Six in the morning. Taki's bedroom.
The room was dark — not a single light on. Somewhere beneath the blankets, a girl was curled into herself, shaking.
[I want you to sob your heart out for me. I want you to cry until it tears you apart — until the misery is unbearable — until you wake yourself up weeping in the dead of night. Do you understand? Do you get it?! Can you even comprehend what the magnificent me is saying to you? You little small-fry!]
Those were the words Yoshiiro Chiose had spoken to Shiina Taki at the very beginning.
That day, Chiose's home had been dim and hazy — and only the bewitching glow of that girl's face had lit up the loneliness inside Taki.
Sobbing your heart out. Crying until it tears you apart. Waking yourself up weeping in the dead of night — Shiina Taki, do you understand now? Do you get it?!
She did. Shiina Taki finally understood.
"Chi… Chiose…"
Taki pushed herself upright from the bed, her body stiff and clumsy. She stared blankly at the objects arranged around the room.
This was… her own home?
"Is this… is this… my bedroom? I…"
Nearly half her bed was soaked through — tears and sweat — and her entire body was slick and clammy with cold perspiration.
"Have I gone back to the past? No… no, that's not right…"
Everything that just happened — it was only a dream.
What a horrible dream.
Especially the second half. Every single second of it had been agony — an agony so intense it was almost frightening.
"Chiose — Chiose… Chiose!"
A helpless, feeble whimper clawed its way out of Shiina Taki's throat. She felt as though something had been taken from her — something she would never, ever get back.
Yoshiiro Chiose. That girl — smiling in the memory.
It hurt so much. It truly, genuinely hurt.
[If I died right now, would it hurt less…?]
A storm of noise churned through Taki's head. She tried to bury her face in her pillow — and found it had been turned into a waterlogged dumpling, saturated to bursting with tears.
"It hurts — it hurts so much — ugh, ugh…"
Aaaaaah!!!!
I don't want to be alive. It's too much. It's really, truly too much.
Her brain was shaking. Ngh, ngh, ngh.
Her violet eyes — hollow, drained of all colour — stared up at the ceiling. Every last trace of light had gone out of them.
It hurt too much. Every single cell in her body was wailing.
She was fighting just to breathe — like a freshwater fish stranded on dry land, gasping and thrashing.
No one had ever been so gentle with her. That girl in the dream — so heartbreakingly lovely, like a little sprite dropped straight from heaven.
This dream — this long, sprawling fever-dream — was no gift from any angel.
It came from the depths of hell. It was a poison bomb wrapped in syrup, and every second of it had been a wound designed with exquisite care just for her.
And now the dream had finally shattered.
Shiina Taki's small, fragile heart had shattered right along with it.
Taki had stopped crying. She only stared at the ceiling, her gaze blank and empty.
She was no longer struggling. No longer screaming. Only the occasional instinctive whimper rose from somewhere deep in her throat.
In that moment, Taki was nothing but a small, unthinking creature.
She saw it —
On the ceiling, there were rings upon rings of light.
Those halos flickered and pulsed, slowly taking shape — building themselves into the smiling face of the girl from her dream.
At the sight of it, Shiina Taki completely fell apart again.
"Ngh… no — stop — don't make me remember again… it hurts so much… I want to die so badly… ngh, ngh, ngh…"
[Keep going, Shiina Taki. Don't you feel like something's missing from who you are right now?]
Yoshiiro Chiose's whisper coiled through her mind, dragging those unbearable memories to the surface again and again.
Now — every beautiful thing Shiina Taki could imagine had been painted over in the colour of Yoshiiro Chiose.
Which meant that every beautiful thing had become a weight too heavy for life to carry.
Take this bedroom, for instance.
The bed she was lying on — this was where she and Chiose had slept together, back when Chiose used to come to her house.
"Ngh, ngh, ngh…"
She couldn't think about Yoshiiro Chiose. Every time she did, her will to live dropped a little lower.
Taki tumbled off the bed in a graceless heap.
The pain of hitting the floor was almost a relief.
She didn't want to exist in the real world anymore. She wanted to go back to the dream — back to the very beginning of it. She wanted to spend her whole life with Yoshiiro Chiose. She didn't want this life — Shiina Taki didn't want this life at all, not even the tiniest bit of it.
"The day we first met…"
It was that afternoon — the one where she'd overslept and missed her sister's performance.
Was there really a day like that in real life?
Taki dragged herself upright and sank into the chair, wiping the tears from her face with a tissue.
"In reality… wait!"
She remembered.
Yes — there really had been an afternoon in second year of middle school, when she'd been in a mood and didn't want to go to her sister's concert.
She'd been torn back then — should she just sleep through the whole thing and pretend it never happened, or should she grit her teeth and go anyway?
In the end… in the end…
"In the end I still chose to go to the concert… no way. No way."
This couldn't all be real, could it?
So it was her own choice that had led to a life without Yoshiiro Chiose?
Was it… was it really her?
The more she thought about it, the more her entire life felt like one long failure. She reached into a bookshelf she hadn't touched in ages and pulled out her middle school graduation photo album.
"No way, no way… Yoshiiro Chiose — she wouldn't also be…"
What class was Chiose in, again?
Class C! Right next to her own, wasn't it?!
Taki found the page with the class group photo — and then suddenly couldn't bring herself to look.
"If — if I actually see Chiose in this album, does that mean this dream…"
Could it be from a parallel world? Ah, no, that's ridiculous. Don't be stupid, Shiina Taki.
Taki's hands and feet had gone ice-cold. Every breath she took seemed to hollow her out a little more.
Finally, she turned to that page.
In the bottom left corner of the photograph, she found it — that unmistakable, utterly familiar figure.
A Chiose who was healthy and full of life, like a messenger sent from heaven.
Taki even thought she could see Chiose in the photo — speaking to her.
Chiose was saying:
[Hey, Taki. You should have found me sooner.]
"This… this is real? Yoshiiro Chiose — Yoshiiro Chiose actually exists?"
The computer switched on by itself. Its flawless white light fell across Shiina Taki's face — just like the television in Chiose's home had done in the dream.
Taki spun around sharply. She felt it — she felt certain that Yoshiiro Chiose was right here, right beside her.
"Chiose? Are you… are you there?"
But no one answered Shiina Taki's desperate, pleading call.
The light went out of Taki's eyes again.
She crumpled to the floor — boneless, like something without a spine.
[I'm sorry… if I'd known that was the last time we'd ever watch a movie together, I never would have…]
[I don't want to surpass my sister anymore. I don't want to play music. I don't want to achieve anything… I don't want any of it… but why — why can't you just come back…]
Taki let her eyes fall shut. She let the tears slide silently from the corners of her eyes.
"It hurts so much. Why did I have to dream something like that — and then be left alive with memories this vivid?"
Why does it have to be so cruel… why?
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