[I think music is the most interesting thing in the world too. Let's play music for the rest of our lives.]
Shiina Taki felt like a jerk. The biggest jerk in the entire world, in fact.
The more time she spent with Noshiro Chiose, the more clearly she saw how utterly this girl was in love with music.
Even unable to hear, she had to play. Even without a single like-minded friend, she had to play. It was as if playing was the only thing that gave her boundless imagination, the only thing that carried her away from the noise of the world.
And what had she done?
[I completely ruined her life...]
A girl this adorable should have been the social butterfly of her school, the darling with countless girls crowding around her.
But because of the deafness... And don't say deafness doesn't affect someone's social life. That is a lie people tell themselves.
More than once, Taki had watched classmates with disabilities get frozen out, get bullied. Those days were never easy ones.
And she hadn't only wronged her once.
She hadn't just destroyed Noshiro Chiose's social life, she had overturned her dream.
If Chiose were an ordinary person, achieving something in music would come a hundred times more easily than it would for someone with a hearing disability.
And she was the one to blame for the fact that Noshiro Chiose now had to work a hundred times harder just to stand level with everyone else.
[Should I admit what I did?]
No! She shouldn't! Taki swore to herself that she could never say it...
Because she felt she had a duty to take responsibility for Chiose, and if she confessed, they probably wouldn't even manage to be friends.
Think about it. Who would ever be friends with the person who shattered their dream? Taki certainly wouldn't.
Her face must have looked terrible, and she was already straining with everything she had to fix it.
She took the apology note out of her pocket and tore it in two, then in four, and kept going until it was shredded past all recognition.
[I have to make up for what I did... I...]
Seeing Shiina Taki stay quiet for so long, Noshiro Chiose blinked and leaned in close.
Writing must have felt too slow to her, because she simply spoke aloud in that halting, strangely pitched voice:
"Yoo... okay?"
[I'm okay. I just spaced out for a second, I'm really sorry. Let's keep looking around.]
But Chiose didn't keep walking. Instead she wrote a line on the paper, uneasy.
[Is my voice really awful? Did it scare you? I was a little selfish just now... Let's go back to writing to talk. Typing is fine too. I'm so sorry! I'm taking up too much of Taki-chan's time...]
"!!!"
Taki loved how cute Chiose was, but that timid, walking-on-eggshells care made her chest ache.
Damn it all. Had the people Chiose met before actually snapped at her for it? Huh? How could anyone do that!?
[It's fine. I really like Little Chiose's voice...]
Taki started with the nickname "Little Chiose" to close the distance between them, then remembered Chiose's favorite animal and swung her pen in a new direction:
[It sounds just like a crow cawing. It's really cute.]
Sure enough, the girl's eyes brightened at once.
"R... really?"
[Really.]
[From now on, if you can, talk more, Little Chiose. I'll do the writing. You just say whatever you want to say.]
Since her hearing loss hadn't been present from birth, most of Chiose's pronunciation still fell within a normal range. A certain amount of distortion, though, was unavoidable.
"Then... if I talk like this... is it, strange?"
Each word came out clipped and uneven. Chiose couldn't hear what she was saying at all.
But she could feel that she had said it out loud.
[It's a lovely voice.]
[But Little Chiose's piano sounds even lovelier.]
That line reminded Chiose of something.
"Oh, right! Just now Taki... said, play music for a whole lifetime. Is that true?"
They finished buying the supplies they needed, and when it came time to pay, Taki lunged for the bill.
She didn't leave Chiose a single chance to spend anything.
[Of course. Doesn't it sound fun?]
"Mm..."
"Super... fun. But, you wouldn't lie to me, would you?"
Some possibility seemed to occur to her, and Chiose took a small step back without meaning to. That one step made Taki even more careful about every word and gesture.
Taki was certain of it now. These past years must have been terrible for Chiose. She must have been hurt in all kinds of ways.
A single thought titled [I really do deserve to die] seized every corner of Shiina Taki's mind.
Taki discovered that her writing had gotten faster.
[It is absolutely NOT a LIE! Absolutely not!]
She went out of her way to draw circles around the words "not" and "lie." She wanted to help Chiose.
And Taki was sure of this too: it was her responsibility. She had to answer for Noshiro Chiose's life.
"Uwah."
The startled little cry Chiose let out was quiet, but for one instant it genuinely did sound like a crow.
Shiina Taki had no friends either. Everything she was saying now was what she imagined a person was supposed to say to a friend.
Words like "a whole lifetime," "love at first sight," "I like you" - those were the sorts of things normal friends said to each other, weren't they?
"Then..."
Chiose seemed embarrassed. Color rippled from her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears.
"We really can play music together... for a whole lifetime?"
[Really.]
"I... believe you, then..."
The broken voice carried an unshakable certainty. And when Chiose reached up to tuck a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, Taki noticed something on her hand.
She kept her expression perfectly still while a cold sweat broke out inside her. She had never been through it herself.
But there was no mistake. The marks on Chiose's wrist looked like...
So she really had been living badly. Most of those smiles were probably nothing but a brave front.
God only knew how Noshiro Chiose had gotten through these years after losing her hearing so suddenly.
Taki seized Chiose's wrist and pulled her toward the door, which for a moment knocked Chiose right out of the role she had been playing.
This dumb loser Shiina Taki... what is she doing now?
Afraid of startling her, Taki had to stop and write a few lines.
[Little Chiose, can I take you to eat something good? You look so thin, and I figure if we're going to play music together, your health matters, right?]
Chiose shook her head to decline, but in Taki's eyes that turned into shyness and self-consciousness.
She steadied her breathing and carefully hooked her arm through Chiose's, leading her forward.
"There's a cafe up ahead, and a dessert shop past that... forget it, we'll just order whatever costs the most."
Maybe this was only a childish way of making things up to Chiose. Maybe it was only a bandage for her own conscience.
Either way, it beat doing nothing at all, didn't it?
Every so often she watched Chiose's face out of the corner of her eye, and every single time, the other girl noticed her looking and answered with a radiant smile.
Those smiles were genuinely hard to look at.
At the very least, every one of them made Taki's guilt sink deeper. That was simply how it was.
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