our own private supernova

chapter one: viva la pluto fuck you

"What do you mean I'm not a planet anymore? What am I then? One of Jup's cats maybe? I'm still a human, you can't just say 'well, now, you're no longer a planet'."

The Sun scratched the back of her head. "I know it's hard to understand but that's how it is, love. I can't take care of you if you're so far away. You're almost gone."

"But I'm not! I'm still here!" Pluto shouted. "This wouldn't have happened if..." He tried to think of a good reason but none came. Maybe he had really brought this on himself. It was, after all, his choice to be so far away from the others.

"You're just so tiny, sometimes I can't even tell when you're actually here..." She said, voice trailing off.

Pluto sighed disdainfully. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

"Watch your tongue, young man." The Sun said, very unhelpful to his situation.

"What's going on here?" said a voice behind Pluto and he spun. Mars smiled, evil and full of the satisfaction of seeing a fight unfold.

"None of your fucking business." Pluto replied, suddenly angry at his brother.

"Pluto!" Said the Sun, eyebrows knitted together, both as a warning and a question. What was going on with her little baby? He was so different from...

"They revoked his status of planet," said a small voice.

"Were you there all this time?" Pluto asked.

"Maybe," replied Venus. She was sitting on the floor in a corner, draped in a plaid, watching something on her phone. Pluto knew already she was in her pajamas, because she never left them.

"Shorter and shorter, sis," said Mars. "When are you cutting them as short as mine?"

Venus ran a hand in her short brown hair, absentmindedly. "I like it this way."

Pluto smiled. You could not not smile at the sight of Venus. She was such a small thing, with her freckles and oversized clothes, so shy and quiet. Pluto liked her the best.

It was Mars he hated the most. Mars had a close shaved head and always wore two shirts, one with long sleeves, one with short, one on top of the other. Some said it was stylish, Pluto thought it was stupid. Unnecessarily warm for someone so close to the Mother Sun. Pluto was always cold.

As soon as the topic died, Pluto knew the next thing coming up was his status as former planet. He braced himself for the Mars hurricane.

"So," said his brother, slowly spinning. "Pluto."

His raspy voice send chills along Pluto's back. He was so not giving Mars the fight he wanted. "No. I'm outta here, viva la Pluto, fuck you."

"Pluto!" shouted the Sun once more.

Closing the door to his bedroom behind him, he heard vaguely Mars's snarky remark. He rested his forehead on the door. Fuck. A single tear rolled down his cheek, the kind you only noticed after they've escaped you. This was bullshit. How could he not be a planet anymore?

He moved slowly across the untidy bedroom and sat on the edge of the unmade bed. In front of him, the mirror reflected something shattered. There he was, pale, cold, small and broken. A study in survival. Was he even breathing? He felt so alone.

Breathing out deeply, he snatched his guitar on the stand and strum a few cords. He began playing some Jeff Buckley song that quickly turned out into something Jup would qualify 'very Broken Machine like'. To Pluto, it just sounded like 'every chord at the same time, the loudest possible'. With rage, he threw the guitar on the floor. It landed on a pile of rumpled clothes, making a muffled sound. Pluto quickly stood up and shoved the contents of his desk on the floor. Things crashed loudly. He was a sea storm. Merciless. Enraged. Hurt.

At his failed attempt to rip off the bed the covers, huge and heavy, he started to cry again. He curled up against the wall, unaware of his bleeding knuckles. He didn't even remember punching any wall but maybe he had.

Two hours later, he was still in the same place. He felt tired, the storm had gone, he had been washed up on the empty beach. The air smelled like dinner so he stood up, a bit unsteady. He looked like shit. His dark hair were tangled and his cheeks hollow. He merely put his guitar back on its stand and exited the room. Everyone was quiet when he sat at the table.

As he was reaching for the bread basket, Mars grabbed Pluto's wrist. He studied the bloody knuckles, ever so gentle.

"We are quite alike, don't you think? Product of rage, I like this version of you the most." Mars said, his smile sharp.

Pluto wanted to throw up. He squeezed out of his brother's grasp and left the table with his plate.

Sitting against her bed, it's only when her hair fell in his plate that she realized she had shifted. To shift was something only planets could do. Pluto was however struggling recently, she always seemed to shift when she was upset. As a depressed planet, she was very frequently upset. As some sort of twisted vicious cycle, it also upset her to shift so frequently. Why couldn't she settle for one appearance? It seemed so easy for the others, they always were who they wanted to be.

She tied her hair in a messy bun and resumed eating even though her food tasted like held back tears.

She was no longer a planet. She had put so much distance between her and the others they had cast her out. She almost wanted to laugh. What a fucking joke. What. A fucking. Joke.

Around midnight, her stomach started to rumble from what little she had eaten. She went downstairs tiptoeing careful when she walked past the bedroom of the siblings she loved the most. Light filtered under Mercury's door. The Sun was probably in there with him. He was her favorite.

She stepped in the kitchen, tiles cold through her socks. She went through the cupboards, in search of something edible. At some point, she discovered frozen fries in the refrigerator. She found quiet solace in arranging them so there was the maximum amount in the small space of the tray.
Her fingers were cold from rearranging the frozen potatoes and she laughed bitterly, frozen hands, frozen heart. The Sun's heat always seemed to be blocked by the other's planets. She longed for it to reach her.
Thirty minutes later, the oven dinged and she didn't even cared if it woke anyone at this point. She ate silently, ruminating her bad day.

As she went back to her room, she was taken aback by the mobile in the hall. It was a childish mobile, with the Solar System hanging, tiny balls of colors, like a big family.

There were now only eight planets.