I hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you.
The girl in her arms smelled like warm jade; she was sobbing, and it set Chiose off crying without stop, too.
The reasons they were crying were different, but the one thing they shared was the tears reflecting the room's faint lamplight.
"Chiose…"
"Tomori!"
"Tomori, I'm here, I won't let you lose me…"
We've only known each other two days, and yet you've already grown this dependent on me!?
You little idiot! How am I supposed to feel okay leaving you home all alone!?
I really do want to scoop you up and carry you home, tuck you safely under my blankets…
"Really? Little Chiose…"
"Really. Don't be scared, I'm right here, aren't I?"
"But, but…"
Takamatsu Tomori shifted her body a little; their hearts pressed against each other, like four enormous planets colliding.
But neither of them paid any of it any mind.
Nose tip to nose tip, on each other's faces they saw matching tear tracks.
[You — why are you crying?]
[Is it that you're worried for me? Then why am I crying — is it because I'm worried about you, too?]
"Tomori, I'm here, I'm here, don't be scared…"
"Mm! I'm not scared anymore…"
That was what Tomori was saying out loud, but her voice — trembling without pause — gave away what she really felt.
She still hadn't pulled herself back together.
The moment she'd heard those two words — [night], [harbour] — her reason had snapped clean off, dragging every last sense with it.
She'd felt her feet leave the ground, like she was about to be flung off to the distant moon.
Yoshiiro Chiose chose not to keep speaking; she just held Tomori tight, as though she wanted nothing more than to knead the other girl right into her own body.
Let her own blood flow through Tomori's veins! Let their souls be tangled together! Just keep holding on like this, never letting go — nothing else mattered.
Didn't… matter.
Just earlier, on her way running over here, she'd even braced herself for the thought of never seeing Takamatsu Tomori again.
That call cut off out of nowhere had hammered at Yoshiiro Chiose's heartbeat — her little heart had nearly cracked apart.
She'd barely kept her grip on the phone; it had come within a hair's breadth of plunging into the sea.
[Hey! Tomori! Why do you make me this obsessed with you!]
Greedily, forcefully, drawing in the air that carried Takamatsu Tomori's scent, Yoshiiro Chiose wished she could just tie Takamatsu Tomori up and haul her back home.
And by sheer coincidence, Takamatsu Tomori wished she could tie Yoshiiro Chiose up and haul her back home, too — only, the instant that thought surfaced, it startled Tomori herself.
Silence was the keynote of the moment, the girls' breaths rising and falling against each other.
This silence wasn't awkward but warm; the two of them were savoring this stillness.
"Tomori?"
"I'm here…"
"Feeling any better now?"
Easing her hold on Tomori a little, Chiose brushed away Tomori's tears with the back of her pale white hand.
The tears were so warm they nearly burned right through the back of Chiose's hand.
"I don't know, I… I'm still so scared."
I'm so scared of losing you. I'm really, really scared.
The instant she pictured Chiose lying in a coffin with that ghostly pale little face, Tomori's whole self came undone all over again.
Especially since Yoshiiro Chiose had been stabbed countless times and then pushed into the sea — by the time she'd been found… there hadn't been much blood left inside her at all.
That pretty face in the coffin had been as bloodlessly pale as the color of her own hair.
"So scary… so scary… Chiose!"
Tomori looked like she was thirsting for something.
She carefully straightened Yoshiiro Chiose's face into position, letting the healthy color of the real-world Chiose's cheeks chase away the dreadful, deathly pallor from her dream.
"I'm here, I'm here, I'm here…"
I'll always be right here, Tomori.
Her loosened arms tightened up again, and Yoshiiro Chiose pulled Tomori back into her embrace once more.
This world was always strewn with unknowable deaths; you never knew when the cracks in everyday life might be swallowed by a flood.
And it was precisely for that reason that Chiose had been so frantic earlier.
If the Tomori in reality were to die, all she'd be able to do was keep Simulating, on and on — Simulation after Simulation after Simulation — chasing some virtual Tomori inside the Simulation just as a kind of self-soothing… No, please — not that, anything but that!
"Can we really be friends for a whole lifetime, Little Chiose? A lifetime — is that actually something we can pull off?"
Whether in reality or in dreams, every single person who had ever sworn to Tomori that they'd stay together for a lifetime had broken their promise.
Sakiko had walked out of the band, point-blank, and didn't want to be her friend anymore.
And Chiose… she had even died twice.
Now the two of them were clinging to one another, just like the six-year-old Takamatsu Tomori who, unable to sleep, had held on to her little sister and refused to let go.
"A lifetime! Of course it's a lifetime… once we've made a promise like that, how could anyone possibly take it back? We'll… mm, with Taki tossed in too — the three of us will always be best friends."
Yoshiiro Chiose had suddenly thought of Shiina Taki, so she'd tacked on her name to grant that little small-fry of a young lady at least a sliver of involvement.
"Little Chiose, at a time like this, please don't bring up other people's names, okay?"
Light rippled in Takamatsu Tomori's eyes; Chiose couldn't quite make out what kind of look it was.
"Eh?"
"I… I want to be with you for a lifetime. Can we really manage a lifetime? A lifetime… a real, honest-to-goodness lifetime…"
"A lifetime! Our lifetime is absolutely not going to be a short one, Tomori!"
Tomori was still trembling.
Chiose thought to herself.
Her trembling set Chiose's heart to trembling in turn.
Under the silent acquiescence of the whole starry sky, the two of them held one another in a quiet little bundle.
That sky was bare, like the body beneath Takamatsu Tomori's softly flowing long skirt.
[A 'lifetime' is the kind of thing no one can really call for sure.]
[Of course…]
[—I, Yoshiiro Chiose, am the exception.]
She had never stopped believing she could bring happiness to herself and to everyone she cared about — and she had already secured the ability to make people happy.
Simulation… she still needed more.
At last Chiose pressed a soft kiss to Tomori's earlobe; that single gesture alone was enough to turn Tomori's whole body pink.
She was so adorable — adorable enough that Chiose couldn't keep herself from wanting to tease her to no end.
Today was the second day of school at Hane-oka, but within these two days she had absolutely said [a lifetime] far more than just twice.
Maybe high school was just this kind of heavy thing? It couldn't possibly be that she — Yoshiiro Chiose — was the only one with a youth this weighed down, right? Surely every high schooler out there was living out their everyday days swathed in heavy feelings.
She didn't know how long the quiet embrace went on.
The little dummy in her arms gradually evened her breathing out; she'd fallen asleep, sinking into dreamland inside that tender wrapping.
"I wonder what Tomori will see in her dreams."
Chiose carried her back to the bedroom, made sure the doors and windows were latched tight, drew the curtains, pulled the blanket up over her — and on top of all that, didn't forget to line Tomori's slippers up neatly.
She remembered that Tomori had always liked having her slippers placed pointing outward.
"May the you in reality always be happy… Tomori."
At the bedroom doorway, in the pitch dark, Chiose gazed one last time at Tomori's sleeping face.
Even though she couldn't make anything out, she wasn't the slightest bit anxious.
Because Chiose knew that the little girl she most wanted to protect was sleeping right over there.
"I hope we can meet in our dreams. Tomori. My Tomori."
"Good night, sweet dreams…"
"And — good night, see you in the dream."
Creak——
That was the sound of the bedroom door being slowly pulled shut.
And that was that.
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