Notes, sheet music, crows.
The page Taki was looking at now came before the first page of their conversation.
What filled these two sheets of paper were notes on a staff. In some places they had been drawn perfectly level, as if she had used a ruler or something similar to help.
But in other places the scrawl was obvious at a glance.
Taki recognized the notation. She tried humming it under her breath and found that most of it could not be assembled into any complete piece.
[So they're countless little fragments.]
Of course, that might also have to do with the fact that parts of it were covered over by other things, so Taki could not read them. The crow doodles, for instance.
Crows. Many crows, drifting scattered across the pages. They varied in size, but every one of them was built out of countless tangled lines.
Shiina Taki's hand went still. Without thinking, she flipped forward a page.
Behind it lay their clean, tidy written conversation. In front of it, page after page crowded with warped, shadowy notes and flocks of crows.
[Is this really Noshiro Chiose's notebook? This is...]
Completely different from the shy, smiling girl she had met today.
Taki turned around again, meaning to ask Haizuka at the next desk about it, only to find that the other girl had walked out of the classroom practically on her heels.
"Hey, don't go—"
The call went unanswered, and all it earned Taki was a sharper edge of restlessness.
She glanced at the clock above the front of the classroom, willing school to end so she would have time to see Chiose again.
Shiina Taki stopped hesitating. She gathered her courage, opened the messaging app, and finally tapped the crow icon that was Noshiro Chiose.
Yeah... Chiose really did love crows.
[I'm going to show off my absolute best social skills. I am definitely getting Chiose to meet me after school! I'm going to... apologize to her.]
She'd win this! She would absolutely apologize! It was a done deal!
Taki hammered away at the screen, then hit send in one unbroken motion, the whole sequence flowing as smooth as water.
...
[Taki: You there.]
Unread.
[This girl really is the same dumb little loser I imagined.]
In an instrument shop on Tsukimino shopping street, Chiose sat on a long bench indoors, enjoying the air conditioning.
Her legs swung back and forth. Just sitting there, she was a scene all by herself.
[The System told Taki what I wanted it to. She won't doubt it, I know exactly what that child is like... though as if I'd ever actually hurt myself. I don't have enough hours in the day to cherish this body.]
Chiose stroked her own pale arms. Incongruously, several thin cuts ran across them.
She would never cut herself, but she could have The System forge the marks for her.
The process didn't matter. As long as the result was identical, that was enough.
Painless lacerations. Pretty stylish, right? Taki-chan was going to love the little landmine she'd buried.
"Sorry, I'm late. It was my turn for cleaning duty today..."
Taki came bursting into the instrument shop in a fluster, and only after she'd finished speaking did she remember that Chiose couldn't hear her.
Chiose, playing along with her clumsiness, signed for a moment with her hands, then belatedly shook her head in embarrassment, as though she had just remembered Taki didn't know sign language.
They both laughed at how much of an idiot the other was being.
Taki dug around in her pocket for something. It was a handful of slips of paper she had prepared in advance, each one written with a common phrase for talking to Chiose.
[Chiose, I'm here.]
Though that line felt a little strange, now that she saw it.
Chiose held up a notepad of her own, with some prepared lines already written out:
[Taki, good afternoon.]
A new round of written conversation began.
[Did you need something from me, Taki?]
Chiose had originally come to buy some piano cleaning supplies, things like key cleaner and a chamois cloth.
Since Taki had come looking for her right on schedule, she'd arranged to meet her at the instrument shop in Tsukimino.
[I want to know my friend better.]
That line had been prepped in advance too, though she'd actually rewritten it over and over before she was satisfied that the handwriting looked neat and serious enough.
In the pocket of her uniform skirt there was another slip that read: [I'm sorry. The person who fell in the water back then was me.]
Her right hand kept working at that pocket, until the note inside had gone soft and crumpled.
Even now, Shiina Taki's head was full of that flock of crows in the notebook. Chaotic, tangled, as if they were mirroring the inner world of Noshiro Chiose herself.
And on top of that, the things Haizuka at the next desk had said about her...
The girl in front of her narrowed her eyes and smiled, and that sense of unreality in Taki only grew stronger.
[How could a girl this cute be full of anxiety and despair somewhere deep down?]
It couldn't be true. Could it?
The two girls wandered the instrument shop side by side, black hair and white hair making them look like a crow and a white dove.
Chiose pointed at the key cleaner on the shelf, and Shiina Taki stepped up to take it down for her.
[So Little Chiose really does love the piano.]
[Mm, I'm very serious about it! The piano is everything in my life. Being able to keep playing forever would be super satisfying.]
Super satisfying, huh...
Such a heavy feeling to carry.
In the middle of writing back and forth, Taki found herself wondering whether there was anything she loved that much.
She was practicing orchestral music now. No — she wasn't anymore. She had quit the Brass Band Club this term, the club her big sister once belonged to.
If she absolutely had to name something she loved, then it was probably—
[Drums?]
Taki hid half her face behind the notepad, leaving only her eyes to watch Chiose.
And Chiose copied her exactly, turning the written page outward and hiding the lower half of her own face behind the paper.
"Pff, you idiot..."
All Shiina Taki could think was that Chiose, blinking those big eyes at her, was unbelievably cute.
On Taki's notepad was written: [Yeah, drums. I really like playing drums. Maybe someday I'll join a band, like all those seniors from the great girl-band era.]
[Eh?]
[Then... I probably can't. I don't think I could ever join a band.]
Chiose visibly sank a little, then pulled herself back together just as quickly. She smiled, opened her mouth again, and said in slightly odd pronunciation:
"I'm... on my own... but it's... fine, you know... anyway... music and... all that... is the most... fun..."
That's what long-term hearing loss did. Once a person could no longer hear her own voice clearly, her pronunciation slowly drifted free, straying further and further from how ordinary people spoke.
But Taki heard her clearly.
"I..."
After turning it over and over in her head, she tore the note in her pocket to pieces and wrote down what she truly felt right then:
[I think music is the most fun thing in the world too. Let's play music together for the rest of our lives.]
____
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