Archive of Our Own ^beta

Interstellar expeditions were a lot harder to pull off than one thought. For millennia, humans had been exploring galaxies far beyond their own with the knowledge that Earth may very well have been destroyed; still, they continued, for they wished to discover other species, other worlds, other realities if such a term could truly be used to define the missions they carried out. Generations upon generations of humans had lived and died on board space vessels that prioritized efficiency over everything else. Each person had a role to play; everyone had certain responsibilities and to betray those was to betray the human race as it stood, so no one ever chose to do such a thing because it would be wrong.  

Several different types of missions were carried out; the flotilla had lost thousands of space vessels because their inhabitants were now coexisting with alien species. Besides basic maintenance and supply runs, Asahina Mafuyu had not seen any truly dangerous assignments since she had gotten to an age where she was considered responsible enough to perform skilled labour on board the ship. Obviously there was a need for entertainment, and so there were people trained to compose, to write, to draw, who were skilled in it from childhood, and they were valued in this society because their work allowed everyone to relax and forget about their everyday tasks. Mafuyu was friends with one such person, Yoisaki Kanade, and there was nothing odd about it. There was nothing odd about Mafuyu herself, really; she was an ordinary resident of the spaceship and a contributing member of society. She had a university degree. As normal as one could get in this anaemic society.  

Except, maybe, her interest in black holes.  

For eons it had been known that going near such interstellar phenomena was a certain death sentence. The event horizon was impassable in the sense that if one's hair as much as drifted into it, death was then inevitable. There was no way to escape the gravitational pull no matter how many attempts. In fact, it was said that the gravity of a black hole was so intense as to allow someone close to the singularity contained within to view the end of the universe. Mafuyu found such a concept fascinating though it wasn't safe in the slightest and she'd die if she went.  

Still, her newest assignment – with Kanade, no less – had only served to pique that interest. They were being assigned to a two-person shuttle destined to explore a nearby black hole. Strict parameters had been placed on their movements; getting too close to the phenomena was forbidden as it could result in the loss of two of the community's youth, needed to perform the most complicated maintenance tasks.  

Mafuyu told herself she would not harm another for the pursuit of her own scientific interest. Two people were needed on extended research missions to reduce the risk of someone developing psychosis and thus her ability to learn what was really inside a black hole was extremely limited unless she could get assigned a teammate who was also... not completely sane when it came to increasing their knowledge of the space around them. 

It was only after the thirtieth briefing she'd been to about safety that she began to wonder if she could detach the emergency vehicle from the spacecraft and fly into the void of the black hole. Kanade could make it home – in fact, if you lost your assigned partner on a mission, return to home base was necessary, after recovering their body if at all possible. Mafuyu had never seen anyone die on a mission in her lifetime, though there were horror stories about what happened to those who had.  

She'd had to hide her fixation on black holes and paradoxes and the end of the universe from the psychologists and everyone around her. In no parallel universe would this have been accepted nor considered a benefit to the scientific potential their mission would bring. Mafuyu knew that there was a risk that she could singlehandedly doom this entire spaceship if she dared to apply for a position in the navigation department. She had no degree, though, and the training program was lengthy and- 

"Mafuyu, is there something on your mind?"  

Kanade was sitting across from her in the mess hall, looking awfully concerned. "I'm... just, this is a big project." A lie. It stung her teeth as she forced it out of her mouth, and had she had a weaker disposition, she might have noticed the acidic taste that it left behind. Mafuyu knew that Kanade could tell when she was lying – there was nothing that slipped past her – but she had no choice. To confide in someone that she wanted to allow herself to enter a black hole and never return would be tantamount to announcing her intent to sacrifice herself to the gods of one of the many alien species they'd met recently. Suicidal, they would label her, too obsessed with death and unfit for duty. There was nothing as dishonourable as such a proclamation for someone who had been raised as the perfect worker on board this vessel. Mafuyu would not allow this information to be as much as whispered in an area equipped with security cameras such as the mess hall.  

"It'll be okay," Kanade said, and gently entwined her fingers with Mafuyu's.  

She was truly too kind for her own good, Mafuyu thought, as they placed their trays in the washing bin. Kanade always waited for her after meals, and classes, and training sessions and work and-  

It seemed sometimes that Kanade had never stopped waiting for everyone else her entire life. Writing songs in her notebooks as she waited for her friends to finish their homework, making up stories in her head as everyone else finished their meals. Mafuyu would have done the same had her list of responsibilities as a child and young adult not been so lengthy. 

The only reason they had gravity at the moment was that they were parked on a very large moon waiting for a team of scientists to get back from an extravehicular activity. Even then it was fairly light, but for children who had grown up in very low gravity environments, this sort of thing was like being made to wear a tactical vest around everywhere they went. Refuelling operations would soon commence, and though Mafuyu wasn't part of the team assigned to that this time, she wondered if they were being as diligent as need be. Supervisors on that line of work were rarely all that responsible as all you needed to continue working the role was to enjoy it and know how to perform basic subtraction; it was for this reason that she'd quit in the first place.  

They passed a few groups of people in the halls, including multiple singing groups and a theatre troupe. Anything you could contribute to the society here was welcome and thus all talents were prioritized. Mafuyu had done well in every job she'd tried; she was only being assigned to the research division because she'd passed the initial evaluation and Kanade needed a partner she trusted to advance her musical pursuits.  

Yes, this was indeed a mission that was half musical and half scientific. Mafuyu thought the concept ridiculous, but this was her assignment and she was meant to remain unquestioning.  

She would do anything for Kanade, however, and that was why she'd agreed to it.  

They set off on their mission tomorrow. Mafuyu almost felt as if she was looking forward to it, but then she hadn't looked forward to anything since she'd been a child. How simple it had been when she'd known what she loved, what she wanted to do, and how complicated it was now that she was unaware as to whether or not she had a personality in the first place. When she'd met Kanade, she had begun to regain a sense of self, the concept of existence itself really, but nothing had brought her back to her former glory as a true human who understood her own mind and knew how to empathize properly with others. 

Kanade knew of this struggle but she wasn't allowed to keep her compositions private for the sake of the wider community unless she deemed them to be demo tracks. As such, she'd made several 'demo' tracks that had never seen the light of day. They hid in a secret folder on Mafuyu's wrist communicator; she played them sometimes when she felt completely alone. Kanade also seemed to understand what Mafuyu meant when she apologized, when she said things that seemed odd to everyone else who was listening. Once Mafuyu had heard a boy call Kanade her interpreter since she seemed to say everything for her as she couldn't say it herself.  

She was unsure how to feel about that. On one hand she wanted to defend Kanade's honour and explain that she was just doing this out of kindness and that she could speak up for herself if necessary without that help, but on the other... people found her odd. With her mannerisms that seemed out of place on this spaceship, and her manner of speech that was a little stilted and sometimes too blunt for others to handle. When Kanade turned her words into something that sounded as if it fit within the social framework of their classes and lunch lines and work environments, people liked her. They saw her for who she really was and who she wanted to be, and they respected her as they would everyone else.  

Mafuyu did not get that same response when she spoke without having first asked someone how to best phrase her meaning. Her mother had always been critical of the way she spoke and her flat voice but she had no other way to voice anything on her own. She preferred to be monotone anyway; it took less effort.  

Before she was aware of it, she was lying down next to Kanade in their shared bunk (they had another bed in their room but this one was bigger and Mafuyu found that it was... easier to sleep when there was a physical weight keeping her mind calm), her clothes now more appropriate for rest and her bags all packed for the gruelling journey ahead. Well, not really. Wormholes had come in handy when it came to travelling absurdly large distances, and there was one but a day's journey away from where they currently were. Mafuyu had the coordinates of their black hole and their point of entry into the wormhole memorized by now. She knew this was a short mission – only a few weeks – and they wouldn't be getting close enough to a black hole for time to truly begin messing up their lives.  

Kanade, who'd been asleep for at least half an hour now, rolled over, tucking her head into the junction between Mafuyu's neck and her shoulder, throwing an arm over her chest. She mumbled something unintelligible that probably had something to do with cats by the sound of it.  

Mafuyu gently detangled Kanade's hair one section at a time, running her hands through the light blue blanket that it truly was. She kissed the top of her head and tried a smile on her own face. Why does this feel... right? 

She did not know when she fell asleep, but when she did, she did not dream of throwing herself past the event horizon and watching the universe end as her body was stretched until it was so thin it would be meaningless. Consumed by the singularity, her image used as an example of what not to do when one encountered a black hole. Alone in death yet peaceful. Instead she dreamed of quieter days, of stolen moments and laughter, genuine laughter, shared with Kanade somewhere on the vessel they currently inhabited. Of dancing and stealing snacks from the mess hall and going to safety briefings and learning to write music and... 

That was why she was having second thoughts about this mission.  

It was dangerous. And... Kanade would be there, but she wasn't exactly the sort of person who'd be the first choice for this sort of scientific expedition. Mafuyu didn't want to lose her. She wasn't going to, she told herself. However, her mind brought up as she dressed in her mission gear, if Kanade somehow fell past the event horizon... what would she do? 

Obviously, Mafuyu scolded herself, she would go in after her. For to live without Kanade was to live without someone who understood her, and that – that would be awful, would it not? To feel completely lonely in this universe once again – just the thought of it made her shiver though the heating in this section was on full blast. Thankfully, Kanade did not notice. 

They made their way to the transportation sector of their ship – the designated hub of their flotilla, it had a passenger capacity of just over one million, assembled in space from a thousand different pieces over the centuries. As a result, some things, like the entertainment complex, had been added rather recently, but others, like this transportation bay they were heading to, were original to the design, almost a thousand years old and held together by good engineering and hope at this point. These had been in use for several times their intended service life and were supposed to have been replaced when Mafuyu was a toddler, but that clearly hadn't happened given how the floorboard she was standing on had the name of a world leader from the 1900s on it. Mafuyu hadn't even been taught about the first world war on Earth as anything more than a devastating, unnecessary conflict, a footnote in the margins that had never even showed up on her exam in a multiple choice problem. The second one had gotten quite a lot of attention as genocide was to be avoided at all costs; this was a peacekeeping mission first and foremost.  

Kanade took her hand and gently pulled her towards their farewell party. Mizuki and Ena, two of the girls in their classes as students and an artist and animator-slash-designer on the ship respectively, were the only people other than the mission staff there to bid them safe passage and safe return. Kanade's... former housekeeper, if she could be called such a thing in a place where there were no houses to speak of, only living quarters, hadn't been able to make it either due to her work in the infirmary or her band practice.  

Mafuyu allowed her friends (they were close enough now to be called that, right?) to give her hugs that lasted longer than the dictionary definition said they usually did. She wrapped her arms around Mizuki when they did so to her and allowed them to fuss about how 'uncute' her outfit was. Next time she went on a mission, they promised, they'd have to fix up her clothing so it suited the occasion. Mafuyu personally thought that the plainclothes she'd been given for this purpose were fine as they were, but if Mizuki wished to edit her outfit, she wouldn't deny them that joy.  

Ena gave her a long hug as well, told her that she'd miss her, and then Mafuyu was getting her final briefing from the mission staff and drilling emergency procedures and doing a memory items assessment and then she was on the ship.  

Waiting for traffic control to let them start up their engines and detach from the airlock. Kanade had checked and triple checked that it was all secured and they weren't going to die of explosive decompression the instant they severed themselves from the rest of society. Neither were everyone on the ship; the other side of the airlock had been set to vent and the four sets of doors pressurized. "Reconnaissance fourteen, you are clear for detachment," the controller announced. Mafuyu winced as her headset got all staticky as someone else hopped on the channel asking for clearance to do something.  

Once the static noise faded, Mafuyu did as she was trained. "Reconnaissance fourteen, clear for detachment, copy." 

Kanade flipped a series of switches before taking the controls and clicking the detach switches on her controls. In a traditional Earth aviation setup, Mafuyu would be in the first officer's place and Kanade the captain's, but they simply referred to themselves as pilot and the-one-who-handles-literally-everything-else. Mafuyu had the radio and navigation; she'd also be responsible for the wormhole calculations (which Kanade would have to cross-check later).  

Their little vessel detached from the main ship.  

Mafuyu let out the breath she was unaware she was holding.  

"Tower, this is reconnaissance fourteen, we require exit vectors." It wasn't easy to escape from the flotilla and all its moving parts without guidance.  

"Reconnaissance fourteen, departure victor alpha tango, advise when clear." 

"Reconnaissance fourteen, departure victor alpha tango, copy."  

Kanade began the manoeuvre without having inputted the relevant information into the flight computer. Before her assignment to the music sector, she'd been employed as a logistics pilot, supplying various ships in their flotilla with everything from food to pathogens for study, all sourced from their main hub. Mafuyu supposed she'd flown this exact departure several times; it must have been second nature at this point.  

Once they had gotten out of the most crowded area, Mafuyu decided to call the control tower again. "Tower, reconnaissance fourteen, we are clear." 

"Reconnaissance fourteen, please contact mission command, frequency one-six-seven point three five, for further clearance. Maintain heading two six zero, minimum spacing one five zero." 

That was a lot. Mafuyu turned her attention to the instrument panels in front of her as she read back the message. "Reconnaissance fourteen, maintaining two six zero, minimum spacing one five zero-" she set the heading and spacing dials "- mission command frequency one-six-seven point three five, have a good day, tower." It was courtesy to wish traffic control well before switching to a more general area controller. Mafuyu fiddled with the radio until it displayed the correct frequency. Kanade seemed to be fine, so she called up mission control. "Mission, this is reconnaissance fourteen, maintaining two six zero, standard spacing." 

"Reconnaissance fourteen, this is mission control. Proceed direct to waypoint alpha charlie lima uniform victor." 

And once again, she had to repeat everything said.  

At least they had a direct clearance, Kanade muttered as she set the autopilot for the waypoint. Mafuyu had never seen her fly outside of the simulator before, and though most people acted in very similar ways in the cockpit and simulator, Kanade didn't; when she'd been in the simulator, she'd been a little more relaxed, probably because they couldn't die in there, not really, and besides they got to practice emergency protocols over and over again in a way that felt mundane. Now, though, she was fidgety. Nervous. Whenever they got a new clearance, she'd fly it with an abundance of caution to the point where an unaware observer might assume this was a training flight. Not that being cautious was a bad idea, but... it was interesting. 

"Mafuyu?" she called, eyes diverting from the instruments and sky in front of her for just a second. "Is everything all right?" 

In the low light of the cockpit combined with the very slight amount of starlight filtering through the window, Kanade looked ethereal. Her hair had been tied back, then tucked into her uniform so it didn't interfere with her work. And her eyes sparkled with the depths of Earth's oceans, only illustrated in the old textbooks that had had to be digitized quickly as their pages had by now turned to fuel for the fires humanity was lighting on other worlds. Mafuyu had never seen someone so beautiful before. Would she have the chance to meet someone like that again? She highly doubted it. "I'm okay," she said. "No technical failures." 

"Yet," Kanade mumbled. "Something always goes wrong with these junkers." 

That felt odd. "Always?" 

"Well- They have a history of issues," she said. "And most of the ones I've flown had some tiny electrical fault that could've been really bad had I not had access to maintenance soon after it showed up." Kanade tucked a stray lock of hair back into her uniform. "Part of why I moved jobs." She glanced over at Mafuyu again. "Sorry. I've just been... nervous about this. I don't really..." 

"Go on lengthy missions?" 

"Yeah." Kanade took a very shaky breath.  "It's a bit... daunting, isn't it?" She took one hand off the controls and gestured at the vastness of space outside. "How far's this wormhole?" 

"About three days of travel," Mafuyu said, glancing through the flight plan again. "But the event horizon's only a day of travel past that." 

Kanade nodded. "And we're supposed to maintain a distance of..." 

"Minimum safe distance is two hundred fifty thousand kilometres from the edge of it." 

She wrung her hands out. Mafuyu would have to reread that article on how to best comfort someone when you weren't sure what it was that was upsetting them in the first place. Making them a snack or getting them a glass of water if they so wished were two items higher up on the list of suggestions, but being a shoulder to cry on was also on there and- 

"Mafuyu, is something wrong?" 

Oh. 

"I'm... lost in thought. I'll refocus." 

Kanade kept glancing at her out of the corner of her eyes as they continued along their path. 

"Mission control, this is reconnaissance four, waypoint reached." Mafuyu repeated the message a few times to ensure their command team heard it.  

A few minutes later, she received a reply: "Reconnaissance four, proceed according to flight plan. Maintain radio silence except in case of emergency. Godspeed, crew." 

Mafuyu had already input the needed information into the autopilot. "We're flying through a restricted zone. No one else is allowed to be here, so we can..." 

"Break the rules about needing one person in the cockpit at all times?" Kanade finished the sentence. "Really?" 

"Well, it gets boring," she said.  

Kanade sighed. "Two days until the wormhole, right?" 

"Yes." 

"Then we have two non-mission days."  

There wasn't a good way to argue with that, so Mafuyu elected to agree with it and move on. "We do not need to peruse the regulations manual." 

"Not unless you think you've forgotten something," Kanade mumbled. "Can I really trust the ship with this?" 

"Was that a rhetorical question?" 

"... no." 

"You can trust it," Mafuyu said.  

Kanade did not seem too convinced by this, but upon learning that Mafuyu intended to attempt to cook using the stove in the back, she decided that the ship apparently could be trusted to fly itself as she would rather avoid an on-board fire from an accidental misuse of the burners. At least that was what her motive seemed to be, Mafuyu remarked as Kanade gently redirected her towards a less risky task: setting up the bunkroom.  

She had done this exact procedure several times and she knew it by heart, so as she began unpacking their (mission-approved) bags, she allowed her mind to wander towards the black hole again.  

What would it look like inside one of them? Besides the darkness they projected to the world, was it possible to see what was around you when you were inside one? Never had anyone tested that theory and been able to report their results because black holes were all-consuming. Even light fell prey to their jaws, hopeless against their whims and desires. Mafuyu wondered if it lit up the inside of one like the ceiling lights in her quarters or the bioluminescent fish in the onboard aquariums. Was it perfectly dark except for the outside, a window to the end of the universe displayed for its occupants to see as they were slowly stretched to death? 

And how had they come to be in the first place? 

Mafuyu did not know the answers to these questions. And she did not want to abandon Kanade, so perchance she would never know them.  

"You're lost in thought again." Kanade was leaning against the doorframe. "Something wrong?" She stepped (floated? there was so little gravity here; was that a better term?) into the room. Wrapped an arm around Mafuyu, the other reaching to untangle the knots in her hair.  

"Not really." 

Kanade hummed a melody Mafuyu had only heard once before, when her mother had taken her to see a recording of an Earth orchestral performance. The Blue Danube waltz if she remembered it correctly. Though dancing was rather difficult when you were in a low-gravity environment, where these sorts of things had been the norm since Mafuyu had been very young, she was used to it. Her first dance had been given to a boy her grandparents thought was suitable; she had not liked him very much at all and he had died on an expedition three months into their 'relationship'. Mafuyu had shed no tears in his honour or memory – in fact, she'd been glad that she had no longer had to deal with him wanting to show affection to her.  

Where had her thoughts gone? 

Ah. 

Yes. 

She was dancing with Kanade. A slow step, spinning in a circle, a gentle moment that had no reason to end as soon as it did.  

"We should eat," Kanade said. "The food will get cold soon." 

Mafuyu had always found eating food while watching the universe pass by to be odd. She found it too distracting; when she'd get invited by Mizuki or Ena to eat at a restaurant on board the ship (allotted a certain amount of food per month and delicious, but much pricier than going to the cafeteria), they'd choose somewhere by a window, and it just felt as if there were much better things to do than eat when the universe was daring her to look out at its wonders. This had been particularly bad when they'd gotten as close to a nebula as was safely possible and Kanade had invited her to go on a date at one of the nicer restaurants. She'd spent almost the full meal looking out at the nebula and thinking. 

Kanade had only chuckled to herself and taken Mafuyu's hand to indicate she wasn't mad or anything, and they'd watched the stars together.  

Was that what romance was? 

They could see a different nebula out the kitchen window now, its pink and purple clouds a stark contrast to the harsh darkness of space. Mafuyu supposed that it was inhospitable in its own way, but no one would ever be able to know just by looking at it without knowing what it was.  

Beautiful, yet treacharous.  

Nebulae were generally off-limits during research missions because it was better to see them from afar. Flying through one was much like flying through regular space, except for the faint glow that clung to the outside of the spacecraft, according to visual reports.  

Fascinating. 

"Mafuyu, are you going to finish your portion, or shall I put it in the fridge for later?" 

She looked down at her own plate. Though Kanade's cooking had a taste and the texture was decent, she wasn't feeling hungry right now. "I'll eat it later." 

The trip was uneventful until they reached the relatively critical wormhole entry corridor. Mafuyu had done the calculations over and over again to make sure their vectors were correct and that they weren't going to launch themselves into a black hole by accident. The margins needed for this sort of manoeuvre were high; previous incidents had shown that without them, bad things could happen rather quickly, and they could be devastating.  

Mafuyu trusted Kanade to fly the pattern much more than she trusted herself with that sort of responsibility. They both had to check and cross-check and recheck the calculations so this wouldn't go wrong, but after all the math and calculators, they were ready. 

"Turn heading three five one." 

Kanade nodded and began to steer the vessel in the correct direction.  

"In five nautical miles, turn heading zero five three." 

And so they continued, flying in a very zig-zag-like pattern as they approached the trickiest part of their journey.  

Mafuyu gasped when she saw the wormhole. On previous jumps, she'd never been near a window, not even when she ought to have been right next to one. She normally chose seats that were further away from the outside of the ship because she'd heard that looking too deep into one could cause psychotic episodes, which were unhelpful when she was attempting to get ahead in her schoolwork.  

It was beautiful. Painted with colours that ought to never be stuck together and yet they were immeasurably perfect. Mafuyu felt an urge to get closer, to dive into the depths without anything protecting her from the void, and she was already reaching to undo her seat buckle when- 

"Stay with me," Kanade said. "Don't look outside for too long." 

She nodded, embarrassed that she'd allowed herself such a lapse in judgement. Her mother would be horrified when she learned of this.  

"Everyone's like that their first time." Kanade, who'd apparently done this before, took her hands off the controls for a split second to fix her hair. "That's why the airlocks are set to command clearance whenever we prepare for wormhole traverses."  

"Oh." Mafuyu turned her attention back to the charted course. "In ten nautical miles, turn heading one seven three." 

"Copy." 

Eventually, they made their way through the wormhole, and somehow, Mafuyu was able to avoid exiting the cockpit for any reason with only three gentle reminders from Kanade. She found the whole experience exhilarating if anything; the canvas of empty space was truly fascinating in what was painted on it.  

They exited the wormhole a few hours later. Kanade set their course towards the black hole; it would only take them twenty-four hours to reach it, so they were allotted ten hours of rest before they had to begin slowing their spacecraft down.  

Her hair seemed to glow as she walked down towards the bunk area, her eyes oceans of immeasurable depths and pure beauty if Mafuyu had ever known what such a thing was. She felt as if simply looking at Kanade was to defile her; such perfection ought to be cherished, not sullied by treacherous eyes whose admiration could not solely be platonic. For who wouldn't fall in love with Kanade? The natural order as told by ancient scholars since proved devastatingly wrong was that women were only supposed to fall in love with men but surely, surely, that could not be applicable because Kanade was an angel from another plane of existence and it was fate that Mafuyu should love her, was it not? 

Then she remembered that wormholes were also known for making people act as if they were drunk in the sense that they would think and say things that were true but which usually got stuck behind the brain-to-mouth and subconscious-to-brain filters. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

She had been in love with Kanade for... years? 

Their friendship, which to the outside observer regularly crossed the line between friendship and romance, had always been important to her. So important, in fact, that Mafuyu had happily missed her own high school graduation to take care of Kanade while she was very sick.  

Maybe she'd missed something and they'd been lovers for ages. 

Unfortunately, she had no time to investigate this, because she was meant to be going to bed, and that had its own set of complex procedures to follow.  

By the time Mafuyu did get to sleep, her mind had already started cataloguing the things that might have been indicative of her feelings for Kanade and had found at least seventeen. It was odd how a little messing with her neural pathways made her realize the most obvious facts about her own life.  

The black hole was... unlike anything she'd ever seen before, and while Mafuyu had seen pictures of them in her classes, she'd never been anywhere close to one for good reason, so it was as if someone had hidden a dark secret from her that turned out to be rather peaceful instead. It did not seem dangerous at first glimpse, rather... mysterious.  

Maybe that was their nature, to seem fascinating rather than horrifying. After all, was it not easier to harm another with a kind expression on one's face instead of a creepy grin? 

Still, its existence seemed to be designed to be comforting. The rest of the universe was a kaleidoscope, colours everywhere you looked. Nowhere was truly empty, nothing truly free from matter or light. It was refreshing to have one place in the entire galaxy that strayed from the norm.  

Kanade had her electronics out now, taking notes on one, a mission log created with all the parameters of the average scientific mission, but her composing software on her others, a creative endeavour that would reach more people than her research could ever hope to. Mafuyu found that part of the human condition rather odd: factual information was best delivered wrapped up in melodies and emotions because no one would prefer to listen to a presentation on what an interstellar expedition had found. How they had felt was much more important to society.  

She was there to observe. Not to take notes; she could, but they would be dismissed in favour of Kanade's. Mafuyu had never been the one to be trusted with important information; her teachers had viewed her as an anomaly, a child who had never been loved, they'd whispered behind her back. For her mother's parenting tactics had been viewed as wrong when she was still quite young and her father had not been told that she'd been placed in a communal living arrangement with other children until she was fourteen, only allowed to visit her family members on certain occasions, at which point it had been much too late and her life had been destined to head down an unsatisfactory path according to any standards. 

That was why she'd floated from job to job, never staying in one line of work too long for she knew the command staff did not trust her.  

Now, strapped into her chair, she wondered if her fate was also something of her own making, if her decisions as a child had led her here. Had she not said anything about how she was being treated, would she have been set right? 

Kanade seemed to notice her train of thought, as if she was a mind reader, and she gently put a hand on Mafuyu's shoulder. "Overwhelming, isn't it?" 

"I suppose." 

"We'll be out of here in a week or so," Kanade promised. "There's a few tests we have to run..." 

Mafuyu woke up in an alternate universe. Where the lights on the ship were green, not red, and she'd been trusted with some responsibilities on this mission. Immediately, something felt off. When she tried to look at herself, she saw only a monster, a creature so hated by the world that no one could ever think she was lovable. Not even Kanade, who was the very image of kindness and acceptance, would be capable of hiding her disgust.  

She was broken. That was simply a fact. Everyone knew it; she had never had the chance to hide.  

The rational part of her mind seemed to have vanished, which was strange.  

Her first step into the depths of the vessel she was aboard echoed through the corridors like a stone being thrown into water. The sound waves rippled, and for once, she could see how they did so. Had she been drugged? No, Kanade would never knowingly do anything like that, and she had eaten more of the meal than Mafuyu had, so if both their portions had been spiked, she'd be suffering from way worse effects right now.  

Speaking of which... where was she? 

"Mafuyu?" a voice she knew by heart called from just down the hall. The next words that came were somewhat indescipherable – maybe Are you having a nightmare – but she couldn't be sure.  

"Kanade?" 

Her feeble attempt at communication was met with nothing but silence.  

She took a few more steps into the halls of the ship, and though its layout was very unfamiliar to her, she somehow made her way to a viewport.  

Outside, she could see Kanade, in a space suit, getting dangerously close to the event horizon. She was not attached to the ship, and she had very little ability to fight against the gravity of the black hole the closer she got. Likely, she'd gotten detached from the carabiners on a routine maintenance check, and the force had pushed her towards an inevitable death.  

Rationally speaking, the best course of action to prevent further loss of life would be to leave her to the mercy of infinite gravity and the pain that might ensue as a result. But humans were not rational creatures and Mafuyu was, though she was unsure she'd ever seen herself as such, a human.  

The suit hung right by the airlock. She had to hurry. This would not succeed if she was too slow. Hacking into the security on the doors was all too easy for someone who'd spent their childhood learning how to hide viruses in the mainframes of any desktop. She was outside in little time, but even that was precious and so she was panicking even as she managed to propel herself towards Kanade. Their short-range radios activated soon and Mafuyu continued to do her best to swim against the tides of her mind so she could either save Kanade or die here in her arms. She said words she did not fully understand, ones of consolation and apology, and all she heard in response was her name.  

That, and a gentle, "It's okay. I'm here." 

Over and over again Kanade said those words as they slowly drifted towards the end of the universe, their hands somehow finding a way to pull each other into hugs.  

Mafuyu did not know exactly when they crossed the event horizon, but she cried as they did, knowing that if she did die before they could witness the final scenes of eternity, it would be painful, and Kanade would also be subjected to such horrors. She did not wish for someone she loved so dearly to experience that, ever, and it made her want to scream with rage as she sobbed.  

Gravity had never felt so strong as it did now and if she looked down, she could see her legs lengthening as her body was slowly, ever so slowly, getting stretched down to the atoms. For this reason she did not look.  

They were going to die here. There was no other option now.  

The sterile red lights on the ceiling weren't the nicest things to wake up to, but they were certainly better than the harsh white ones Mafuyu had been accustomed to as a child. Kanade was looking at her with a very relieved expression on her face, as if she'd just had to watch someone go through something traumatizing and now it was over. "You had a nightmare," she explained, running a hand through Mafuyu's hair to detangle it. "At least I think that's what that was."  

"Thank God you're not dead," was the first thing she thought to say. 

"I heard. Something about a black hole?" Kanade took one of Mafuyu's hands in hers. "I wasn't sure what was going on, so I... set up our communications array to send a mission-cut-short message due to 'medical complications'. I don't think staying here for too long is going to be good for either of us." 

"I love you," she said.  

Kanade didn't seem too surprised or taken aback by this. Instead, the only thing she said was, "I love you too." 

And maybe, just maybe, she could start to believe that she had a place in this world, that her fate was not to fall into a black hole and die there. Instead, she thought, she could learn something she had previously not known, find a line of work she truly enjoyed and wanted to do, and if that coincidentally involved spending a lot of time near Kanade... 

... well, it wouldn't be detrimental to her work ethic, and in their minimalist society, that was what was most important. 

Perchance someone would soon write a great love story and Mafuyu would find it to be illuminating rather than boring. Maybe she would learn what the world prioritized and why, and if such a thing could be done, then maybe she would know what true happiness was.  

(It seemed as if the answer had been closer than she thought.)