"Happy… birthday?"
Whose birthday? Mine?
Even after leaving the stage and walking out of Ring — even after she and Chiose had wandered to the edge of the city, drifting toward the harbor where the drunks congregated — Takamatsu Tomori still hadn't quite come back to herself.
The heat of the underground performance hall had set her heart on fire, and now the sea breeze swept away both the alcohol on her breath and the strands of hair across her face.
Tomori leaned against one of the wooden posts along the waterfront, her thoughts a tangled, hopeless mess.
"Of course it's your birthday, dummy!" Chiose held up a small milky-white box — inside was the cake she'd carefully prepared for Tomori.
"I — I completely forgot today was my birthday… Is that why you specifically chose today for the performance?"
"Obviously. I figured you'd forget your own birthday. You always do."
Chiose had known at a glance. After all, this lonely little corporate drone couldn't even decide what to eat — where would she find the energy to remember her own birthday?
The cake and the drinks were pressed into Tomori's hands together. That electric high from the performance had faded faster than she'd imagined possible.
Burned out. Nothing left but a little pile of snow-white Takamatsu Tomori ash.
"I…"
"Hang on, let me find my lighter — I remember taking it off the bar owner when we came offstage, I'm sure I put it in my left pocket…"
"Found it! Now — would my most adorable, most wonderful senior, Takamatsu Tomori, please make a wish?"
The little cake was unwrapped right there on the wooden post. Chiose produced the candle, lit it, and held the box up in front of Tomori.
It was a custom cake — the body shaped like a parade float, and the candle a miniature Yoshiiro Chiose, drumming and marching in full parade regalia.
Now Chiose had lit candle-Chiose, and beyond the flicker of the flame, both their small faces were bathed in warm red light.
"A wish… it's been years since I last had a birthday… let me think!"
"Take your time!"
Tomori had assumed she'd be happy enough to cry. But the exhaustion from the performance had wrung the tears right out of her — she smiled instead, eyes falling shut, as wishes shot through her mind one after another like falling stars.
"I wish—!"
I wish I could be with Chiose for the rest of my life. Not a single second less.
Tomori blew out the candle in one breath.
As the flame on candle-Chiose's head went dark, the real Chiose felt herself caught up in Tomori's joy.
"I have a little wish of my own, actually. I wish that Tomori's wish definitely comes true!"
Liar. I'm pretty sure your wish was to spend your life with me… so what I actually want to say is: I hope your wish falls apart…
Sweat and tears had long since mingled and were sliding down her face together. To stop them from dripping onto the cake, Chiose quietly took a step back.
Both of them were still in their Haneoka uniforms, and for a long moment neither knew what to say. They just stood there, eyes glistening, looking at each other.
"Come on, smile! From now on we're celebrating every single birthday together! Every last one — with drinks, with performances, the whole thing! What do you say!"
"I… I'm in!"
"We'll be drink hunters. The moment we have enough money, we set off immediately — I want to go to Qingdao, to Berlin, and find some little Irish town drowning in pubs!"
"We've got an entire lifetime ahead of us to mess around in! Tomori! We absolutely have to make the most of this life!"
"I'm on board! I'm a little dense, but I'll do my best!"
"Now is not the time for that kind of talk."
"Now — let's dig in! Right here, cake as a drinking snack!" Chiose squinted with tipsy satisfaction and produced a bottle from behind her back, the label too blurry to read.
"What's this?"
"This is the bottle my dad used to hide when I was little — the one I snuck a sip of and got my butt thoroughly spanked for. Years later I spotted the same label and just had to buy it."
...
Father's hidden bottle… ah. That was a story from the previous simulation.
Back when Yoshiiro Chiose was still Takamatsu Chiose — that was the first time she had ever tasted alcohol.
She'd been two years old, rummaging through the kitchen for a little bug Tomori had lost, when she stumbled across Takamatsu Yuji's stash.
It had only been ordinary beer — ordinary enough that any convenience store would carry it.
But that stolen little sip was just like her first simulation.
Simple. Ordinary. And absolutely, utterly impossible to forget for the rest of her life.
The sea breeze kept blowing, steady and relentless.
The cake was finished between the two of them in short order, and the bottle drained to the very last drop.
They walked north from the harbor, and in the hazy blur of the deepest night, the first light of the rising sun set the sky alight — a streak of eye-watering brightness illuminating the path ahead for two girls who had been soaking in alcohol under the open sky the whole night through.
"You know…" Yoshiiro Chiose said, wearily propping her hands on her hips. Beside her, Tomori was too tired to stand up straight.
"Wh-what?"
The birthday had already come and gone, and yet Takamatsu Tomori was still, purely and simply, happy.
This was the best birthday she'd had in the past ten years — no, in her entire life.
She was sure she'd still be thinking about it on her deathbed: this wonderful day when Yoshiiro Chiose had brought her onstage, led her forward, and gotten her thoroughly drunk.
How had this person just… suddenly brought her whole life back to life like that?
Just a month ago she'd been nothing but a shattered stone. And now here she was — Takamatsu Tomori had become a sun with the right to light up other people.
All thanks to Chiose. Without Chiose, she'd have collapsed like someone with her spine yanked clean out.
"Hey, Tomori — look! Over there, over there!"
"Let me see… is there something there?"
"Hot springs! They're still bubbling away! A wild hot spring — genuinely rare, we'd be crazy not to go!"
But we're at the beach. Where would a hot spring come from.
Tomori was drunk too, but comparatively less so — not nearly enough to be flushed and feverish the way Yoshiiro Chiose was right now.
"Pfft — I can't be wrong about this! I'm Yoshiiro Chiose! Come on, let's go soak!"
"What? Wait wait wait — those stone steps lead into the ocean, not a hot spring!"
Chiose kicked her shoes off, sending them flying in opposite directions, and dragged Takamatsu Tomori with her as she leapt straight into the sea.
Splash——
The peace of the harbor was shattered. It started with two girls falling into the water.
"Whoa! It's freezing — why is the hot spring cold?!"
"Because… this isn't a hot spring! Chiose, grab my hand — and that's seawater, not liquor, stop drinking it!"
"Blech — I was wondering, who makes their booze taste this awful…"
"If it tastes that bad, stop drinking it! Why are you still gulping it down?!"
"Because I think it might actually be sobering me up."
"Stop drinking it!"
Dawn broke. Chiose gripped the iron railing of the harbor steps and ambled up slowly, one step at a time.
Soaked to the bone — but the drunkenness had cleared from her eyes.
"The sunrise really is beautiful," she murmured.
"It really is… come on, let's go home and shower."
"Mm. Though I do wonder how many sunrises are left."
"What?"
"Nothing."
____
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