Maybe this Time, I'll be Lucky

Nao picks her up that night, her arm draped over the passenger seat as she drove, effortlessly cool. The car smells of Nao’s lavender perfume, even when the windows are cracked just enough to let in the evening breeze. Hakaze finishes off her last few edits to the track that Fuma had sent the night before on her laptop.

“You’re still using that,” Nao observes.

“It’s still working.”

“It’s like showbiz left literally no mark on you.”

Hakaze grins, though this is, for all intents and purposes, a massive stretch. The more time passes after her retirement, the more she’s convinced that she would never recover from showbiz. 

That reminds her: “Met Ren yesterday. Just saw him, too.”

Nao whistles. “Damn. What was he like?”

“Really fucking hot. Fucking asshole, too."

Nao laughs, throwing her head back. “Called it. You were always so weak to the bitchy pretty ones.”

“You most of all!”

“Ehh, you flirt. Hope you weren’t this bad with him.”

Hakaze snorts. “He’d hate me even more if I did. He’s awful. If I flirted he’d have scratched me, like a cat. Do you know he said I was ruined when I chose to fight for Reina? He's such a prick."

“Hm, that’s new."

Hakaze's outraged. "You agree?"

"I think it's a crazy way to put it, but I can see what he meant if he meant your idol career, not you," she says.  

"You're giving him a lot of credit."

"It's not every day someone stands up to your unreasonable ass, I've been saying the same thing for years. I'm surprised though, I’d heard he was the typical prince type, dialed up to eleven.”

“Nothing typical about him,” Hakaze says, shutting her laptop and letting it rest against her knees. “You know how Kaori keeps saying Astreon’s 3D printing their idols? Not this one. He suuuucks.”

They hit a red light. Nao turns her head to look at her, the city’s neon lights sliding across her face like shifting filters. She always had Hakaze figured out. “Hakaze, I don’t need to tell you what a pain it’d be to get involved with someone like that.”

She rolls her eyes. “Can’t stress enough how atrocious his vibes are.” She stretches out her legs as far as she can. “Even the company’s terrified of him. So is Harua, I think. He’s like if a sludge monster was hot.”

“Isn’t Harua his leader?”

“But Ren’s the center, and he’s like, stupid popular. I heard there’s a guy whose whole job it is to turn down his brand deals,” Hakaze sighs. “And I think Harua’s right. There’s definitely something going on.”

“Like what?”

“They’re both so convinced it’s the end of the line for Neonite. That something’s gonna happen that’s either gonna make them disband, or have to become irrelevant. I thought it was Harua’s whole girlfriend thing, but that seems like a stretch, doesn’t it? Even we didn’t go to pieces just because Reina dated.”

“That was part of it, though. Corporate definitely wanted us gone once Kirishima joined, but we can’t forget that Reina breached the no-dating clause like a million times.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t get it. Harua’s not the type to put his whole group in jeopardy just because he wanted to date someone.”

“Maybe he’s not as much like you as you think,” Nao says lightly.

They pull into the parking garage, Nao wordlessly tapping Hakaze’s code and slipping into her dedicated slot like she’s done a hundred times before. She turns off the engine. “Mind if I crash at your place tonight? There’s some paparazzi outside my building and I’d rather not deal with the hassle.”

“Of course,” Hakaze says, instantly.

They sing along to one of their songs playing in the elevator. Nao always makes her feel eighteen again; freshly debuted and forever clashing with her mirror image, manic grins on their faces and delight as they bickered over everything and nothing. Play-fighting at the izakaya, in the back of company cars, at award shows, at practice. On a lot of days, that’s what Hakaze misses the most: the person she was, when she was with her three best friends everywhere she went.

When they step into her apartment, Nao whistles. “I keep forgetting how fucking depressing it is in here.”

Hakaze rolls her eyes. Near the door there’s a huge case of energy drinks, and she blanks out for a second before she remembers they’re from Harua. She hauls them inside as Nao clicks all the lights on. Nao’s gaze lingers; on the bare shelves, the identical throw pillows, the spotless counters. The only spot of personality is a Lego tree with Polaroids of their group hanging from it, the four of them glittering at the camera through five years. Five blazing, brilliant years.

A beat later, she lets out a long, quiet exhale Hakaze pretends she doesn’t hear.

Okay, so she basically lived in an IKEA showroom. Nothing wrong with that! She just happened to spend a lot of time at work, and socializing with her friends. At least it was clean.

“I’d take messy over haunted,” Nao comments when she points this out.

Hakaze ignores her, bustling around and making food. Nao asks her to heat up the leftover Chinese in the fridge, but there’s the afterimage of Ren as he frowned at his notes that makes Hakaze reach for ramen instead. She wonders how he took it at home; just bare-bones, eating it over the counter as quickly as he could? He seemed the type. It was most efficient after all.

The thought makes her roll her eyes. He'd started to live in her head rent-free. 

In her living room, Nao has turned on the TV to some drama. They watch it in glassy-eyed silence, their legs draped over each other’s as they ate.

Later, Nao crawls into bed with her. The edges of her hair are still wet from her shower, and she smells like Hakaze’s body wash.

“You make me so, so scared sometimes,” she whispers. “I feel like me and Kaori let you down by moving on. When are you going to move on, hmm?"

Hakaze half-laughs. “What brought this on? And that’s not true, I’ve moved on.”

“Sure, you’ve moved on. That’s why you live like a college kid.” She nudges her. “This is the most alive I've seen you in a while. The way you are with Ren reminds me of how you used to be."

This flays Hakaze more than anything she could have said. She stays still and quiet, like a prey animal that’s been spotted.

“People called you the best leader of our generation because you fought tooth and nail against our terrible company. You used to be so bossy. Remember that fight you had with Costuming when they tried to put Kaori in that awful micro skirt when she was seventeen? Now you just sit in that basement and do what you're told."

Hakaze shudders. In the dark of her room it feels like Nao’s slipped a knife under her ribs without her seeing, the thoughtful cadence of her voice so well-known and well-loved even as it strips her like this. Only Nao could reduce her to shreds like this: make her lose the veneer of respectability she’d clawed out of her tattered reputation after the world had ended.

Ren, his eyes hard with a diamond-edge of pain: it ruined you. 

“You used to be a terror,” Nao continues. “You used to torture our managers. No one wanted to fuck with us because you wouldn’t let a single thing go, wouldn’t leave a single cent on the table for anyone else. General Hakaze.”

“Is it so bad,” Hakaze says, her voice raw, “if I'm not that person anymore?"

Nao exhales. The smell of lavender in the air, her color-damaged hair in Hakaze’s mouth. It would be so easy to imagine times were simpler, that they were pleasantly drunk and would get up and go onstage tomorrow.

“It wouldn’t be,” Nao says, “if you weren’t just going along with Astreon. Them telling you what your story was, and what the next step should be.”

“I think I lost the right to do anything about that when I failed Reina.”

The name makes all the air go out of the room, and she can feel Nao flinch.

“Of course,” she says, and it’s all bitterness now. “Stupid of me to think any of us could compare to the first great love of your life.”

It’s an old argument. She treads the familiar ruts of it anyway.

“She helped me when I was about to give up, Nao. I never would have even made it close without her. And being in ECLIPSE with you was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I can’t—whatever, Hakaze. Good night.”

She turns sharply away. Hakaze sighs, and burrows deeper into her pillow.

It takes a long time, but Nao’s breathing finally evens out. Hakaze watches the play of shadows on her ceiling. Ren had promised that Harua's relationship was safe, and she trusted the word of that stubborn, impossible man. She should, by rights, wash her hands of this. 

But still.

“It’s a second chance,” Hakaze whispers to the shadows. "I need to see it through."

Nao mumbles questioningly, half-asleep, and Hakaze lets go of the breath she was holding, throws an arm over her best friend, and closes her eyes.