[Fanfic, 100% Orange Juice] The Space Between

Series: QP Shooting
Genre: Drama
Length: 1000 words
B/D: Trying out a different style, I ended up writing an oddly serious QP & Syura story.

She grimaces, rolls a token between her forefinger and thumb. They’re surrounded, hemmed in by a wall of noise. Pennies fall through slots to be fired pneumatically and land atop an ever increasing tide of bronze, carrying prizes that will never fall. Slot machines vie for attention with harsh, manufactured noise. Somewhere there is the thump, thump, thump of a heavy footed dancer attacking the pad. A roiling, messy soundscape.

“I don’t get it.”

QP ignores her. As usual. QP has such a lot going on. She came back the other day having ‘saved pudding’, and has barely glanced at anybody since. What was lost during that time, Syura wonders? What had put such distance between them?

Even here in the arcade, Syura’s home turf, she doesn’t blink. The noise doesn’t affect her. She just plays, like Syura asked her to. Mechanical, efficient movements. A mind far from here.

“QP. I don’t get it.”

“You just dodge. Dodge and shoot. There isn’t anything else,” is QP’s reply. Her spaceship darts around the screen, weaving between walls of bullets. Syura lost all her credits on stage 3. This is stage 5.

“Not that. You. I don’t get you.”

For just a moment, QP’s expression softens. She looks uncertain. Troubled. But it’s only a second, a misstep in the march of time. The distance returns to fill the space.

“You don’t react anymore,” Syura says. Her voice is accusing, too accusing. She wants to take the words back and put them together better. Too late now. “You hate the arcade. You have sensitive ears, and the noise makes them hurt. All the flashing lights make it hard to focus. That was what you said before. Every single time.”

QP says nothing. Syura looks at the stains on the floor, the flickering lights, the gum stuck on the cabinets. Anywhere but her friend’s face.

“Syura… Listen,” QP says. Hesitant. Unsure. A stray bullet collides with her, but she ignores it. “I’ve been going through some changes lately.”

“Changes?” Syura scoffs. “It’s like you’re a different person. Like I barely know you.”

“I… got a job. A really important one. There’s so much to get used to, Syura. It’s taking up so much of my brain. So much of me.”

“So you’re putting your job before your friends? I didn’t think you were that sort of person.” The words are bare, tree branches in winter. Nothing can grow from words like that.

“It’s not my choice. It won’t be forever, okay? Just until I get used to it all.”

Syura says nothing, lets the sound of machines fill the gap between then. Inside, she’s panicking. It feels so serious. So unlike their other fights. If it won’t be forever, why does it feel so permanent? They’re standing right next to each other, but so far away.

“I don’t get it. I don’t get it at all. You’re meant to be the straight-forward one. The happy one. Why are you like this?”

QP turns to her, and the pale-blue glare of the arcade cabinet bathes her features in an unreal light. “I don’t know, Syura. It isn’t your fault. It’s… It’s not like I hate you, okay? It’s nothing like that.”

Syura bites her lip, almost hard enough to draw blood. When did QP’s shoulders get so rounded, so hunched? When was her tail so listless, her eyes so red? Words are bubbling inside her. Too many words, all at the same time. How do you tell somebody you love them and you hate them at the same time?

“I… I’m not accepting this, okay? I don’t care what your job is. You can’t get rid of me just like that. It’s not alright.” Syura’s fists, balled at her sides, are shaking. She struggles to hold in hot, angry tears. “Keep playing that dumb game, QP. But when you get to school tomorrow, I’m gonna… I’m gonna beat you up. If I lose, I’ll beat you up the next day. I’ll fight you, and I’ll fight you, and I’ll fight you, until one day I knock some sense into your thick head and you get back to normal. You got that?!”

She turns tail and flees. It makes her look like a child, but anything is better than letting QP see her face right now. QP watches her go; her hand stretches out as if to catch her, but her legs don’t move. She feels a growl building deep in her chest, a reckless anger.

“Sweet Breaker.”

She appears, or perhaps she was always there, her long hair falling down her back, a sympathetic frown on her face. Her voice is quiet, but cuts through the noise of the arcade like a blade. 

“Becoming a god is difficult, QP. I know.”

QP takes a step, two. Dangerously close. “I don’t want this. You took away the thing I loved, and I took it back. Now everything is a mess.”

“If I hadn’t, pudding would have caused a catastrophe. I didn’t have any choice. Just like you have no choice,” Sweet Breaker replies. Her voice is not unkind. “It’ll be over in two weeks, a month. Maybe sooner.”

QP feels the growl building it, fights it down. “I hope you’re right. This isn’t fair to her. Or me.”

“She’s a good friend. She’ll wait,” Sweet Breaker says, and her voice is wistful. “I had a few like that. They don’t last forever, you know. You should make it up to her.”

She turns, takes a step behind one of the cabinets, and is gone: consumed by the lights, the noise. Only the memory of her lingers, melting like chocolate on the tongue. QP groans, surrounded and at the same time very alone. She rolls a token between her fingers, like Syura always does, before slotting it into the machine. She’ll need the practice. Two weeks, a month. Maybe less. Her hands move mechanically. Efficient. Her focus is almost divine. But yet… but yet…

Her ears hurt.