Chapter Text
“Showtime!” Tsukasa declared with his usual amount of bravado.
Today was the day of the final show of the summer competition at Phoenix Wonderland. The four of them had just finished their final pre-show rehearsal on the stage, and the audience was beginning to fill up the seats. There was an excited buzz throughout the crowd. Nene’s heart beat nervously in anticipation of the long awaited performance. She stood near the edge of the stage, watching the seats fill and people chatter amongst themselves. The four of them went to take their places for the show.
“Everybody, wait! Before we start the show, I have something I want to say,” Tsukasa told his fellow cast members. Nene turned towards center stage to face him. Emu came bouncing over at his call and Rui soon followed suit. They all looked at Tsukasa expectantly.
“I think Nene should sit this one out. After all, we don’t really need her to put on the show. It’s clear her heart isn’t in it, and it would be a much better performance without her dragging us down. Don’t you guys agree?”
Nene froze in her tracks at his words, and time seemed to flow to a halt. The theme park attractions around her powered down and ceased to function. She turned her head frantically to see what was happening. A power outage? No… Looking down off the stage, she saw that the entire audience was frozen, looking at her. Staring with dead eyes. Panic rose up in her chest. What’s going on?
“I-idiot. That’s not funny.” Nene let out a nervous chuckle, turning back around to Tsukasa.
“Hmm, you might be right though...” Nene whipped her head to the left to stare at the short cheerful girl by her side. The girl then continued to speak as though Nene wasn’t even there.
“Nene just never seems happy anymore. We can’t let her bring everyone down! And what if she forgets her lines again?”
Emu? The girl’s tone carried an amount of honesty that Nene found alarming. This person looked like the Emu she remembered, but the words coming out of her mouth were unrecognizable.
“Hey Emu-chan, that’s not like you.” Nene felt herself growing smaller, shrinking further and further into herself.
Only one person had yet to respond to Tsukasa’s announcement. She turned to her right towards the lilac-haired boy, not wanting to meet his eye.
“Rui?” She squeaked.
He walked a few steps closer to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, as if to comfort her, and she smiled. There was no way Rui would ever agree with them.
But then she looked up into his menacing, cat-like grin. It was almost as if he was looking through her.
“I agree, Tsukasa.” The words pierced her heart.
“Rui, you don’t mean that,” she begged, her voice shaking.
Rui’s grip on her tightened. “You think I like performing shows with a pathetic singer like you who can’t even act or speak? I’m tired of pretending.”
“Stop,” she covered her ears with her hands, and could barely form the words.Tears started spilling without warning, and she knew how pathetic she must look, but she couldn’t stop. “Please, Rui. Please stop .”
But he didn’t listen. “We don’t need you. You don’t deserve to be here. You don’t deserve to perform at all. You’re unnecessary.”
And with one swift motion, he shoved her off the stage.
With a sharp gasp she was falling, and the world around her melted away into nothingness. She closed her eyes, giving herself over to the darkness and letting herself drift far, far away from everyone she knew.
It would be better for everyone if I just disappeared.
She let the thought grow and fill up her mind as she kept falling further down, down into darkness for what felt like hours until she landed upon the hard ground. The air went quiet and still. She opened her eyes and looked around at the new landscape she had been transported to. There was nothing around her.
“Where…am I?”
This place reminded her of their Wonderland Sekai, except it was desolate. Gone were the bright lights and carnival sounds and fantastical chaos. Instead, there were various mechanical bits of broken-down theme park attractions or booths, all run-down and unused, scattered across a flat, unending landscape with not a person in sight. An Empty Wonderland. All of it gray, colorless, dull. A quiet hum was the only sound other than her own breathing. But it wasn’t uncomfortable here, despite it all.
“H-hello?” She called out. “Is anyone there?”
“Welcome Nene,” a robotic voice replied.
Startled, Nene whipped her body around to face the voice. “Miku?”
The virtual singer standing before her was almost unrecognizable at first glance. If the Wonderland Miku that Nene had come to know and love was like Emu, in her bursting enthusiasm and relentless energy and optimism, then this Miku was like…
Nene took a minute to observe her. The colorless dress. The long gray hair and bangs. The short, direct way of speaking. The lack of emotional affect. The dull, lifeless eyes.
She held up her hand and Miku mirrored the motion, pressing her hand against her own.
Then perhaps this Miku was like her.
This was her own colorless sekai.
Nene woke up in a cold sweat, shooting upright into a sitting position. Just a dream. It was all a dream. She took a shaky breath to try and calm her racing heart. My friends would never say things like that…Right? Using her sleeve, she wiped away the wetness beginning to blur her vision.
But she couldn’t shake the thoughts from her mind. They had been surfacing more and more often lately, to the point that they kept recurring in her dreams. They don’t really need me to make a good show. I’m just a burden to them. Her three closest friends made up an ideal performing team on their own, after all. Tsukasa was a perfect lead actor (though she would never admit it to his face), Emu’s joyful antics always managed to captivate the audience, and Rui…
Unwillingly, she felt her face grow hot. Much to her chagrin, such a reaction had been occurring more and more often when she thought of him. Rui, whose brilliant mind, unthinkable creativity, and countless inventions made him an eccentric dreamer who could bring a smile to anyone’s face with his shows. Rui, who was finally in his element and happy, like she had wished him to be for so long. Rui, who deserved the world.
Rui, who doesn’t need me anymore.
Nene hated the painful twinge in her chest.
And that sekai, it felt so…real. This was her first time seeing such a place. Despite its appearance, it had been calm and peaceful, and she wanted to go back. Maybe a place like that was where she truly belonged. Not some magical theme park. But some place far and distant from all her crazy extroverted friends. Some place that seemed to externalize the feelings she couldn’t bring herself to share.
Forcing her mind back to the real world, Nene grabbed her phone off her nightstand to check the date and time. Saturday, July 1st. 10 in the morning. Their final show was still a couple weeks away. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Pushing the dream out of her mind, she hopped out of bed. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for rehearsal.