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At first, she notices that Taichi isn't on the morning train.
It feels off. Sure, Chihaya can rationalize with herself. Maybe he had to go to school early. Maybe he's running late, although that seems terribly unlikely (that's her style, after all). She stares out the train window, watching the skyline trade orange for blue as her commute passes. Every time she has a thought, an idea or a joke or a grumble, she turns excitedly only to remember that Taichi isn't there.
She misses him a little.
As the school day gets going, the pit of doubt in her stomach grows large and cavernous. She doesn't see Taichi outside the school. She doesn't pass him in the hallways. Even his fangirls—a group who traces his every step and follows him like a pack of bloodhounds—wander the school grounds aimlessly. And if they can't track down Taichi, then Chihaya has little hope for herself.
She misses him a little bit more.
The final straw is when Taichi isn't at karuta practice. The four of them are getting a slower start than usual, milling about the club table. It's a minute past 3 p.m., and Taichi should be by her side.
But he's not.
"I have something to say," Chihaya blurts out to her team. "I don't know how to say this."
"What's new?" Nishida asks.
"It's important!" Chihaya stands up and slams her hands on the table. It seems to get their attention. Komano looks thoroughly shaken out of his homework, and Kana stares at her with raised brows.
Chihaya takes a deep breath, then whispers, "I think Taichi has been kidnapped."
It's not that Chihaya expects them to immediately launch a search and rescue (even though she'd like that). What she does expect is a little bit of shock and concern. Not for them to burst out laughing at her... which is what happens. Even Kana politely tries to stifle her giggles.
"Chihaya-chan," she says, "Mashima-kun hasn't been kidnapped. He's sick."
Chihaya blinks.
"Huh?"
"He stayed home from school today," Komano says. "That's what our teacher told our class."
Taichi is sick?
Chihaya frowns. She can't think of any time he's gotten sick before. Even when they were kids, he had perfect attendance. If he ever came to school with a runny nose or a cough, he must've done a great job of hiding it.
Even now, he makes being top of his class look easy. He makes being the karuta club president look easy. Few people see his strenuous efforts. His obstacles. The moments where he breaks. But if Chihaya understands one thing about her best friend—it's that being Taichi is a balancing act.
And behind closed doors, things usually aren't as easy as they appear.
Her hands and feet move without her giving them directions. She grabs her bag, heading for the club room door in a frenzy.
"Ayase-san, where are you going?" Nishida asks.
"To check on Taichi," Chihaya says in a breathless haze. "Keep alternating until I get back. Remember to attack the cards!" She slides the door shut behind her and takes off running down the hallway, even as teachers call out to scold her.
She realizes that she's never skipped a karuta practice before. She's never wanted to. It's something she can't make sense of as she fidgets on the train, waiting for Taichi's stop.
She calls Taichi on the phone, and then she calls him again. She's pretty sure she hits her texting limit for the month in the span of about thirty minutes. Are you ok and Are you sick and ARE YOU ALIVE—but no response. She gets off at Taichi's stop, sprinting down the sidewalk, tripping in her loafers until she reaches his house.
No one answers when Chihaya rings the doorbell. She actually feels better about that. It means his mom must be out of the house, so Chihaya won't have to talk to her.
But then she starts to picture it more clearly: Taichi, sick and alone… with no one to look after him. It makes Chihaya angry.
She stoops down and finds the spare key in a potted plant on the Mashima porch (Taichi showed her the hiding spot sometime in elementary school, and it makes her smile to know it hasn't changed). The house is grand and domineering as always. The expensive furnishings and decor feel bigger by the year, no matter how tall Chihaya grows. Taichi's house is the ideal hangout spot due to its size and fanciness, but she always wonders what it feels like after everyone leaves. If somewhere so spacious turns empty when no one is left.
If he ever gets lonely.
Chihaya peers around corners and into open doors, looking for a father or little sister. But no one else is home, and the silence is almost eerie.
She starts up the stairs to Taichi's room, and for a brief moment, nerves bubble up in her stomach. Her mind wanders—memories of Taichi telling her not to charge into guys' rooms. And then other occasions, where he's invited her up to his room twice as many times as he's scolded her for it.
He's sick, so it's not like I'm going up there to—
It's silly. She's just here to make sure he's okay. Nebulous anxiety shouldn't make her pause in front of his door. She doesn't know why she's scared.
So—in the same way that she handles all of her fears—Chihaya shoves open the door and plows headfirst into Taichi's bedroom.
"Taichi, are you alive?"
She locks eyes with Taichi and finds that he is alive, at least.
"Chihaya?" he says.
His voice is raspier than usual, like he's been in and out of sleep. His head is propped up on a stack of pillows—the only part of him peeking out from his velvety red duvet. There are manga volumes strewn across his bed. He has a wet rag draped across his pale forehead.
"Taichi," Chihaya gasps, "you look horrible!"
He scowls, cheeks flushed. "Thanks."
"Sorry! That's not what I meant… I just don't see you like this a lot. You never look bad. Like, you don't even get dark circles when you're tired."
Taichi turns a deeper red, or maybe it's just a fever.
"I catch colds sometimes. It's not a big deal."
Coming closer, Chihaya sits on the edge of his bed. She puts a hand to Taichi's forehead. It's burning up, and it reminds her of Arata getting sick when they were kids. Compared to the childhood memory, this moment strikes her with a visceral powerlessness—to see Taichi now, weakened right in front of her. She hates it.
"Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"
Taichi shrugs. "My teachers knew. I didn't feel like texting everyone."
"But we could've checked on you. And cheered you up!"
"As if you didn't break and enter anyways," Taichi points out. He abruptly pushes himself upright, throwing back his sheets and stumbling across the room to his bathroom. The washcloth falls from his forehead and leaves a damp spot on the duvet.
He shuts the bathroom door behind him. Chihaya hears violent retching.
"Taichi?"
"Don't—come in."
Chihaya sprints to the bathroom and heaves the door open.
Taichi is hunched over the toilet bowl. He looks like a sickly mess. It's weird to see him like this. Not as the top student, not as the president—but just a boy in a long-sleeved pajama shirt and shorts, with his head hanging over the toilet and a hand clutched to his stomach.
"I told you not to come in," he groans.
"I obviously wasn't gonna do that when I could hear you puking from the other room," Chihaya argues, hand on her own queasy stomach. She's a sympathetic puker, but now feels like the wrong time to bring that up. "Anyways, I thought you had a cold."
"Food poisoning, too."
"Both?"
"You know, me and bad luck," Taichi says—and then his sickness heaves itself into the toilet once more. Chihaya averts her eyes. She grits her teeth and tries to mentally plug her nose.
She starts to say, "I'd hold your hair back, but…"
"Ha. Funny."
"I wasn't joking!" Chihaya crouches down on the bathroom floor, and she finds herself pressing a palm to his back. Through his shoulder blades, she feels him tremble. This is always what it's like, she realizes. Taichi, his back turned as he curves inward; Chihaya, unable to reach him but still trying, trying, trying.
It encapsulates an emotion she doesn't experience very often.
Defeat.
"I just—feel like I'm not helping," she admits.
"It's okay." Taichi leans away from the toilet, propping himself up against the wall. "But unless you've got medicine, there's not a lot you can do."
Chihaya slides down the wall opposite Taichi, sitting across from him. The bathroom floor is cold and crisp against her bare legs. The large tub, the spotless mirror, the marble countertop and basin—it all must've cost a fortune to make it so luxurious. But Taichi's house has a way of making her feel like she's been swallowed up.
They sit in silence with each other, tiny against the high walls and vaulted ceilings. Chihaya wonders if Taichi's house makes him feel the same way.
"Why do you always do that?" she asks.
Taichi looks up. His face is still pale, his hair askew. "Hm?"
"Like, how you were on the verge of death—"
"That's a bit of a stretch," Taichi says.
"—and you didn't tell anyone, and we were really worried!" Chihaya's voice loses its power as she adds, "And you go off to tournaments without telling anyone… and we all get worried."
Taichi drags a hand over his face. "I do stuff on my own so you don't get worried."
"Well, I did."
"I don't particularly like people seeing me this way, you know. Until I've got stuff taken care of."
And Chihaya would expect his head to hang heavily between his knees, caving in on himself—but Taichi holds his shoulders even with the bathroom wall, back straight through obvious force. There's an odd sound to his voice as he says,
"Why take help when I don't need it? And anyways, no one else exactly showed up at my house."
Chihaya stares at him. "Well, I… you weren't there," she stammers, "and—I don't know."
She doesn't understand it at all—what makes her reach from the other side of the bathroom and grab Taichi's hand. She's gripped with the feeling that, if she doesn't hold onto him, he'll disappear. Distort until she doesn't know him anymore. It's different from how she daydreams about Arata, how she sees his face in street lights and imagines what it would be like if he was here. This is tangible, immediate. Taichi is close, and far away, and held in the palm of her hand.
"It's hard to concentrate when you're not there," she says. "I can't think straight. And I don't like it."
Taichi's eyes are wide, and he doesn't speak. Her face heats up as she squeezes his hand. She tries not to think about the warmth contrasting with the cold tile floor.
"Your hands are really sweaty," she says.
Taichi blushes furiously. "Idiot, so are yours."
"No, I—it's a good thing!" Chihaya says, grabbing his shoulders. "If you break a sweat, your fever goes down." She thumbs at the fabric of his shirt, and she adds offhandedly, "Although you'd cool down more without this on. Wearing long sleeves when you have a fever, Taichi—"
"Oh, so you're trying to get my clothes off now?" Taichi raises an eyebrow, the hint of a smirk on his mouth. Chihaya flushes.
"Stop, that's—that's not what I—keep it on and sweat to death, then."
"If that's what it takes to stop your dirty thoughts."
Chihaya's cheeks burn hot (which she denies to herself), and she stutters out impassioned rebuttals like the earth thrown off its axis. Color starts to flood back into Taichi's face as he laughs at her.
It's a welcome change from the pale, almost greenish tinge of his skin from earlier. He smiles at her, not perfect and shining, the most popular boy at their school. It's a private grin, informed by the fact that he's been puking his guts out all morning. Playful, lopsided, genuine.
She thinks, I like it when he smiles like that.
"Maybe you helped a little," Taichi says, and Chihaya beams at him. "You should go back to school, though. Everyone might slack off without you at practice."
Chihaya extends a hand, hauling Taichi to his feet. "I trust Kana-chan to keep everyone in line a little longer." Taichi leans into her as she helps him through the door and back into his bed. The Mashima house starts to feel less like drowning in something, and more like being enveloped.
"Here, I'll read to you until you fall asleep!" she says, grabbing a shojo manga off the bed with a flowery, pink cover. "Heh? You read stuff like this, Taichi?"
"Quit that." He snatches it out of her hand and sets it on the bedside table. "I'm just gonna ignore you until you go home."
"Hey, you could try to be fun."
"My deathbed. I can do what I want."
He slips off his shirt after all and tosses it aside. Chihaya looks away from his bare skin, taking a sudden interest in the configuration of his furniture. Her heart races in the most inconvenient way.
It's just Taichi.
The moment, which isn't a moment at all, doesn't last. Taichi flops down and turns away from her, pulling his duvet up to his chin. He looks like a cat swaddled tightly in a blanket.
"Cold now?" Chihaya asks.
"Yeah."
She sighs as she grabs a fluffy blanket from his couch. "You're so fussy when you're sick, Taichi," she teases, draping it over him.
"Shut up," he murmurs. "Thank you."
Chihaya doesn't say it, but her plan works. She picks the manga back up from his bedside table and plops down next to him. She reads aloud in her most theatrical voice, which Taichi ignores—until she hears his breath slot into the familiar rhythm of sleep.
Chihaya leans over to peer at his face, checks that he's not faking it. His expression is relaxed. It's something that's less common with each passing day, as he swipes at cards, and as sweat beads along his forehead, and as he works so hard.
And for what? She doesn't know. She wishes he'd tell her sometime. She wishes she could ask.
Brushing his hair from his forehead, Chihaya lets her fingertips feel the softness as she pulls away. She sits on Taichi's bed for some time like that, thumbing through manga pages and not actually reading them. Suspended in comfortable silence for longer than she intends.
She leaves before he wakes up, though. She slips out, tip-toes with unusual care down the staircase, deposits the spare key back in the potted plant. She's gone before Taichi can notice that she stuck around.
She rides the train back to school. Watching the sunset through the window, she realizes that karuta practice is probably done at this point.
Oh, Chihaya thinks numbly. I missed practice. I missed a whole practice.
The realization stings, but her next thought sinks deeper in her chest.
I could've stayed at Taichi's house a bit longer, I guess.
As Chihaya switches trains and begins to head home, she wonders if Taichi is awake yet.