sm_monthly Oct 10 theme
From Dark Side of the Moon, being a direct sequel to Shibuya Scramble and a prequel to Escaping the Burn.
Title: Magical Girlfriend
Author: purplekitte
Theme: OC--Machinery
Genre: General, Romance
Version: Anime
Rating: PG
So now Kenta had a girlfriend, which was cool. Who was living with him, which was cooler even if it made him feel like Urashima Keitarou. Who was a magical girlfriend, like Belldandy to his Keiichi. Who was sleeping with him, had practically jumped him, which was just weird and made him feel like a Satou Tatsuhiro who had fallen down a rabbit hole. Got to remember that she was the crazy one.
“I need parts to repair my spaceship. Dark crystals, maintenance droids, doom priests.”
Sometimes that bit wasn’t that hard. “What?”
“Not again.” She looked annoyed, like his failure to understand was his fault, and shoved another omelet roll into her mouth. “I’m a fair mechanic, but my ship is dying. I may be in exile, but I hate to be trapped. More.”
He gave Topaz the rest of the eggs and another mug of miso soup. He was going to have to buy more dishes. He’d complain she was eating him out of house and home, as he had when she’d gone through all the cup ramen he had within two days, but her magical money counterfeiting was paying for her. He didn’t think of himself as much of a cook, but it was nice to see her vast appreciation, as though this were the best food she’d ever had.
“I don’t have any classes today, so I can take you out to every automechanic in town if you want.” As far as he could tell, she was agoraphobic from her space alien yakuza sheltered background and never went anywhere without him but his apartment or the shed behind the building where she was keeping her giant chunk of black crystal. If it hadn’t been for a couple years of Sailor V and Sailor Moon in the news, he wouldn’t have believed this.
“Auto?”
“Car.”
“Ah, those atmospheric ground-ships. Yes, I want to go there.”
“Street clothes,” he directed. It was probably a good thing she didn’t go out on her own, but the difficulty of taking her anywhere meant he’d had to shop for her and do a lot of guessing of size.
But better safe than sorry. The medical student friend he’d finally convinced her to see had given her over a hundred stitches over her body and pronounced her right eye completely ruined. Not to mention numerous other noticeable but older scars. So, a long coat, long skirt, mirrored sunglasses, surgical mask, cap pulled over her hair and the black crescent moon on her forehead she was intensely paranoid about anyone seeing for some reason. She looked like a yanki, but that was rather unavoidable, particularly with her foreign or unnatural hair color.
Topaz held his hand tightly when they got out of the elevator. He didn’t get her sometimes. She ignored her major injuries but had cried when he first took her to Yoyogi Park. She had sex with him but said she was in love with someone named Sapphire. She was fascinated by new clothes and junk around his apartment but had almost taken his head off (literally) when he offered to buy her earrings for the mostly-closed holes in her ears that her fingers tended to absently worry.
She picked up a newspaper out of a recycling can (headline: ‘Sailor Mars fights monstrous aerobics instructor!’), but that was fairly low on the scale of faux-pauses. “Kenta, what’s that?”
“A bird.”
“That?”
“A bakery. Do you have your train card?”
“Yes.” She held it up and orange sparks danced between her fingers. She’d probably magically put ten thousand yen on it or something. He tried not to go crazy with money. He had nightmares of the police knocking any day already.
“Good.” On the train, he read her the article about the Sailor Senshi in the newspaper that she pointed to the picture of to pass the time. “Now this first place is where a friend of mine goes to get parts to repair his motorcycle. You can look around.”
Her response was dispiriting, her familiar look of complete incomprehension of her surroundings. “Fixing a car is completely different than fixing a magical spaceship, isn’t it?”
“Not remotely similar. Kenta, how do you learn to do this?”
“This? Cars? Technical college, I suppose. Why?”
“Apprentice me there.”
“You want to enroll, you mean? I guess you could magic your way in, but you just said this wasn’t anything like what you wanted.”
“But I haven’t seen any sign that what I want exists. You make things move with your wires and your electricity.”
“They’re not mine,” he felt the need to point out.
“If I can learn to interface some of the local techniques, I can save my magic to preserve enough of those essential systems of my ship that I can’t replace.”
“There’s a tech school right beside my university, I think. I’ll bring you a brochure. Then read it to you. You really do need to learn to read.”
“I’m trying. I don’t see why you need so many runes.” She was pouting. It was kind of cute.
“Do you want to look at more garages or go home now?”
“Ice cream?” She squeezed his hand harder in childish anticipation of her suggestion.
“Sure.” What else could he say to the cute and totally-out-of-his-league girl on his arm?
Title: Magical Girlfriend
Author: purplekitte
Theme: OC--Machinery
Genre: General, Romance
Version: Anime
Rating: PG
So now Kenta had a girlfriend, which was cool. Who was living with him, which was cooler even if it made him feel like Urashima Keitarou. Who was a magical girlfriend, like Belldandy to his Keiichi. Who was sleeping with him, had practically jumped him, which was just weird and made him feel like a Satou Tatsuhiro who had fallen down a rabbit hole. Got to remember that she was the crazy one.
“I need parts to repair my spaceship. Dark crystals, maintenance droids, doom priests.”
Sometimes that bit wasn’t that hard. “What?”
“Not again.” She looked annoyed, like his failure to understand was his fault, and shoved another omelet roll into her mouth. “I’m a fair mechanic, but my ship is dying. I may be in exile, but I hate to be trapped. More.”
He gave Topaz the rest of the eggs and another mug of miso soup. He was going to have to buy more dishes. He’d complain she was eating him out of house and home, as he had when she’d gone through all the cup ramen he had within two days, but her magical money counterfeiting was paying for her. He didn’t think of himself as much of a cook, but it was nice to see her vast appreciation, as though this were the best food she’d ever had.
“I don’t have any classes today, so I can take you out to every automechanic in town if you want.” As far as he could tell, she was agoraphobic from her space alien yakuza sheltered background and never went anywhere without him but his apartment or the shed behind the building where she was keeping her giant chunk of black crystal. If it hadn’t been for a couple years of Sailor V and Sailor Moon in the news, he wouldn’t have believed this.
“Auto?”
“Car.”
“Ah, those atmospheric ground-ships. Yes, I want to go there.”
“Street clothes,” he directed. It was probably a good thing she didn’t go out on her own, but the difficulty of taking her anywhere meant he’d had to shop for her and do a lot of guessing of size.
But better safe than sorry. The medical student friend he’d finally convinced her to see had given her over a hundred stitches over her body and pronounced her right eye completely ruined. Not to mention numerous other noticeable but older scars. So, a long coat, long skirt, mirrored sunglasses, surgical mask, cap pulled over her hair and the black crescent moon on her forehead she was intensely paranoid about anyone seeing for some reason. She looked like a yanki, but that was rather unavoidable, particularly with her foreign or unnatural hair color.
Topaz held his hand tightly when they got out of the elevator. He didn’t get her sometimes. She ignored her major injuries but had cried when he first took her to Yoyogi Park. She had sex with him but said she was in love with someone named Sapphire. She was fascinated by new clothes and junk around his apartment but had almost taken his head off (literally) when he offered to buy her earrings for the mostly-closed holes in her ears that her fingers tended to absently worry.
She picked up a newspaper out of a recycling can (headline: ‘Sailor Mars fights monstrous aerobics instructor!’), but that was fairly low on the scale of faux-pauses. “Kenta, what’s that?”
“A bird.”
“That?”
“A bakery. Do you have your train card?”
“Yes.” She held it up and orange sparks danced between her fingers. She’d probably magically put ten thousand yen on it or something. He tried not to go crazy with money. He had nightmares of the police knocking any day already.
“Good.” On the train, he read her the article about the Sailor Senshi in the newspaper that she pointed to the picture of to pass the time. “Now this first place is where a friend of mine goes to get parts to repair his motorcycle. You can look around.”
Her response was dispiriting, her familiar look of complete incomprehension of her surroundings. “Fixing a car is completely different than fixing a magical spaceship, isn’t it?”
“Not remotely similar. Kenta, how do you learn to do this?”
“This? Cars? Technical college, I suppose. Why?”
“Apprentice me there.”
“You want to enroll, you mean? I guess you could magic your way in, but you just said this wasn’t anything like what you wanted.”
“But I haven’t seen any sign that what I want exists. You make things move with your wires and your electricity.”
“They’re not mine,” he felt the need to point out.
“If I can learn to interface some of the local techniques, I can save my magic to preserve enough of those essential systems of my ship that I can’t replace.”
“There’s a tech school right beside my university, I think. I’ll bring you a brochure. Then read it to you. You really do need to learn to read.”
“I’m trying. I don’t see why you need so many runes.” She was pouting. It was kind of cute.
“Do you want to look at more garages or go home now?”
“Ice cream?” She squeezed his hand harder in childish anticipation of her suggestion.
“Sure.” What else could he say to the cute and totally-out-of-his-league girl on his arm?