Haizuka Kyoumoto, you absolute idiot!
She wakes up and immediately starts making the most adorable little muffled noises — who exactly are you trying to kill with cuteness?!
Chiose wrapped her arms around Kyoumoto, reluctant to let go. Her disheveled hair, loose and wild, kept poking Kyoumoto in the face.
"Sis! Your hair is so scratchy… wuwu."
Kyoumoto complained, but she made absolutely no move to resist her beloved Chiose's gentle torment.
These past two days, her sister had been something else — every time she laid eyes on Kyoumoto, she clung to her like they'd been apart for months, maybe years, and wouldn't let go.
There was simply no reasoning with her.
"Sis~"
"Wuwu, yes, call me that — say it a few more times, I haven't heard it in so long… I love Kyoumoto so much, wuwuwuwu…"
"Okay okay — sis, sis, sis, sis, sis!"
"Wuwuwuwuwuwu…"
Yoshiiro Chiose burst into even louder, more undignified sobbing — until a knock sounded at the front door.
"W-who is it!"
Does nobody realize there are two poor suffering sisters in here trying to have a moment?!
Chiose wiped her tears with Kyoumoto's hair — earning an indignant puffed-up glare from Kyoumoto — then headed toward the front door.
"Hello, I'm your neighbor from next door, Togawa… this is a small gift in return for yours earlier… please, you simply must accept it!"
Sakiko Togawa was dressed neatly, as though she had taken special care with her appearance.
She stood on the doormat with a hint of nervous formality, presenting a small box with both hands.
"Oh? Hi Sakiko — just call me Chiose, okay!"
Yoshiiro Chiose's eyes were still red, but she examined Sakiko's gift carefully nonetheless.
She'd used this thing all the time in the simulation. This was…
"If there's nothing else, I'll be on my way — and again, thank you for your kindness, Yoshiiro… Chiose. Thank you… and this morning, my attitude was a bit awful. Please forgive me."
"Are these guitar picks?! How did you know I play guitar?! Hehe."
"Heh heh…"
Faced with Chiose's question, Sakiko Togawa only turned her face away in awkward silence.
How on earth would she know what Chiose could or couldn't play?
It was simply that the only gift she still had on hand that wasn't embarrassingly shabby was a set of custom picks — a birthday present Wakaba Mutsumi had given her once, long ago.
She was reluctant to part with them. But if she returned nothing at all, or something unworthy — that would gnaw at Sakiko Togawa far worse.
"As long as you… like them."
"Sis? Who's at the door?!"
"Ah, it's Sakiko from next door!" Kyoumoto's voice drifted in from the living room; Chiose tucked the picks away and called back.
"Sakiko — why don't you come in and sit for a bit?"
"Sa… Sakiko?"
Sakiko Togawa watched, slightly taken aback, as Chiose's address for her shifted in rapid succession: from 'Togawa' to 'Sakiko' and finally to just 'Sakiko.'
This girl… was even more naturally familiar than Sakiko herself had ever been at her most outgoing.
"No need, I still have to go look for work — I won't impose any further."
"Looking for work? What a coincidence! So do I! Come in and sit for a moment — let me look after my little sister, and then we can head out together."
"I…"
"You're already here, so don't stand on ceremony."
Before Sakiko Togawa had a chance to react, Yoshiiro Chiose had already steered her onto the sofa.
"Our place is a bit humble — only some tea leaves to offer, please forgive us."
"Oh no, it's fine, I don't need anything to drink…"
Sakiko had the distinct sense that no refusal was ever going to work on Yoshiiro Chiose — because she always responded to resistance with such warm, earnest enthusiasm that you simply ended up going along with her.
And yet this kind of gentle coercion never felt unpleasant. If anything, it left you feeling oddly at ease.
Perhaps it was because Chiose's voice was so soft. Or perhaps because Chiose herself was so effortlessly lovely.
That vivid, irrepressible energy seemed to radiate from Miss Yoshiiro like sunlight through leaves.
Chiose put the tea on. From the sofa, Kyoumoto was rubbing her eyes, searching the room for her sister.
"Sis?"
"I'm here, little Kyo — sleep a bit more, okay? Sis is going out soon with Sakiko to look for a new job, but I'll be back before you know it."
"Oh? Sakiko-sis, hello!"
Kyoumoto didn't know exactly where Sakiko Togawa was sitting, but from the depression in the sofa cushions and the direction of Sakiko's voice, she could roughly estimate: about twenty centimeters to her left.
"Hello. Sorry to intrude."
This was Sakiko Togawa's first time visiting the neighbors.
She had only a vague impression of this pair of sisters. Chiose went to school and worked part-time every day — sometimes Sakiko could hear her coming home as late as nine or ten at night. A harder life, in some ways, than even her own.
And Kyoumoto?
Honestly, until today, Sakiko hadn't even known a little sister existed.
A flicker of sympathy passed through Sakiko Togawa's eyes. She knew there were people in the world with harder lots than hers — but…
She glanced around the apartment. No sign of any parent. Then she looked back at little Kyoumoto on the sofa, quietly hugging her teddy bear, and everything slowly fell into place.
Raising a sister with impaired vision, all on her own — and still managing to be this bright. Chiose was genuinely someone worth befriending.
"Sakiko, why the faraway look?"
"Oh — right, Chiose, I was thinking about where we might find job openings."
"Call me Kozui — 'Chiose' sounds a little… strange?" Having been called Kozui throughout the simulation for so long, hearing her full name from someone's lips now felt oddly foreign.
"Alright… Kozui." Sakiko Togawa glanced down at her own hand, which Yoshiiro Chiose had quietly taken hold of, and suddenly felt rather confused about what was real.
We're just talking — you don't have to go grabbing my hand!
Why was she so warm toward her? Had they met before somehow?
Yoshiiro Chiose smiled and said nothing, taking a sip of her tea before going over to help Kyoumoto with her hair.
She was, in truth, deeply curious about this Sakiko Togawa.
That name — the one Takamatsu Tomori had sobbed out while recounting her past — was one Chiose suspected she would never forget for as long as she lived.
Sakiko Togawa.
And here she was — her good neighbor, the boozy Sakiko Togawa herself.
Only this Sakiko Togawa was nothing like the grand young lady Tomori had described… wait.
"Sakiko, it looks like one of the buttons on your collar came off. Want me to sew it back on?"
"What? Oh — I'm so sorry, how terribly rude of me, showing up dressed like this!"
Before Sakiko could finish apologizing, Chiose had already produced a needle, thread, and a spare button.
"Don't worry — go ahead and take it off, I'll sew it right up."
"This… alright, sorry for the trouble."
"This is what a friend does."
Sakiko Togawa in just her undershirt held no particular interest for Yoshiiro Chiose.
She smiled as she always did, sewing the button back on and chatting about this and that — while quietly running a very different kind of analysis on the side.
[This fabric — just as I thought.]
Between Sakiko's flustered embarrassment and the flow of small talk, Sakiko hadn't noticed Chiose's small, careful movements at all.
While Sakiko's attention was elsewhere, Chiose had already gleaned quite a lot from the garment alone.
[High-quality fabric. The weave is so refined it's almost hard to read clearly, but one thing is certain: it didn't come cheap.]
[If she genuinely owns clothes that only someone of real means could afford, and yet she's living right next door to me… combined with what Tomori's memories told me — that Sakiko attended an elite school in middle school, then transferred to Hane-oka in high school…]
"Sakiko, which high school are you going to?"
"Hane-oka."
Sakiko Togawa thought for a moment, then answered honestly.
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