Restless.
Yoshiiro Chiose had been restless ever since she got back from the little path leading to the Takamatsu apartment.
She'd been so on edge that her period had almost come early.
Her little sister was taking small, careful bites of the food Chiose held up to her lips — even though Kyoumoto was always insisting she wasn't a little kid anymore and could feed herself just fine.
Chiose fed her anyway. Every meal, every time.
"Xiǎo Jīng, is it good?"
"Mm... but it must've been expensive, right?"
"Oh, it's fine, it's fine."
See? This was the good little sister she'd raised with her own two hands... so well-behaved it actually made Chiose's heart ache a little.
Chiose glanced at the System's catalogue of available goods. Her savings were nearly bone dry; the only thing of any real worth she had left was those precious few meager years of lifespan.
Her guitar skills still weren't up to mercenary-band standards. The market was never short on temporary guitar fill-ins, after all — only the strongest players could actually carve out a living that way.
And the weaker ones?
They'd probably get turned away even from an all-girls high school band.
Money, lifespan, feelings, family — Chiose had assumed that as the simulations expanded, all of it would sort itself out naturally.
Looking at things now, her brain was still hopelessly knotted.
[Keep simulating. Every problem you have can be solved through simulation.]
The System spoke. Chiose listened.
Simulations... inside a simulation there was plenty of time to learn skills and earn money. Simulations could also supply lifespan. And the more she ran them, the more she'd get used to that particular feeling — of the people closest to her being complete strangers to her real self. On top of that!
As long as she kept simulating, she could get her sister's illness treated at a ruthlessly low cost, and even extend her sister's lifespan while she was at it...
The temptation of simulation — it was enormous, wasn't it?
But truly completing a simulation required a certain resolve, and that resolve was something Chiose was still searching for.
Of course!
Only the simulation was real. Everything else could wait — that had to be right.
Just when did that idea take root in my brain, anyway?!
"Alright. Tonight, when I go to sleep — I'll start the third simulation."
...
Lunch was a cheap and delicious bulgogi rice bowl — just a few hundred yen to give the two sisters a proper little feast.
The look on Kyoumoto's face was priceless. She blinked those wide, hazy grey eyes and asked Chiose when she'd learned how to make bulgogi rice like this.
When did she learn?
In a simulation, obviously. Tomori had tasted it and said it was delicious.
Dinner was even simpler. Kyoumoto often felt a quiet little loneliness at not being able to live like a normal person — so Chiose took her hand, and together they went and made a pot of noodles.
Kyoumoto would eat anything. She wasn't picky in the slightest. But tonight she ate those noodles with an especially happy look on her face.
"You really are still just a little kid."
Chiose bathed Kyoumoto. Chiose blow-dried Kyoumoto's hair. Chiose helped Kyoumoto change her clothes. Kyoumoto was like an adorable little doll — not a trace of resistance, entirely cooperative, offering up soft little sounds as her way of rewarding all the effort.
"I really do love my little sister best of all."
As long as she had her sister by her side, every hardship in the world shrank down to a little lump of dirt she could stomp flat without a second thought!
If only Tomori were her little sister too... ahem, ahem.
Chiose switched off the bedroom light. Kyoumoto had been raised well — she'd inherited essentially every good tradition of both the Yoshiiro and Haizuka families.
If not for the System, she probably would never have gotten to see Kyoumoto one last time.
The sky had grown dark, threatening rain. Yoshiiro Chiose had lived to see another day.
School was starting in just a few days now; the countdown on her pressure-free pre-term holiday was ticking away.
"Things being what they are — I'll simulate first."
She lay on her side, curled up with her sister, and Chiose's pretty brow furrowed ever so slightly as her thoughts drifted back to Takamatsu Tomori.
Takamatsu Tomori... two simulations in a row, and it had been her both times. If it turned out to be her again next time, Yoshiiro Chiose was absolutely going to lose it.
System... I want to simulate!
This time, please — please don't let it be sweet little Tomori again!
[The System will provide assistance before the simulation begins. Assistance is as follows.]
[Please select your background.]
[Daughter of a Zaibatsu: fifty years]
[Daughter of Upper Class: twenty years]
[Daughter of Middle Class: ten years]
[Daughter of Lower Class: one year]
[Daughter of a Drifter: zero years]
[Birth Mystery Box: one month]
Mystery Box again, as always. Can't go wrong.
The current Yoshiiro Chiose didn't yet have the means or standing to choose anything else.
[Please select your Trait. (Three Traits will be randomly generated each time for you to choose from.)]
[Corroded: You will absolutely not survive past the age of eighteen. Required lifespan: 0 days.]
[Beloved Fragrance: You are more adept at drawing in those who are starved of affection. All love-starved characters will have an unconditionally high initial favorability toward you, though you are also more prone to illness. Required lifespan: one year.]
[Measured Steps: You will definitely live past eighty. Required lifespan: one year.]
"These three..."
Chiose's brow crinkled into a knot, as though she were facing some monumental dilemma.
Measured Steps was completely out of the question.
Corroded — safe profit, low difficulty.
But if she picked Beloved Fragrance...
The investment was steep, but the foreseeable returns would absolutely not be small!
Beloved Fragrance it is — just watch what I can do!
[Please confirm your selected assistance: Birth Mystery Box — Beloved Fragrance.]
Confirmed.
In the final instant before the light screen dissolved, Chiose blinked at the moon hanging outside the window.
To work through the guilt she felt toward Tomori... the target of this simulation — let me have a proper clash with you!
I want to pit my brand-new persona against you and see what happens!
Right now, I'm terrifyingly good!
...
The Takamatsu apartment. Tonight, Mother was at work and Father hadn't come home yet from his overtime — it was a solitary space belonging to Tomori alone.
"..."
Still standing at the window in a daze, Tomori seemed to be waiting — hoping that Yoshiiro Chiose might pass by this way.
"But... Chiose and I are complete strangers. Hmm..."
A strangely painful feeling. The other girl had already barged into her heart and made herself completely at home — and yet Takamatsu Tomori couldn't speak a word of these feelings to anyone.
It was exactly like —!
There was this person, who did nothing but flirt and never followed through — all the warmth in the world, none of the commitment...
Who was she supposed to take that complaint to?!
"The little Chiose in my dreams said she went to Hane-oka... and isn't that exactly the high school I'm about to attend?"
"But in the second dream, I never ran into Chiose at school."
Though that was probably just because Takamatsu Tomori rarely left her classroom to join in group activities — she only ever got close to her own classmates.
"Still... dream-me was twenty-six, while Chiose was only... twenty-two."
But the Chiose she'd caught a fleeting glimpse of this very morning — she was absolutely about the same age as Tomori herself!
"So dreams really do lie, after all."
The gods who governed dreams were so cruel.
They tangled two strangers together in a dream, then coldly announced upon waking that none of it had been real.
"Haah..."
Tomori let out a small sigh and dabbed at the teardrops that had gathered on her chin with a tissue.
A day or two had already passed.
But she still hadn't managed to move on.
____
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