Title: Kepler’s Problem
Fandom: BanG Dream! It's MyGO!!!!!
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 713 words
Content notes: Spoilers for the entire show.
Author notes: A quick little genfic + drabble collection + 5+1 things(?) story
Summary: Chasing after stars isn’t such a bad pursuit after all.

[1]
An etiquette class will not teach you how to deal with annoyances. Especially when it comes in the form of your former lead guitarist.

Anon is very easy. Pliable, moldable, shaped by the fickle whims of others.

All Soyo has to do is send the message, and soon enough illusions will be inseparable from truth. No-one else will know. Not Tomori, not Taki.

This is how you form constellations: take the name of your heroes and place them among the stars. The fizzling nebula deserves no name.

It’s fine if she keeps doing this. She could keep at it forever.

[2]
Even with their shoes removed, their socks are still tracking grime everywhere. Every single step into Soyo’s apartment is one step further across the boundary, the absolute dissolution of the line between CRYCHIC and whatever this ragtag band of fools is supposed to be.

From within, here is the perfect, immaculate memory graced by the sounds of a piano wildly tinkling away until the end of all time. From without, bitter reality is further soured with the appearance of Anon looking around and making passing comments on everything she laid her eyes on.

They might as well be tracking stardust.

[3]

Now whenever Soyo addresses Anon by name, it comes off in a scornful key, even with that same gentle expression she wears. The only change otherwise in Soyo’s demeanor is her darkened gaze during rehearsal. It was never so obvious as it was now, for Anon had mistook it before for a calm blankness. Now that was replaced by the unveiling of falsehood – the barest hints of malice that had always been there, totally shrouded by Anon’s ignorance.

Even if her goal is foolish, even mad, for that star nobody can reach – Anon will be the one to reach it.

[4]

This is a good idea.

Even through the thick veil of all the eyes trained on her, Anon could feel the cool burning sensation against her back which meant Soyo’s gaze had flickered over her, if only for a brief moment. Anon stepped forth against the very edge of the stage. The crowd screamed, and that chill returned. There's nothing for Anon to fear, because from the start her plan is working.

Nagasaki Soyo, do you see this? Even if you lose your way again, we’ll be your guiding light, and I’ll be the Polaris that will bring you home!

[5]

During rehearsal, as Soyo was reaching for the music sheets Taki was handing out, Anon's fingertips brushed her arm. There is nothing to it, except Soyo noticed too many things: the bandages, the calluses, the roughness of Anon's palm, the inexplicable sting of the graze, like Anon had slighted her in some way — but nothing had occurred, nothing at all, something Soyo has to keep reminding herself.

So this, she thinks, is her march aux supplice – she ignores all the warning signs telling her to stay far back and walks right up into the riptide that will swallow her under.

[+1]

This is how the world ends: said with careful, measured speech, it will rend heaven and earth at that very moment, yet later it will come together again.
This is how the world ended for Anon: Nagasaki Soyo gave the faintest of smiles at her after Anon made an innocent comment during rehearsal.

Soyo has already made the first tentative, hesitant steps towards the boundary. But I — we, Anon corrected herself — together can leap arm-in-arm over the rift. And once they've crossed that, wouldn't they be able to conquer everything else the world could throw at them, no matter what?

#

Nagasaki Soyo has never loved anyone, and never will.

Soyo, faithful daughter of the Nagasaki family, has lost a friend, and is now busy chasing stars.

Words have already failed Soyo. What could she afford to lose again?

Even now there are still things she cannot admit to herself.

Starchasing isn't such a bad pursuit after all, Soyo thinks. Even if they lead her astray, blind her, fail her, or dim themselves in vain, and do all kinds of falliable things. But at least their radiance is consistent, their guidance truthful. Soyo could afford to follow those kinds of stars.