Chiose's bedroom wasn't big.
You could even call it very small.
Just sitting there on the floor, Taki had already let every last one of the little odds-and-ends decorations in the room pass before her eyes again and again.
Small, cozy, carrying an indescribable sense of familiarity.
[So it really is just like in the dream—Little Chiose loves arranging all sorts of little trinkets on the walls and cabinets.]
It was only that in the dream Chiose's apartment had been far more lavish, which made reality look a touch shabby by comparison.
"Little Chiose…"
Is there really a place for me in your real life?
Taki wasn't jealous, but she'd come to understand the difference between dream and reality.
In the dream there had been only Chiose and herself; the real world after waking was far more complicated.
Right beside her sat Takamatsu Tomori, her face flushed for some mysterious reason as she toyed with an album—and Taki also knew that Soyo was somewhere in this house.
[Besides me, Chiose has so many other people… why is Little Chiose so popular…]
Yikes!
What a terrifying thought—how could she think something like that.
Patting her chest in a steady rhythm, Taki felt utterly twisted-up and fidgety right now.
For the record, this was not jealousy—she just felt her good friend had a few too many good friends.
Shouldn't a good friend have only one good friend? Shouldn't good friends live together for a lifetime, sleep together for a lifetime, share dinners and watch the sunset together for a lifetime, hold hands for a lifetime, kiss for a lifetime?
Why did Little Chiose have so many good friends.
[Maybe it's because there are still so many other Takis out there who need their Chiose.]
In the end, Taki's ramrod-straight spine slumped anyway, her posture like a deflated little rubber ball tossed aside in some unknown corner.
"Taki? Mm."
Tomori poked Taki's arm a few times with the album; seeing her looking so glum, she figured Taki was just bored.
"Here, wanna look?"
"No need, I'm fine. I was just thinking about Soyo."
"Soyo? Mm… I heard before that Soyo's family situation is kind of special. This time, could it be—"
"Maybe, but it's best not to say too much about that kind of thing behind someone's back, Little Tomo, you—huh? What's this."
Shiina Taki, who'd meant to say a bit more, frowned; her attention had been drawn to a medical document envelope on the nightstand beside them.
"That's a medical record, isn't it? Maybe it's Kyoumoto's."
A familiar wave of panic rose in Tomori; she blinked hard, trying to fight off the unease that kept welling up without end.
Chiose's little sister had an eye condition, and the two sisters even shared a single bedroom… this had to be Little Kyoumoto's medical record, not Chiose's.
It absolutely… had to be, right!?
"Doesn't really look like it. Let me see… hm."
"Taki? Whose is it?"
"Uh—ah…"
Taki had no attention left to spare for Takamatsu Tomori behind her.
In the sunlight the veins on her clenched fist stood out with unusual clarity, as though blood by the name of anxiety ran through them.
[Is this… Chiose's?]
Though the kraft-paper envelope was sealed shut with a strand of string, the name Noshiro Chiose was written across it plain as day.
[In the dream, Little Chiose died of illness back in middle school—but even that had to do with… working herself to exhaustion.]
After all, the doctor had told her later that although the cause of Chiose's illness was complicated, it ultimately traced back to her ruined daily routine.
Taki knew all too well that Chiose had poured enormous effort into making her famous—staying up late composing, drilling on her instruments day and night, dashing off to publishers and agencies the moment she had any free time…
That kind of pressure, which no middle-school girl should ever have to shoulder, combined with her body's own frailties, was what led to the dream-Chiose's early death.
"How could this be…"
A whimper escaped her throat, unbidden, almost like a small wild beast's cry; only now did Shiina Taki notice a problem she'd been ignoring all this time.
Chiose had lived past sixteen without her, sure—but what about afterward?
She hadn't dared to think about it before, but now that this mysterious medical envelope lay right in front of her, she had no choice but to think it through.
"Taki? Are you okay?"
Tomori's voice pulled Taki back from her thoughts just in time; only then did Taki realize a cold sweat had broken out down her back.
At the mere thought of Noshiro Chiose leaving her, Taki…
"Did we… just find something not so good?"
Tomori's worries ran no shallower—but she was lucky!
Neither of her two Little Chioses had died of illness!
Yet putting it together with that single page of medical record she'd stumbled onto at school after mixing up their book bags, Takamatsu Tomori was frightened all the same.
"Y-yeah, probably. Maybe it's just an ordinary cold, or a fever…"
But when would a cold or a fever ever need this many pages of paperwork? It was as absurd as if a whole team of medical researchers had discovered some fatal disease named after Chiose herself.
"We really shouldn't look. It's her private business, after all."
"Right—that's for the best. Let's just pretend we saw nothing… saw nothing…"
Even as the words left their mouths, both pairs of eyes never stopped for an instant, scanning wildly over the kraft envelope.
They honestly wished they'd been born with X-ray vision.
For a moment the room went strangely quiet; from outside drifted the ringing of bicycle bells along the lane and the soft, lazy snore of the sun. In that instant Shiina Taki and Takamatsu Tomori exchanged a glance, and in each other's eyes they both read a single meaning:
[Now! Get to Chiose's side!]
As long as Chiose slipped out of their sight for even a second, that dread and unease could never be smoothed over—it was a fear from the deepest recesses of their hearts.
It was a fear born of having once lost Chiose and never being able to catch their breath since.
In wordless unison, their feet carried them forward.
Through the door, past Kyoumoto in the living room, they came to the… guest room of the Noshiro little home.
"Little Chiose! We—"
Who could possibly be more of a mess than the two of them! Who could possibly be as—
Ah—turns out, someone actually could.
On the bed, curled up in Chiose's arms as cozy as a cat, eyes narrowed and nibbling a cookie in tiny bites, Nagasaki Soyo—catching sight of the two who'd abruptly burst into the room—wore an expression even more frazzled than theirs.
"Tomori! cough cough cough… Taki, what are you two—?"
Soyo floundered, trying to leap off of Chiose, but the weakness in her limbs told her it was hopeless.
All she could do was watch her two former bandmates standing by the door, their tangled gazes stabbing into her fragile soul…
That's right—somehow or other, Shiina Taki and Takamatsu Tomori had a decidedly strange hostility in their eyes.
"? I was just about to come over. Were Little Taki and Little Tomo getting too bored waiting? I'm really sorry—Soyo still needs me to look after her, so I couldn't slip away."
Chiose shook her head apologetically.
"Not at all, Little Chiose," Taki said, her face darkening as she moved closer to Nagasaki Soyo.
There was no joy of reuniting with an old friend in her voice—only a faint, barely noticeable jealousy:
"Little Chiose, why don't you go play with Tomori for a while? I'll take care of Soyo-chan… myself!"
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