipped a note under the door and called it a day — but she waits anyway, like some forlorn abandoned dog haunting the doorstep. She wants the immediate confirmation, to lay her eyes on Kimiko herself or be able to interrogate the roommates. It’s been a shitty week filled with the unknown, no confirmation, unable to find her people for so long. She’s tired of it.
Lune wants to know, concretely and definitively, that Kimiko is alright.
after the pulse.
But go fucking where, was the issue. Lune had tried messaging her friend off-and-on, but nothing made it through; and then it’s been a little over a week of sleep deprivation, moving between makeshift crisis centers, trying to help maintain order in chaotic districts. How quickly it all fell apart, the moment people lost sight of the social contract. Lune had stood in the hospital room of the very woman who kept it all running, and had the distinct impression that it was all far more fragile than she’d ever known.
Even after the power comes back on, her telephone still doesn’t work quite right. She keeps trying to message Kimiko and it doesn’t go through; nothing else comes back.
Go there if you need to.
So, after a couple days of this aggravation, and after sorting out her own room and retrieving her now-dented car from where it had been stuck (although thankfully not wrecked) in the Pavilion— Lune just drives over to Kimiko’s place.
First she knocks politely on the door, then pounds on it with a fist, more insistent. Waits, head cocked, listening for any sound of the other woman or her roommates inside. The door hasn’t been broken down, so their home seems intact. They’re all tough and capable. They’re fine. It’s probably fine.
After a few minutes of bobbing on her heels, impatient, fretful, Lune settles down in the hallway to wait for the other woman to (presumably, hopefully) return from errands or emergencies or work or whatever else has been occupying any of them now that the power’s back. She sits on the floor with her head tipped back against the wall, long legs outstretched, then eventually tucked under herself when the first annoyed neighbour has to walk past her.
She tries to read (you should always keep a book in your bag), but her attention span drifts and she finds herself going over the same sentence over and over. In the end, she gives up and simply waits in an anxious half-doze. By any pragmatic measure, it’s a waste of her time — she has better things to do, she could’ve simply slipped a note under the door and called it a day — but she waits anyway, like some forlorn abandoned dog haunting the doorstep. She wants the immediate confirmation, to lay her eyes on Kimiko herself or be able to interrogate the roommates. It’s been a shitty week filled with the unknown, no confirmation, unable to find her people for so long. She’s tired of it.
Lune wants to know, concretely and definitively, that Kimiko is alright.
So. She waits. ]