Naoko missed the train.
She couldn't believe it at first. She stood at the station with her backpack in hand, chest heaving, feet burning. Her breath burned her throat, her calves feeling like they were pulling themselves apart.
Naoko fell onto her knees, palms flat against the cement.
Devastated, she thought. So this is what it means to be devastated.
Because she was alone here. She would be alone here until the train came back tomorrow.
She would be alone because Keyla had gotten all fidgety. The night before, after Keyla had gone to put away the dresses and jewelry and assorted items, she had come back and announced that she would be leaving early tomorrow. Naoko, confused, asked her why. Keyla had laughed. Naoko, annoyed, asked her again. Keyla had said she had to do something. Naoko, curious, asked her what. Keyla had said it was a surprise. Naoko, still curious, had dropped the subject. Keyla had nodded at nothing and kept her hands in her pockets.
"Meet me at the aquarium," Keyla had said, later. "I'll be waiting. Take however long you want, but I'll be waiting for you there."
And, true to her word, Keyla was gone that morning. The small balcony they had shared felt so bland and cold without Keyla's sleeping bag across from hers. The world had been bleak and gray and dreary.
Naoko had slept in.
She hadn't wanted to get up at all. The train would be arriving later than usual and she had nothing else to do. Naoko had felt so heavy and tired and so she just stayed in bed.
And that was her downfall.
Now Naoko was stranded, truly, horribly stranded, in this corner of the world.
Well, not truly. She supposed she could walk down the train tracks or wait for Keyla to realize and come back for her. But Keyla would be waiting for who knew how long and spending the day walking, after nearly tearing herself apart to get to the station at just the wrong time, sounded like torture.
Naoko's fingers shook and her eyes pooled with unshed tears. There was something about it, maybe, Naoko thought, being left on your own. She knew Keyla was waiting. She knew she was needed. She knew she had an obligation to go, a pressure formed from the need to fulfill.
But she wasn't ready. Not yet, not just now, not today.
A break, maybe. That's what Naoko needed. Something to tell her that she was fine, she was okay, that she didn't have to go quite yet.
But why did she feel like this? Naoko swallowed roughly, fingers curling against the cold cement. Her life wasn't particularly hard and she was happy, wasn't she? Hadn't she been recently feeling like her heart was strung along a clothes line that was laid out in the sun, an even sort of happiness that prevailed even if the winds tried to tear it off? And even before that, when the moments of shade had been longer and denser, it was still easy. There was no real reason to go anywhere. There was no one to see and no time to meet them.
So no, Naoko could not be miserable. She had no reason to be, there was no purpose to this panic, this was just some sort of self-obsessed pity that kept her miserable and tightly-strung despite a life where she could do whatever she wanted with someone she wanted to spend the rest of said life with.
---
Naoko spent her day there, in the shade of the station's platform, curled on a bench, drifting in and out of uneasy sleep. Each time, just before she opened her eyes, Naoko found herself searching for the train, which would be just in front of her, waiting patiently, surely it would, if she could just open her eyes to see it.
But then she finally would, and it wouldn't be there.
---
Gray dusk settled in and Naoko pulled out her flute.
Her fingers settled against the holes of the flute. Naoko had to check the numbers along the side hundreds of thousands of times (at least, that's what it felt like) before she could manage to play the short melody.
But she tried over and over and over, the simple action of repeating the pattern enough to commit it to memory placating her mind.
That's why Naoko jumped when she heard it, echoing, without her having played it first.
She turned sharply as a rumbling voice sang the song back to her, and she was met with a shape. A great, familiar shape, broad and with a tail that flared at the ends.
Her fingers trembled as she hastily played the short melody again, the sound that now felt absurdly high and flimsy.
The whale in the distance rolled itself forward, crossing who knew how many miles in just a single stroke. The clouds curled off of its fins and glanced off of its back. It let out another call, notes bellowing through the sky.
Naoko's breath escaped her. She could barely repeat the song. It was even feebler this time.
And yet, the whale still approached.
Naoko was practically whispering the notes of the melody when the whale got really close. Its voice boomed her ears, making the ground tremble underneath her feet.
And then, it had its eye level to hers.
It was smooth and almond-shaped, slanted ever so slightly. Its irises were a midnight blue, the color speckled with glittering white fragments. The color of its blubber undulated as it passed through the sky, mirroring whatever colors were around it.
Naoko and the whale stared at each other for a moment. Naoko couldn't feel herself breathe.
Then the whale dipped its massive head. Naoko watched as it slowly floated towards her.
She stepped towards it too, without thinking.
The whale moved lower, turning to the side and stretching one of its fins out towards her, the tip brushing the edge of her foot.
Naoko tentatively stepped onto its fin. The whale let out a low note, one that chirped up at the end. Almost...
Hopeful.
Naoko slowly, carefully, scaled up and onto the whale's back. The sky whale sang out another slow, poppy beat. She relaxed.
Then her hands gripped onto the wrinkly skin for dear life as the whale pulled down its tail and rose up into the sky.
Naoko's breath escaped her lips in a whoosh. Suddenly the inky blackness of the water and slate grays of the buildings were gone, out of view, the only remnants of then being the faint monotone smudges that blurred underneath them. Her stomach plunged into the world below and she clung to the sky whale's starry back for dear life.
The freezing wind whipped through Naoko's hair like knives through butter. It cut straight to her bones and pierced through the marrow. She pressed her face against the sky whale's blubber, the warm fat there keeping the worst of the cold away.
When she had suitably thawed and the whale had slowed down, Naoko carefully, ever so carefully, sat up. They had emerged above the layers of clouds into the silent sky. Other sky whales surfaced beside them, their forms curving in soft, stable motions. The occasional whine and goggy rumble would pervade through the air as the whales would call to each other.
Naoko felt herself unwind, strangely enough, at the sight. These creatures were tied together, by the invisible bonds built by blood and kindness alone. Naoko could feel it, could practically see the thick red cords tying them all together, reinforced by every call, every nudge.
She felt it, between herself and Keyla, miles and miles below.
A deep pang resounded in her heart, making it crumble and ache. She glanced off to the side, trying to peer down at the bleak earth below.
But Keyla could wait, the real world could wait, everything could wait. One day she would get back to them all and her life would continue just as it was.
Or perhaps it would be different. Maybe something would break and she'd have to bend.
But the world had collapsed, once before, and she'd allowed it to change her.
Maybe it would crumble, once again. The buildings would split and earth shatter like glass. The bricks would crumble, like dust, at their feet.
Keyla would be there. They could make it through that, together. And build something new, something better, from the pieces.
But that would have come later. Because for now it was just Naoko.
It was just Naoko and the sky whales, tiny pinpricks of light on an endless horizon.