"Get up. Come with me."
Yoshiiro Chiose turned away without ceremony, leaving Shiina Taki standing alone in the warm amber light of the setting sun.
Taki's mind was completely occupied by two things.
The first was the white-haired girl's crimson eyes. They unsettled her — but it wasn't just unease. She had the strange sensation that behind those red irises, another pair of eyes was staring back at her.
The second was what the girl had just said.
Love at first sight? Ha! What on earth was she talking about? Shiina Taki didn't even know her name yet!
Something about it was more irritating than her sister's situation — more unsettling, even. Taki hated this feeling.
"Hurry up, you little nobody. Get over here."
"Don't call me 'Shiina.' And I have things to do."
"Things to do? Cancel them. Whatever it is, drop it — nothing could possibly be more important than walking with me. You dense little nobody!"
"..."
Does she always talk like this?
"I…"
"Follow me. I swear you won't regret it."
Fine. It's not like she actually wanted to watch her sister's performance anyway. Following along for a look couldn't hurt.
Taki smoothed out the wrinkles in her shirt and, without another moment's hesitation, strode forward.
What a strange girl.
...
An empty hallway. A half-open school gate. Still-busy streets. Crosswalks. Traffic lights. More crosswalks.
The scenery unfolded ahead of them like something out of a dream. Yoshiiro Chiose led the way; Taki followed silently about a meter behind.
A comfortable silence settled between the two of them. Chiose walked in fits and starts — whenever they reached a corner, she'd stop, turn around, and peek back at the slightly ruffled little black cat trailing behind her.
Then, with those cherry-pink lips, she mouthed the words:
Dummy.
"Hah? You little—"
Taki's fists balled up. She was regretting this more by the second.
Past-Taki, from literally five minutes ago... had something gone wrong with her brain? How else could she have agreed to go wandering around after school with a total stranger — some cryptic girl she'd never met before — all the way to somewhere far from home, for two whole hours?
Especially when she'd just stood her sister up.
And yet — the nameless girl's bewitchingly cute face, and that sweet tangerine scent, honeyed enough to make your head spin — they made it impossible for Shiina Taki to stop walking. She wanted to keep following Yoshiiro Chiose. Wherever she led.
Even to Siberia…
"Whoa!"
Taki clutched at her chest in alarm, startled by the thought that had just surfaced in her own head completely uninvited.
"We're here."
"Huh?"
"Come inside with me… stop spacing out in the doorway."
Yoshiiro Chiose had led Shiina Taki to the elevator lobby on the ground floor of an upscale apartment building.
"Is this your place?"
"My place? More or less."
Chiose answered with a slightly odd expression.
It wasn't quite accurate to call it her home — it was just a small perk handed to her by the system's Birth Mystery Box.
In this simulation, Chiose was a fallen young lady: both parents gone, no little sister, no property to her name.
Her savings were enough to see her through another five or six carefree years — plenty to last until the simulation ended.
"Go on in. Though… if you're the kind of helpless nobody who needs me to walk you through stepping inside a door, then forget I said anything. Feel free to keep standing there staring into space."
Chiose turned the key and pushed the door open, then covered her mouth with one hand, smirking with deliberate provocation.
"Hah…"
Taki realized she'd already developed a tolerance for Chiose's remarks.
She even thought… maybe it was a little cute?
Damn it. It was genuinely awful behavior, and yet Taki had absolutely no urge to snap at her. Was there some kind of passive buff on this girl that was hard-locking her out of getting angry?
The door swung open. On the threshold, Yoshiiro Chiose slipped off her small loafers, freeing two adorable little feet from their imprisonment.
Chiose wriggled her toes. The soft, pale skin gleamed with a subtle, alluring light.
"What, you want to lick my feet? You're such a massive pervert, you little nobody."
"You—! Stop saying things like that, or I'm leaving."
"My, my, someone can't take a tease," Chiose rolled her eyes, looking bored.
"If little Taki hadn't been staring at my feet this whole time, I never would have asked. It's entirely your fault, you know."
What even.
When did she start calling me 'little Taki'? Are we really that close?
"Do you have guest slippers?" — Shiina Taki, deeply reluctant to be cast as the degenerate in this scenario, was attempting to change the subject.
"Nope. I don't like wearing those things, and I never expected to have anyone over, so slippers simply don't exist in this apartment."
Chiose gave an unbothered little shrug, then slipped mischievously into her bedroom and vanished.
Only once the mysterious girl had disappeared from view did Shiina Taki — who had already taken off her shoes and was now standing barefoot on the deep-red carpet, which was not quite cold underfoot — finally manage to collect herself.
"..."
When she thought about it, the whole situation was genuinely surreal: she'd been lured home by a beautiful girl she'd known for less than an hour, and here she was, standing like a doorstop in the entryway of said girl's apartment, who had now promptly vanished.
Taki looked around. By her estimate, the apartment had one living room and two bedrooms.
The living room walls were painted deep red, covered in arabesque patterns. Deep crimson and gold appeared in generous quantities throughout.
Floor-to-ceiling windows were set into deep recessed alcoves; in place of curtains, oval decorations made of silver thread hung inside the recesses — matching the shape of the windows, gathered into soft little pleats, suspended loosely.
Just begging to have someone's fingers wound into them.
The apartment was fully furnished and equipped. Several small paintings hung on the living room wall. One of them made a particularly strong impression on Shiina Taki: it depicted a cucumber with wings, soaring alone through a vast and distant sky.
At the very bottom of the painting, in flowing, elegant script, were the words:
[A cucumber sprouts wings and carries me far from the troubles of this world. Do not return my cucumber.]
The taste of a truly singular individual. Perhaps a touch too abstract.
"Stop daydreaming, little nobody. Come sit on the living room sofa with me."
Chiose emerged from the bedroom, her outfit largely unchanged — except that the school uniform had been swapped for a loungewear dress, and the dark green over-the-knee socks had been replaced by little white socks printed with cats.
She looked the target of this simulation up and down — namely, this slightly stiff and guarded middle schooler before her: Shiina Taki.
She'd actually tracked this girl down a full month ago, but to craft the perfect story tailored just for Taki, Chiose had turned it over and over in her mind until today, waiting for exactly the right moment to make her move.
"Sit on the sofa?" Taki's confusion was only growing. "What are we actually doing here?"
"Watching a movie! You're going to sit here and watch a movie with me, and then I'll tell you everything… or of course, you're welcome to leave right now. Be my guest."
"..."
This was surreal. Today had been entirely too surreal.
Taki was half-convinced she hadn't fully woken up yet.
Especially when Chiose, with zero concern for appearances, casually propped one foot up on Shiina Taki's thigh — at which point the corners of Taki's mouth began to twitch uncontrollably.
————
note from the original author: Oh, also — calling someone a 'nobody' isn't actually an insult! It's like calling someone a dummy — when you say it, it comes out all soft and squishy, just like being a little spoiled. ♪
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