"I want to… become human!"
Takamatsu Tomori had been swallowing those words for ten years — from the time she was sixteen all the way to twenty-six — spending each day dutifully imitating what humans did.
Humans went to school, so she went to school. Everyone crammed for university entrance exams, so she buried herself in textbooks and got in. Everyone found jobs, so she found a job.
Someone once told her that a grown adult shouldn't live with their parents anymore — that moving out was what [maturity] and [independence] looked like. She believed it. She moved into an apartment surrounded by a colony of overworked office drones.
And none of it — not a single bit of it — made Takamatsu Tomori feel like she belonged.
Graduation ceremonies… elementary school, middle school, high school, university — why was everyone crying? Why did the tears come so easily for everyone else while she couldn't squeeze out a single drop? They'd all been so kind to her, treating her like a mascot, a communal pet. Shouldn't that have made it harder to let go? Shouldn't she have felt at least a little sad?
Yes. She should have. But she felt nothing.
Takamatsu Tomori was just… different from everyone else.
She wasn't sure when she'd accepted that. But it didn't really matter anymore.
"I — I'm never going to become human, am I!"
The words tore out of her and then all the strength left her body at once. She fell backward — and landed in Yoshiiro Chiose's arms.
"Senpai's a mess right now, you know."
"But… I've always been a mess. I…"
"Goodness, honestly. No matter how old she gets, Tomori still acts like such a little kid."
Chiose steadied Tomori back onto her feet and guided her to stand once more before the pedestrian overpass railing. Below, workers fresh off their shifts drove home through the night, their headlights weaving into a tapestry of color — a tiny, glittering cross-section of the city.
"Tomori! Did you just say you wanted to become human?"
"Yes…"
"Wonderful!" Chiose took a deep breath and, mimicking Tomori's pose, cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed down at the street below: "Me too — I want so badly to become human! I want to become human together with Tomori-senpai!"
"What?! Sai!!"
"What, what? Takamatsu Tomori-senpai, you who yearns to be human — is there anything you want to say right now?!"
"I… I want to say…"
Takamatsu Tomori opened her mouth.
"Blurgh…"
...
"I… ugh…"
Takamatsu Tomori was draped over her own toilet, dry heaving for what felt like an eternity and producing absolutely nothing.
"Honestly, honestly. Senpai is such a colossal dummy. I thought she was about to say something sweet, and instead she just threw up everywhere."
Tomori really was impressively committed to it. She'd thrown up the whole way home. Retching over a storm drain in the street, and now back at her apartment, still going even though there was nothing left.
"Cough cough… Sai…"
Weak. Helpless. Ha — this is what you get for drinking too much.
"What is it?"
"I still feel like I need to throw up. Help me…"
"Hm? Sure, senpai, excuse the intrusion then."
Chiose casually swept Tomori's sweat-damp hair out of the way, then wiped her index and middle finger clean with a paper napkin.
"Here we go."
"Okay — mmmph —"
Before Tomori could finish the word, Chiose's fingers were already down her throat. The sudden sharp sensation hit Tomori like a wave — and the nausea that had been building and building finally crested.
"BLEGH —"
"Slowly, slowly, you idiot!"
Thank goodness she pulled her fingers out in time, or Tomori would have thrown up all over her hand.
The thin trace of saliva still glistening on her fingers was oddly crystalline. When Tomori was small, she'd loved clinging to Chiose while they slept and drooling all over her. Chiose would have to find a way to get back at her for that someday.
"Dummy. Tomori really is such a dummy."
Once Tomori finished being sick, Chiose scooped her up from behind.
"Do you still feel awful, senpai?"
"Much better, ahh…"
Flushed and sheepish, Takamatsu Tomori only now fully registered that she was home. The warm amber glow of the bathroom light washed over her like afternoon sun, and for a moment she felt utterly adrift in time.
"I ruined the evening tonight. I'm sorry…"
"Hm? What are you talking about?"
"You could have stayed at STARY so much longer… if I hadn't drunk too much, it wouldn't have come to this…"
"Pfft. Tomori really is a dummy. And remember, just call me Sai, okay? Chiose — that name specifically, I'd rather not hear it from your mouth."
Like a mother cradling a newborn, Tomori lay nestled in Chiose's warm arms. Looking up, all she could see were two generous curves blocking the ceiling light above her like twin moons.
"Am I… a strange senpai? Chi — no, Sai."
"Not at all. Tomori's just a little fish, that's all."
"I like collecting notebooks with different covers, pencils in every color, bandages in every design… everyone my age is so different from me. In middle school they were all talking about fashion and sports… oh, and I also like the night sky — every time I look at it, I feel like I could dissolve into it and become one tiny star among all the others…"
Tomori talked. And once she started, she couldn't stop.
Her voice carried exhaustion and anxiety — but what Chiose heard underneath it all was something quieter: Tomori was angry at herself.
So growing up had been hard for her after all. Not quite what Chiose had imagined. This kid…
If she hadn't died so early in that last simulation, maybe she could have been there to watch Tomori grow up. Could have helped her through all of this.
"You've been through a lot. I'm truly sorry."
With some effort, Chiose lifted Tomori properly into her arms. Instinctively, Tomori looped her arms around Chiose's neck and shifted into a position that made herself easier to carry.
"No, it's… thank you, Sai, for listening to such a bothersome senpai ramble on and on… I'm awful, aren't I. Such a bother."
Those garnet-colored eyes were the most luminous jewels in the world — so why were they glittering with tears right now?
"Not at all. Aren't we best friends? How is any of this a bother?"
Chiose tilted her head down and gave Tomori a radiant smile.
"If I could, I'd like to be friends with Tomori for the rest of our lives."
"A lifetime?"
To say something that heavy — what kind of conviction did it take to say it like that…
"That's right, a whole lifetime! Let's take a few days off and then go drinking again."
The living room light framed Chiose's lovely face with perfect softness. It was the most beautiful smile Takamatsu Tomori had ever seen.
The kind of smile you might encounter only a handful of times in a lifetime — completely genuine, welling up from somewhere deep inside, not the kind that barely reaches the corners of one's mouth before vanishing like it was never there.
[So someone really would smile at me like that again.\]n
She thought of Toyokawa Sachiko — that friend from her middle school days.
But… Sachiko's face had grown hazy now. The long years had washed away everything that was Toyokawa Sachiko.
In the river of memory, her place had been quietly taken by the face of Yoshiiro Chiose.
"We'll carry on! Tomori!"
Nimble fingers combed gently through Tomori's ash-grey hair, giving her the strange and lovely impression of being a small animal having its fur tidied.
"I… I'll do my best too!"
Here she was, the senpai, saying exactly the kind of thing that was supposed to come out of a kouhai's mouth.
But Takamatsu Tomori had long since grown accustomed to embarrassing herself. She didn't bother thinking about it.
"So dizzy… I want to sleep."
"Go to sleep, Tomori. I'll give you a bath in a bit."
"Huh? Eh…"
Well, alright then.
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