"So adorable… my dear sister, Little Taki."
Past midnight, and the world outside had gone quiet. For a little while, the city of Tokyo had sunk into sleep.
But Chiose Noshiro knew — as every other resident of Tokyo knew — that the peace was only borrowed. Give it a moment, and this man-eating city would stir back to life.
She shook out her aching fingers, then slumped limply across the keys.
Lovely weather today… perfect for hanging yourself on the doorstep of somebody you don't like.
Outside, the crows still swept past the low eaves now and then with their creaking cries. Chiose peeled off her hearing aid, exhausted; the discomfort in her ears had gotten well past ignoring.
"Ugh, that hurts. Hee hee. Wonderful."
Piano for the academy club during the day, guitar with the band after school, and then, once she got home, her own private playing marathon.
At home she could play as much as she liked, and if nobody interrupted her she could keep going straight through to the next morning. In short—
"So good. So much fun… Simulation aside, getting to play my heart out every single day really is happiness."
Tiring, though.
But the exhaustion was never wasted. Every single time, Chiose Noshiro could feel herself getting better.
She rolled over, and as the other half of her pretty face came down against the keys, a fresh clatter of noise rang out.
"Little Taki, I may have lied to you about a lot of things. But there are a few things I've never lied about."
"I like you very much… and I love to play. It really is like burning. It makes me want to be the moth that throws itself into the flame."
If learning the piano had started out as nothing more than something her plot required, that had stopped being true a long time ago.
For years now, playing had been the thing that kept Chiose Noshiro fighting to stay alive inside the Simulations.
Every performance was a gift to her nerves. Most of the time she couldn't even hear her own music clearly, but that didn't matter.
"Lie to yourself long enough and how could you not end up believing it? A passion is the sort of thing you have to sell to yourself first. Only then will anyone else buy it."
It was still early. The sky hadn't begun to lighten.
Chiose stretched out her stiff, worn-out body. Her neck ached as though the muscles were staging a revolt.
"A little more playing, then bed."
Most of the time you shouldn't think too hard about what you're doing. Aim at something too deliberately and every gesture you make starts to carry a strange flavor.
Keep an even mind. Just work at whatever this Simulation most needs her to do.
"Love you, world."
Hate you, world.
Taki Shiina couldn't sleep.
She lay in the dark with her eyes blankly wide, like a hunter hidden in the shadows.
Except she was nothing so impressive. She was only a poor wretch who couldn't fall peacefully into a dream.
Tossing and turning, over and over, Taki Shiina was more like a little loser of a fish stranded on dry land.
"Ugh."
Chiose, the band, deafness, the hearing aid, schoolwork, family, life…
Countless words shuffled and recombined inside Taki Shiina's head. The past month and more of ordinary days had been sliced into fine, dense fragments that went on rearranging themselves without her permission.
She lay for hours like that, caught somewhere between sleep and waking, and never quite went under.
"Ugh."
After the second sigh of the night, Taki gave up struggling under the covers altogether.
"Little Chiose. You. You really do make it impossible for me to stop worrying."
"You listen to me about nearly everything else. So why do you turn so stubborn the second music is involved?"
Chiose Noshiro was so happy when she played with the band.
And Taki Shiina had the feeling that it was a happiness she couldn't give Chiose herself.
What is it that makes you that happy?
"Crychic… is it because of the band with that name?"
Or is it the people in it?
"Togawa Sakiko? Wakaba Mutsumi? No, neither of them would… no, Togawa Sakiko, hard to say. Takamatsu Tomori? That kid doesn't look all that bright… Nagasaki Soyo? Right. It could absolutely be Nagasaki Soyo. That Nagasaki kept going over to chat with Little Chiose the other day."
Taki Shiina knew the truth! There were only two kinds of women in this world!
One kind was childhood friends. The other kind was homewrecker cats!
"Sakiko… homewrecker cat! Soyo… homewrecker cat."
She wandered and circled around her room until at last, like a crow, Taki Shiina made herself a nest in the corner.
She curled up there and wrapped the heavy, faintly dusty curtain around her shoulders like a monk's robe.
Somehow that was the only thing that made her feel the least bit better.
"Little Chiose. That burning you talk about when you play. What is it, really?"
"Are your scars really just something you left on yourself when your mood was bad? Nobody ever bullied you? Nobody ever pushed you into depression?"
"When you remember what it was like to hear every sound in the world, freely, endlessly, do you hide and cry at night? Have you really never blamed the girl you saved that day?"
"Why is it that when you bring up what happened, you smile and say it was worth it? Saying things like, all it cost was my hearing and it bought a whole life… you…"
"Why do you throw yourself into the band like this? Is it because that family feeling is something I can't give you…"
With the curtain pulled aside, the moonlight outside slipped quietly into the room.
The gentle glow traced the side of Taki's face, where the faint tracks of tears still showed.
"Chiose Noshiro. You…"
Why are you so good to me?
And why are you so terrible to yourself?
"Why can't you be a little selfish? Why can't you think about your own condition for once? Fine, Sakiko can play keyboard. So why did you hand the spot over to her? You were happiest on the keys, weren't you?"
Taki Shiina's muttering never stopped. Her clever mouth was a faucet: once it opened, there was no shutting it.
The thoughts she kept pressed down inside couldn't be poured out to anyone. Taki Shiina knew that most of her secrets would in all likelihood go with her into the grave.
So she told them to the moon at the edge of the sky instead.
The moon was good that way. It didn't interrupt, it didn't tell, and it… wasn't her.
The last sigh of the night echoed through the bedroom. Tomorrow — no, today — there was another rehearsal, and next week there was a show.
The Great Age of Girlhood rolled on like a river in flood, sweeping every one of them along, driving them to chase their cravings and their longings without ever being allowed to stop.
But all Taki Shiina craved was for Chiose Noshiro to be happy.
"Forget it. As long as you're happy. Leave the rest to me… I'll keep you safe… I think."
She took the sketchbook she and Chiose talked through off her desk, pulled the curtains all the way open, and by the dim moonlight began savoring the feelings written between the lines.
"Mm… heh."
The moon meets the drifting clouds, the flowers meet a gentle wind. The night sky is beautiful tonight, and I'm thinking of you again.
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