Please!
I'm begging you!
Watching two people she knew turn out to be friends — Taki felt hollow inside, like something had been scooped out of her.
The moment she thought about how she didn't count for anything here... her chest seized with a dull, aching pain.
She recognised the uniforms — Tomori and Chiose were both wearing Hane-oka's. So the two of them knew each other because they went to the same school?
And here she'd gone and enrolled at Hanasaki River High just to avoid her sister... what was the point of that?!
Running away... running away! Always running away!
No matter how she tried to dress up her own choices — it was running away, every single time.
If she'd known, she would have just gone straight up to Hane-oka. Then she would have been the first person to meet Yoshiiro Chiose. It would have been her — Shiina Taki — without a doubt!
The words had barely left Taki's mouth before she was staring down at the ground in stunned silence.
The rain kept falling.
There were countless things churning inside her — how Chiose was doing now, what that medical record she'd glimpsed once had meant, and so much more — but Taki had no right to ask about any of it.
What was she, anyway? She was nothing. She was just an... outsider.
"Huh?"
Yoshiiro Chiose looked no less surprised than anyone — in fact, she looked more surprised than anyone. She glanced at Little Tomori, and found her blinking those big eyes, staring blankly back and forth between Chiose and Taki.
"Is that... not okay? Alright... I'm sorry."
Taki was already on her feet, getting ready to go home.
"Don't you dare leave! You! Of course you can be friends with us — how could I ever say no to something like that?~"
"!!!"
Taki felt like she was on the verge of tears.
Her knee throbbed with a low, steady ache — that kind that never quite flares up but never quite goes away either.
Little Chiose said... yes? This girl was way too kind. What if I were a bad person?
What if I had a terrible character, what if I were two-faced, what if I had rotten intentions at heart...
"Hey, what are you zoning out about, my brand-new best friend Miss Shiina Taki!"
Chiose held Little Tomori's hand with her left, and stretched her right hand out toward Little Taki.
That girl was the same girl she had always been — whether in the Simulation or in the real world, Taki always gave Chiose this impression of someone braced for a blow, shrinking from the world.
At a moment like this, someone needed to reach out and pull her forward.
Unfortunately, Taki had never had anyone like that in her life.
But she was also very lucky...
Because she had met the real-world Yoshiiro Chiose.
"I'm not..."
Taki wasn't sure whether Chiose was offering her hand as an invitation to hold it or something else entirely. She hesitated, still looking a little lost.
"I'm saying, we're leaving — aren't you coming? Aren't you riding the train with us?"
Chiose grabbed Taki's hand and pulled her to her feet in one swift motion. The warmth that passed between their palms made both of them blink in surprise.
"...Fine! Let's go!"
Go where, exactly — she didn't even need to take this train to get home. Taki blinked in mild confusion.
Oh well. She was already here. Worst case, she'd follow them a little way and then call a cab home.
She ended up sitting on Chiose's left side, while Tomori had staked her claim on the right.
Tomori was quietly watching the rain streak past the window. Taki sat with her head bowed, face flushing all on its own as she quietly relived the moment their hands had touched.
And Chiose? What was Chiose doing?
Chiose was sneaking her pinky finger over to tickle both of their palms, one at a time.
Hehe. This was so much fun. That's just how it was.
"Hmm, Little Tomori — how far is your place from here?" Yoshiiro Chiose asked, already knowing the answer.
Tomori's address, Taki's address, Soyo's two addresses — she had all of them memorised.
Tsk, tsk. Had she really become some kind of expert at digging up personal information? If she ever ran into someone she couldn't stand, could she pop open a Simulation, run a quick session to pull their details, then quit out and use the knowledge to spook them?
...Actually, that sounded kind of fun?
"Just up ahead! I..."
Tomori looked down at the three little puddles on the ground, and fell into thought.
Everyone was completely soaked. They might as well...
"Taki! Chiose! Come over to my place and dry off first — get your clothes dried too before you head home! No one's home today. Oh, and I've got extra umbrellas!"
Tomori had actually been carrying a small pang of guilt about Taki for a while — Taki had always been so kind to her, and yet Tomori kept withdrawing into herself and going quiet instead of reaching out to her friends...
"Hmm? I'm fine, I'll be home pretty soon anyway..."
Taki didn't even get to finish before Chiose's brilliant smile cut her off.
"Hm? Are you sure you don't need to? Come on, we can go together — didn't you just say you wanted to be good friends? This is totally normal! Let's go, let's go."
"Ah... alright then, sorry for the trouble, Little Tomori."
"Not at all!"
Whenever Tomori got excited she instinctively raised her voice, and whenever she raised her voice she'd immediately get embarrassed and tuck her chin down toward her collar.
It was unbearably cute, and it made both Chiose and Taki laugh.
"Pfft... by the way, how do Taki and Tomori know each other?"
"Ah, well," Taki glanced over at Tomori, and finding no sign of discomfort on her face, continued with some surprise in her own voice:
"We were in a band together, actually."
Taki noticed that even after she said it aloud, Tomori showed no sign of distress whatsoever.
That was honestly a little startling.
It was as though Takamatsu Tomori simply... didn't carry the weight of it anymore.
Ha — it wasn't like someone out there had somehow gained the ability to drag people into some kind of fantasy world and run desensitisation therapy on them, repeatedly putting Takamatsu Tomori through the wringer until she'd been stripped of all her old wounds... right? Ha, what was she even saying.
"Wow, that's so cool!"
"It wasn't that big a deal, but back when we first got the band together..." Tomori picked up the thread with perfect calm, and the two of them began to tell Chiose about their shared past together.
The three of them talked and laughed, and even though they were all drenched to the bone, even though there was still quite a long stretch of road ahead of them, the warm, cosy feeling inside the train car didn't dim by even a fraction — if anything, it only grew brighter.
This moment belonged to all three of them.
This moment belonged to her.
Sakiko Togawa walked home alone, sheltered beneath her solitary umbrella.
Honestly... watching a new friend and an old friend become friends with each other, and then being the only one left behind... it really didn't feel good at all.
But Sakiko couldn't stop other people from making friends.
And besides — she was the one who had chosen to cut Crychic apart. Even if it ground her back teeth to dust, she would pay for what she had done.
Only... when would she get the chance to apologise to Tomori?
If only all the problems in the world could be untangled gently.
Her pockets were empty, and her body beneath her clothes had gone cold — she was freezing, and for the first time she realised just how cruel the April rain and wind could be.
They beat the cherry blossoms down to the ground, and before long they would turn all of this beautiful spring scenery into mud.
Just like her life.
"Haah..."
Passing by a convenience store, Sakiko Togawa considered whether to go in and buy something to eat — but it seemed like she didn't have quite enough money.
"Right — Little Kyoumoto next door must be having a pretty rough time home alone, mustn't she? Her sister has school and a part-time job on top of that... hmm."
Perhaps the veil of rain had made Sakiko melancholy. She often felt like she had let too many people down, and yet could never find a way to make it up to any of them.
While she still had her head on straight, she should do whatever she could for others.
Sakiko Togawa stepped into the convenience store and bought a small bag of fruit, intending to bring it to Haizuka Kyoumoto next door.
That's just how it was.
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