Work Text:
🎼
POV: Kanade
This is the one.
Maybe.
Not like that, but maybe more like…
This?
This.
This is it. This one will save her.
…But what if it doesn’t?
She wants the song to guide Mafuyu wherever she wants to go. She doesn’t know for sure where, but it’s someplace warm. She’d discerned that much recently with the help of Luka and Mizuki, but right now she’s feeling like the opposite of warm, as if she’s made of quaking fragments of ice that refuse to stick together, as if she’d melt before she can get there.
Chills rake up and down her spine, and yet her clothes are drenched in sweat, sticking unpleasantly to her body. She pulls the blanket closer to herself as she drags a hand and her mouse across the desktop to move another track for editing. The top of her hand is exposed to the air right from under the edge of her bathrobe and despite cranking up the heater, it’s too cold.
The DAW stalls for a second and Kanade grits her teeth. Her PC is more than up to the task, but it’s like every time she uses this VST the program then decides that basic operations are the most costly things.
Please don’t crash. Please don’t crash. Please don’t crash—
The title bar greys a bit and the window grows blurry. She sucks in a breath waiting for it to come back, but hope slips away as the seconds tick forward at the bottom of the screen.
19:46:24…25….26
…39…
……..58
And then, heedless of what she wants, it crashes, the window disappearing and getting replaced with a pop-up for reporting unexpected terminations.
She plants her forehead on the table. That was 5 hours of work lost.
She should’ve saved, but she’d gotten too excited and forgot. Stupid. Careless…
Dragging her head up from the desk, she tries to refocus. If there’s time to regret, there’s time to work.
As she goes to start the DAW up again, she spies the tell-tale red notification badge adjacent to it and opens up Nightcord which is still running in the background.
Enanan: <I just woke up and for a second I thought I was late for class but then I remembered that I have a reason to stay home today.>
Amia: <luckyyy I had to go to school today because of presentations>
Enanan: <My one day home from school does not equal you skipping everyday but today :BadtzGun:>
Amia: <:MiaWinking:>
As she reads, new messages come in.
Enanan: <Hey @K, I see you’re still active. Aren’t you sick too?>
Amia: <come to think of it, didn’t she say she would sleep 3 hours ago..?>
Amia: <:MiaJii:>
Enanan: <:KuromiJii:>
Kanade lets out a sigh. Did she say that…?
But that was before her file crashed. Sleep is a luxury she can’t afford right now. She can’t write songs in her sleep. She needs to redo the last few modulations before she forgets what she just did.
K: <I will. Just a little later.>
K: <I just need to fix some things so Yuki can arrange it tonight.>
K: <VST crashed it again>
Amia: <this effect sounds like more trouble than it’s worth almost>
Enanan: <Yeah, and I think Yuki should understand if you need more time K>
More time. But there is never enough time. Every second wasted is possibly another soul lost.
After a moment, Ena continues.
Enanan: <Speaking of crashing…>
Enanan: <I sent the sketch I did yesterday to the shared drive but I think I’m going to crash now. Again.>
Enanan: <K, you should join me. In dreamland.>
Enanan: <:CinnaSlepp:>
Amia: <fufu Enanan. A role model for resting.>
Enanan: <no u>
⤹ @enanan I sent the sketch I did yesterday…
K: <I’ll be sure to look at it Enanan and get back to you>
Enanan: <K…>
Kanade clicks out of Nightcord and opens the project back up, playing it over and then grimacing when she realizes just how far she’s been set back.
She pulls out her phone, intent to record a voice note with the melody she was just intending to iterate on, and re-re-re-remembers once again that, not only is it dead, she has no means to charge it without going spare cord drawer diving and trying to untangle the monster within.
She recalls Ena said that she’d swing by today to drop it off, but they’d both woken up sniffling messes, so that’s not happening.
Another shudder passes her body and her mouth is dry. Her water bottle is empty, but the kitchen seems too far. She wraps her blanket around her face, breathing against it and feeling the virulent and tepid air glance off it and back into the small chamber created, hitting her collar bone and making the space humid and heavy.
It’s laughable how weak she is. It’s just a cold…probably. Probably should have seen the doctor when symptoms were mild, but now the thought of leaving her house is bordering impossible. And plus, she doesn’t particularly want to return to a clinic situated in the same hospital where her mom spent her last days and her dad is now taking up residence. She goes there enough as is. It’s not that bad.
Dad…
She thinks of her dad, of how sick he was while working so hard. How debilitated he is now.
She did that to him. Because of her, he’s lost everything.
“Oh, thank you for visiting. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I caught your name…”
She feels a stinging in her eyes and presses the blanket closer to her face. It burns worse with them already being so dry. She should’ve used some eyedrops, but this works too.
“Kanade? What a coincidence, we’re thinking about naming our baby that.”
What’s a cold to a whole life lost? She cherishes a time he can’t even remember.
But he’d smiled then, telling her about the time before, and when was the last time she’d seen that? Amnesia seems so peaceful if one’s not also bedridden.
Would she end up like her dad one day? Maybe she should if she can’t manage to atone. Poetic justice truly. She should write a song about that too. Maybe getting put in the hospital is exactly the equal payment necessary for the sins she’s committed. Put someone in there, then get put in there in turn.
He forgets you because you hurt him.
Dad, I’m so sorry… she thinks for the millionth time and she doesn’t think there will ever be a last. He can’t hear it, but she’s incapable of not repeating it.
As she thinks harder on it, it still seems too easy a way to go. With a head full of cotton, she’d be given reprieve from her guilt and then where would she be? No, saving Mafuyu is the only way.
“My wife and I love music very much, so we're hoping that we'll be able to enjoy it together as a family…”
What if her mother’s listening even now? If she’s still listening, then she has to be strong. She needs more songs, something her mom can hear and smile to knowing that Kanade truly does mean it. She’s really sorry.
She tries to move out of the cocoon and get back to work, but finds that her body is a sandbag.
Her eyelids are heavy, forehead hot to the touch; her head is drooping with the effort of keeping everything aloft. Everything is puffy and inflamed. Her throat’s full of phlegm, and her nose so stuffed up—the only reason the sinus migraine hasn’t done her in are the few consecutive doses of paracetamol she’d taken previously.
If she doesn’t do this then… Then…
The glow of the computer through the fabric is receding and growing dim. It must be shutting off. The room is growing black, and then it’s simply gone.
🍜
POV: Shiho
The day’s as dreary as they come. The sky is cloudy and already dark, the rain more like a mist for the moment, but it just serves to make everything wet on contact even with an umbrella. It’s the kind of weather which makes Shiho ache for warm summer evenings. All the best for stargazing really.
Leaves long past turned lie scattered on the ground amongst muddled puddles as Shiho trundles towards an unfamiliar destination, guided by a GPS on which Luka’s hologram is casted against not unlike a weather reporter.
“And...the destination should be right up ahead,” Luka says looking down. It’s not help she needs, but it’s nice for when your hands are full and you still need to carry an umbrella. Granted a map app could do this for her just fine, but it’s not…terrible to walk accompanied in weather like this. “You’re a good friend for doing this, Shiho,” she adds unnecessarily.
Shiho doesn’t respond to that. She’s been distant for so long, it’s the least she can do to show Honami that she and the rest of Leo/need can lean on her. That she’s not going anywhere and she’s staying. That they’re in this together.
“Well, Honami shouldn’t be going out when sick, or she’ll stay sick longer,” she says by way of explanation. “This way, hopefully she gets better before next practice.”
They missed practice today. She and Saki did some drills and worked on some ideas for solos, but it wasn’t the same with half of the band out sick. It’s neither of their faults and staying home is only right. They know best how one person’s cold could be another person’s…
It’s for the good of the band.
Luka smiles in a knowing way that Shiho doesn’t like. “Of course, Shiho. Of course.”
It’s later now than Shiho had wanted to be out today, but she needed to take a pit stop by the supermarket to stock up on packaged foods. The tin cans clack against each other within the shopping bag with each step and the plastic containers squeak and creak under the shifting pressure.
“Luka, I can take it from here,” Shiho says as she sees the street sign up ahead. “Can you…” She trails off. Don’t be too pushy. They’re going along with so much as is.
”Do you want me to check up on Ichika and Honami to make sure they’re properly resting?” Luka unhelpfully fills in.
”Ah…” She purses her lips. “Yes, please...”
Luka smiles again and snaps her fingers. “You’ve got it, Shiho.” Before leaving, she adds, “And good luck with Yoisaki-san!”
🎼
POV: Kanade
The air is thick like the dog days of summer or pure ozone. It’s hard to focus.
She’s drifting. Where is she?
Suddenly, she feels a not-sensation. As in she doesn’t feel it at all, but she identifies something is moving past her on all sides. As she opens her eyes, she sees a sea of flowers blooming tall past her head, the tops miles away, like white dots in the distance. Miles and miles of rustling green.
She can barely see them, but she knows intuitively that they’re carnations, just like she knows intuitively that she’s 10 years old. She stares at them as they sway, inhibited by a laconic lethargy, mind not really moving to grasp things as things move around her to be grasped. Is she rising or are they retracting? It’s like sinking in reverse.
As they near, eternity collapsing like time is a ribbon which can be folded, she finds herself just laying in a bed of white flowers, petals ruffled like feathers, whose stalks reach up just past her field of view.
She blinks, and there’s the hazy vision of a hand brushing aside the tops and a face—her mother’s—which descends, haloed in flower petals which are now rising in a swirl she has to squint to see through. Behind it all, sunset-colored specks bloom, growing larger as they descend through the inky black beyond the flowers and steadily become more visibly lantern-shaped as they approach.
The hand nears, and she thinks to raise her own to meet it but instead merely lies still as the hand brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, pats her head, then stops with a tinkling laugh that sounds like a music box and a guitar strum simultaneously. No voice accompanies it, but she can see lips moving, and intuitively she hears, “It’s getting late Kanade, let’s go home. Papa needs his smile back.”
🍜
POV: Shiho
Shiho glances up. The apartment looks dark from the outside, lights dim throughout. Maybe no one is home. Well, that would be easier. She could just text Honami that they were away or asleep when she arrived, and that would be the end of it.
No. She corrects herself. The whole point is that Honami is worried. Not making contact will not make Honami any less worried.
As she turns the corner, a head of orange hair pops into view leaning on a banister with their back facing her at an angle. It’s a guy with some terrible posture leaning over his phone with knotted-brows only deep inconvenience can inspire.
Is this the employer? But, wait. Isn’t he that one guy from…what was it again?
He looks like your typical teenage ‘bad boy’ in air quotes that you would find dime a dozen at any music scene—ears full of piercings and hair with streaks of dye—but in a fitted t-shirt and shorts with a sweatshirt tied around his waist as if coming back from a workout on a school night.
“…You lock yourself out?”
He yelps slightly at her approach and her mind immediately casts back just a week ago to that one friend of Kohane’s who looked nearly ready to shit his pants when she approached them with the zombie-wolf mask on.
“Shit,” he mutters under his breath, face contracting with visible annoyance for a moment before he molds himself into practiced benevolence as if pretending that never happened.
Kohane, your friends are kinda…
”Ah. So sorry! I didn’t see you there…” He pulls down the face mask as he turns a dubiously guileless smile on her before pausing for a moment to process the question. “Oh, and no,“ he says looking at the house briefly, “I don’t live here.”
He raises his left hand, in which he’s carrying a plastic bag with one tiny item weighing it down from the bottom. “I’m just here to drop this off for my sister’s friend,” he clarifies before something like recognition blooms. “You’re Kohane’s classmate, right? You worked on that haunted house together.”
”That’s me,” she affirms. “Thanks for coming by to get scared.”
“Yeah, you really scared An’s socks off,” he says with a chuckle.
She hums. She shouldn’t but… ”Well, I distinctly remember somebody else also screaming and then complaining that it all looked too real…”
“Hey, Don’t get the wrong idea.” He frowns, and with that, a twitch of annoyance comes right back, and it’s frankly entertaining. “…Who said I was scared? That was a…compliment towards your acting skills.”
“That’s not what I remember…” Shiho says flatly.
”Oi you…” Well, that farce ended in record time.
“It’s whatever.” She waves him off before gesturing back to the house. “Anyways, I’m here to check up on the person that lives here. For a friend.” She glances at the door. ”Are they not home then?”
”Tch.” He clicks his tongue, but takes the out, checking his phone again and not liking what he sees. “Should be,” he says consideringly. “My sister was talking to them earlier today, and I was under the impression that they’re sick. But no one’s answering the door, and my sister’s not answering either. Probably out cold since she’s sick herself,” he grouses, rolling his eyes. “I tried the bell already.”
“Everyone’s sick these days, huh,” Shiho murmurs with displeasure.
”Yeah…seems like it.”
Silence falls as they consider the situation.
So, literally no one can reach this person? That’s…concerning.
“You try knocking? Maybe the bell’s broken.”
🎼
POV: Kanade
”But what about you Mama?”
She learns that she has a voice.
Like a song, ”Mama loves yours. But Papa might just need it a little more right now, don’t you think?”
”Why Mama? Is Papa ok?”
“Surely you have enough to spare after saving Yuki.”
And it’s like everything is wrong. A sonic artifact uncovered. That name doesn’t make sense coming from her mom’s mouth.
”Mafuyu? I saved…? But I don’t remember. I haven’t—“
Her mom draws back in shock as if physically struck by Kanade’s words. “You haven’t?”
She wants to reply, but she can’t. No words formulate. No sound comes forth. She can’t even nod.
”We’ve been wandering awhile. Do you know where we are sweetheart?”
And it’s like a dissonant chord has been struck. There’s something she’s not getting. A key change straight from the major to minor. The temperature she can’t feel goes from warm to clinically cold. There’s a beep in the distance. A heart monitor, she recognizes.
”Sweetheart. I thought you knew. You don’t know yet do you?” Anxiety creeps into the chords, a tremolo like the song is shaking in fear.
”Know what Mama?”
”You don’t know. You don’t know? It’s getting late, and you don’t know? Do you at least have it?”
“About what Mama? What is ‘it’ ? Please just tell me!”
”You’re too late, Kanade. I’m sorry… Mama has to go.”
”Mama, wait!”
The face withdraws, and she tries to give chase but finds that she still can’t move. The lanterns are gone and she realizes the sky is darkening like a tinted window sliding shut but from right to left.
No.
Not a window, a lid. The same black varnish on her mother’s coffin. She’s seeing it again, only now from the inside and surrounded by flowers she herself helped place. There are flowers around her, but they’re all bundled. Laced with ribbons.
She tries to crawl out but gets nowhere. She can’t sit up, but finds she can turn her head. Through the crack in the coffin as it descends, she can see the front row of seats. On each seat is a blurry portrait and more carnations, each the color of hair she recognizes with a shrill twist of fear.
🥞
POV: Akito
He glances at the door. It’s been several minutes of knocking and still no response. “You don’t think they’re…in trouble or something?”
“You said they’re sick, right? Maybe they went to a doctor,” the grey-haired girl suggests.
That would make sense. And, anyways, this is not his problem. He should simply leave it in the mailbox. Didn’t want to leave it out here on account of the weather conditions, but maybe this is all a waste of time.
If Toya and An weren’t both sick, they’d be practicing today. It’s neither here nor there because, as he’s recently had to be reminded, one can only exceed their limitations if they’re already at their present top form. Over-exertion is not top form and neither is illness. So, if you’re sick, it’s only logical you must take care of yourself.
That said, he’s not sick, so there is no excuse for him not to keep it up. He can’t risk falling behind. There’s still this massive gap he has yet to figure out how to close.
It’s bad enough that he’s let Ena’s little errand take him an entire train ride off course of his jogging route. It was not nearly as close to Nonogi park as she’d tried to suggest.
By the time he’s home, he’s not going to have nearly as much time to edit that next track. Since An's sick, there’s more editing to be done, and if it’s within his power, he should try to mitigate any setbacks.
Just as he’s about to open his mouth to excuse himself, a loud crashing thud rings out. Their eyes whip to the door, a shared streak of urgency coursing through them. But as the seconds creep by achingly slow, no other sounds come from inside the building, and that’s almost more disconcerting.
He springs forward toward the door, cupping his mouth like a megaphone in-between another series of knocks. “Hey! Anyone home? Are you ok in there?!”
No response.
“Let me through,” the girl says brusquely, shouldering him aside. “I’m opening the door.”
He looks down as she starts unlocking the door. “You had a key this whole time?!”
She grunts at him annoyedly, “I didn’t want to use it, ok? I thought my friend was being dramatic, and they don’t even know I’m coming.”
“So we’re both trespassing,” he summarizes. The door comes open and swings out.
She looks into the doorway, not quite moving. ”Seems like it.”
The present magnitude dawns on him then. “Should we be doing this?”
“Scared?” She asks. And this time it feels a lot less like teasing and more like practicality, like removing an encumbrance. “You can stay here and hold onto 119.”
He doesn’t want to be a dead weight.
But then, from the darkness that is the open doorway before them, comes a tiny scared voice, almost inaudible, begging, ”—please…come back.” They don’t question it another second.
🎼
POV: Kanade
Hands come down on her shoulders and now she’s stricken with fear. The dream snaps shut like a coffin lid but this is real. This is real. She can’t move, fabric is twisted around her body.
“Oi…wait.”
”Hey, hey. Hold on, HEY!”
Her dry eyes finally crack open past the edge of the fabric she’s squirming in. Her throat hurts double for the rapid and raspy gulps she’s taking in through a throat that feels like it’s been torn through with sandpaper and left raw and bloody.
Two pairs of green eyes loom over her, looking down at her with something that looks disturbed and confused running through them.
The person closer who’s grabbing onto her has short hair the color of ashy limestone. The one further back isn’t quite blocking the door with his frame, but just the fact that she’s outnumbered makes her struggle harder.
Seemingly recognizing the contact is having a negative affect, the girl makes a deliberate show of letting go and taking a step back or two.
“Hey, hey. Yoisaki-san, it’s just a dream. You’re ok. You’re ok—“
”Wh-who are you people? Why are you here?!” she demands even if it comes out like a croak.
There are people in my house. There’s people IN MY HOUSE.
She’s really going to die. She’s going to die before she’s saved enough people.
She’s woken from a nightmare into another nightmare.
She tries to throw all her weight to pull away, but it’s like her entire body is an unresponsive sack of fresh-cooked mash potatoes. The lurch gives her motion sickness, and she swallows to avoid throwing up.
“Sorry, sorry! We didn’t mean to scare you! We heard a sound and came in to investigate,” the guy blurts in a rush. ”I’m Akito, Ena’s brother. I came to drop off your phone charger because she’s sick. She should have messaged you about it.”
”Messaged…Ena…? I didn’t…” She slows down to take a better breath and swallow down more nausea. “Oh… for my phone…my phone is…” dead because she hasn’t charged it in the last some 24 hours. “…ah.”
She stops her struggling to take the two of them in clearer, squinting at the girl close by. “And…you?”
”Um—“ she gulps. “I’m Honami’s friend. You can call me Shiho. She asked me to check on you since you never responded to her message about being sick and unable to come by. Guess, it makes sense why though.” She shrugs before looking back at her. “Are you ok? Are you hurt?”
”Uh,” Kanade says intelligently.
This is a such a mess.
A couple awkward seconds pass as everyone stays rooted exactly where they are, and in those moments, Kanade finally winds down enough to realize that it’s not that they’re some tall monsters, she’s laying on the floor looking up. Her swivel chair is laying sideways next to her along with a few things swiped off her desk to complete the picture.
She tries to sit up, but it’s a challenge, and seeing this, the girl—Shiho—makes to move forward as if to help her before rethinking it and settling back on her haunches.
Shiho then turns to the boy— Akito, murmuring, “You think we should call 119?”
Just as she says it, Kanade forms one cohesive thought. Not again.
“No,” Kanade manages to rasp out in an ugly phlegmatic sound and coughs to clear her throat before repeating it. “No. I don’t need an ambulance.”
The guy lowers his phone with uncertainty. “Have you seen a doctor? You look like you should.”
“I’m fine. I’m—“ She coughs again. “—fine. It’s just a cold.”
Shiho narrows her eyes. “You don’t look fine. And also you feel like you’re on fire. Do you take anything for the fever?” She stops abruptly to glance to the right muttering, “Sorry, I only know because I was all in your space just now… I shouldn’t have…”
“No, it’s okay,” Kanade stops her, smiling weakly. “Thank you for asking.”
The girl looks wholly unconvinced, and Kanade really can’t blame her. But her eyes settle on the clock which reads almost 10PM now. It’s getting really late. She should bid them off so they can go home, and she needs to… Dread fills the gap left by confusion. She only has 3 hours left before Mafuyu goes online. She’s 5 hours behind on her work. Even if she rushed, she probably won’t make it.
Ok. Ok. Maybe the second time around will be faster! She thinks deliriously. But first these people need to go.
She clears her throat, and it hurts like fire, but she doesn’t have time for this. “Erm, I think I can take it from here. Thank you for coming by, but it’s getting late. You two can go now.”
🥞
POV: Akito
“You two can go now—“
“Cut the crap,” Akito spits and everyone jolts. He immediately apologizes for the outburst, but he’s frankly a little angry. “You can’t be for real. No we cannot.”
He sees the look in her eye. He sees her eyes flicker to the clock and then immediately to the computer, and he knows. Recognizes it in a way that he doesn’t want to. He just knows this is all bullshit. That if they were to step away from this room at this moment, she’s not going to see a doctor, eat anything, or even rest. Does she really think he’s dumb enough not to notice total deflection?
She’s got the eyes of someone desperate to do something at the cost of everything including themselves and it makes Akito agitated in a way he can’t completely understand and yet totally understands.
And if that something wasn’t ‘make music’ with all this set-up. He’d be shocked, truly.
He should have left when he had the chance, that or slid the item in the mailbox and been done with it. Really, anything is better than being behind on your music comp and now needing to convince someone else that they should put theirs on pause.
Now they’re at a total standstill, and he’s too involved. He’s not even really supposed to be here, but there’s no way he’s able to leave after seeing this.
It’s like finding a beached whale. Majestic in its own right and yet so helpless. Hapless.
It’s just not right.
He turns to Shiho, “I don’t want to speak for you but…”
She locks eyes with him, and all he sees is resolve. “No. I think we’re in agreement here,” she says, redirecting her attention to the girl on the ground—Yoisaki was it?—and holds up the shopping bag she came with. “Hey, I have some canned soup. Mind if I heat it up?”
Yoisaki looks between them, baffled. “W-what?” she wheezes. “Y-you can’t just. You really can go—”
Every word that comes scraping up her throat SOUNDS painful, and it makes his own throat tighten sympathetically.
“Stop. Just stop. You’re going to hurt yourself talking.” He glances around the room for anything that looks like an unempty water bottle before giving up. “Hold on.” He fishes in his pocket for his mini packet of lozenges, extracts one and passes it to Yoisaki. “Suck on this for a bit while we go find you some water.”
She holds it in her hand like she’s never seen one before, and it occurs to him that there is that age-old warning of if a stranger offers you candy…
“It’s a lozenge,” he tries to clarify awkwardly, “I keep them on me in case I wear out my throat when singing.” As he hears the words come out of his mouth, he can tell they sound ridiculous and embarrassment sets in. “I mean—“
”You just keep those on you at all times?” Shiho asks, eyebrow raised.
“You sing?” Yoisaki rasps at nearly the same time.
”I—well—that’s…” he flounders a bit before just pointing back at the cough drop. “Just eat it, okay? If you doubt me, I can eat one too.”
The girl develops a small nervous smile, but thankfully doesn’t need much more convincing, unpeeling the drop and popping it in her mouth.
As she’s busy with it, Akito takes in the room at large, beginning his search for the necessary items. He tries not to stare, but there’s just so much to look at. There’s sheet music on every surface imaginable, upturned stacks of empty ramen containers strewn everywhere, and at least 7 cans of Blue Battery energy drink scattered above and below the desk; the place is a complete dumpster fire. It looks like a place where only one person stays and where they never expect any guests to enter. But if it were just the mess, he wouldn’t be nearly as speechless.
The room is FULL of audio engineering gear. There are some really pricey high end synthesizers—two of them—stacked one on top of the other, several amps and mixers, a fader board, three entire screens bookended by two massive audio monitors, shelves upon shelves of books on music stacked behind, and more. They’re not all top-of the line, and he recognizes some models as being of older make, but Akito can’t help but feel like he’s walked into an entire home studio the likes of which he aspires to put together but that he was not nearly at any point close to begin accruing at present. The stuff he leaves the house to use, borrow, and rent, she has all at home.
Everywhere you turn, it’s just so much. He shifts from awestruck to disturbed with a mere flick of the eyes.
It’s the madhouse of a… his eyes land on the cluster of framed music awards above the bed dated back to literal kindergarten…a child prodigy.
He bites down a twinge of jealousy because really, who can be truly jealous when faced with someone shudderingly weak and visibly falling apart right in front of them? Still, his brain whirs with ugly thoughts that ought to never be voiced.
Was it hard for you?
Was it tough?
Did you have to work for it? Or was this handed to you on a silver platter…?
If someone like you with all the means to burn with pride can’t manage then…?
He thinks, and he thinks, and he adamantly does not say.
One high school girl in this whole 3LDK. One who requires a housekeeper for basic necessities, and then has all this gear. It doesn’t add up. There’s some really ugly implications hanging in the air.
🍜
POV: Shiho
All it ever really takes for people to think Shiho’s some sort of bully is simply speaking her mind. She’s aware of this reputation, has wanted to protect her friends from it, but as it is, she can’t. They won’t let her. And, that’s something she wakes up every day wondering about, dazedly awaiting its combustion, only to yet again be proven wrong.
She can’t stop being 'blunt'. Can’t ever get her message across in a way that isn’t somehow found scurrilous. It’s something she’s never been able to do. So, why try? She usually just walks away. It’s not her business? She won’t force it.
But if all the ostracization she received for her inexplicable bully rap has afforded her anything, it’s front row seats to all sorts of methods of peer-pressure. When no one lets you in, you get to see it all from the outside, and no one cares to hide their worst sides. Rule number 1 for pressuring people is being the mouthpiece of a majority and then enforcing it.
“We should migrate to the kitchen,” Shiho finally suggests. She’s being pushy now. She knows, but everything about this is pushy—this Akito-person certainly is—and maybe sometimes, it’s just better to be. Necessary even. They’re the majority now.
Well, no one’s really taken her to be all that nice anyways.
If she’s got to be ‘the bully’ anyways, maybe just maybe she can bully this girl into some self-care and self-respect.
The mere sight of her, sick and weak, wrings Shiho’s heart like a towel, reminding her of things almost left behind. Of people. Of distant stars seen from earth only after their death.
“If you can, make sure you see Yoisaki-san eat at least a bite before you leave.” Honami’s voice echoes in her head, and as absurdly coddling as it sounded when she’d heard the instructions the first time, looking at this place, it starts to make sense.
Before her is a girl who simply implodes in solitude. She doesn’t want to walk away from it now.
She’s chasing the stars. What’s another?
Yoisaki looks at her wearily. “You really don’t have to do this.” Her voice is a bit more stable and smooth after the cough drop, but her eyes appear to be growing more unfocused by the second. Maybe she’s already delirious. “I just need to get something done and then I promise I’ll eat the food.”
Again with the ‘you don’t have to’s’... It’s becoming grating.
Enough is enough.
“Yoisaki-san.”
The girl hums in acknowledgement. Then mumbles something she can’t catch.
“What was that?” Shiho asks.
”You can call me Kanade,” she repeats clearer.
“Ok, fine. Kanade.” She sits on it for a moment before continuing, “I’m just going to say it.”
Taking a breath and making sure to enunciate, she gestures at Kanade’s entire face with her hand.
“You look like shit.”
The girl emits a raw yet tiny high pitch sound as her jaw drops. She thinks she hears Akito suppress a snort, but it sneaks out anyways in the amused way he says, “you tell ‘er,” while passing her a bottle of over the counter painkiller he must have found by rummaging near the desk and what’s probably his own reusable water bottle going purely by aesthetic.
But Shiho doesn’t take her attention off of Kanade, making sure she’s not interrupted.
“You look like shit because you are sick. And we’ve been in the room with you long enough that we’re probably going to catch it from you, so don’t try to downplay it.”
“I—“
“You’re not going to get anything done because you have a fever which won’t let you think straight.” No interruptions. She’s going to hear all of it. “So, with all this in mind. Do me a favor—because you kind of owe me for the practices I’m about to miss. Eat some goddamn soup and take your meds.” She thrusts the bottles into Kanade’s hands as she finishes the last statement and belatedly adds, “Please.”
Kanade appears to go inert, stuck staring at her hands. She doesn’t say anything for a long while. It’s enough time for Shiho to completely rethink what she’s said. After a while, she almost thinks that the fever has finally knocked her out when Kanade finally looks up, face still tired and mouth uncertain, but her eyes smile ever so slightly.
All she says is, “ok.”