"How could it be these dishes of all things?!"
The samgyetang and vegetable macaroni sat steaming on the dining table, their colors so tempting that anyone who wasn't already stuffed would sneak a bite.
But Soyo was different.
Her gray-blue pupils shuddered violently several times during that brief daze, and her complexion, faintly rosy at first, drained to nothing.
Clamping a hand over her mouth, Soyo felt nothing but nausea.
Especially when the aroma of the samgyetang mingled with the fresh scent of the vegetable macaroni into a smell so achingly familiar, a spine-chilling revulsion surged up in her all at once.
"Ugh…"
She wanted to throw up—was already braced to bolt for the bathroom and heave it all out—but Soyo found her legs wouldn't obey and her stomach was so empty there was nothing to bring up.
Nothing beyond a little stomach acid and saliva.
But that wasn't the crux of it. The far more devastating thing was that the pajamas she had on belonged to Chiose.
In the tiny dining room, the scents of Chiose, of the samgyetang, and of the vegetables stirred together into an aroma so familiar it made Soyo's brain quiver.
"No—it's all coming back!"
The regret of never seeing Chiose-mama one last time, the regret of watching her daughter die before her eyes with no power to stop it, and the remorse of failing to care for them, of never giving them the emotional response they deserved—all of it drowned Soyo's reason in that instant.
Her vision went black, and her head dropped straight onto the tablecloth as she fainted.
"Eh? Big sis, are you kowtowing?"
Little Kyoumoto poked her head out from behind the wall, blinking with dopey cuteness.
"Eh? Why'd you go quiet… Honestly, do I really have to have a blind girl come over to see what's going on? What dark humor."
Haizuka Kyoumoto blinked, her sightless eyes full of resignation.
The truth was, ever since last night she'd gotten the sense that Nagasaki Soyo wasn't very bright.
The scene jumps to half an hour later.
"Phew… it's fine, it's fine, she just fainted…"
Nerves fraying, Chiose drew back the hand she'd rested on Soyo's forehead and finally let out a breath.
But when she turned to meet Tomori and Taki's faces, she found the two of them staring at her strangely.
"Little Chiose," Taki said, her voice dropping, "is this the guest you were talking about?"
"Yep. You two know her?"
Good woman Noshiro Chiose slid into her little lies with perfect ease.
She knew a great many things, but to voice any of them she needed a plausible way to have learned them.
"Uh… how do I put this."
At a loss for a moment, Taki covered her face with one hand as she tried to find the words, and that was when Tomori picked up the thread:
"This is Soyo? She's the… the bassist from CRYCHIC we told Little Chiose about before—but, but why is Soyo at Chiose's house?"
Takamatsu Tomori was just that pure; she never tucked her confusion away, which was exactly why she was so easy to fool, so easy to push around.
"Oh, right—I spotted her out on the street yesterday, falling apart, ready to just wither away, and I couldn't bring myself to walk past her, so I scooped her up and brought her home! Though she doesn't seem to be doing so well—why'd she faint again?"
Don't tell me Soyo's actually mentally ill.
Recalling that unbearably heavy, love-starved declaration from last night, Chiose swallowed without meaning to.
[High-school-era Soyo-chan is surprisingly hard to handle.]
[Why did she suddenly get this difficult?]
In truth she'd lied to the two little ones in front of her once again—because she didn't want to let slip anything about last night's hyper-gravity conversation, Chiose had chalked it all up to Soyo "having an emotional breakdown."
Her best guess was that the kid was most likely suffering a stomach flare-up; from Soyo's own account and her state, it didn't look like she'd eaten anything in days.
"Soyo-chan! Are you okay?"
Tomori carefully poked Soyo's little cheek a few times, and Soyo obligingly let out an unconscious groan.
"She just seems to have fainted. Tomori, you don't need to fuss over her," Taki said, checking Soyo's condition with great care, not overly worried about it.
She'd seen Soyo like this before—that day the Simulation ended, she herself had fainted too, and even had convulsions.
It really did seem Soyo had run into some kind of emotional breakdown.
Was it… something on Sakiko's end?
This Soyo really was relentless.
"Haah…"
Takamatsu Tomori vaguely caught what Taki was thinking and edged uneasily off to the side.
Right now she didn't much want to talk about unimportant band matters—especially not with Soyo here…
The girls each had their own thoughts churning; gathered together, only Kyoumoto—tilting her little head up and nuzzling in for cuddles with Chiose—harbored no schemes at all.
It was the first time the house had ever felt this crowded.
With a sigh, Chiose gathered Soyo up and carried her back to the guest room.
This kid still had no shortage of troubles, but there were guests at home to look after, and Chiose couldn't slip away for the moment.
Hopefully Soyo would wake soon; if she hadn't confirmed over and over that Soyo had merely passed out and come to no harm, she'd have dialed for help and called an ambulance long ago.
In reality, no one cared more than she did about everyone's health.
"Ugh, tell me more about Soyo. She really put me through the wringer last night—this kid is such a handful."
Chiose recounted her ordeal in a "what am I going to do with her" tone, and it instantly threw the floodgates open for Taki and Tomori.
That afternoon, one of them lay unconscious while the others chatted on and on.
Kyoumoto was cradled in Chiose's arms, and the four of them used Soyo as a springboard to spin off into countless new topics.
Though before long Kyoumoto got restless and slipped away to the living room to listen to the radio.
As the conversation deepened, the more they talked, the more baffled Chiose grew.
Because… this Soyo didn't seem to differ in the slightest from the Soyo she knew.
[Well, that's not quite right either—after all, she only truly knew Soyo from before the age of twelve and from her mid-twenties onward; her intel on the stretch in between was still riddled with gaps.]
So it seemed Soyo's great rainy-night flight this time fell squarely into one of her blind spots.
Factor in Soyo's love-starved condition and her still-underdeveloped emotional resilience, and it all seemed to add up.
But Chiose couldn't shake the feeling that something was still off.
Brewing tea, bringing out fruit, cracking the windows to air the place—the smell of food faded from the room, leaving only the warm spring sun spilling quietly across the floor.
"Want to come take a look in my room? I've got several MCR (My Chemical Romance) albums in my collection—not the complete set, but, heh heh."
"MCR…"
"Uh…"
At the mention of that band, the girls' expressions all turned peculiar.
"Right, MCR—do you two like them too?"
Chiose blinked, thrown; as she recalled, at this point in time the two losers most likely hadn't even heard of them.
"Mm, my sister's been listening to them lately too—looks like she's joined a punk band."
"Taki's sister… what a cool band senior," Chiose said, spreading a blanket out on the floor. Once she'd gotten the two of them settled, she made to go check on Soyo one more time.
She reached the doorway, then turned back all at once with a smile:
"Who knows—maybe someday we could form a band too… the kind that lasts a lifetime."
Sure, girl bands are terrifying, but never giving one a try would truly be a betrayal of such a wonderful youth… Anyone who's never felt the crushing weight of borrowed time could never understand this craving for youth.
And that's just how it was.
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