A-Ko had a name once, but it cannot possibly be said by humans, and it doesn’t matter. She sat in class and said “I’m an alien, you know,” and people laughed. Humans are stupid, when it comes to aliens. Their stories are so much dumber, though.
Fascinating and fun, but alien and stupid.
People aren’t supposed to laugh at her. B-Ko doesn’t.
“Will aliens destroy the world?” One odd classmate asks.
“Maybe,” Ako says. “What do you think?”
Magic isn’t real. Ha ha ha! That’s what Ako thinks, but she doesn’t realize she’s already in the trap.
B-ko knows. Sooner, that is. B-ko says it.
“Look, look, have you heard?” B-ko says. “Magic is real here. Legends are true. We’re in danger.”
“Are we?” A-ko asks. “Seems like too many mixed genres.”
“Hey!” B-ko says. “That’s my job. But look look here - the story of the witch. She took away the princes and now the world is doomed!”
“That doesn’t sound quite right,” A-ko says. B-ko finishes her makeup, careful layers of skin tone to hide their shadows where skin should be. Painted on faces should be prettier! Perfect!
We can’t kiss when we’re perfect performers.
B-ko doesn’t know they’re trapped, but B-ko sees.
On planet Kashira, stories were currency and life and more - creativity myth and history, that is how they spoke and traded and lived.
They had one only myth they truly believed - souls were real, and they could be stolen. Stolen by stories, by makeup and shifting forms and lies lies lies.
Tell me, where does a shadow made of stories end up chained, other than Ohtori?
“Hey, hey, let’s go on a date!”
“Why would we do that?”
“It means we love each other.”
B-ko whines. B-ko sees. B-ko lies. A-ko’s worst and best trait is that she is a critic.
“Well, do I love you?” A-ko asks. “We’re both girls. That isn’t done in this world.”
“It could be,” B-ko says. “Hey hey let’s do a story where I am a beautiful princess and you are my beautiful princess and we all live happily ever after!”
“That just isn’t done,” A-ko says, “it’s not funny or sad it’s just ugly. No ugly stories. Just strange.”
B-ko droops.
“Oh okay,” she says. “Have you heard of the red shoes? Have you have you have you heard the news? I heard it from a boy who believes in aliens!”
Giggles from them both and thoughts put aside.
B-ko is the one to get her hands on a ring. It’s the prettiest thing with a pink pink engraving on dull metal.
She smiles and dances and begins to fight.
“We don’t belong on this world,” A-ko says. “Let’s go.”
“No no!” B-ko says. “You can’t control me, I’m running away!”
They’re losing track of reality and story. These shadow girls of planet Kashira are going to end up chained to a school and a story.
Digging through old scripts they find an Ohtori original. A goddess is a dancer and she cannot escape. Spin spin spin.
Red shoes.
A-ko and B-ko dance in the shadows and dress up as boys and and stories and they talk and laugh into weirder levels of carefully woven stories, and one day, A-ko admits something.
“I forgot how to find my way home,” she says.
B-ko’s ring is gone.
“What home?” She asks. “Let’s tell stories. Let’s be together - never too close and never too apart. Always together.”
“Because of the witch.”
“Because of the witch.”
Giggles.
“Or maybe the devil!”
Kisses in the dark, but no one can tell. They’re already shadows.
Aliens from planet Kashira put on shadow plays and fade fade fade.
“And so, the goddess ran away from from the pain!”
“Away away away! Where?”
“Where do they go?”
“Don’t you wonder don’t you wonder why they always run run run away?”
Together. Never too close.
Right?