Where did Togawa Sakiko go that afternoon?
No one knew, but Chiose often found herself replaying the way Sakiko had looked as she fled.
Had tears gathered at the corners of her eyes? Had grief rippled through them? Or had she felt the regret rise again and again, only to grit her teeth and talk herself out of it?
They gathered for a quick coffee that afternoon, and then Chiose got ready to head home.
"See you tomorrow. Little Tomo, remember to go over your notes properly — there's a test coming up soon, isn't there?"
"And you, Taki, don't snicker. Out of everyone here, you're the one who needs to study! You're the one who needs the practice."
Once Taki and Tomori had gone, only Soyo stayed glued to Chiose's side.
The corner of Chiose's mouth twitched.
She kept picturing the way Soyo and Sakiko had spoken to each other an hour or two earlier.
Well… it had gone far more normally than she'd expected. Apparently, as long as she had friends and her emotional needs were met, Soyo really was a perfectly normal, well-behaved girl.
"little Soyo, aren't you going home?"
"Mom's away on a business trip today, so home would just be lonely. Can I stay over at Little Chiose's place?"
Chiose noticed that Nagasaki Soyo's face went strange the moment she mentioned her mother.
She would never know how awful Soyo's expression had been that day, walking in to find an entire table of vegetarian dishes and samgyetang waiting for her.
"Ugh…" No good. Soyo didn't dare keep remembering — she was afraid she'd actually throw up.
"Sure. Your mom's got a strong constitution, though, huh? She was in the hospital just a few days ago and she's already back at work today. She really pushes herself too hard."
Nagasaki-nee, you're practically superhuman.
"Ahem. Y-yes, that's right, Mother has always been the type to push herself. She's had a hard time of it these past few years."
Soyo put every scrap of her wits to work. She wanted off this topic — keep talking and the whole thing would fall apart sooner or later.
"Little Chiose, how about I tell you some of the interesting things Mother's told me? She said that a few years back, some enormous idiot got swindled out of sixteen point eight billion yen. He—"
Dinner that night was bean soup with fragrant roast veal. Soyo announced that she didn't want to see a single vegetable right now, then launched into something about how eating vegetables weakened your heart and lungs, and so on.
Well, as long as she was happy. She'd paid for the ingredients and the seasonings anyway.
Soyo had always been the generous, well-off mom-type of the group — even if, a lot of the time, she acted like far more of a loser than Chiose did.
"Was dinner good?"
After the meal the three of them curled up on the sofa in a single bundle, eyes fixed on the screen. Chiose had picked out a small cotton blanket for each of them, and she asked Kyoumoto the question while scrolling through movies.
"It was!"
Kyoumoto loved watching movies with her big sister more than anything, horror films most of all — she never got scared herself, but her big sister got scared every single time, and whenever that happened Kyoumoto got to comfort her.
A shame her big sister hardly ever chose anything with horror in it. Her big sister really was a dense woman with no sense of fun.
"little Soyo made that, you know. How many points does Little Kyoumoto give Soyo's cooking?"
"Ninety points!"
Drawn in by the sisters' exchange, Nagasaki Soyo lifted her head a little off Chiose's shoulder and peered curiously across at Kyoumoto on the other side.
"So why not full marks?"
"Because big sister didn't make it, so ninety is the most it can get, not one point more! If big sister had made it, Kyoumoto would've given it bonus points!"
Kids really did have the sweetest mouths. Just then Chiose found the film she wanted: Bohemian Rhapsody — a band story too.
Everything was exactly as it should be. What happiness.
That was when a faint shuffle of footsteps reached her from outside. Strengthening her endurance last time had improved her body overall, and sharpened her hearing along with it.
[Is that Sakiko?]
Chiose had seldom laid eyes on Sakiko's father. The few times she had, he'd been on his way to play pachinko, bet on the horses, or drink beer.
"Wait here for me a moment, okay? I'm going to grab the pots and dishes I lent the neighbor."
Leaving those words behind with the two girls in the living room, Chiose decided it really was necessary to go and stabilize that unstable element known as Sakiko a little further.
Mm… calling her an unstable element wasn't a very kind way to put it, but there was no denying that Sakiko had a habit of letting one thing tangle everything else up.
Door open, door shut. She had barely stepped outside before she ran into a downcast Togawa Sakiko.
The blue twintails hung limp and lifeless. Sakiko looked more of a wreck than at any moment before.
And then Sakiko spotted her.
In that pair of golden eyes, Noshiro Chiose could see nothing but helplessness.
Right now she was exactly like a small animal in distress.
So… soft and tender.
So delicious.
…
Togawa Sakiko hadn't gone to work that day. She had wandered the streets alone for half of it, and then, on some corner, a little exchange she'd read once surfaced in her mind:
[What do I do if I get depression?]
[Simple. Try falling in love with it!]
[And then?]
[And then it'll leave you, just like everyone you've ever loved.]
Haha…
Watching her old friends drift away from her one by one and turn into each other's new best friends, while she was left holding nothing at all.
Mm… it wasn't envy. Sakiko didn't dislike Chiose. Chiose had always been a good person, someone who worried about her, who handled her moods gently, who never once pressed on a sore spot.
[It just leaves me feeling complicated, that's all. Something that used to be mine is gone for good.]
Togawa Sakiko couldn't even be sure whether she could ever stand alongside them as a bandmate again… but no, better to let it go. It would only hurt everyone.
Haah…
One sigh followed another. The only thing Sakiko felt capable of was gritting her teeth and pushing forward.
So she walked back alone to the shabby rental, and with bleary, half-shut eyes she twisted the lock.
So sleepy, so tired. Maybe she'd just open the door and sleep in the entryway.
And right then, the girl who made her feel so complicated appeared.
She was like a fawn stepping suddenly out of the mist in a forest, and the clarity in her face was more than Sakiko could look at directly.
"Hey. Can we talk?"
Noshiro Chiose was in no hurry to close the distance. She strolled slowly toward her adorable little prey.
Know what makes the perfect site for a crime? This place, right here.
Sakiko's father wouldn't come out to see what was going on, and with the movie playing in her own apartment, nobody in there would catch a word of the conversation either.
There wasn't a passerby for miles in any direction — only the streetlamp across the road, flickering.
The streetlamp kept on flickering.
[Here, she could talk with Sakiko with total peace of mind—]
Chiose tilted her head, her smile unchanged.
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