For well over a week after the misadventure into what Reiki had decided to call “crystalspace,” he kept right on ticking. June might have been over, and same for StarFest, but some of his Pride Season obligations lingered. No matter how badly Reiki yearned to ******** off from real life and just sleep, he couldn’t.

……Well, he could sleep a normal amount, sure—and he was careful to keep doing so, because he knew how little sleep deprivation agreed with him—but he couldn’t take the three-day post-Pride Season nap that he most yearned for. Not until he had the last performances he’d booked done and dusted, and their paychecks in his wallet so he could take them to the bank. But he’d known what he was getting into when he booked himself for all of his Pride Season gigs, when he negotiated about what sort of pay they’d involve, and all of that.

Nothing to see here. Business as usual. Just a working queen, a professional (by his own definition anyway), doing his part to keep Destiny City queer and make sure the rent got paid. Nothing out of the ordinary whatsoever.

Definitely nothing anyone could have or should have attributed to any magical girl nonsense, no, sir.…… Even though the magical girl nonsense constituted a pretty major departure from what Reiki had expected to deal with while he’d booked everything. Some of his gigs for this Pride Season—mostly the ones with a lot of organizers behind them and a somewhat more “official” veneer than the average drag show in a queer bar—had even been booked before he’d broken up with Greg. So, well before he could’ve accounted for magical girl nonsense being part of any sort of picture.

Though not before he’d been exposed to a lot of things that, in retrospect, certainly seemed like they were part of this great unseen magical girl war.… As he skulked home from his last Pride gig—not officially part of the season, but his last show before he’d scheduled himself a break—Reiki couldn’t help thinking that, maybe, he should’ve been able to guess that all of this was happening. Part of him recognized how ridiculous that sounded, how he couldn’t be blamed for not expecting youma or senshi or any of it to be real just because he believed in yūrei and onryō (who made perfect sense conceptually and had been part of his ideas about how the world worked since childhood).

But another part felt like, Are you done making excuses yet, Princess? Or maybe you’d like to ask Alex how he feels about that, or if he’d blame you for believing Obaasan’s ghost stories more than the evidence that this ******** town’s built up right before your eyes for years—oh, right, you can’t. You CAN’T ask Alex anything, because he’s gone, and for all we know, the Negaverse ate his ******** starseed.

Underneath multiple layers of exhaustion, still another part of Reiki tried to point out that this was nonsense. His cognitive distortions had grabbed hold of the wheel and started yelling all kinds of baseless s**t they had no reason to believe in as if they were the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth, and saying otherwise was tantamount to personally threatening someone. Just because the Negaverse was trash and had hurt Toráin didn’t mean they’d had anything to do with what happened to Alex Masters. Just because they’d hurt Toráin and seemed more than slightly evil didn’t mean they were responsible for every last thing that Reiki didn’t like about the world. Moreover, he had no reason to blame either them or himself for what had happened with Alex. Maybe there had been ways he could’ve tried harder to help, but he and Alex had, respectively, only been 19 and 20, when Alex went missing.

On Reiki’s part, 19 and still unpacking so much s**t he’d been through while Aunt Satomi had been drinking.…… To say nothing about the spiral of his own that had caught him in its grip, the one that would culminate in Obaasan calling him out about lying to his therapist and sneaking around on the shady message boards where he kept getting “support” that meant “telling him that recovery wasn’t for everybody and it was perfectly fine if he wanted to stay sick”…… For all he knew, trying to do more for Alex back then could’ve done more harm to both of them.

As he mirrorwalked from one of the Court’s convenient travel spots into his bedroom, Reiki tried to tune out all the thoughts about Alex and whether or not he, Reiki, had been a bad friend by not doing more for him. Tried to smother the thought that he was being a bad friend to Toráin right now by even needing to sleep when Toráin hadn’t texted back in a while, which was never a good sign in Destiny City. Tried to ignore the nagging questions once more going RERK!! in the back of his mind, clawing at his brain for answers about why it always felt so cold, and dank, and weird to mirrorwalk, why the cold Reiki felt while mirrorwalking or traveling to mirrorspace didn’t offer any comfort from the summer’s oppressive heat but just made Reiki shiver like a Victim Of The Week from some vintage Supernatural, and why was everything like that in the realm that had allowed him to be a senshi in the first place when Ida’s energy and Kerberos’s felt so warm, and safe, and welcoming.

Once again, it took a bemused look from Cersei to remind Reiki that he needed to power down so his Best Girl would even recognize him. Regardless of the magical glamours that protected his identity, regardless of how the world perceived Murikabushi as someone different from Reiki, he still hadn’t shaken the feeling that his powered alter ego actually belonged to someone else. That much like Beatle George had been a shirt Mr. Harrison had worn for a time, not someone he’d truly been, Sailor Murikabushi was some other queen’s beautiful dress, prepared for some other queen’s beautiful runway walk in some other queen’s beautiful drag pageant. No matter what the world perceived as true, Murikabushi felt like an ill-fitting mess on Reiki because he didn’t know the right hair and makeup to wear for it, none of his corsets crafted the appropriate silhouette, and his alleged “fit” was held together by safety pins, some hot glue, and a prayer.

On the plus, powering down afforded him the opportunity to slip into more comfortable sleep-shorts and a t-shirt. God, though, it felt like so many extra steps right now, and he had letters to write so the people (and one sapient magical cat) who loved and cared about him wouldn’t worry too much. For Haruhi, stuck to the fridge with a magnet featuring art of Jack Skellington and Sally Finkelstein:

Quote:
Ruhi,

Sorry I won’t be up to heat something up for you when you get home from work. Pride Season obligations finally over. Going to sleep. If Cersei needs to go out, can you please take her? She *SHOULD* be okay, probably? Unless you stopped at Gertrude’s or did a patrol or something. Either way, Junsei and Yuki should be by later to feed her and take her on more proper walkies and run her outside again as necessary.

IOU Oreo sweet crepes after this weekend.

heart , Kiki.

For his twin, left on the kitchen table, underneath a coffee mug with fanart of Cersei Lannister looking smug with a wine goblet in-hand, accompanied by the words “I LOVE YOU LIKE A BROTHER”:

Quote:
Hey b***h,

Thanks for coming over to help me with Cersei. Yuki’s gonna come before you to make sure she gets breakfast and a morning walk. I’ll let you know if I need any more help. Feel free to drop in and talk if I’m awake when you come by, but if I’m sleeping, please just let me sleep. This year’s Pride has been the roughest.

Also, if you haven’t read it by snooping on Yuki’s letter: if there’s a floofy, black-and-white longhair cat running around with green eyes and a star on her forehead? She answers to “Soyala” or “Soya.” She’s a good kitty. Please make sure she gets some of the smoked salmon that’s in the fridge. Also, please treat her respectfully? No crazy baby-talk or talking down to her or anything. She won’t appreciate it.

You’re the best.

heart , Jerk.

For his queerplatonic partner, right next to Junsei’s letter, but sitting under a coffee mug with fanart of Garak and Dr. Bashir from Star Trek: Deep Space 9, locked in a passionate kiss:

Quote:
Well Hello Gorgeous,

Why don’t you come on up and see me sometime (unless I’m asleep when you come over, in which case I’ll see your dumb, handsome face later, just let me sleep). Please stay hydrated when you take the Best Girl out for walkies. Make sure she does, too. This heat’s been crazy and I only have one of you both.

Also, if you haven’t read it by peeking at Grumpy’s letter: the floofy, black-and-white longhair kitty who might be hanging around answers to “Soyala” or “Soya,” and she’s a good cat. (In case a different black-and-white floof-monster shows up, Soya is the one with green eyes and a star on her forehead.) Please be kind to her. Not like you’d ever be anything else, but please don’t baby-talk her, or condescend to her, or be like, weird to her in a bad way? And if she’s around, please get her some of the smoked salmon from the fridge? It’s her favorite.

だいすき。

heart , ******** class="clear">