"Honestly, aren't you curious where we are? Three years, and not even a little curiosity? My body has to be at least fifteen by now. I suddenly changed back then, and you don't find that strange? Oh, and didn't you get a bit taller recently. I remember your height never changed, and now I'm growing but you're still taller than me."
"My growth rate synchronized with yours." The girl murmured so softly that it did not reach the partition.
"What did you say?" As expected, there was no answer. The boy did not mind and quickly hooked himself upside down on a metal bar, starting his familiar daily exercise.
"I'm serious, this can't go on forever. I checked the food stock, maybe enough for twenty or thirty years, but fuel and energy are a real problem. This satellite power system is almost done for. It's beyond patching." His voice broke slightly with each upside-down sit-up. "We've been lucky our bodies haven't had problems for three years. Otherwise where would we find a doctor. I can't even understand the stuff in the medicine storage, and when I ask you, you don't say anything."
"Of course, if you don't go, I won't go either. You taught me all this. I can't leave you here alone." After finishing another curl, he noticed the white-haired girl had entered the partition at some point. Their faces were so close he could see the smallest details.
"You go first. Find a power source. Come back for me. I cannot leave it behind." Her breath was warm against his face, and maybe from being upside down too long, his face felt hot again. He twisted his neck and flipped down smoothly from the bar.
"That thing won't be found here by anyone. This place has been abandoned for years. There's nowhere safer." He waved his arms for emphasis and tapped his fist into his palm. "And I don't even know what it's like outside. What tech level are we talking about. Can it even work with that thing. What if outside tech can't fix it."
His questions came one after another, his tone growing sharp. "And if I go alone, how do I know what kind of power system you want. These years I only trained and practiced that lousy simulator, plus your weird lessons. Aren't you afraid I'll go out and immediately end up doing something illegal."
Breathing hard from exercise, sweat reflected the light behind him, lending weight to his words. The girl lowered her head slightly and avoided his gaze for the first time.
"I cannot leave." Her voice was quiet.
"Fine, fine. Then I won't go either. Rest early. Tomorrow I'll check other areas. Maybe there's a power source that fits." He told a lie he did not believe, without showing disappointment. "I'll go wash up. The ice I dragged back should be melted by now. Water isn't an issue. There's enough ice outside for decades."
Without waiting for a reply, he left the room. He submerged his head until his lungs protested, then surfaced and took a deep breath.
"Leaving alone, am I worried about her, or just scared." He muttered to himself, then shook the water from his hair and looked up at the gray sky. After wiping his face with an unknown fiber cloth, he pulled up the corners of his mouth with two fingers and went back inside.
The white-haired girl stood silently holding the small pod blueprint he had picked earlier, not noticing him enter. "Stop staring at it. I said I won't go, so I won't go. We'll think of something tomorrow. What story tonight. Getter versus Mazinger, how about that. You said the name Ryoma sounded familiar last time."
"You go first, then come back for me." She cut him off, gripping the blueprint, her gaze still calm but firm.
"I said I won't go alone. Yes, I admit I'm scared. I don't know what's out there. What if aliens already took Earth. I'm scared, really scared. The thought of leaving and being alone." His heated reply faltered and sank.
"So we're not discussing this. Tonight I figured out how to tell the Getter story. Ryoma has two good partners." He tried to continue.
"Then we go together." Her answer came clean and steady.
"One's called Hayato, and the other is... what did you say." He stared at her, his voice trembling in disbelief.
"Together. Using this. You and I together." She pointed at the blueprint, emotionless but resolute.
"Yeah." The answer came without hesitation.
Several days later, a small escape pod floated in the spaceport of the abandoned satellite. Wearing a suit, the boy loaded the last supplies, then looked back at the place he had lived for three years and once thought would be forever. After a deep breath, he jumped into the pod and found Haro already sitting in his seat.
"Haro, Haro, so slow, so slow." The boy kicked Haro aside. "You can't even drive this thing. Move." He reached back with his hand, and as expected, a cold touch came through the glove. He pulled hard, and the black figure stumbled into the pod.
"Thrusters normal, fuel at sixty percent, solar sail system OK. We're leaving. Don't you want to say anything." He kept talking as his hands moved without pause. The familiar interface posed no challenge, and as the indicators lit up, GARMR-D flashed across the screen.
"What's that supposed to be. The manufacturer." With no answer and no understanding of the name, the pod launched smoothly and drifted away from the spaceport. After careful adjustments, it turned toward the sunlit side, the solar sail glowing gold as the ship slowly accelerated.
Only then did the boy clearly see the satellite he had lived on for three years. It looked like a narrow bottle laid flat, with a ridiculous scarf wrapped around it.
"Huh. This doesn't look like one Gene would dump. Not that hourglass type either. Maybe this isn't a Gundam world." He wondered briefly, but the first step was already taken. As he prepared to input a course, he found the route already preset.
"Destination L3 sector. Target location, Heliopolis." He frowned. "Heliopolis. Sounds familiar. Where have I heard that. Do you know." He searched his memory in vain and turned to her again. "I know I've heard it somewhere."
"I don't know. Never heard of it." Her unusual outfit seemed to double as a space suit, though the helmet reflected sunlight and hid her expression.
"Heliopolis. What kind of place is that." With his endless muttering, the small pod carried the strange boy and girl away. Behind them, the golden solar sail shone like a mythic chariot, and like a gust of wind, it passed through the quiet universe.