yuri [Thelolirealm X Carboxyl] Magihen! Awaken, Lovey-Dovey Magical Girls!

[TheLoliRealm]

@Carboxyl)

[Carboxyl]

As the sun set, starlight met the streetlights of Osaka. The blocky skyline rose into the twilit sky, shining with offices, shops, advertisements, hospitals, apartments, and an illuminated castle. Where the loop lines once clacked and rumbled, new trains ran with modest whooshes and clicks, one of many steps taken into a new decade. As one line stopped, its doors hissed open, the stream of deboarding passengers carrying along a girl with a lot on her mind. Aside from the sensations of an unfamiliar city, there was someone she had to meet. Perhaps, though she wouldn't know it until it struck her, more than one.

The station was a seething bustle of people, from dejected salarymen to cliques of schoolkids cutting their curfews close. An ocean of people up several stories of the Station City and it's gigantic angular roof, one she'd have to navigate quickly.

[TheLoliRealm]

(Every image of yuki is commisioned, please don't use it without my permission)

Yuki Tachibana had never been too far outside of her small town in the countryside of Japan before, and so moving across the country to head to a new school due to her parents moving out of the country for work was an experience to say the least. The girl had her bag filled with her kendo equipment, and a suitcase filled with clothing, not to mention personal effects and other things stuffed into a backpack. Looking like a standard protagonist at the start of some sort of SMT game, she tried to check her phone for directions, remembering that the relative she was supposed to be living with was planning on meeting her outside of the station to take her to the home she'd be staying at.

Honestly, the girl was nervous. She had never been the most social person and the thought of living with someone she had only met as a baby and then going to a school without any of her friends to back her up or any of the teachers who knew her to support her had kept her up almost the entire night. The train ride had felt lonely and even now walking through the station to get to her aunt's car had made her heart pound in fear. Would her aunt like her? Would her new classmates accept her? Would she be able to catch up in school? Would she even make the kendo team now?

"This sucks..."

Edited March 26, 2024 by TheLoliRealm

[Carboxyl]

The walk was a slog at first, having to carry luggage through the current of people, but the pressure let up once she reached the sidewalk leading towards the parking area. Fresher air and more open space were welcome to a girl with baggage. The open sky was a pleasant sight too, drowned as it was in light pollution. Even at this hour, where the blue tinge of the sun hadn't left the sky fully, a handful of evening stars would greet her back in her old home. Here? They were smothered thoroughly, but for just a moment Yuki could swear she saw the faintest glimmer of a shooting star lance across the sky. A sign of good fortune, perhaps.

Up ahead, she could spot what she was searching for: a detached-looking woman in the driver's seat of a fancy electric car. Her chair was leaned back, and her hands were on the headrest in a thoroughly relaxed posture. She didn't seem to notice Yuki at first.

[TheLoliRealm]

Yuki smiled, seeing her aunt Shirabi in the car. She really didn't know her much, but from what her parents and her little sister said she was kinda eccentric and smart... Like really, really, really smart, according to Ciel. Walking over to car, Yuki waved and knocked on the window lightly, hoping to make a good first impression with the rather imposing woman. "N-Nice to meet you. I'm Yuki! I'll be in your care for the next two years, so I hope I'm not too much of a bother!" She said, looking at the car. "Would you like me to sit in the back or the passenger side?... Oh, and how has Ciel been?" Ciel, her sickly little sister, had already moved in with Shirabi a month ago in preparation for this entire thing, while Yuki waited for her semester to end so she could transfer a bit more smoothly. Her sister was a big ball of energy when her illness wasn't weighing her down and Yuki had been constantly worried about her getting into trouble, or hurting herself with her antics again. There had been many times where Yuki would come home to her sister passed out on the floor because she got way too excited over something and worked her body past it's limits...

[Carboxyl]

For a moment the woman in the car stared more than daggers - entire claymores - into Yuki's eyes, although after the lightning flash of apparent hatred, her expression softens into a reserved but lightly demure look. "Oh, just you." She hit a button on her side of the car, causing the passenger-side door to unlatch, inviting Yuki to sit. "Ciel's been alright. She's been better. Just make sure to catch her when you two finally come face to face, because she's going to hit the floor otherwise." A flicker of a smirk passed over Shirabi's face.

Once Yuki had gotten in, her aunt immediately switched the car into reverse and extricated them from their parking spot, creeping out of the lot before slipping back onto the busy road away from the station. She muttered something under her breath seeing the slowdown from the traffic. "Two years, huh? Well, with any luck we'll get home in one."

[TheLoliRealm]

Yuki would've probably shit herself if she hadn't been warned about her aunt's dislike for anyone and everyone as well, but it still put her on her back foot to get glared at so intensely. After losing a year of her life expectancy, she got into the car, strapped up her seat belt, and looked out the window as they drove through the city, watching the holo-boards pass them by advertising the new VR tech that was coming out this year. Ever since quantum computing breakthroughs had happened 5 years ago, tech has been exploding in pace with new inventions and breakthroughs in what was possible, to the point where it was becoming a political issue as new laws weren't keeping up with the progress of it. Yuki herself didn't really keep up with tech all too much. Too confusing to her as a country girl and she never had the money to afford all the new stuff coming out. Maybe one day she could save up for a full dive unit...

"I'll make sure to catch her then!"

[Carboxyl]

The drive dragged on, with Shirabi looking continually more and more like she was ready to start building IEDs. "God I can't wait for the day when cars are reduced to a luxury item so all these assholes can just disappear off the damn road..." After drawing off at the end of the sentence, she straightened her posture a bit and glanced at Yuki for a moment before returning her eyes to the road, continuing to gaze in lament over the state of traffic. "Maybe one of these days it'll just be me and a bunch of shipping trucks." Her second comment was remarkably less crass than the first, no doubt because she had to remind herself mentally that her niece was in the car with her. "Guess it must be like that out in the middle of nowhere, right? Just sparse people and passing freight?" Almost inaudibly, she mutters "I gotta visit her one of these days."

Things sped up slightly as the two got further from the bustling station, the sun having fully set now, leaving what sparse stars were visible through the light pollution. Sirius, for example. Sirius was always nice and visible. But then, for only a moment, something even brighter streaked across the sky, then vanished behind the buildings. Like a meteor stopping halfway, or burning up in the atmosphere somewhere.

"God, I can't wait to get home. I'm fu- friggin starving..."

[TheLoliRealm]

Yuki wasn't used to hearing so much cursing outside of Auntie Asoka, who was in the JDF. But it was a bit funny to see her try and hold back while Yuki was in the car. "There's no need to hold back, I'm 16, I've heard all of those words before in school or online, or in the lobbies of the games I play." She said as she motioned to the laptop sticking out of her book bag. Her eyes caught the shooting star a second time and she frowned a bit. "Was there supposed to be a meteor shower today? I wish I could've seen it from back home, it's so hard to see the stars in the city with all the light pollution...." She paused and then realized, if there was a bunch of light pollution then whatever she just saw must've been either very big and very bright or small and fairly close... at least she thought that's how that worked. She wasn't exactly the smartest.

"Where do you live?"

[Carboxyl]

"My home is in the neighborhoods on the same hill as the middle and high schools. I gotta deal with marauding little shits making noise sometimes, but other than certain afternoons its nice and quiet. Easier for Ciel, too." She shrugged. "And as for meteors, no. Why? Y'think we're about to get smote by the next big rock falling from space or something? The dumb fucks at JAXA wouldn't be able to stop it, that's for sure." There's a certain brand of venomous spite in her tone for the last sentence, the sort of extremely specific hatred that implied a very poor personal experience with the subject. "I don't know what kind of future you imagine yourself growing up into, but never be the kind of girl who settles for a second-rate space agency with third-rate engineers. A bunch of commies with vacuum tubes, tinfoil, and diethylmercury killing them all did a better job decades ago."

She huffed, continuing to drive with an iron gaze.

[TheLoliRealm]

"No, but.... nevermind." She said and then opened her mouth again to ask about the JAXA, but then closed it. That seemed like a can of worms that she did not want to open right now. She stayed quiet for a while during the drive but kept her eyes skywards, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever that shape was, while also checking her phone to see if Ciel had text her back yet. She had asked her little sister if she wanted her to bake her anything, but since she was on the train for a while she didn't have the service to see if she got anything in return yet. After a while the silence got more than what she could comfortably bare, and she decided to try and think of another topic to ask about. Something, anything to make the traffic more bearable.

"What sort of work do you do?"

 

[Carboxyl]

"These days? I'm one of the chief engineers for the R&D branch of Edotronics. I can't really talk about most of the actual stuff I'm working on - NDAs and contractual obligation - but in broad strokes its a lot of robotics and software products, often bundled. Service, construction, households, law enforcement, et cetera et cetera, you can find the stuff I work on all over. Hell, you probably almost tripped on one of the floor cleaners I designed at the station. Sometimes I go to conferences, but only if they're somewhere nice, like Taipei, or Singapore or Boston or something. I at least had CC to help Ciel take care of herself when I was out but - and don't mention this to anyone because that previous clause wasn't officially legal - the project got scrapped so I wasn't allowed to keep the frame anymore. I'm 90% sure the executives cut it because they were afraid of having to open a whole new department to manage them. Afraid of me too, probably. Old Baldy and his pal Fatty like to think they can keep me on a leash, but you can't smother genius with economics. And they're not about to call the hit squad on the ideas woman."

"There's, uh, not a real hit squad by the way. I feel obliged to mention that I was joking. Anyway! Just around the corner."

And with that, she pulled around onto the next side-street, revealing a chic, modern home standing up against the slope of the hill.  There was a small front yard, complete with a pergola over a table and several chairs, a shaded porch, and some neat beds of flowers lining the fence. The house itself is quite big for a place that normally was only inhabited by one person, albeit Ceil had joined the party, and now Yuki had as well.

"Finally. Fuckin' took long enough. Gonna warm something up to eat. Take your pick of any of the leftovers in the fridge. 'Cept anything with Ceil's name on it. Where is that girl anyway..."

Shirabi had ended that sentence looking directly off into the dining room, which was conjoined to the entryway and the kitchen. The unmistakable thin framed girl was sitting in one of the chairs at the big dining table, her head laying on her folded arms and her eyes closed peacefully, gently rising and falling with slow breaths. In front of her was a tray of what appeared to be muffins, untouched and uneaten. They were misshapen, with little black flecks where the batter had singed on top, no doubt they were what the girl had sunk her energy into in anticipation of Yuki's arrival.

Edited April 1, 2024 by Carboxyl

[TheLoliRealm]

Yuki listened along to her aunt explain her job, but most of the jargon flew a bit over her head. She got the gist that she worked as a robotics engineer of some sort and that she came up with most of the ideas though. "I see, that must be a really fun job to work at."

After they made it home, she took a bit longer than normal to enter the house, staring up into the sky a bit to try and spot what she saw again. Maybe it was just something falling from the sky... or maybe some sort of delivery drone with a too-bright signal light. Whatever it was, after a few moments she shrugged and headed in, only for her heart to drop in fear at seeing her passed out sister on the table, before her rational brain caught up with her protective older sister instincts and she realized she was just sleeping. Knowing that she'd get mad at her if she didn't wake her up, she'd approach her little sister and lean over her, giving her a pat on the head and saying. "Did you cook these for me? I hope you made these while Aunt Shirabi was around to watch you, you hurt yourself the last time you were in the kitchen when no one was looking."

[Carboxyl]

Somewhere behind Yuki, her Aunt looked awkwardly off to the side, eventually deciding to busy herself looking through the fridge to let her girls have a moment.

Ciel's head slowly raised a little, her eyes fluttering away their drowsiness bit by bit as she let out a meek "hmmm?". Once she finally realized who it was laying a hand on her, she perked up immediately, throwing her arms around her big sister in the tightest hug her thin frame could manage. "Yuki!" She spoke softly through a beaming smile. "I made them all on my own, and I didn't get hurt!" A giggle escaped her. "Well... the cupcakes may have gotten a little hurt, though... and I kind of ran out of steam before I could frost them..." She drew off a little, not able to hide her disappointment at a job half-finished. "Even then, I'm so happy to see you! Even just knowing that Aunt Shirabi was heading out to pick you up from the station, I could barely sit still. Things are going to be so much more exciting with you around!" She was back to smiling, her face lit up like the sun.

The sound of the microwave clicking on issued out from nearby. If Yuki turned she'd see Shirabi leaning against her kitchen counter, a prideful smirk on her face.

[TheLoliRealm]

Yuki gave her aunt a stern, overprotective glare and then turned back to Yuki. "Well, next time you want to make them, let me know so I can watch you, like Aunt Shirabi is supposed to.", completely changing her tone from the shy girl she just was to an overprotective mother bear. Still, Yuki went to go find and grab the frosting, putting on Ciel's just like she liked it. "The bakery was really empty without you though, for those last few weeks the sweets section didn't really have any of the flourishes you put on it, so I'm glad to be here! We can make up for the time away by hanging out today and tomorrow. "Though I'll a bit getting ready for school orientation... How's your home schooling going? Is your tutor nice?"

 

[Carboxyl]

Shirabi's expression didn't change, although she gave a confessionary shrug of sorts.

"She's super nice!" Ciel picked up one of the now finished cupcakes, holding it in both hands as she spoke. "She answers all the questions I ask her, she's always patient, and she doesn't mind taking breaks every now and again for me. If anything, I think she likes taking breaks more than I do..." She chuckled lightly, then took a bite from the cupcake. A delighted hum signified her absolute satisfaction with them, both in her own work and in Yuki's contribution. On the other side of the room, the microwave beeped. Shirabi pulled out the plate of leftover pad thai she had been warming up and brought it over to the counter by the table, leaning onto one of the bar stools under it.

"She's polite, too." She added, "First kid to call me doctor on instinct. Probably because I had just gotten home from work. Real peach."