Chapter Text
“So… coffee machine’s cleaned, tables wiped down, pitchers and holders washed, lights off,” Kanade mutters under her breath, holding the café door and letting her colleague go first. “Just need to lock up and set the alarm.”
Both girls step outside. The cold night wind hits their faces at once. Kanade wants to take a deep breath and savor the freshness of this air. But instead, she pulls a bunch of keys from her pocket and locks the door, runs through some motions with the magnetic key, and a red light glows above the door. The alarm is set.
“Alright then, time to head home!” Kanade’s colleague, Honami, says with relief, waving a hand at Yoisaki. “See you tomorrow!”
“See you tomorrow, Mochizuki-san. Be careful on your way home.”
A warm, shy smile flickers across Honami’s lovely face, and she walks off in the opposite direction from Kanade.
At last, Yoisaki can breathe in that bracing air. Not a soul is out on the street, and the absolute silence is broken only by crickets in the grass. A small cluster of stars flickers against the dark canvas of the sky, and beside them a crescent moon sways gently. Beautiful, Kanade thinks, and she steps off toward home.
The girl takes a pair of large headphones from her bag, plugs them into her phone, and picks a song from her playlist. Every song has to match her state, her mood — she can’t just put on something random. Partly because Yoisaki has always loved to associate herself with songs: right now, for example, she would describe herself with “Entombed” by Deftones. The ethereal voice and the atmosphere of ringing sorrow and hopelessness catch her the most, sinking deep into her soul — though the lyrics certainly play no small part either. And more than that, Kanade has often wondered just how much those lyrics, and other songs by the band, resemble her. Hazy, emotional, lonely, drowning in music.
It was astonishing how, in her melancholy, Kanade somehow managed to find something beautiful and take pleasure in it. The delicate pink sakura blossoms, the glimmering fireflies, clouds of the most varied shapes — from cats to fairy-tale castles — arrangements and lyricism. All of it was what she lived for. But music was the most significant part of her life, even now. Though Kanade hasn’t touched songwriting in about three years — or maybe four… five, she can’t remember herself — she adores music nonetheless.
A couple more melancholic songs play through her headphones, and Kanade is already stepping into the elevator of her building. She lives on the second floor, but even so, she chooses the elevator over the stairs. It’s simpler, faster, and doesn’t drain her already nearly nonexistent energy.
“Second floor,” a female voice announces inside the elevator. The doors open, and Kanade steps out onto her floor. A few steps, the keys turn in the lock, and the girl is home.
The clock reads 21:44. Usually, when people come home, they cook dinner or prepare food for the next day, shower, do laundry, or something of the sort. But Yoisaki’s energy is only enough to turn on the light, kick off her sneakers by the doorstep, and collapse onto her bed without even changing. Her eyelids grow heavy, her mind clouds over, and she falls asleep.
An hour passes, then two, and during that time Kanade sees a flood of dreams: kind ones, evil ones, strange ones, ordinary ones. Of course, she will most likely remember almost none of them. Except for one thing: weeping. A ringing, so pitiful and desperate. This weeping tore at the soul. And then Yoisaki woke up. But the sobbing didn’t stop. On the contrary, it grew louder, and it had crossed from the dream into reality. The walls of the neighboring apartment let the stranger’s sobs pour through into Kanade’s entire room. Hearing it for the first time, she didn’t give it any significance. But from that day on, the weeping came every day, around the same time: about midnight. And that was when Yoisaki began to feel troubled.
She wondered what could have happened to this poor girl who cries every day. She ran through thousands of possibilities, imagined hundreds of scenarios for how to help her — but she never managed to take action. What if she doesn’t need help? What if I’m imposing? What if she tells me it’s none of my business? Yoisaki thought. The worrying was so intense that Kanade felt she might burst. But, thankfully, the situation resolved itself for her.
One more cold working morning, as Kanade stepped into the hallway, someone else came out of the neighboring apartment. A girl about her age, with a mass of purple hair tied into a high ponytail, walked up to the elevator and stopped beside Yoisaki. It’s her, Kanade thought at once. The stranger’s eyes were swollen and red, dark circles spread beneath them, and her face looked gaunt and drained.
“Good morning,” the stranger said in a quiet, lifeless voice. Kanade had never seen her here before; apparently, she had moved in quite recently — just around the time the weeping started, about four days ago.
“Morning,” Kanade replies, trying not to look at the girl so as not to embarrass her.
The elevator arrives, and they both step inside; the stranger presses the button for the first floor. Kanade notes that this girl, just like her, doesn’t use the stairs. Amusing. An awkward silence settles between them as they ride down. And Yoisaki didn’t even know whether she should try to break it with something. But she didn’t have long to ponder what to say. The elevator descended to the first floor; the girls step out and head toward the building’s exit. The stranger vanishes from sight among the hurrying passersby on the morning street. And Kanade is left only to regret that she couldn’t think of anything to start a conversation and at least somehow help her new neighbor.
Kanade spends her entire workday in anxiety and thought, wondering how and what to talk about with the new neighbor. Prying into someone else’s affairs feels wrong to her — after all, they aren’t even acquainted. Because of the storm of feelings, emotions, and thoughts, time flies faster; her shift soon ends, and the barista is already back home. On her way from work, she found the strength to pop into a small shop and buy a postcard with a picture of a lilac kitten, some chamomile tea, and a box of the very best chocolate candies (for a regular barista’s salary). She decided that if she couldn’t bring herself to speak, she could at least leave a note and a small gift by the door. And she wouldn’t even have to interact directly with the neighbor! But her heartbeat didn’t grow any calmer for it. Inside, something in Kanade longed intensely to gain the stranger’s favor, to help her, to become a reliable friend to her.
Settling comfortably at her coffee table, the girl takes the purchased postcard and a pen. It takes her only a couple of seconds to figure out what to write. But her hands sweat, tremble, and, as if on purpose, refuse to obey. Trying to ignore all that, she carefully draws little cupcakes and cookies with sweet faces on the card. And then she writes: “I hear you crying every night. So I decided to give you some tea and candies. They calm you down and lift your spirits. If you need help or support — come to Apartment No. 25. Your neighbor, Kanade Yoisaki.”
She finishes the postcard, sticking a couple of star-shaped stickers onto it. It turned out a bit clumsy, but sweet. And none of this was typical of Kanade. But for some reason, she believed that it would surely work.
Gathering all her courage into a fist, Yoisaki steps resolutely out into the hallway. And though she has taken her courage in hand, her heart has still fled to her heels, and her breathing has grown a little uneven. She makes a few circles around the landing, hoping to cope with her anxiety, and for the tenth time by the neighbor’s door, she hesitates and thinks of going back home. But then, sharply and decisively, she presses the doorbell, leaves her little gift on the doorstep, and rushes quickly back to her own apartment, locking the door and creeping up to the peephole.
A couple of seconds later, the door opens, and a purple crown of hair peeks out from behind it. The girl’s hair is disheveled, and she looks just as haggard as she did that morning. But this exhaustion didn’t at all look like an illness. It looked as if the girl were slowly fading from within. And there was something about her that seemed so unnaturally fragile. As if she were about to shatter into pieces, like a glass figurine.
Kanade trembles with agitation, and a loud pulsing rings in her ears as she watches the neighbor’s door through the peephole. She is afraid to stir, afraid even to breathe, trying to stand perfectly still so as not to give herself away. For a moment, Kanade thought the girl’s face showed fright or confusion. But a second later it turned indifferent again. Her vacant gaze dropped to the gift by the doorstep, and the neighbor crouched down to pick it up.