The Takamatsu residence. Tomori's bedroom.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
"Chiose… Chiose!"
Takamatsu Tomori — who had, for once in her life, slept straight through to noon — shattered the silence of the room with a sharp, strangled cry.
The blanket crumpled and bunched as she lurched backward. She didn't notice. She just sat there, staring at nothing, lost.
"Chiose… Chiose… Ah. Was that a dream?"
Such a long, long dream.
Tomori pressed her hand to her chest and listened to the beating of her own heart.
She had dreamed… that she had a twin sister.
That sister had died young — at the most innocent age of her life.
What she left behind was nothing but endless regret and remorse, sleepless nights plagued by unease, and long, wretched stretches of nightmare.
In the future the dream showed her, Tomori ground through countless days entirely alone. Those days held no meaning whatsoever. The world had lost all color and warmth.
In the dream, she never joined Crychic. There was only her own drifting, standing still without direction. She couldn't have said how long she had lived on — but she knew with absolute certainty that she had never moved past that accident, not even for a single day.
Over and over, she rewound the footage on the camcorder Chiose had left behind. It was full of traces of the love Chiose had held for life.
These memories should have been beautiful. They should have been gentle.
So how had they become… bitter and sharp? Like thumbtacks driven into her spine — painful every waking hour, yet recalled every waking hour just the same.
"It was… a dream… was it a dream?"
The most indistinct face had given her the most vivid love. Tomori rubbed her eyes; she couldn't make out the details of her room. Tears scoured her world into a rough, broken wasteland.
What an awful dream. A nightmare… a nightmare.
She fell back limply against the mattress. The ceiling catching the reflected daylight looked just like the night sky from that dream.
"Why does a dream have to feel so real… it hurts so much. I want to cry so badly."
Tomori wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and turned the dream over in her mind — it had ended, but the memory of it ran deep.
She felt as though she had forgotten something. In the very last scene, an adult Takamatsu Tomori was sitting on the branch of the great tree — the one her sister had fallen from — cradling a memorial portrait of her.
What had she said, in the dream, before she let herself fall?
She had said…
— Why was my Chiose the only one who had to leave this world? If there are other parallel worlds out there… did the Takamatsu Chiose belonging to those other Tomoris also pass away, just like my Chiose? —
— It's not fair… If the Takamatsu Tomori of another world could hear me speaking right now… I want to tell you about my envy. But I also want to offer you my blessing. Please — —
— Please take good care of your own little sister. —
The memory broke off there. That was the final scene of Tomori's dream.
She had no desire to remember the moment she had leapt from that branch. She lay with her eyes shut, letting her tears soak quietly into the pillow.
"But… I don't actually have a little sister named Chiose, do I?"
Could this dream really be the story of some other version of herself, from another world?
So then…
"I'm not a Tomori who lost Chiose too soon. I'm a Tomori who… never had a Chiose at all?"
That was even worse.
...
A key turned in a lock, releasing the familiar sound that Yoshiiro Chiose knew by heart.
This was a cheap rental unit near the west exit of Akabane in Kita Ward, Tokyo — a low-rise building with only a handful of tenants to its name.
"The neighbor seems to be a drunk. He has a daughter about my age."
As she worked her own key into her door, Chiose found herself idly thinking of the girl next door — what was her name again… Toyokawa Shoko, or something like that.
That girl was growing up to be quite striking, too. Though, like Chiose, she seemed to be working to make ends meet.
"Poor thing… then again, I'm the one who's worse off."
Chiose pushed the door open with careful hands, feeling something stir in her chest — a rush of genuine excitement and anxiety she hadn't felt in a long time.
Even in the real world, she hadn't seen Kyoumoto in several days!
The lights inside were off. The little blind girl didn't need much light, after all — and there wasn't much money to spare for the electricity bill.
The dining table was the first thing visible from the doorway, with several unlabeled bento boxes lined up neatly on top of it.
So these were the meals the system had arranged. They looked decent quality — the kind that could be reused.
"Kyo? Big sis is home, okay?"
Chiose locked the door behind her and was still debating whether to turn on the lights when she heard the soft patter of small footsteps.
"Sis? Is that Sis coming home?!"
The voice came from their bedroom — the little girl hadn't even made it to the living room yet, but her words arrived first.
Chiose was in the middle of taking off her shoes, just about to call back — but a small, warm bundle of white hair had already hurled itself into her arms.
"Kyo!"
This adorable little white-haired bundle was the person she had missed most, more than anyone in the world.
The reason she kept clinging to life, no matter how wretched things got, no matter how much it cost her conscience — her one and only reason.
"Chiose!"
Every time that soft, sweet voice called her name, Chiose felt it in her bones: it was all worth it.
Kyoumoto was only twelve. Due to her condition, she had never been able to attend school, and the specialized education institutes with their steep fees were simply out of reach.
Her hair was done up in a small, fluffy bun. She wore pajamas patched in so many places they'd become a patchwork quilt. Her feet were tucked into bunny slippers. Like her sister, Kyoumoto had naturally white hair and red eyes — though her irises were clouded and dim from the congenital cataracts she'd been born with.
Kyoumoto's eyes were a deep-red cosmos shot through with faint, dying stars.
"These past few days," Chiose hesitated, "I had to go away for something important. Was Kyo taken care of all right?"
"Mm-hm… yes! A big sister came every day to bring Kyoumoto food! She said she was Chiose's friend!"
"Is that right, is that right. And did our Kyo eat all her meals like a good girl?"
Kyoumoto could bathe herself, blow-dry her own hair, and when she got bored she had the MP4 player Chiose had splurged on to listen to… so her little sister had probably been getting along fine these past few days, right?
Still, she couldn't fully let go of her worry. It had been six whole years since she'd last seen Kyoumoto.
"I did, I ate all my food… but where did Chiose go! Why didn't you tell me ahead of time!"
Kyoumoto's round little face — still carrying a trace of baby fat — flickered with hesitation, as if she wasn't sure whether she should keep pressing.
"I was… sorting out my high school enrollment. I got into Haneoka. There's a chance I'll be able to get a scholarship."
"Eh! Sis is amazing! Then — then I'll forgive you, okay?"
"Thank you, Kyo. Thank you…"
Damn.
She was about to cry.
The scent that clung to Haizuka Kyoumoto — so achingly familiar that Chiose knew it in her bones — filled her with a grief she couldn't quite put into words.
She had only one year, one month, and fourteen days left to live.
If she wanted to survive long enough to see Kyoumoto reach adulthood, she would have to keep repeating those wretched simulations — the same kind that had just ended.
But the simulations were so painfully hard. Going back in there to torment and be tormented by some poor soul she'd never met held no appeal whatsoever.
"Kyo, if there ever comes a day when Sis…"
Her voice caught. Chiose couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence.
"Eh? What is it?"
"It's nothing. Kyo is the cutest. Can you tell Sis about the big sister who brought you food?"
Chiose pressed a gentle kiss to Kyoumoto's soft, pudgy little cheek, then scooped her up and carried her toward the living room sofa.
A plastic bag of fruit sat forgotten and alone on the doormat.
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