Once the rough draft was down on paper, the rest of it stopped being solely Taki's job as lyricist and vocalist.
Yoshiiro Chiose pushed up her thick black-framed glasses and tore yet another draft sheet from the notepad.
"Honestly — I've been so focused on training Taki that my own skills haven't kept up. Or is that just my imagination? Why does everything I write feel so flat."
[Flat? Think about how you have less than five years left to live. Think about how many simulations you still have to run, how many girls you'll leave with lifelong regrets. Think about your little sister's eye condition — the one that needs your lifespan to treat. Think about all the lifespan you need to fund your own needs. Think about—]
"Alright, I surrender — okay, okay, stop, stop, that's more than enough motivation."
Chiose's pen tip gave a small tremor, then she got back to writing.
Right, inspiration has arrived. But I hate you, you useless little System.
"Still not sleeping? It's late."
Taki appeared in the doorway, draped in Chiose's bathrobe, face mask plastered on, Chiose's teddy bear tucked under her arm.
"Hold on — you little freeloader, you've had your fun writing lyrics. I still have to compose the actual music for you, you know."
Arranging music was gruelling work — though thankfully their duo meant the arrangement was considerably lighter than what a full band would need.
"No rush, right? Our next performance isn't until next year anyway."
"Hmm…"
True enough.
Chiose blinked slowly, her gaze drifting to the thick stack of textbooks piled on her desk, and she fell into thought.
[If the stage debut is still a year away, then the free time available to her inside the simulations is truly beyond imagining.]
[For now, all she needs to do is help Taki move faster. Her own foundational tasks are already more or less taken care of.]
[Learning! Mountains of free time for learning! Guitar, bass, music arrangement — and if at all possible, vocal technique too!]
Simulations existed to be harvested. Learning was a harvest. Planting landmines in the hearts of young girls was also a harvest!
"It's still early days, little Taki…"
Yoshiiro Chiose nudged her glasses up.
"To keep up with you, I'm going to pour everything I've got into working hard alongside you!"
"!!!"
"Chiose!"
"No sappy lines allowed. Taki — go to bed. Now."
"Oh…"
Not until she watched Shiina Taki walk back to their room with her own two eyes did Yoshiiro Chiose return her attention to the textbooks.
Grinding… begin!
...
One day, two days…
One week, two weeks…
One month, two months…
Months passed in a blur of practice and quiet accumulation.
Taki dragged Chiose hiking in Hokkaido; Chiose pulled Taki away to watch the tide rise and fall on a beach in Yuga. They went travelling together — hunting for cats in back-alley lanes and basking in the sun with them; treating themselves to high-end Japanese cuisine that Taki paid for out of pocket money she'd been saving for ages; even staying the night at Taki's house, where Maki turned out to be a wonderfully warm big sister — though Taki was still the most adorable of all.
The seasons turned. Winter coats had long since been folded away into the wardrobe. Now it was the season of short sleeves.
And then, at this very moment —
"What?!"
"Chiose, did you just say — there's a music festival at the end of this term too?!"
One month before summer break, Shiina Taki stared at Yoshiiro Chiose in open-mouthed disbelief as Chiose ran through the upcoming school calendar.
"Yeah, did you only just find out? I thought you'd known ages ago."
Honestly, Chiose had only just remembered herself — there was a music-festival-style event at the end of every term.
"I didn't know! I was always so busy with…" Shiina Taki trailed off abruptly.
Her past felt like a lot of running around for very little to show for it. She'd struggled and scraped her way to this point, and somehow it felt as though she had nothing to prove for it.
"Hehe — I've already signed us up! This time around, we are going to obliterate every single tear duct in that room with our music! My sweetest, most adorable little Taki — are you interested? Do you feel ready?!"
At last. At long last, the timing was exactly right.
Over the past few months, Yoshiiro Chiose had studied two instruments and two foreign languages, and had even learned to write music, compose lyrics, and sing.
Coming back from the simulation to reality this time around — she was absolutely going to cash in big on the highest-traffic play available!
Chiose threw her arms around Taki in excitement, and Taki naturally assumed it was because Chiose was thrilled about the opportunity they'd been given.
Taki caught Chiose's excitement and made it her own.
"Yeah… this is wonderful! This time, we're going to move everyone with the best song we've got!"
"Let's go to the studio this afternoon — I know we can do this!"
"Let's go!"
We can definitely do this. This is the product of almost half a year of work!
So Shiina Taki thought.
...
We can't. We absolutely cannot. I feel absolutely awful.
So Shiina Taki thought.
Their song was called "踊り子" — "Odoriko", The Dancer. Chiose had named it; Taki loved it immediately.
Chiose played it brilliantly. Every emotion in the arrangement was exactly what Taki had envisioned.
But…
When Shiina Taki finished listening back to her own vocal recording, something inside her cracked open — a hollow, disappointed gap between what she'd imagined and what she heard.
There was something missing in there. She was sure of it. She felt like she could do better.
But what was missing in her voice? She couldn't say.
"This is so strange. Why is it like this?"
Over these past months, her once-negligible scraps of self-confidence had steadily grown fuller with every bit of effort she put in.
And yet — listening back to her own recording now — something was wrong in a way she couldn't name.
Shiina Taki gripped the hem of her skirt anxiously. She hated this feeling: the sense that she was about to fall apart at exactly the wrong moment.
"No — I'm going home to run through it a few more times. Something's off. It shouldn't be like this."
"Hey, hey, hey — slow down, Taki!"
Taki snatched up her bag straps and bolted out the door, leaving Yoshiiro Chiose alone with her bass, tuning pegs in hand.
"This kid — is she still not confident in herself?"
Not confident…
What would a normal good friend say in this situation? "That was terrible"?
But Yoshiiro Chiose wasn't going to say any such thing. She touched the rim of her coffee cup to her lips, and the corners of her mouth curved upward of their own accord.
Not confident? Oh, not confident is wonderful!
"If you were actually confident right now, what would you even need me for — this is perfect, Taki! You've handed me yet another golden opportunity."
Chiose laughed — but the smile quickly faded, the corners of her mouth dipping with a flicker of unease.
Had she really become this kind of woman? Sharp-nosed, diminishing scruples, sniffing out every opening? When had she started drifting in this direction…
She opened her phone and scrolled through listings on a second-hand property platform for a while, then switched over to search for contact details for record companies.
All of it would come in useful.
All of it was slowly reshaping Yoshiiro Chiose.
She had long known what she might one day become — but now that she could feel herself consciously slipping, falling in a way she couldn't stop, the helpless, heart-hammering despair of it was still difficult to hold back.
Despair didn't put food on the table. Being the villain did.
____
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