[Come to think of it… I wonder what Maki is thinking.]
Taki stepped out of Yoshiiro Chiose's bathroom and padded barefoot across the cold floor.
Yesterday, she'd told her older sister about making a friend. Maki's expression had flipped in an instant.
At first she'd been a little huffy — asking where Taki had gone, why she hadn't picked up the phone. But the moment Taki said she'd made a friend, Maki's whole tone shifted:
[Little Taki made a friend? That's wonderful! Staying over at her place tonight? You can come back tomorrow if you want — she's a girl, right?]
Honestly… It wasn't that she couldn't make friends — she just didn't want to! Did Maki really have to phrase it like that?!
"Well? After pulling an all-nighter and finally getting to shower — isn't that the greatest pleasure known to mankind?"
"It really is… thank you."
Although, wasn't there something about how showering after an all-nighter could cause sudden cardiac arrest? …Eh, whatever. It felt good, and that was enough.
"What?"
Yoshiiro Chiose, having finished washing up first, was sitting on the sofa toweling her hair with a white bath towel. She glanced up at Taki with a puzzled blink. "What's wrong — did you fall for me? Are you about to confess?"
"I am not! What on earth goes through your head all day?! I was trying to say… thank you for believing in me. I can actually do a little bit of music arrangement too, and if it's ever useful, I'd like to help—"
Taki's voice got quieter and quieter as she spoke, until by the end it was barely audible.
"That's all fine with me. I just want to make you shine — how brightly you shine, how capable you become, that's entirely up to you. I have no intention of putting a ceiling on it."
Chiose flicked the towel through the air and tossed it to Taki. "Honestly, you idiot — you washed your hair too? All my bath towels are out drying on the line. Use this one for now."
"Okay."
What was this? Why was she being so good to her — treating her so well, encouraging her like this? This was the first time anyone had ever spoken to Shiina Taki this way. The first time anyone had ever treated Shiina Taki like this.
All these firsts, arriving one after another, left Taki completely at a loss.
"Don't overthink it. Don't overthink any of it. And if you ever want to ask me something, I have one all-purpose answer that covers everything."
"What is it?"
Yoshiiro Chiose smiled, affecting a touch of mischief.
"It was love at first sight."
...
"Taki, did you have fun at your friend's place last night?"
"Sis! You don't need to ask about that — I'm fine!"
Today was Saturday. That was precisely why her sister had let her sleep over.
Honestly, pulling an all-nighter only had that thrill to it on a weekday. Doing it over a weekend just left you feeling sluggishly exhausted.
The sounds outside gradually faded into quiet — just like the rhythm of Shiina Taki's own heartbeat.
And yet — the moment she thought back to that scheming Yoshiiro Chiose and her line, [It was love at first sight!], Shiina Taki felt her heart flutter all over again.
"That girl — constantly calling me a small fry, always saying things that could be taken two ways, like she's toying with me. But when she's being serious, she's completely unreadable — that stillness in her eyes is too real to be faked."
A luxury apartment lived in by one person alone. The traces of a solitary life. The way she'd looked so pitifully desperate to make her stay when Taki tried to leave. The way she genuinely liked the little things Taki absentmindedly wrote when she was bored. And that tone — always tinged with something like exasperated expectation…
Yoshiiro Chiose — just what kind of person are you?
Taki pulled back the curtains on her bedroom window, hesitated, then drew them shut again.
The dim, shadowed room that came from keeping the curtains closed in the middle of the day — that was the sum total of Shiina Taki's impression of Yoshiiro Chiose.
Mysterious, yet vivid. Restless, yet still.
"Yoshiiro Chiose — just what kind of person is she, really?"
...
"Shiina Taki — just what kind of person is she, really?"
After Taki left, Chiose stopped fighting it and went back to sleep.
She woke to find the sky dark again — but she didn't mind. She sprawled out on the sofa and picked up the movie she'd been watching yesterday.
"Choosing to open the story this way — what was your intent?" the System asked.
The System had taken the form of a white-haired, golden-eyed girl, sitting cross-legged beside Chiose, occasionally passing her handfuls of popcorn.
"Because — I think it gives the whole thing a little tint of the fantastical."
"That's too abstract. I'm not interested in deciphering it."
Well, of course it was abstract.
"Taki's life is so dull. The only things that can hold her attention are gentleness or something out of the ordinary. But if I only ever played the gentle card, there'd be nothing in it for my own growth — so I decided: I'm playing both hands!"
The movie played on slowly, but neither of them was paying it any attention.
"A strange story, opening with a strange girl's strange request — sit back and look forward to what comes next, Sysbaby."
"..."
Chiose snatched the popcorn straight out of the System's arms and started feeding it right back to her.
"You know — this Shiina Taki. Just what kind of person is she? She's so incredibly… alive."
Chiose had entered this simulation as a classmate in the adjacent homeroom. She hadn't always been deliberately watching — but somehow, this girl kept drawing her in.
Taki, why is your life the way it is?
Chiose watched Taki push through each day in the wind ensemble, putting on a brave face. Sometimes she'd chat and laugh with other people, but it was the kind of laughing and chatting that never went deeper than the surface.
She'd also often ducked around corners to eavesdrop on Taki's conversations with other classmates.
Most of it was tedious and hollow — nothing that offered Taki any real emotional nourishment. Like someone endlessly feeding her junk.
Most of those conversations, too, had been started by the other person, not Taki.
And the content? Almost always about something Taki's older sister had done.
Led the team to a competition. Won the student council presidential election. Scored first in the whole year. Already secured a spot at some prestigious university.
Did these girls not have sisters of their own? Did they not know that comparison is the one topic you should never bring up? What a sweet pack of idiots.
"I want to thank this world."
Chiose switched off the television and ran her fingers over her new guitar.
Nimble fingers plucked softly at the strings, filling the room with a melody she had composed herself.
"Why would you thank the world?" the System asked blankly, blinking once. A faint flicker of puzzlement crossed that otherwise expressionless face.
"Because no one has bothered to cherish or guide our dear little Taki properly — and that has given me the perfect opening to slip right in."
"I'm going to take good care of this girl. I'm going to make her into someone who surpasses her sister."
"And then?"
"And then? Everything comes at a price. Then comes the moment of payment."
The self-composed melody reached its most intricate passage. Yoshiiro Chiose's playing gradually slowed, until at last she struck the final string.
"On the road to success — there's always something you have to lose."
____
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