Memories Of A Simpler Time

Posted on Fri Aug 20th, 2021 @ 11:31am by Lieutenant JG Nozomi Kusuda 'Gemini' & Captain Taiga Aisaka
Edited on on Tue Sep 13th, 2022 @ 1:57pm

2,483 words; about a 12 minute read

Mission: Operation Romulus Return
Location: USS Tokyo (NCC-91101), Ensign Kusuda's Quarters, Deck 6
Timeline: Only a few hours before "Off We Go Again"

Nozomi got back to her quarters late that night, thoroughly tuckered out after two whole hours of self-imposed flight training in the holodeck. She would've been there longer, had Iowa not shown up and kicked her out so that she could follow through on her mandatorily-imposed flight training. Nozomi didn't want to ask what sort of altercation Iowa had gotten herself into to merit said mandate; but whatever the case, the fatigue finally caught up with her shortly after she exited the holodeck, and she decided it was as good an excuse as any to turn in, rather than wait for another holodeck to open up so she could continue with her training.

She was a little disappointed that she hadn't managed to get as much training in as she had hoped; in spite of Marcus's assurances that she'd done just fine given her provisions, with the reports she'd heard about the encounter over Alvatar, "just fine" wasn't going to be good enough; she was going to need to come into this swinging if they were going to stand a chance against the Elachi, and that, in turn, meant setting aside time for practice, mandated or not.

The door to her quarters had barely shut behind her when she began to strip off her uniform. Too exhausted from the day's events to even bother with a shower, she lumbered over to her bed in little more than her underwear and started peeling back the covers when her eyes suddenly darted to her copy of The Sessions-- still sitting face-up on her desk and waiting to be liberated from its plastic wrapping. She hesitated for a moment or two (as it was an awful lot of trouble to go to when all she wanted to do was get some shuteye), but decided she could use the personal comfort of hearing her friends again, and, hobbling over to the desk, she gently peeled the wrapping back and slid the record out.

It was her first time seeing the physical record in-person. What with it being a limited-edition run, the PR department went all-out and had it pressed with a unique, transparent vinyl. This was in part what made the authentic copies so much more desirable than their replicated contemporaries; She didn't know what voodoo the PR department had to pull with replicator manufacturers, but to ensure that the authentic copies held an aftermarket value, the replicated copies always printed in boring old black.

Let it not be understated the lengths her friends were willing to go to for her.

Tiredly whispering a prayer of gratitude for their unbridled generosity, she placed the record down on the turntable and powered it on. Finally climbing under the covers, she closed her eyes and cast herself back to a more carefree time in her life...
____________________________________________________________

[Chiba, 2381]

Summer was winding down and the nine of them had just gotten back to Maki's villa (okay, her parents' villa) after a recent photo shoot for a swimsuit issue. They'd been on a tight schedule that day, as a major storm front was rolling in and they were basically working against the clock to get the shoot wrapped up before they were rained out. On the plus side, it meant that they got off work early and had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever they pleased. Somebody (Nozomi forgot whom, but it was likely Honoka) suggested they have a wrap-up party at Maki's villa (which she strongly remembered Maki objecting to, but she'd quickly lost out on that argument), so they made their way over to her place and arrived right as the skies were starting to open up.

Poor Umi, being the conservative she was, was emotionally fatigued from amount of skin she'd had to show to the cameras, and wanted nothing more than to turn in and contemplate her life decisions. Heck, she was so exhausted that she almost immediately flopped down on the guest bed (still in her swimsuit, still damp from the shoot) and went straight to sleep. She got up later to help Nico with dinner, but Maki was still a little salty about the fact that she was going to have to make a run out to the dry-cleaners once the skies eventually cleared up.

Honoka, the girl with the bright ginger hair grinned from across the room. Playing on the beach had been fun. "You look tired Nozomi" she smiled as she plonked herself down next to her, still in her swimsuit. "Don't tell me you got all tired out from playing on the beach... although..." she stopped as her stomach growled.

"I guess dinner wouldn't go a miss" she grinned. "Do you have any sweets?"

"Not on me, personally," Nozomi admitted tiredly. "though if you're looking for sweets, I happen to know that Maki keeps a bag of hard candies in the pantry for when she's hosting guests..."

Another girl entered, with black hair tied up in twintails. "You two should get dressed!" she snapped at them. "Idols can't just sit around and do nothing you know. Hurry up, we are cooking dinner soon!" the girl said. She seemed to 'huff' as she walked off.

"Typical Nico" Honoka sighed. "Just because she's club president and all" the teenage girl smiled.

"Nicochi can get a little... ahead of herself when it comes to etiquette," Nozomi replied as she helped Honoka to her feet. "But she only does it because she cares about our success; You've seen that first hand, haven't you?"

"Well yeah..." she sensed some sort of looming threat over her shoulder. Slowly she turned around to see Umi, one of the other girls who was in her class at school. She seemed to have fire in her eyes as she saw both of them relaxing.

Her arms were crossed and she was known to be very scary when she was like this. "We are cooking dinner..." she produced a ladel from somewhere. "Its time to help..."

"Relax, Sonada," Nozomi retorted, not in the slightest bit phased phased with the younger girl's stiffness. "Honoka and I still need to towel off and get changed; and it's not like you didn't plop down on the guest bed and take a nap without bothering to dry yourself off."

"Had to remind me about that..." their hostess grumbled from the kitchen.

Honoka smiled nervously as she jumped up off the sofa.

"Talk about shameless," Nozomi chuckled as she high-fived Honoka. "Anyways, what's say you go and get yourself toweled off, Honoka? It wouldn't be sightly of an idol to be eating her dinner soaking wet, now would it?"

"BATHROOM'S AVAILABLE!" the only non-human of their group-- an ever-charismatic Nekomi-- proclaimed as she ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. "DIBS!"

"The least you could do is spare them a towel, Rin!" Maki called out. "And don't be spending an hour-and-a-half in the shower! Dinner's literally ten minutes out!"

"Nya~" the Nekomi mewled as she opened the door and chucked them a singular towel.

"Me first!" Honoka said as she rushed off into the bathroom and the door shut behind her quickly, the lock could be heard turning before clicking in place.

"Nyoooo!" Rin could be heard whining. "Rin saw it first!"

"Share, you two!" Nozomi called out.

"I swear the Christ; the two of them are in their twenties, and they act like a bunch of six-year-olds..." Maki grumbled.

"Well, while they're busy learning to behave themselves," Nozomi remarked as she picked up the towel, "I'd best be getting down to the laundry room to see if my clothes are dry; as liberating as it is to be lounging around in a swimsuit all day, Umi's probably going to have a kitten if I don't change out into something more appropriate for dinner."

Umi simply nodded.

As Nozomi wandered off to tend to her laundry, Maki stole a peek from just around the corner.

"Did Honoka and Nozomi... sit on my couch while soaking wet?!"

"Yeah. I know its nice, this is our last time together before Honoka heads off to her first Starfleet assignment. I hope she does well" Nico told Maki with a smile as she held up a spatula with a grin. She frowned "If its that popular, I might go into myself. Anyways, the Katsu chicken is ready!"

"Nice? My furniture's going to reek of mildew because nobody here bothers to towel off!" Maki grumbled sourly.

"Live a little, comrade," Eliza chuckled as she emerged from one of the guest bedrooms. "It's our last real summer hurrah before Honoka ships out, so let's relax and enjoy it while we're still an ennead."

"easy for you to say; it's not your furniture that's getting ruined..."

Opting to ignore Maki's grumblings in favor of upholding the festive atmosphere, Eliza gracefully moved over to the kitchen, where she was greeted with the fruits (or, perhaps more accurately, fried chicken) of Nico and Umi's hard work.

"Mmmm... Katsu!" she remarked delightedly. "Haven't had this in a long time; I take it Nico put you up to this?"

"I totally did not!" Nico snapped back.

Eliza raised an eyebrow. "Seems that Maki's not the only one who woke up on the wrong side of the bed, comrade?" she observed with a pinch of straight-laced sarcasm.

The commotion drew the attention of another girl, this one sporting a golden-brown mop that cut off just before the shoulders.

"U-um... is that for us?" she asked, shyly gesturing to the pan of Katsu as Umi moved it out to the dining room table.

"Is the Pope Catholic?" Maki replied as she began to set the table. "Of course this is for all of us, Hanayo! Why don't you call Kotori over here and have her join us?"

"No need," the ash-blonde in question replied as she entered the room all-smiles. "I smelled the Katsu from the other side of house, so I wrapped up what I was doing to come and see what all the commotion was about."

"Great; now my house is going to smell like mildew and fried chicken," Maki grumbled.

"CHICKEN!" Rin exclaimed, still half-dressed as she raced over to join the other girls at the dinner table.

"JESUS, RIN!" Maki spluttered, quickly averting her eyes. "Finish getting dressed before joining us at the dinner table! Nobody wants to see you strutting around in your underwear!"

"Nya~" the Nekomi pouted, sticking her tongue out at Maki as she finished hoisting her shorts up. "Rin's undies are fabulous, thank you very much! Kayo-chin said so when we went shopping the other day!"

"I-I, Uh... y-you're welcome, Rin," Hanayo stammered.

Honoka emerged freshly showered and dressed. She smiled as she approached the table. "Did someone say chicken. No wonder Rin's excited" she sighed.

Nozomi reared her head about five minutes later, emerging from the laundry room with her hair down and sporting a pastel sundress. A large sunflower hair clip framed the left side of her face, giving her a fresh new look that the others wouldn't have recognized as Nozomi if she passed them on the street.

"My, my, looks as though someone's dressed for a special occasion," Eliza remarked as Nozomi glided over and took her seat at the table.

"What can I say?" Nozomi winked. "It's our last summer with Honoka; who's to say that we can't go out with a bang?"

The other girls fell silent, a sad look in their faces as they pondered what Astral's future would entail without Honoka.

"Is is even still Astral without Hono-nyan?" Rin pointing out, reflecting what they all felt about this predicament.

...

"...We have to keep going; Honoka or not," Maki eventually piped in when no one else did. "We've still got two more years on our recording contract."

Honoka simply smiled. "Don't worry about me. You guys keep going. I have an assignment, but don't let it stop you from doing what you want" she said as she raised a glass full of juice. "To Astral. Together one last time, but still going strong"

"I, for one, second that," Nozomi, replied, raising her own glass. "To Astral; to all the memories we've made in our time together, and the memories we'll continue to make, no matter where the future may take us.

"I concur," Eliza nodded. "To Astral."

"U-um! T-to Astral!" Hanayo fumbled, quickly following their example.

"To Astral!" Rin proclaimed much more enthusiastically.

"To Astral," Kotori smiled.

"To Astral" the other girls joined in before taking a drink.

"...Alright, fine," Maki sighed, raising her glass as all eyes turned to her. "To Astral."
____________________________________________________________

Invigorated by Honoka's little speech and wanting to send the day off with a bang, the nine of them gathered in Maki's basement later that night and jammed out at least two dozen new songs. It had been Nozomi's idea that they record each and every one of them, to keep as a parting memento of their time together as a unit.

When they presented their recordings to the record label, they loved the impromptu nature of the session and secured the rights to have it distributed as part of an exclusive giveaway to their biggest fans. Several of the tracks off of that album eventually found their way into Transmissions From The Old World, which they finished recording mere days before Honoka graduated.

Nozomi's thoughts shifted to the bittersweet after party they'd held at a cafe just a few blocks from the studio, and Honoka's speech that brought all nine of them to tears as they realized this was the end of the line:

"No matter how far apart we get. Even lightyears between us, we shall always remain friends" Honoka smiled. "Here's to new adventures, for us all!"
____________________________________________________________

Posting by (in order of appearance):

Ensign Nozomi Kusuda
Fighter Pilot, USS Tokyo (NCC-91101)

Lieutenant Honoka Kousaka
Chief Engineering Officer, USS Hyperion (NCC-80120-A) (Mentioned in flashback)

Ensign Nico Yazawa
Engineering Officer, USS Nautilus (NCC-74115) (Mentioned in flashback)

Umi Yamada
Civilian (Mentioned in flashback)

Lieutenant Maki Kawashima, M.D.
Chief Medical Officer, USS Nautilus (NCC-74115) (Mentioned in flashback)

Rin Hoshizora
Civilian (Mentioned in flashback)

Captain Eliza Nanjō
Commanding Officer, USS Moscow (NCC-61025) (Mentioned in flashback)

Hanayo Koizumi
Civilian (Mentioned in flashback)

Kotori Matsubira
Civilian (Mentioned in flashback)

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