What a delightful little creature. Just as adorable as Tomori was at that age.
The apartment's décor was complicated — not in its structure, but in its contents. Children's cute stickers, soccer posters favored by men, a woman's perfume and cosmetics: all of it crammed together in a chaotic jumble inside this tiny place.
Every inch of this room hid a story. Chiose had no desire to go piecing together what those stories were.
None of it mattered.
She stepped a short distance away and glanced back over her shoulder at Soyo.
This Ichinose Soyo was so remarkably different from the Nagasaki Soyo she had glimpsed once in reality. The gap between them wasn't so much the chasm between a child who had grown up and one who hadn't — it felt more like two entirely different people.
This timid, pitifully unconfident little wretch in front of her — how on earth had she blossomed into that poised, graceful young woman in the future?
[A puzzling child, and a baffling trajectory of a life. I'm getting more and more curious about how this all unfolds.]
Perhaps she could use the opportunity these simulations provided to properly dig into the pasts of Takamatsu Tomori, Shiina Taki, Sakiko Togawa, and Nagasaki Soyo.
What kind of stories lay behind each of these girls? Yoshiiro Chiose's intuition told her that the secrets hidden beneath the surface were connected to The System's simulation missions as well. After all, every simulation so far had revolved around the members of that ramshackle, unreliable band called [Crychic].
Besides, Chiose herself still needed some time to let the mental tension from back-to-back simulations unwind. The time inside a simulation could serve perfectly well as a vacation.
She turned on the water heater, pulled the bathroom door shut, and dragged a chair over to sit across from Ichinose Soyo.
Yoshiiro Chiose propped her chin in one hand and watched Ichinose Soyo work through her problems with quiet attention.
But the little Ichinose across from her was acting strangely — she had been dawdling for ages and still hadn't finished.
"Hey, is there a question you're stuck on? Are you really sure you don't want me to help?"
"I can do it…"
"If you don't get in the bath soon, the water will go cold, you know."
Soyo loved the feeling of having someone sitting with her while she did homework. But the moment she thought about wasting Chiose's time, she stopped dragging her feet.
A few quick strokes of her pencil, and Soyo grabbed her towel and change of clothes and slipped into the bathroom.
Chiose understood perfectly — this was how children expressed shyness.
"Adorable. Though completely different from what I expected." Yoshiiro Chiose made a circuit of the room looking for other light switches, but every one she found either had a missing bulb or a broken fixture.
"I never imagined this child was like this when she was small. She's blown all my expectations clean out of the water."
She had assumed she'd be dealing with a cool, aloof, mature young girl… It seemed that trying to reverse-engineer someone's past from their future was both troublesome and not particularly reliable.
"I'll have to rewrite Soyo's whole script from scratch… Hm. This time I'm going to do better than the first three."
The first run had been a total mess — a trial attempt at best. The lifespan she'd gained from it was barely worth mentioning.
The second showed some improvement, but there was still room for more.
The third had been an experiment of a different sort, and Yoshiiro Chiose still wasn't sure whether her performance had been good enough.
"This time… I'm going to plan it properly."
Even if the gains didn't surpass the third run, she should at least be able to synthesize one perfect, all-purpose strategy from it all.
The sounds of washing drifted out from the bathroom. Outside it, Yoshiiro Chiose sat perfectly expressionless, her eyes gleaming like twin lights in the dimness.
"A scruffy little kid. A scruffy little apartment. And the Nagasaki woman and Mr. Ichinose with their thoroughly scruffy shambles of a marriage."
Tomori had mentioned that Soyo's family was quite wealthy — though looking around right now, it certainly wasn't yet.
"It seems there are still interesting things here that haven't happened yet — things I know nothing about."
Chiose looked around for something to eat and found that the only edibles in the place were jam and bread.
Her brow furrowed slightly. But then she thought of Miss Nagasaki — that woman who had grabbed her and knocked back baijiu like it was water — and Yoshiiro Chiose felt her irritation dissolve.
"Still think you could outdrink me? I trained up an absolutely monstrous capacity for pretend-drinking in my last simulation. How could you ever hope to compete?"
She had spent months honing the tricks for quietly disposing of her drinks — she had pulled them off so smoothly that even Takamatsu Tomori, who had been drinking right there beside her, had never noticed anything was off.
As if someone as thick as Miss Nagasaki could ever be a match for her.
Chiose settled into Soyo's chair and quietly waited for the little one to come out.
And that is how things stood.
My name is Ichinose Soyo, and I had resigned myself to spending yet another night alone without my parents — right up until a beautiful older girl appeared out of nowhere and very nearly made me believe it wouldn't happen after all.
Bath done, clothes changed, Soyo came padding out wrapped in her towel.
She stood there looking fresh and pretty — as tempting as a slice of raw surf clam that had marinated itself in its own sauce.
Without thinking twice she stepped out of the bathroom, and walked straight into the warmth of Yoshiiro Chiose's gentle gaze.
"All clean? Good — now go to sleep."
"Ah… okay…"
Soyo drifted in a haze, like a little flame about to gutter out. But when she reached the bedroom doorway and was about to start toweling her hair, she stopped.
"What's the matter? Are you worried about being left alone after I go?"
"…Yeah."
"Honest, aren't you. Then I'll stay with you tonight — I won't be heading back."
Chiose took the towel and started drying Soyo's hair herself, murmuring reassurances all the while.
"Don't worry about your mother. I took care of everything before I left — just sleep easy."
"Eh? Okay!"
Such a reliable big sister… truly, genuinely, honestly more reliable than Mom.
Nagasaki Soyo didn't fully grasp any of it yet. At this point in her life, she had no idea what price this chance encounter would one day ask of her.
And so little Soyo's life was "invaded."
...
Soyo's room was neither too big nor too small. That the Ichinoses had managed to carve out this space for their daughter in such a cramped little home said everything that needed to be said about how much they loved her.
If they hadn't been weighed down by so many different troubles, who would ever willingly neglect their own child?
Even so, that couldn't become an excuse for ignoring Soyo.
Yoshiiro Chiose gently tucked the small blanket around Soyo, who was curled up in her fuzzy pajamas in the corner of the bed, her bright blue eyes blinking up at Chiose every so often.
"Little Soyo, what's on your mind?"
"I was thinking… what did you mean — that you and I used to be alike?"
"Don't use formal language with me. Just talk to me normally."
Chiose pinched Ichinose Soyo's slightly chubby little cheek.
"It simply means you and I are similar. When I was your age, I had already steeled myself to take care of my little sister all on my own. And Soyo has already steeled herself to be alone at home at night and sleep through it, hasn't she? Soyo is very strong."
"Steeled myself…? What an abstract thing to say… How many times in a person's life do they have to steel themselves for something?"
"Well…"
Yoshiiro Chiose had been about to say more, but the words died in her throat.
Yes. Steeling yourself…
How many times in a life does a person have to open their arms and embrace it?
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