The call was already underway when he picked up the thread, his communicator pinned between shoulder and ear while he sat on the edge of his new bunk in the quiet pre-dawn hours, the whole station holding the kind of hush that made every voice on the line sound louder than it should.
"...and I already checked. International packages take eleven to fourteen days, so if I send the miso packets Tuesday you'd have them by, let me just, hold on, let me actually do the math instead of guessing at it."
He didn't get a word in edgewise, which suited him fine tonight. Easier to let Akemi run the numbers than explain why a care package would never reach a training camp that didn't exist.
"I told you, I'm eating fine. The food's actually really good here."
"You said that last time too, and you sounded thinner on the last call. Don't argue with me, I have ears."
"I'm not arguing."
"Good. And sleep, are you actually getting eight hours or just telling me that so I'll stop asking?"
"Both, kind of."
"Hikaru."
"I'm sleeping. Mostly. It's a lot of training, Aki."
A pause opened up on the line then, the kind Tsukiko always left before she used it.
"Are you happy? With the training, I mean. Is it... is it actually good for you?"
He answered too fast, the way he always did when the true answer would've taken longer than he had room for.
"Yeah. It's good. Really good, actually."
Knowing she'd let it go there made his chest tighten, the same small relief every time she was the one who asked the least and believed the most.
"Oh my god, can we stop interrogating him about his sleep schedule?" Kirara again, louder than either of them needed to be over a comm line. "He's fine, Akemi, he's basically Captain America over there by now. Bring me something cool, okay? Not a keychain. Something actually cool."
"I'll see what I can find."
"You'd better. Also you're missing literally nothing here, school's the same, Aiko still won't shut up about her boyfriend, and I got yelled at for restocking the wrong shelf again, so. Living the dream."
Then, folded into the same breath as everything else, like it cost her nothing to say:
"Anyway. Just don't forget you have a home to come back to, idiot."
He didn't answer that one as fast as the rest. It wasn't like her to fold something real in between the jokes.
He promised he wouldn't, promised he'd call again on schedule, promised everything they needed to hear. When the connection cut, he sat in the dim room with the phantom weight of the device still warm against his cheek, relieved they'd bought it and drained from the effort of holding the lie together.
Lyra bounced through the doorway before the silence had even settled, pink hair streaming behind her, energy cranked to eleven at oh-four-hundred in the morning.
"You're up early! Who were you talking to? Was it a girl? Was it a cute girl? Oh, wait, don't tell me, let me guess…"
She planted herself at the foot of his bunk, grinning like she'd already won something.
He didn't look up from the floor.
"It's just my sisters, alright? A scheduled check-in. That's all."
Lyra's smile softened at the edges, the corners of her eyes crinkling amid the chaos.
"That's really nice, Hikaru. It's good to hear people care about you like that."
Then her eyes snapped to his torso, the grin snapping back into place, sharper now.
"Wait, wait, wait. Is that the exact same outfit you arrived in three days ago? Is that the same hoodie? Are those the same jeans, too?"
She scrambled closer, circling him like an exhibit, poking the sleeve of his hoodie.
"That's… that's days ago! You've been here three whole days, and you haven't changed once, not even your underwear! Oh my gosh, do you even have other clothes, Hikaru?"
She grabbed his shoulders and jostled him.
Lyra didn't wait for an answer. She hauled him upright by the collar, already steering him toward the door.
"The marketplace district opens in twenty minutes. We're getting you actual clothes: pants that fit, and maybe a jacket that doesn't scream 'I live in a gym bag.'"
He planted his feet.
"Haah?! I have other clothes. Back on Earth. I don't need any of this."
"Hikaru, you've been wearing the same hoodie for three days. That's not fine. That's a cry for help."
She kept walking, dragging him along like luggage. Her grip didn't loosen, didn't ask permission. She'd decided, and that was that.
"Lyra, stop, seriously. I said I'm fine."
"Uh-huh. Sure you are. That's why you smell like training mats and regret. Come on! We're getting you new clothes~!"
The marketplace district unfurled before them in color and sound, stalls stacked with fabrics that shimmered like captured starlight and vendors calling out in a dozen languages his belt translated in real time. Lyra's bounce faltered the moment they crossed the threshold. Her hood snapped up, pink hair vanishing beneath charcoal fabric, and she angled her face toward the crowd's flow rather than its center, shoulders drawing inward like she had folded something fragile inside herself.
He had seen her crash into a room and own it in three seconds. This version moved like she expected the walls to have eyes.
"Lyra, you are acting weird right now."
She glanced sideways, the gesture quick and guilty.
"Weird in what way, exactly?"
Her shoulders dropped, some of the bravado slipping loose into a huff of amusement.
"Okay, fair point. It's just that active Rangers get recognized fast around here, like mobbed in the produce aisle fast. Fans want pictures, reporters show up out of nowhere, and one time someone's grandmother asked me for a blessing on her arthritis."
She stopped walking, tugging the hood lower over her brow.
Hikaru frowned.
"Do I need a hood too?"
Lyra snorted.
"You might, once the media gets a clear shot of the Gold Ranger's face."
Lyra veered left, boots hitting a ramp that curved up to a second level walkway. A holo-sign flickered above a recessed entrance, STITCH & SIGNAL in clean neon script, the ampersand pulsing in time with the bass from somewhere deeper in the district.
She didn't look back, already climbing toward it.
"This one. My favorite shop on the station."
The door iris'd open before they reached it. Inside, the space breathed quiet compared to the walkway: walls lined with smart-fabric bolts that shifted color when you passed, mannequins standing on magnetic pads that rotated them slow as planets. Displayed on a central island, the accessories ranged from belts that adjusted their own fit to gloves with haptic feedback woven into the fingertips. He didn't recognize half of what was on display, but the price tags were enough to make him wince. Light panels in the ceiling mimicked natural spectrum cycles, currently holding at a warm late afternoon gold.
Her hood came down. The tension eased out of her shoulders. Her fingertips brushed a rack of jackets that rippled from matte black to iridescent teal.
"The Hub doesn't split clothes into guy sections and girl sections the way Earth does, so I'm not holding back on what I pick for you."
Hikaru's jaw tightened.
"Lyra, don't start with that."
She pulled a coat off the rack, holding it up against him without asking.
"This one literally moves with you, just saying."
The coat settled over his shoulders like it had been waiting. Smart-fabric rippled, adjusting sleeve length, collar height, torso taper in one fluid motion. Lyra clapped.
"See? I told you so."
Hikaru tugged the hem.
"It feels like wearing nothing."
"Because it basically is. It's adaptive weave with thermal regulation and a micro-armor rating for civilian sectors. You could take a plasma blade to the gut and walk away with a bruise."
"Like hell I need plasma blade protection to buy groceries."
She spun him toward the fitting pods.
"Go on, try the next one."
The next hour dissolved into neon synthetics, holographic patterns shifting with his heartbeat, and one unforgettable ensemble constructed entirely of strategic mesh and hope. Hikaru stepped out of Pod Three wearing it, caught his reflection, and immediately stepped back in.
"Absolutely not. I am not wearing this."
"Come on, the cutouts are architectural!"
"These are completely indecent, Lyra."
"Fashion is indecent. That's the whole point."
A tall, scaled shopper paused mid-step, a third eye blinking above the other two, and whispered something that made her companion snort. Hikaru's face burned. Lyra cackled.
"See? That's absolutely iconic, you're a trendsetter."
"I am a ranger. Put something with sleeves on me."
She shoved a jacket through the curtain, followed by another, then a pair of pants that lit up with every step. Each veto earned a louder protest, a more dramatic eye roll.
"Your shoulders are incredible, by the way. Did I mention? Because they are."
"They are literally just shoulders."
"Exactly. So why hide them?"
He hadn't expected the question to actually mean something. It went somewhere anyway.
She pulled a hanger from the back rack, slow and deliberate. It held a dark charcoal jacket structured through the upper body, its subtle paneling following the line of his collarbone into the sleeve, paired with tapered pants in the same matte technical weave. Beside them waited a pair of low profile boots, their soles gripping the floor without a sound. A single gold thread traced the left lapel, barely there, a whisper of color catching light only when he moved.
"Try this one. No mesh, no lights this time."
Hikaru emerged.
The jacket kissed his frame without pulling, the pants falling clean over the boots. He turned. The gold thread flashed and vanished, flashed and vanished. The look stripped him down to something sharper, more essential than before.
Lyra stopped moving. The corners of her mouth eased, something he didn't think was performance this time. His jaw, his loose hair, all of it held under her gaze. Three heartbeats passed with no words, no breath loud enough to hear.
Then she inhaled sharply.
"This is it! This is the one! Can we get a few, like three or four? Do you do bulk discounts?"
She was already talking again, outfit counts and bulk discounts, before he could ask if she was okay.
This is exactly what shopping with Akemi and Kirara always felt like. Women, and apparently every female species in the galaxy, share the same bottomless capacity for trying on outfit after outfit.
At the register, a floating display tallied everything into a number that made Hikaru's stomach drop harder than the zero-g shaft would later. He reached for his belt out of habit, an old Earth reflex, before remembering he didn't have a wallet, a card, or anything resembling actual money.
"Wait. How am I even paying for this?"
Lyra waved a hand, already tapping something into the display herself.
"You're not. Merit-credits. Everyone on active ranger duty earns them: missions, training hours, public appearances, that kind of thing. You've technically been racking up points since your first fight, you just haven't had a reason to cash any in yet."
"So I'm… rich? Since three days ago?"
"You're ranger-rich, which is different. Less buried treasure chest, more like you unlocked infinite continues for anything with a price tag on it."
She flashed her own badge over the display, and the number obligingly halved itself.
"Also, small perk, active rangers get a merchant discount practically everywhere on the Hub. It's basically a permanent bonus round."
The vendor behind the counter, the same three-eyed woman from earlier, if her handstitched apron was any indication, gave them both a small nod that Hikaru couldn't quite read, somewhere between professional courtesy and starstruck.
"Come back anytime, Star Maidens."
Lyra beamed, hooked her arm through his, and steered him toward the door before he could ask what a starstruck alien tailor's version of a wink looked like.
They left Stitch & Signal with two bags each. Lyra walked faster now, hood back up, weaving through the thinning crowd toward a side corridor Hikaru hadn't noticed before.
She looked back over her shoulder, already peeling off toward it.
"There's a shortcut this way, a zero-g maintenance deck that cuts ten minutes off the walk."
Hikaru adjusted his bag strap.
"Haah?! You want us to fly through a maintenance tunnel?"
She threw a grin back at him.
"It's a section of the ring where they dial gravity down to nothing. Maintenance crews use it for heavy equipment moves, but everyone else treats it like a playground. You just launch yourself and let it carry you. It's way faster than walking."
"Fly, bounce, whatever you want to call it, it's fun."
She bounced on her heels.
"Unless you're scared to try it."
"I'm not scared of anything."
"Then you'd better keep up."
She palmed a panel beside an unmarked hatch. The door cycled open onto a cylindrical shaft stretching both directions, handholds spiraling along the walls. A faint blue strip ran the length of the floor, the gravity boundary marker.
She was already drifting upward, weightless.
"Step past the line. Your stomach drops the first time, but after that you'll wonder why you ever walked anywhere."
Hikaru stared at the open shaft. Of course she knows a zero-g shortcut. Of course she presents it like a dare.
He stepped across the blue line, already cataloguing every handhold as a possible grip and every strut as a hazard, old habits from the dojo refusing to switch off even here.
Something lurched low in his gut the way it had on his first roller coaster, except this time nothing caught it, no track, no down at all.
Lyra pushed off the wall and flew. No other word fit better. She twisted mid-air, caught a handhold with one finger, redirected herself into a lazy spiral, and landed on the opposite wall like a cat. Her hair fanned out around her face in a pink halo. She grinned at him, upside down.
"See? That's how it's done."
Hikaru pushed off the floor. He meant to glide. What he did was rotate, shoulders and hips disagreeing on which direction counted as forward. His arms windmilled. The bags tumbled away from him, spinning slow, out of reach. The wall rushed up sideways. He collided shoulder first, bounced, and kept spinning.
This was the single most embarrassing moment of his entire life.
Lyra's grin flashed, already reaching for him.
"Okay, okay, hold on, I've got you."
She launched herself toward him, graceful as ever, arms extended to catch him and arrest the spin. She'd made harder catches than this one before, mid-battle against monsters three times her size.
Then his flailing elbow caught her ribs. His knee drove into her thigh. Grabbing at air, stupid and panicked, his hand landed square on her hip, fingers digging into the curve of it through the fabric of her pants.
"Hey! Watch where you're grabbing!"
The impact knocked the air out of her before she could say anything else, her body curling in on itself for half a second.
Her momentum warped. The clean catch became a collision. They tangled, limbs locking together in a slow, ridiculous knot, rotating as a single unit now.
His face ended up pressed against her collarbone. The air stalled in her throat. His hand slid, unmistakably slid, from her hip to the small of her back, and he froze, mortification the only thing left in his head.
"Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry…"
"Stop apologizing and stop moving so much…"
She tried to brace against a strut, missed, tried again, caught it. The rotation slowed, then stopped.
They hung there, face to face, his arms wrapped around her waist and her hands braced on his shoulders. Her hair drifted in a pink cloud around both their faces, brushing his cheek, his jaw, the corner of his mouth.
Her green eyes widened, mouth parting before she could stop it.
The shaft hummed with ventilation noise. Somewhere distant, a maintenance drone whirred.
Lyra.
Her name rose in his thoughts, unbidden.
Her grip on his shoulders tightened, slightly, her pupils dilating with it. The playful glint in her eyes flickered, replaced by something quieter, something that looked a lot like oh.
A winged rat-thing the size of a fist shot between their faces with a high chitter.
They yelped in unison and shoved apart. The creature banked off a strut, unbothered, and vanished down the shaft.
Hikaru's face burned hotter than the volcanic sim. Lyra's hood had fallen back, pink hair floating wild, her mouth still half open from whatever she'd been about to say. She snapped her mouth shut, swallowed, and turned her attention to the wall instead.
She cleared her throat.
"Right. This way, the zero-g exit is just ahead."
She propelled herself toward the hatch with deliberate, controlled pushes. He followed, limbs still clumsy, bags retrieved and strapped on. Neither one met the other's eyes the rest of the way back.