Yuri Worlds
[112] Completion
Yuka made sure to take plenty of documentary photographs of the museum for Naoko. With the communication device back in the car, they had to rely on the modest, spare digital camera that Silvia brought along from her collection for their phoneless sakes.
Carrie asked around about the exhibits and eventually came across some curators in kimonos. They appeared quite baffled by their own bodies, let alone whatever changes had occurred to their surroundings over the last several days. But they recollected enough about the way things used to be to offer Yuka information regarding the contrast.
The best part, however, was that they were able to open up the museum library to showcase a wide variety of historical titles that Yuka desperately wished she could take with her and hungrily absorb. Pictures and light reading would have to suffice.
They met up with the others after their excursion at the small, strikingly fancy compact mall on the side of the complex. Several large, contemporary businesses had latched onto the edges of it, but the main body still contained a core that felt out of time, separated from the rest of the world like an artifact of the 1980s infused with Japanese energy.
Though they didn't buy much at any of the little stores contained within, it was a fascinating trek. Bootleg copies of a wide variety of foreign and regional titles filled the shelves of a particular business that still believed that Betamax was king. The dedicated anime location acquired a surreal character considering the reshaped essence of the world. By this point, they started receiving some groggy interactions from Naoko as she semi-coherently interacted with the saved media.
The four of them closed out the evening with a trip to Pasadena and a board game café. Once again, as seemed to perpetually be the case, Yuka was inundated by the sheer weight of possibilities, limited by the time they had and the choices they needed to make. Every game possibility felt exquisitely tempting. Ultimately, they opted for several small titles with simple set-ups and reminiscent styles that kindled wistful smiles and quiet hopes about someone they all wished could be present for this.
Maharu would've loved this trip; it went without saying. She would've discovered so many special little moments and brought them to blazing light. Her exuberance would've blasted them in all directions, and they would've realized experiences not even their boldest ambitions were tempted to seek. One game, in particular, had an automated player off to the side, and they quietly treated that as their missing fifth companion.
The evening stretched as long as they could endure, especially once they returned home with tired eyes, but bodies suffused with calm despite the acknowledgement of exhaustion. Carrie and Yuka carefully wrapped fragments of colorful metal around their fingers in place of actual rings. They could get them, even though they knew to be patient. But screw being patient.
The next day, they got fitted for simple rings with a subtle obsidian texture. Light on the underside with blackness on the outside. Naoko passed along that a lot of the turmoil was finally coming to a crest, with calm now reasserting itself. Carrie tried more bright colors, especially shades of pink reminiscent of her sister's sharp tones. It soon became evident that those colors didn't suit her, but she was able to flaunt and tolerate them without getting too worried about it.
Instead of bounding along the bumpy freeways with a blistering swarm of frantic drivers spilling off in all directions, they opted for the commuter train. Yuka immediately and fervently had strong opinions about the entire experience. The train was better than Carrie remembered from her last time using it. She suspected the floods had gotten into these spaces as well and shifted them towards the ideal of the other world. But they weren't quite on the same level yet. Yuka's thoughts about bathrooms in general had been restrained. She did appreciate their more consistent paper. But she missed other simple amenities and considered care everywhere. At least she had her Care.
Relaxation wasn't really in the cards with this day's plan as they made their way through the local zoo. The hills leading from one exhibit to the next were exhausting, but the sights were well worth it. Yuka took time at the petting zoo with the long-eared rabbits. She lavished appreciation on the snakes and marveled at so many other species.
Some she never heard of, while others were quite familiar, and she scrutinized their kinship to creatures she was even more familiar with. None of them appeared to have acquired humanizing elements, despite noticeably expressive eyes and more pastel subtleties. Just sitting for a while and watching the diving, dashing otters frantically and earnestly play with one another was one of Yuka's favorite parts of the trip.
She enjoyed all these experiences, especially the company of her friends and wife, but Care could tell that the Little Tokyo trip and the beach colored her expectations. She wanted to see the culture of this world, and Carrie wanted to showcase it. Fortunately, the timing was just right for a spring festival in the Echo Park area.
Carrie thought it was rather underwhelming, even though there were great displays of fresh and planted flowers everywhere. Yuka was just glad to be witness to a snippet of her wife's culture. Granted, it was an event that Carrie had never even heard of before, let alone had much interest in. So, Yuka had to know: what was her culture?
And this question left her stupefied for a response. Her parents were a mix of English, German, Scots, and a little sprinkling of Eastern European descent. When their ancestors came to America, they brought aspects of their home culture with them, but they were the sort to obscure those attributes and attempt more to blend in. That blending extended to their children, whom they encouraged to focus on school with their family history kept as a vague glimmer of the past cloaked in random expressions of languages they didn't understand. And all that faded away.
That didn't deter Yuka. Using Fiona's borrowed cell phone, she did some searching into the Saint Andrews Society. They also seriously considered playing a round of golf to at least find some touchstones. The frantic pace of that Wednesday didn't have as many events, travels, or encounters packed into it as the other days of the week, but the conclusion still felt exhausting by the time they got to one of the few remaining video game arcade cafés.
Still hugging her book from the night before, Yuka woke up on Thursday morning with her eyes wide and unblinking at the ceiling, as Care knew her mind was ravenously racing. She explained that she had a nightmare that she had to eat the world because poison was popping up all over the place and she was the only one who could safely consume it to keep it from spreading.
Yuka feared that the lingering, hungry feeling she felt in the forest by the shrine when she first started using the name Cerberus was an insatiable part of her monster aspect, one that she could only ignore but never appease or satiate. What monstrous hunger could ever be overcome?
Care had no words of epiphany, as was often the case, but she showed her with love that she wasn't scared of her wife. That helped push away some of the dark feelings, but this day would be more low-key than the others. They spent a decent amount of time at the house and walking around the neighborhood, looking for positive signs of the energy taking root and fostering fresh revelations. The dull tan and sandy patches of the desert had been replaced by faint mosses and artful pools of blooming clover, along with blasts of wildflower tones.
Finding signs of family, especially for Fiona, became the preoccupation, along with interpreting more of the volleyball youth remnants. Breaking free of her concerns for a while, Yuka joined a Silvia Says stream as an innocuous podcast guest. She didn't have much to offer in the gaming sphere, aspects of the transformed pop culture, or anything else, but then everyone was on unsure footing, and the comedy of that uncertainty melted with earnest glee and exuberance. Everyone agreed that Maharu would've been the perfect addition with her soaring energy levels. Though they tried at points, no one could match what she would've been able to provide.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The possibility of finishing up the figurines on stream emerged, but they saved them until after it ended. It wasn't long before they once again had to face the empty canvases they had left. Knowing what was nagging at the back of her mind, Yuka went to work painting her friend, albeit relatively crudely in shape and style. Her gaze searched skyward with dreams and imaginings to deepen the world around her.
From that point of joy, the central thesis of Maharu as a thematic anchor inspired her to give little flourishes and flaws of character to trees, mounds of dirt, and peaks of shadow around the edges. Surely, with her fertile mind, the girl would've christened each and every feature with a vibrant fantastical narrative, expanding upon their evident details into richly revealed, hidden realms. It pained Yuka and the others not to be able to hear and know those precious inspirations.
As for the figurines, the waffling and confusion about whether they should represent the past, the future, or some amalgamation of self and character dropped away with realized clarity. These were memories printed, created, and intended to preserve the experience of their trip. It didn't matter that things soured or became complicated after the fact. The lives they lived that week deserved sincere recollection. Once that came into focus, it was just a matter of fine-tuning the color tones to match their experiences in the mirror and the way that this world now interpreted those tones. It became painstakingly slow work, especially when critical parts needed to dry before more applications could be done. However, they did eventually finish them.
Takano Chika had such a sly, sneaky, and suggestive presence with her expression of glee, wanting to leap off the material. She absolutely deserved a little fuku, displaying a playful amount of skin mid-bounce. When Carrie looked at the figure, her warm brown eyes felt like they were searching just for her across a crowded room, with her tiny, sculpted hand and painted nails about to reach out. A few slight liberties were taken, but Silvia admitted that she really wanted to try it in that form and hoped that the follow-up and completion trip would allow her to do so.
Yamane Namiko had a cloaking, body-subsuming crown of pink hair to be properly colored and shaded, which Fiona took the vast majority of her time to get right. She joked about needing to buy more paint to properly cover her boobs.
Despite the silliness, she faced the task of painting the figure with the utmost seriousness. Her outfit, with its softly printed design, resembled the kimono she ultimately wore. So, Fiona endeavored to match it as much as possible while skimming through the photos she and Chika took during the festival.
Care cursed her unsteady hands as she carefully went through the primer and color mixing she wanted. Even with exactly the right shade of lavender to highlight Misaki's eyes, it felt more like she had just blotted a droplet of black on top of them. Drying brought relief as it settled into the proper color.
The mixing for her alter ego's hair brought her to the point of wanting to just slap an obsidian tone on and call it a day, but she persisted and wound up with something that retained the blacks while hinting at the subtle undertones she saw in the mirror during their trip.
The efforts were painstaking and protracted, with a lot of stretching, getting up, rethinking, and finally composing the pieces and shades that suited their little lives for the week. The finished products, especially after sealant, stood there accusingly, as though they had messed up something that still needed to be corrected. But they let them go and let them dry.
Yuka's painting had a surprisingly loose quality, with some of the trees blurring away as though out of focus on a camera. Maharu's features became more of an impression than her actual solid form, but the message of joy was still clearly communicated.
Everyone praised her composition, and Yuka made it clear that the work was going to her wife to keep. Naoko received a high-resolution snapshot on the communication device, but she always intended it to go to the girl she loved, a better reminder of that night in the forest with their friend, like a daughter, standing and strong, looking towards the stars and possibilities instead of down in the dirt begging for help.
Care told her it was beautiful, and they made plans to preserve it and place it in a proper frame, even though there were parts along the edges that probably needed a little bit more paint to finish it. However, Yuka decided not to complete those little details and instead lightly smiled and told her, "I'll finish it when I return home after all this, promise." It was a big promise, but one neither of them questioned.
A casual bookstore trip along with quiet and significant roaming around the region capped off their Thursday, but big plans lay ahead for Friday and the weekend.
To match their trek on the other side, they went to a local resort in the nearby hills, which still had faint traces of snow remaining. Silvia covered the cost of everything, despite concern from her big sister. The journey up was manageable but winding. The resort loomed like an oversized log cabin, with quiet ostentation.
The honeymoon couple got special treats and Japanese dishes prepared by a cheerful chef who proudly wore her feathered eyebrows with an undimmed smile. This one hadn't been here for a thousand years, but it proudly proclaimed it had passed one hundred.
No natural hot springs were here to greet them, but the hot tub still felt pleasant. The activities around the resort included a lot of jumping, climbing, and bouncing, with fresh-faced little girls unrestrained in their announcements that being little girls was so weird and they needed to get haircuts.
This world had changed so much, and the desperate, quiet plea from everyone around was to ignore the naked emperor. If they waited, then perhaps it would all go away, just as patience had failed so many times before.
Yuka had the best time chatting with the little girls and asking them the sort of hushed, curious questions that she knew Maharu would've exuberantly desired to ask of any little girl. And she wanted to know as well.
Care picked up on it easier, but Yuka also discerned that the kids had complicated emotions when it came to how they looked now compared to a week ago. They had no qualms about pointing out every detail, even if it prompted uncomfortable blushing from Carrie.
They used to be boys, and now they are girls! But it happened to everyone, so it was OK. It wasn't that they were super sad or upset about it; it actually felt normal, and they could be any sort of girls they wanted, even practically like the boys they used to be. It was just all the darn hair that most of them gripped about. Fortunately, the resort had a very nice salon and barbershop.
For fun, when no one but her wife and one kid were looking, Yuka would make Cerberus faces and wink, as though showing off a secret magic trick. Her modest reputation as the magic lady soon spread and earned her plenty of suspicious looks from the other resort-goers. I didn't get them in trouble, but the staff regularly made loops around wherever they were and often encouraged kids to head back to their families instead of talking to the "nice lady".
Silvia and Fiona soon got into the act by distracting and entertaining the little ones. Silvia did it with her bad singing and stream-of-consciousness goofiness that didn't impress the kids. But Fiona more than made up for that with feats of strength and the most exhilarating rides on her back.
It wasn't the greatest resort, but the four of them were excited for a beautiful final weekend together.