#katasofi

   Honestly, she just wanted to be alone as she savoured these feelings that might be better ignored or relinquished. Katarina was a fool, in this life and her previous one, surrounded by luxuries that she never knew how to work, like electricity, for one. Where it came from, what it was, how they stored all those pictures and texts in zeroes and ones in cartridges for gaming consoles to play. She missed it.

   She wanted to play games again so bad! Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, she missed it all, not just Fortune Lover! Her waking life had become the plot of Fortune Lover but she wanted a taste and replay of her other, old favourites, too. Other games and light novels and things like that. She had dreamt of some amalgamation of every video game that she had ever played and she dreamt so viscerally that she had held the console or controls in her hands. The sensation of plastic keys on a keyboard just at her fingertips, even now. A tingle that turned into a spark of what she could never have again.

   It was a Saturday morning and oh how she missed it. Katarina wanted it again, just like she wanted to taste Japanese foods again and other little things like that. She could want for nothing as a noblewoman but even so, she wanted things that she could never dare express, even to her closest friends.

   Yet, express this longing she did, over breakfast with one of her friends, no less. 

   “How bizarre,” Sophia marvelled as Katarina regaled an embellished tale of her dream, “a little box that you can watch live theatre in? Amazing but how?”

   “I have no idea.” Katarina shook her head. “But what an amazing invention it would be but it would take more than magic to make it work, I think.”

   “Yes, it would bring culture to the masses, wouldn’t it?” Sophia agreed. “And possibly more opportunity for actors and other troops such as. Perhaps one day your dream might come true. It sounds like a net good, in my opinion.”

   “Thank you, Sophia.” Katarina replied.

   Katarina smiled a nostalgic smile and Sophia caught it. She smiled back and Katarina blushed. She hadn’t meant to let her musings on television and video games slip out dream conversation but ever a romantic, Sophia loved to catch up on what dreams people had been having lately. She didn’t consider herself an interpreter of them, merely a listener as she enjoyed stories and there were none quite so whimsical as the ones that came to people in their sleep. So, Katarina was helpless to do nothing but mention it, especially when Sophia looked up with such caring, ruby eyes. Almost knowing, ruby eyes, actually…

   “Hm… but this invention,” Sophia murmured, “it reminds me a lot of those pop-up books that children sometimes read.. There could be different slides to unveil different pictures, pages that burst open to emphasise a narrative beat. Perhaps we could even find a way to make a character’s expressions change based on if you hold the book this way or that way.”

   Katarina blinked. She hadn’t even made the connection herself between the idea of a book and a game but it made immediate sense to her now that Sophia had spoken it aloud. She recalled the ones that she had read in her childhood and began to beam as she imagined all the fun she could have with an interactive story in paper format.

   “You have a wonderful mind, Sophia.” Katarina gasped.

   “If we changed the proportions, we could make a book of sorts that tells the story visually or with pictures, we could fold in little titbits and surprises. I have the most brilliant idea, Katarina, let’s make your dream a reality!”

   “That sounds like a very fun project we could do together today then.” Katarina replied excitedly, she banged her hands on the table.

   “Let’s begin immediately.” Sophia exclaimed, energy matching and fizzling like fireworks.

   They abandoned their breakfast altogether wanting to get to work immediately. It would be morning tea time soon, anyway, and snacks were going to abound regardless of when or how they started this project together. So they dashed out of the dining room, hand in hand, and went on a hunt for a good, quiet place for them to work and construct a nest of artistic materials they would need. They found a nook in the library and got to work. Mostly in the form of making a huge mess amongst the bookshelves and the desks.  

   Despite full intentions of being respectful to other students around them, the pair were raucous and loud, giggling amongst those actually studying as they tried to make the pop-up book game a material reality. They cut up cardboard and paper, they scribbled down every idea that they had and in the process somehow managed to make a story out of everything they thought of. Whether or not it was a coherent story was irrelevant as they were having fun, picking each other’s brains for ideas and drawing them into pictures, coming up with novel ways to even convey these stories.

   Now neither Katarina nor Sophia were artists but the end result was as good as either of them could have imagined. They worked through snack breaks and lunch and got crumbs everywhere but wiping them off, trying not to smear the watercolours and the like, they were proud of their pop-up book game. Katarina actually felt her heart pound as she held the finished product in her hands.

   Another memory was shaken loose in her mind. When she and Atsuko-chan had gotten in trouble for bringing their devices to school, they did the exact same thing. They holed up in the library, just like they did now, but not before raiding the art classroom’s supplies. They made paper games to play and pretend to play. Their teacher was dismayed that their creativity was funneled into such an anti-productive end such as replicating the video games just banned but the fun that both she and Atsuko-chan had was better than any high score. 

   Katarina’s eyes began to well up with warm, unshed tears. That memory hadn’t been in her dream but she wished that it had been. She thought of how they had beat up monsters in their make believe dungeon crawler. The sound of Atsuko’s laughter rang in Katarina’s ear as she recalled more of those precious moments. 

   Sophia looked up at her curiously, “Is our little invention really worth crying over?” she asked in a small but gentle voice.

   “Oh, um, yes, I’m very proud of it.” Katarina lied.

   Those memories were all shaded a hue of grey in her mind but she was certain she was not recalling a dream. It was too mundane to be a dream, surely, and yet her heart pounded. Right here and right now, for doing the exact same thing and for it to be such a circus of excitement both for her and Sophia. Oh how Katarina wished Atsuko-chan and Sophia could meet, they would be fast friends, she had not a doubt in her mind. 

   Not to mention, if Katarina recalled correctly, Atsuko-chan’s favourite of the minor characters was Sophia after all. Katarina let out a soapy hiccup at the notion of her Sophia and her Atsuko-chan being friends. She dabbed her eyes, embarrassed that she was having such difficult to parse feelings in front of Sophia.

    “Let’s have a read, shall we.” Katarina smiled through her drying tears.

   “New game start!” Sophia joyfully cheered and she did a fist bump, both her long locks of white and her dress bounced with her in her mirth.

   Katarina blinked. That was, in her cloudy opinion, a rather modern and nerdy thing for Sophia to say but she blinked again. She supposed that it was possible she had mentioned it earlier and forgot or that Sophia had come up with it just now on the fly but it made Katarina oddly happy. Her heart skipped a beat.

   “Yeah!” she agreed. “New game start!”

   They plopped down beside each other in their chairs, dresses flouncing around, and almost hitting their heads on one another as they got in close. Katarina held the not quite a book and not quite a gaming console paper cut out in her hands and was wracked with nostalgia. It was just like that time with Atsuko-chan during recess. Her heart raced.

   She pretended to mash buttons as Sophia regaled their story back to them. It was a raucous mishmash and hodgepodge of fairy tales and whatever sounded good at the time. She orchestrated all the scene changes and the like for Katarina’s full and total enjoyment. Their story was a three arc narrative with level ups and strangers becoming the most powerfully bonded people in the world, beyond the romantic or the platonic, but it still ended in a kiss against a sunset. A well deserved happy ending after all the magic and fighting, both Katarina and Sophia agreed when they had penned that element of the story.

   Katarina looked up and Sophia met her gaze, Katarina’s mouth was wide open as she said, “Thank you, thank you for making my dream a reality.”

   “It means a lot to me as well.” Sophia shyly assured her as she tucked a curl of her snow white hair behind her ear.

   “I-I’m glad.” Katarina replied but she wasn’t quite sure what she was glad for.

   She glanced at Sophia whose eyes were very… wanting. Waiting. Katarina licked her lips and for a moment, her impulse was to kiss Sophia. Just like the protagonists of their shared story but Katarina stamped down on that thought. She was getting carried away, swept up in the moment, there was something else to the glimmer of Sophia’s eyes which she couldn’t quite parse. Something familiar but she couldn’t quite place, something regrettably unsaid and bittersweet. Even though they should both be proud and joyful at the fruition of their hard work.