The night had grown late.
Chiose and Tomori lay hand in hand beneath the covers, their interlaced fingers a little bridge built over the beating of two hearts.
The door creaked shut as their mother pulled it closed. Tomori's eyelids fluttered and fluttered, waiting until the sliver of light from the hallway stopped stealing into their small world before she finally opened her eyes.
"Hmm…"
A tiny sound, like a small animal, escaped Tomori's throat. She wasn't entirely sure whether her little sister was still awake.
"Chiose — Mom's done checking on us. Are you still up?"
"Obviously, dummy. I've been scratching secret codes into your palm this whole time… keep your voice down! Mom might not have gone very far yet."
Chiose shifted positions, resting her head near Tomori's soft, squishy little belly.
She stared up at the ceiling light, its faint halo still lingering in the dark, and felt the unease inside her begin to dissolve.
She was working on it — deepening the beautiful memories between the two of them. The goal was that someday, this very warmth would become a thorn that pierced deep into the softest part of Tomori's heart, providing her — this soft-hearted, indecisive, terrible little sister of hers — with genuine, hard-earned… lifespan.
Chiose climbed out from under the covers and let go of Tomori's hand.
She lingered a moment, feeling the warmth Tomori had left behind in her palm, then rummaged around until she found the camcorder — her birthday gift. The pale-blue camera had been stained midnight-deep by the dark.
"Tomori! Come on, get up — let's film the night sky together!"
"The night sky!"
The night sky, yes.
Tomori crept quietly after Chiose. Together, one on each side, they drew back the thin, wrinkled translucent curtains. As their small hands pulled slowly, moonlight came pouring officially into the room.
The starry sky. Chiose had been taking her to look at it since forever.
Whether on the prickly meadow grass behind their old family home in the countryside, or on the balcony of a seaside holiday hotel during a vacation trip — there had always been someone there with her at midnight, both of them sinking together into the night sky.
It was only because Chiose was there beside her that the stars held any magic at all. Tomori was convinced that gazing alone at a starry sky and letting your thoughts drift was the most boring thing in the world — only slightly less boring than eating unsweetened cereal or drinking sugar-free cola.
Timidly, Tomori looped her fingers around Chiose's sleeve. That was all she did.
You needed someone with you, to see the brightest lanterns in the sky.
"That's right — the night sky, Tomori. I'm going to photograph tonight. Ten years from now, twenty, thirty — when Tomori is a little old lady, she'll still be able to take these out and remember this very moment."
"That's so far away…"
It didn't feel real.
"Tomori! We're going to be watching it for our whole lives!"
"Our whole lives?"
What an enormous idea. Takamatsu Tomori had never once, up until now, considered whether there was anything she could keep doing for her whole life.
"And Chiose — will Chiose stay with me… for our whole lives?"
"..."
"Of course! I'm Tomori's most obedient little sister — I'll absolutely be by Tomori's side for our whole lives!"
Tomori didn't answer. She only kept making small, barely-there sounds.
In her field of vision, countless stars were tangled together, and many more shone alone. The loneliest ones didn't even have a single cloud nearby — the closest star to them was still half a sky away.
A whole life?
Takamatsu Tomori was only six years old, and already the idea of a whole life filled her with something like dread.
She longed for it, and yet she always felt it was somehow unreliable. Was this the early maturity that came from spending too much time with Chiose?
Probably. After all, even though Chiose was supposed to be her little sister, she always made Tomori feel as though… an adult's ghost had taken up residence inside her — a grown-up spirit, trapped and imprisoned in a tiny, young body.
Takamatsu Tomori felt bad for having that thought.
She wasn't the kind of child who enjoyed making up strange things about other people.
"Chiose, I just had a really awful thought about you. I'm sorry."
"Huh? What kind of thought?"
"It's just… it's just…" Tomori started to stammer — and then Chiose's hand clamped firmly over her mouth.
"Mm?"
"Don't make a sound — there are footsteps outside!"
Tomori hadn't actually heard anything, but she went along with it and fell silent.
The bedroom held its breath. Through the thin gap at the bottom of the door, they watched the warm orange light outside blink suddenly out. Only then did Chiose let out a long, slow breath.
"Scared me half to death. I thought we were going to get our bottoms smacked again."
"Chiose… last time, when we snuck out to watch TV, we wouldn't have gotten caught at all — but I think you turned the volume up too loud and woke Mom up right when she got home…"
"Ahem, ahem" — Tomori's soft, gentle voice delivered that blow with devastating accuracy, and Chiose felt her shameful history being excavated once again by this little menace — "That was! An accident!"
"Pfft."
"What are you laughing at! You terrible Tomori!"
"Laughing… because Chiose is sometimes… kind of like a silly grown-up?"
"Excuse me? I'm a six-year-old little girl, thank you very much."
"Being a little girl is no fun at all. I want to grow up fast — let's move out together, and then, won't we be able to stay up all night watching TV?"
"Tomori! Staying up is bad for you — it's already way too late as it is! It's getting colder outside too… let's get back to bed."
"But… the stars…"
"The stars? Let them shine on their own for a while. They're not going anywhere. We can look every single day from now on — okay?"
"Mm… is that… also a whole life?"
"Of course it is. Guaranteed fresh for life, no expiry date."
Ha. A whole life.
Takamatsu — Yoshiiro — Chiose blinked, and pressed pause on the camcorder.
She had captured the entire conversation just now — the night sky, and Tomori's lovely profile too.
It wasn't very ethical. But she really did hope… she was sorry… she really did hope that someday this camcorder would help her earn just a little bit of precious lifespan.
"Chiose has really been into filming things lately — is it because that's a very grown-up hobby too?"
"No, no. Like I keep saying — it's so that when Tomori misses me, she can watch it anytime she wants."
"Chiose is always so grown-up. Will you leave your older sister behind someday — because she's just a kid…"
"I won't. I'm a kid too, you little guppy. We should be drifting off to dreamland — it's too late."
Too late, was it?
Tomori's side of the bed was the one closest to the outside edge. She actually preferred the inner side — but the things you love, you share with the people you love, so she gave the inner spot to Chiose.
Just the same way she had shared the biggest beetle she'd ever caught with her, earlier that day.
"Tomorrow afternoon, let's go to the little park together and catch the biggest beetle…"
"Sounds good. Let's go catch one together, Tomori."
"Yeah!"
After that "yeah," the two of them fell quiet.
Sometimes you don't need to say goodnight to fall asleep feeling perfectly safe. Every time you roll over, one side is always facing the person you love — there is something so quietly wonderful about that.
When everything settled into stillness, Chiose's breathing evened out into the kind of rhythm that put the listener at ease.
Eyelashes trembling, Tomori opened her eyes again.
She lay there in silence, just watching Chiose's sleeping face.
Tomori knew — probably, in anyone's eyes — she was a thoroughly strange child.
Only with Chiose did she feel like she belonged somewhere…
A whole life. She really did yearn for it.
She really, truly wanted to spend a simple whole life with her little sister.
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